Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #5 Review

Yet another Spider-Man title. Like this guy needs another one! But, I like Peter David so I decided to pick up this title when it first came out.

Creative Team:
Writer: Peter David
Penciller: Mike Wieringo
Inker: Karl Kesel

Rating: 2 Night Girls out of 5.

Synopsis: This story focuses on a girl who blogs about Spider-Man stalking her because he likes her. It starts with Entry #17 when the girl is in High School and Spider-Man comes from under the bleachers she was sitting in and fights the Vulture. The girl thinks he is a Peeping Tom.

The next blog entry mentioning Spidey is #583 while she is a student at ESU and Spider-Man crashes into the ladies’ bathroom fighting the Looter. The girl again thinks Spidey is stalking he rand is just trying to impress her with his fight.

Next blog entry is #1479 when she was at the beach and Spider-Man fought the Sandman. The next blog entry is #1621 when Spider-Man crashes into the Starbucks the woman is at while he was fighting the Rhino. The woman ends up getting a restraining order against Spider-Man. She even has a therapist that she talks to about Spider-Man stalking her.

The woman then goes to JJ Jameson for him to run a story about her restraining order against Spider-Man. The issue ends with the woman at a park. She is now very old. It has been 40 years since she had that article published in the Daily Bugle. The woman is approached by Spider-Man’s widow who tells the woman that Spider-Man is dead and that the woman was a loser who never accomplished anything in her life because of her unhealthy obsession and delusions. The comic ends with blog entry #15,270 that nothing important happened today.

Comments: Well, first, I’ll give David credit that this was a neat little Twilight Zone-like story. But, that is about as far as I will go. I felt like this was a total throwaway issue. That David was busy with some of his other writing commitments and just phones it in on this issue. I have never been a big fan of single throw away issues that don’t advance a storyline or plot. I only get 12 issues a year for each title and I’d rather not have one of them wasted like this.

I have said it before, overall, I like David’s writing. I think that his sense of humor and dialogue are a match made in heaven for a Spider-Man title. Yet, like many things David does, the plot tends to be weak and the title suffers from a lack of direction. Because of the great dialogue, I’ll give this title a couple of more issues before I decide to drop it.

The art is average at best. I have never been a big Wieringo fan. His art is pretty much a non-factor in my decision to read this title.