ReadItDaddy's Comic / Graphic Novel of the Week - Week Ending 25th January 2019: "Spider-Verse" by Christos Gage, Dan Slott, Olivier Coipel, Michael Costa and others (Marvel Comics)

This week's Comic of the Week was the inspiration for our super-hero movie of the year last year, the superb "Into the Spider-Verse"...
The movie blew our minds to the extent where we spent an entire weekend hoovering up all things spidey - including a heck of a lot of the comics that the brilliant movie used as inspiration. Including, of course, this massive collection.

"Spider-Verse" the comic was actually released in 2014 so it's taken a while for the amazing ideas in this whopping great big comic collection (648 pages, mind you!) to end up on the big screen.

The story begins back in the 17th Century in the comic universe of "Marvel 1602" where one Peter Parquar is a jobbing actor with a travelling troupe. Peter uses his spider-powers to bring an extra dimension to his performances on stage - but if you're comfy with the fact you've read the original graphic novel, you won't be prepared for how things spin out in the opening pages of "Spider-Verse" as Peter is brutally murdered by a mysterious dimension-hopping entity.

This nasty piece of work is actually breaking into multiple dimensions to feed off the life force of all the Spider-Men and Spider-Women throughout various alternate earths.

Okay. Six-armed Spider-Man is a bit weird!

This is just the start of an epic journey bringing in virtually every variant of Spider-Man you've ever encountered. From plain ol' Peter Parker to Spider-Gwen and Spider-man Noir (you'll recognise from the movie) right through to some of the more 'out there' Spideys such as Silk, Otto Octavius (or rather his mind inhabiting Peter Parker's body as the ultimate Spider-Man) and Spider-Ham.

Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Monkey!

As we see the evil "Inheritors" munching their way through the spider-verse, the remaining Spider-Man clones and characters are drawn together in the only safe zone left, to formulate a battle plan to defeat an unstoppable foe once and for all.

What we loved about this was the fact that the comic digs really deep into Spider-Man's vulnerable side but also showcases the various versions of Spider-Man / Woman and their ability to think their way out of a horrible situation rather than punch their way out. The comic is ripe with fan-service at every turn, and I guarantee you'll never see more spideys in one place, they really do dig into just about every Spider-Man comic series of the last 40 years and then some.

Blisteringly paced, brutal but brilliantly written and illustrated, this is your go-to once you've seen the movie about twenty zillion times (as, by the time we write this, we will have).

"Spider-Verse" is out now, published by Marvel Comics (Self purchased. Not provided for review)