Uncanny Spider-Man #1 Review

You know, as much as I love comics, I’ve shied away from mainline titles from the big two for the better part of the last several years. One reboots itself so often that it’s difficult to stay invested for longer than a few months and one is so bogged down with continuity that you feel like you have to read ten other comics just to know what the hell is even happening. Today, we’re going to be looking at one of the latter.

Hello everyone, you’re probably wondering how we got here, what’s going on and why Nightcrawler is Spider-Man now. Well, I’m not going to answer that question, at least not yet. You’re experiencing this bad boy the same way I did, blind as possible. So let’s dive in head first and see what the hell is going on.

But before we do that, we have a page paying tribute to the recently deceased legendary comic book artist, John Romita, best known for his work on Spider-Man in the 60’s and 70's. Let’s all raise a glass to one of the greats… and now we can start the show.

We open in New York where two thugs who, judging from their outfits, work for the supervillain Shocker, are speeding for their lives on a motorcycle with a box of stolen organs and are being pursued from what the dialogue leads us to believe is Spider-Man. Our bad guys try to lose the web slinger in the park, but a devilish looking Spider-Man in a black and red costume teleports in front of them. This devil Spider-Man, who is obviously Nightcrawler, let’s not beat around the bush here, makes quick work of the thieves using some kind of energy blade, tries his hand at the real Spider-Man’s trademark wisecracks to questionable degrees of success, and manages to recover the stolen organs.

The fight is witnessed by a bunch of onlookers who want this new Spidey’s autograph, one of whom humorously tries to hit Kurt up for cash. We also see a homeless woman wandering around in a shabby green vest asking “where’s my baby.” Well, no time to dwell on that since a FUCKING SENTINEL shows up out nowhere saying that mutant DNA has been detected in the area. One of the onlookers insists there are no “Muties” around, only us park dwellers and this innocent demon here. Great, we got a racist. I’m glad Kurt didn’t give this asshole twenty bucks. Anywho, the giant robot that somehow snuck up on everyone scans the area but detects no mutants (it’s kind of hinted later on that Kurt’s suit shields him from the Sentinel’s scanners). Oh, we’re also right near a place called The Treehouse which used to be the stronghold of the X-Men, which Kurt is reminded of by the, Demon Voice in His Head!?

Oh God, I’ve made a terrible mistake.

Anyway, with that crisis averted, Kurt bids the park dwellers farewell and teleports away in a puff of purple smoke. Okay, I was going to save this rant for the end, but fuck it, it’s bugging me now. It’s obvious that Nightcrawler is trying to hide his identity and we’ll learn why in just a minute, but I gotta ask: Just who in the hell does Kurt think he’s fooling? While it’s unlikely that the civilian identities of the X-Men are a matter of public record, they’ve probably been on the news enough times that most folks would recognize the blue skinned man who looks like the devil. This whole thing reminds me of an old Katt Williams stand up bit where he made fun of Shaquille O'Neal wanting to be an undercover cop once he retires from basketball. Even if we ignore the fact that Shaq is a horrendous actor, the man is well over seven feet tall and is one of the most easily recognizable celebrities on planet Earth. The idea of Shaq going undercover anywhere is an idea so absurd it would be rejected from an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. In the case of Kurt, I’ll give him that the suit hides the blue skin and he’s clearly found a way to mask his mutant DNA, but you know what’s not hidden? The pointy ears, the long devil tail, the weird feet, the fact that he only has three fingers on each hand, the thick German accent, the penchant for swordplay and the teleportation powers which canonically leave behind a distinct odor of brimstone. I’ll grant that the park dwellers don’t exactly seem like the sharpest knives in the drawer, but for literally anyone else with at least two brain cells to rub together, they’re not going to need too much time to think before they’re like “Hey, aren’t you that blue guy from the X-Men?”

Whatever, we need to move on. We finally get an explanation as to just what in the hell is going on here, sort of. I guess at some point, the anti-mutant organization knows as Orchis attacked an all mutant Gala, slaughtering many mutants and issuing an ultimatum to the survivors: Get the fuck off the planet, or we start killing humans in your name. In response, Professor X used his psychic powers to force every mutant on Earth to leave the planet. You know, Charles Xavier was originally conceived as the mutant equivalent of Dr. Martin Luther King. Why do all these writers insist on making him an asshole. Anywho, only a small handful of mutants with training were able to resist Xavier’s forced mass exodus, Kurt being among them. With nothing else to do, I guess Kurt borrowed one of Peter’s old suits and decided to try his hand at being a street level hero.

Speaking of Peter, he and Kurt meet up a bit later to share a pizza while taking a break from their nightly patrols. Kurt is enjoying his new status quo, but Pete is concerned about Kurt’s long term plan. We then get a very strange flashback of an apparently mind controlled Kurt who was... mutated into Ganon and went on a killing spree? Ooookay? Um, writers, don’t you think THAT might have been worth including in that little recap back there? In any case, remembering what happened has switched Kurt into emo mode and now he just wants to be left alone to sulk.

We then cut to one of the labs at Orchis where we meet one of their lead scientists, Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture. You know, I’m not surprised that Vulture is a racist asshole, but I am disappointed. Toomes has been tracking down any remaining mutants he can find and conducting horrific experiments on them, as he demonstrates with the captured Wolfsbane, since he believes mutant DNA to be the key to immortality or something. I don’t really know what’s going on, but the bottom line is that Toomes is after Nightcrawler, wasn’t remotely fooled by Kurt wearing Peter’s hand-me-downs and thinks the Sentinels are an inefficient method of hunting him down.

The following morning, Kurt foils a mugging perpetrated by someone wearing the same shabby green vest as the homeless woman from the previous evening. Well, that’s curious. As the victim of the mugging uncomfortably throws herself at Kurt, we are shocked to discover that the mugger, and the homeless woman from the previous evening, were both the shape-shifting mutant known as Mystique, who, as it happens, is Nightcrawler’s mother. Well, Kurt and his mom have a rocky relationship at the best of times, but he’s not going to just leave her to the Sentinels, so he teleports away with her. And so our comic ends with the reveal that a squad of mercenaries lead by Silver Sable are coming after Nightcrawler.

Let’s start with the positives. I actually like the idea of one of the X-Men going solo as a street level hero, though I wish it happened under different circumstances. Still, Kurt playing at being Spider-Man and fighting foes like The Vulture and The Shocker as opposed to mutant threats like Magneto or Apocalypse sounds like it could be fun? Was it? Well, a little, but here’s where the whole problem Marvel being too over saturated in continuity rears its ugly head. Even with the recap, I have no idea what in the hell is happening. Kurt turned into a monster and went on a killing spree? When did that happen? Does it have anything to do with the mutant race leaving Earth? I don’t fucking know and this comic isn’t keen to tell me and I don’t have the money to buy every X-Men comic written in the last three years to find out. Uncanny Spider-Man is an interesting idea that is not without potential but it is very much not a new reader friendly affair. Hopefully next time, we’ll cover something that makes a little more sense. Until then, Wes, Out!