Comicon Advent Calendar Day 9: A Very Spider-Man Holiday With The Whole Marvel Universe
by Tony Thornley
Frankly, we could do the entire Comicon advent calendar around Spider-Man one year. And for this entry, we take a look at the most recent Spider-Man Christmas, with Spider-Man: Holiday Spectacular from … well, two weeks ago.
Yes, this is probably the most recent comic we’re going to cover this year. But it’s really just that good.
Spider-Man and Christmas go together like peanut butter and chocolate. And just like in real life, his Christmases don’t always go as planned. So Rainbow Rowell, Paco Medina, Luciano Vecchio, Nathan Stockman, Bob Quinn, Matt Milla, and Joe Sabino show us what a holiday season where everything goes awry for Peter Parker is like.
When Aunt May makes alternate plans for Christmas, Peter Parker suddenly finds himself alone for Christmas. However, shortly after realizing he’s going to be alone, he suddenly is swimming in superheroic invitations. Ultimately, he spends Christmas Day with some of his closest friends, which is good when Aunt May’s plans go awry themselves.
This comic is like the opposite of the mean spirited Punisher MAX one-shot that Richard covered yesterday. This comic captures the spirit of the holiday and of the characters so perfectly. After a period where it seemed that every hero was annoyed by Spider-Man, it’s good to see Marvel’s bullpen gets it- Spider-Man isn’t the pesky little brother, he’s the superheroic glue that holds the Marvel Universe together.
So, when the Thing discovers Peter is about to spend Christmas alone, of course everyone is competing to have him over on the holiday itself. Of course Peter finds himself bouncing from event to party to secret-Santa-mission. Rowell gets it, especially for her first full-length Spidey story (proving that I’d love to see her take on an extended Spider-Man run as well). And the art is great throughout, with all four pencillers complementing each other to the point that I often missed the transitions.
And best of all, the end result of who Spider-Men ends up with — the X-Men — perfectly nails his relationships in the Marvel Universe. He’s the glue to most heroes, but with the Fantastic Four (who raised the signal that he needs help) and the X-Men (who actually took him in), Peter Parker is family.
This one-shot is still on stands, and I can’t recommend it enough. Find it on your next trip into comic shops.
