Spider-Man: Big Time

Title: Spider-Man: Big Time

ISBN: 9780785192107
Price: $5.00
Publisher/Year: Marvel, 2014
Artist: Humberto Ramos, Neil Edwards, Stefano Caselli
Writer: Dan Slott
Collects: Amazing Spider-Man #648-651

Rating: 3/5

I like Spider-Man: he’s a great character and has an enduring quality.  After his reboot a few years ago we’re back with a single Peter Parker living on a shoestring budget working for a paper.  This story arc brings Peter to a new low and high.  First he loses his apartment and ends up begging for a spot with every friend he has until landing at Aunt May’s door.  Things look up in a new job at Horizon, a mash-up of Microsoft, Apple and IBM; basically Massive Dynamics from Fringe.  He’s rolling in dough and works at a place where he can express all his technical ideas and inventions into reality, along with cool new toys and a great place to hide his Spider-Man life.  Other character and story building items develop with the newspaper, Jameson and our extra-large supporting character cast.  A new Hobgoblin arises and lots of violence and action ensues.

A real focus on character development and dialog from Slott: it plays well and gets the reader involved.  No real prior knowledge of the existing Spider-Man story is required so this is a great point to jump in.

Humberto Ramos has a very unique art style and it creates a love ’em or leave ’em attitude: lots of hard lines, jagged angles and kinked hair.  It’s bold and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Edgar Delgado provided vibrant coloring throughout that gave every page a strong punch.

The book ends with two backup explanatory stories that didn’t fit anywhere visually.  They were much weaker than the main story and I’m not sure what they added.  For extras we’re provided some variant covers and two character designs from Ramos.