Marvel Action: Spider-Man #4 Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

With the first three issues of Marvel Action: Spider-Man bringing together our three main heroes and slowly introducing them to each other the book feels like it’s finally found its groove, with a much more relaxed and naturally paced story this issue.

The main story focuses on Peter Parker as he comes to terms with having two new friends who are themselves spider-themed heroes. Whilst Peter seems happy to no longer be a lone hero, he feels reluctant to share his web shooter technology with the others, feeling that if he gives them webbing he will lose something that makes him unique.

It’s an interesting thought, that Spider-Man, a character that we are all used to seeing as not only incredibly brave, but also incredibly giving, would be reluctant to share his toys with other heroes. But then this is a Spider-Man who is literally still a kid at this point. He has all of the insecurities and self esteem issues that all teenagers have, and these are definitely playing into how he is internalising this issue. This is one of the best things about doing a series that goes back, that makes Peter a high schooler once again, as it allows us to explore personal and moral dilemmas that the regular, adult, Peter Parker wouldn’t be dealing with.

Issue four also introduces us to the ever wonderful J Jonah Jameson for the first time, bringing Peter’s grumpy, scenery-chomping editor into this new universe. He is, as always, over the top, full of himself, and absolutely loathes Spider-Man, even if Spider-Man saves him from a costumed villain. Whilst the new Marvel Action series are good ways at bringing new and interesting takes to existing characters I’m glad that Jameson is still the grumpy old pain that fans know and love.

The most exciting thing about this issue, however, is the set up for the next big villain to appear. When Jameson began looking for a way to bring down Spider-Man I thought that this would be the introduction of Scorpion, a character that Jameson had a hand in creating back in the regular 616 universe, but Erik Burnham managed to subvert my expectations by having Jameson contact Kraven the Hunter instead. Kraven has always been a favourite villain of mine, so getting to see him go up against not just one, but three spider-themed heroes in coming issues is definitely an exciting prospect.

The artwork throughout is gorgeous, as always, and Christopher Jones brings a wonderful sense of dynamic action to the fight scenes, filling them with movement: not an easy job for static panels. He also manages to make Spider-Man look great even when doing the most mundane things. He hangs from webs in interesting ways, crawls down walls in unusual positions, and even manages to make climbing in a window look good.

The writing and art on Marvel Action: Spider-Man work brilliantly together, and are crafting a wonderful, entertaining new Spider-Man universe that’s a genuine pleasure to read every issue.


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The Forgotten Girl – Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

'Harvey Anderson is a twenty-six-year-old street performer from New Jersey. He enjoys his peaceful life, but everything is turned upside down when he is abducted and beaten by a group of nondescript thugs. Working fora sinister man known as "the spider," these goons have spent nine years searching for Harvey's girlfriend, Sally Starling. Now they think they know where she lives. And who she loves. There's only one problem: Sally is gone and Harvey has no memory of her. Which makes no sense to him, until the spider explains that Sally has the unique ability to selectively erase a person's memories. An ability she has used to delete herself from Harvey's mind. But emotion runs deeper than memory, and Harvey realises that he still feels something for Sally. And so - with the spider threatening - he goes looking for a girl he loves but can't remember...and encounters a danger that reaches beyond anything he could ever imagine. Political corruption and manipulation. A serial killer's dark secrets. An appetite for absolute, terrible power...For Harvey Anderson, finding the forgotten girl comes at quite a cost.'

The Forgotten Girl isn’t by any means a slow book. It begins by plunging the readers straight into the action of the central mystery as the book’s protagonist, Harvey, is kidnapped and tortured for information about a girl that he has no memory of. It’s a stunning start that drops you into the middle of the same confusing situation that Harvey is in, giving you little information and expecting you to keep up.

This becomes one of the main thrusts of the book, as both the reader and Harvey must work to gain the information that everyone else seems to have about the mysterious Sally Starling, the girl that has erased herself from Harvey’s mind.

Over the course of the book Harvey begins to find pieces of this puzzle, through his own detective work, and through conversations with people who knew him and Sally, and we begin to get a sense of the woman that Sally was, the effect that she had on Harvey’s life, and what her being missing really means to him.

Without going into huge details about the plot, as it’s really one that you should come to relatively unspoiled, Harvey’s story eventually shifts from a mystery thriller into a chase story filled with suspense, revenge, and violence.

The Forgotten Girl has more layers to it than you’d first think, slowly revealing more about its world and characters as the narrative unfolds, opening up a world of psychic powers, conspiracies, and evil masterminds, yet also managing to to stay grounded and personal, tying it all back to Harvey and his experiences.

Filled with interesting characters, and sub-plots that weave throughout the narrative to make some surprising appearances and twists that you won’t see coming, The Forgotten Girl is a wonderful journey. Packed with emotion, mystery, and pain, it’s a story about human strength. The strength to survive, the strength to achieve power, and the strength it takes to put everything on the line to save the one that you love.

