They Really Do Love The Tail: Reviewing ‘Uncanny Spider-Man’ #2

New York City’s newest member of the web-slingers club, minus the slinging, might be in over his blue fuzzy head. Watch out, there are rhinos, mercenaries, and kisses ahead, oh my!

Nightcrawler continues to hide in plain sight as Uncanny Spider-Man #2 turns up the heat in his personal war with Orchis. Pulling the strings for this story are Simon Spurrier, Lee Garbett, Matt Milla, and Joe Caramagna.

Truthfully, I’m not even sure how to start this one. I’ve read this issue quite a few times, and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it or the series as a whole. I’ve noted in the past that the overly religious and bizarre previous books in Spurrier’s Kurt centric web were not really my thing. This is a far more superhero, horny, and swashbuckling story that feels very Kurt like.

Yet, there is still something off.

I think part of it is Fall Of X as a whole. Each of the books within the event banner is wildly varying in tone, focus, and connection. Not that there is anything wrong with event books finding their own flavor, as they should. Just something feels disjointed about the affair and it kind of permeates through each book.

Conceptually it’s fine. Kurt deals with Silver Sable and her crew along with Orchis gunning for him. A big fight with Rhino that is destructive. Big-time flirty horny with Silver Sable. Not much else, though, as the overall plot of the book seems to just coast. Silver seems to be very very slowly putting pieces together about Orchis, and this version of her just doesn’t work for me right now.

I can see where Spurrier is going with things and how what came before led here, and I appreciate the turn to a lighter but still conflicted Kurt closer to the one we’ve known.

All the action we get is expressive, dynamic, and slick thanks to the work that Garbett and Milla always put in. I’ve become a fan of Garbett’s work in various places but there is something about it that just resonates with superhero stuff. It’s fantastic in all things but it just has the right vibes and range to really bring these big bold characters to true life. Still really loving the use of the white space to create varied shaped panels and interesting effects between panels.

Compared to the last issue, this one is much lighter in overall appearance, not necessarily tone. We see those lighter aspects in how Milla uses the color palette. A lot of softer tones, but with shadows still playing around the events. Allowing the big bright vivid colors room to dance around and stand out more. Saving the heavier darker bits for actual dark spaces or some of the moments that tonally are darker.

Plenty of words are going around as Sable’s team hunts for their target. It all fits on the pages so easily, going for smaller fonts that are impactful and readable but allow more to fit on the pages together. Quite a few aspects give Caramagna more room to cut loose, bringing colors, wild fonts, and big-in-the-moment SFX right into the moment.

All around each bit of the lettering plays into the hefty but overall fun feeling of the series.

Uncanny Spider-Man #2 is now available from Marvel Comics.