All-New Marvel Now Review: Spider-Man 2099 (2014) #1 by Peter David & Will Sliney

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Spider-Man 2099 (2014) #1

Written by: Peter David
Art by: Will Sliney
Cover by: Simone Bianchi
Colored by: Antonio Fabella
Lettered by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99

Note: This is a review of the digital version which can be found on Comixology.

Editor’s Note: This review of the 2014 debut issue follows a recent retro review of the 1992 debut of the original series here.

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!

Summary (contains spoilers): In Superior Spider-Man, Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099) came back to our time in order to prevent his ancestor from being killed. He ended up stranded in our time, and is trying to start a new life working for Alchemax as Mike O’Mara. Alchemax is a new company founded by Liz Allen (ex-wife to Harry Osborn) from the ashes of Max Modell’s Horizon Labs. By the year 2099, Alchemax will have grown to being one of the most powerful corporations in the world.

Miguel still has some tech from his time, including his personal holographic assistant Lyla and holographic shifting clothing.

When this issue starts, a time-traveling police officer has come from the year 2211 to eliminate Miguel. This officer works for an agency named TOTEM (Temporal Oversight Team Eliminating Mistakes), and all time travel has been banned except by TOTEM officers. As a result, he can’t even bring Miguel back to his own time.  He must kill him.  Seems a little extreme to me…

The TOTEM officer tracks Miguel to Alchemax, and after a brief fight, Miguel decides he needs to escape.  He ends up in Liz Allen’s office. The officer offers to cut a deal…

Miguel seems to accept the deal, but he just uses this to trick to the TOTEM officer into shooting himself.

Afterwards, Liz realized this new Spider-Man must work at Alchemax and is determined to figure out who he is. She wants a superhero on her payroll.

Review: As is typical of Peter David, the main strengths of this book are deep, interesting characters and tight, funny dialouge. I was especially interested in the super in Miguel’s building named Tempest. You know with Peter David, she will end up having a in-depth back story and play a major part in this series. I have to admit, with the pink hair, I am really hoping that she’s SpyGirl from Peter David’s SpyBoy series…but not very likely.

I do have to say, my favorite moment in this comic seemed to come out of nowhere. Spidey tries to activate his costume, and Lyla ends up giving him a tuxedo instead. And even his opponent had to comment about how good he looked in it.

It was a real quirky moment that you can only find in a Peter David book. I also liked the quick X-Factor reference in the opening panel.

With Liz Allen declaring she wants her own superhero, I am hoping we will get a crossover between Spider-Man 2099 and X-Factor (who currently work as superheros for the Serval corporation).

Will Sliney’s art was just perfect for this title. In my review for the original Spider-Man 2099, I had commented that Rick Leonardi drew great action scenes, but his “down time” scenes seemed to lose a lot. Will Sliney manages to go both very well. I was especially glad that Peter David basically let the action do the talking on this gorgeous fight sequence.

I really enjoyed this issue a lot. My only real complaints all focus on the TOTEM agency. Two major things:

  1. Marvel already has the Time Variance Agency, which seems to serve basically the same purpose, just with a lot less violence and killing random bystanders.
  2. Between Cable, Bishop, the “All New X-Men,” the future X-Men and Brotherhood members stuck in our time, and Wolverine’s massive damage to the time line during Age of Ultron, it always feels like a massive plot contrivance when you introduce characters determined to protect the integrity of the timestream.

All that said, as an excuse to get to the action, the TOTEM officer worked really well. I especially liked how he selected targets based on how much an impact that target would have in the future…though I still think he was a little too trigger happy when it came to innocent bystanders.

I also wonder what this character is going to call himself.  He obviously isn’t Spider-Man.  In this issue, he calls himself S-Man a few times, which was kind of lame, and I assume won’t stick.

As a long time 2099 fan, I was glad to see the character back in Superior Spider-Man, and shocked (pleasantly) to see him in his own book….especially with Peter David back writing him.   Even better is that this really was a terrific first issue.  I’ve said this many times lately, Marvel keeps launching great new series with engaging first issues.   I don’t know how much of a demand there was for a Spider-Man 2099, but I will definitely buy it as long as Marvel prints it.


Title: Spider-Man 2099 (2014) #1
Written By: Peter David
Art By: Will Sliney
Company: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Pros:
  • PETER DAVID’S BACK ON SPIDER-MAN 2099!!
  • Beautiful art, especially the action scenes
  • One of the funniest moments I’ve ever read in a comic.
Cons:
  • Villain was a little cliche and doesn’t make a lot of sense in the Marvel universe…but that doesn’t take away from the issue much.
  • He really needs a better name that “S-Man.”
Is it worth your $3.99? 9.0/10 – I would have preferred they launch this book at 3 bucks, but that doesn’t take away from the fact this was a great first issue.
Mike Maillaro is a lifelong Jersey Boy and geek. Mike has been a comic fan for about 30 years from when his mom used to buy him Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Adventures at our local newsstand. Thanks, Mom!! Mike's goal is to bring more positivity to the discussion of comics and pop culture.