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Snakeskins – Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

‘Caitlin Hext’s first shedding ceremony is imminent, but she’s far from prepared to produce a Snakeskin clone. When her Skin fails to turn to dust as expected, she must decide whether she wishes the newcomer alive or dead. Worse still, it transpires that the Hext family may be of central importance to the survival of Charmers, a group of people with the inexplicable power to produce duplicates every seven years and, in the process, rejuvenate. In parallel with reporter Gerry Chafik and government aide Russell Handler, Caitlin must prevent the Great British Prosperity Party from establishing a corrupt new world order.’

Snakeskins tells three intertwining stories within a version of Britain where the country has closed itself off to the outside world, and where society is run and shaped by an elite few. Whilst this scenario may seem very, very familiar and has obvious connotations to what the country is going through at the moment, Snakeskins adds a sci-fi twist to the tale.

The world of Snakeskins differs from our own due to The Fall: an event that caused a branching history. A phenomena that resulted in a small group of people, called Charmers, gaining the ability to ‘shed’ every seven years, to create a duplicate of themselves that would allow them to rejuvenate. Whilst these copies, Snakeskins as they become known, usually only last a few moments we discover over the course of the book that this is not always the case.

One of the main characters, Caitlin Hext, is drawn into a dark world of corrupt government and secret history when her Snakeskin doesn’t fade away. At the same time a journalist, Gerry Chafik, begins to look deeper into Charmer society, whilst a low level government aide called Russell Handler is recruited to investigate a possible conspiracy.

The three stories in Snakeskins are all incredibly well told, and could easily be the sole focus of the book, yet by combining all three of them into one bigger, more diverse narrative Tim Major not only tells very personal, human stories, but crafts a deeper world. This is a United Kingdom that is somewhat recognisable, yet has taken its own path, and for the most part feels like something from the past, rather than being set a year from now.

Whilst the world of Snakeskins is incredibly interesting, and there’s still enough left untold here that Major could easily write more books within this universe to expand upon these concepts, it’s the personal stories that really make the book stand out.

Russell’s journey over the course of the story is an enjoyable one, as he goes from a timid personal assistant to a government minister, to discovering that he has depths of bravery that he didn’t know existed. However, he never feels too brave, managing to avoid falling into the category of ‘hero’. He is more like a man who was doing what he was doing from a sense of duty and honour, despite being terrified the whole time. He manages to remain grounded and real throughout.

The strongest character, however, is Caitlin. For Caitlin her first shedding ceremony isn’t just a milestone into becoming a Charmer, but acts as a gateway into her adulthood. Her shedding is the second one we see in the book, but it has an impact because of how emotional and heartfelt a moment it is. We ignore the spectacle of the Snakeskin coming into being and focus on the emotion it holds for Caitlin. Despite how big her story gets, and how it will go on to shape the world, we never leave this emotional journey, we follow the effects that her shedding has upon her, how coming to accept her Snakeskin changes her as a person, and how she grows and matures from this. Snakeskins might be a great sci-fi story with a conspiracy mystery at its heart, but it’s also an amazing coming of age story about a wonderfully written young woman.

Snakeskins has so much more in it than you might first imagine. It’s packed full of slowly revealed alternate history, it has mystery that unfolds at a great pace, and characters who aren’t superheroes but real people with believable motivations and personal stories. I read Snakeskins in one day because I couldn’t put it down, but the story, the world, and those who inhabit it will stay with me much, much longer.

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Ferals: The Crow Talker - Book Review

'In a city ravaged by crime and corruption, 13-year-old orphan Caw’s only friends are the murder of crows he has lived with since his parents flung him from their house aged only five. Caw lives in a treehouse in an abandoned city park, surviving on scraps of food and only communicating with his three crows. But a jailbreak at the prison forces him into contact with other humans – particularly a girl called Lydia, who is attacked by the escaped prisoners and is saved by Caw.

'Caw realises that these escaped prisoners have more in common with him than he’d like… they too are FERALS – humans able to communicate with and control an animal species. And they want to bring their evil Feral master, The Spinning Man, back from the Land of the Dead. Only by joining forces with other good Ferals hiding throughout the city can Caw stand a chance of defeating them.'

Ferals is a young adult fantasy series that I completely missed when it first came out, but I am very glad that I have since discovered. Set in a world where certain humans, Ferals, have the ability to communicate with and control animals, we enter a dark world of crime, mystery, and the supernatural.

The main character, Caw, is a young man living on the streets of Blackstone City, a place that feels very similar to the dark and depressing surroundings of Gotham City, or New York as depicted in gritty 70's and 80's movies. Caw has been alone for eight years, living with the crows. Able to understand them and work alongside them, he is always accompanied by his three companions, Glum, Screech, and the white crow Milky.

When Caw witnesses a prison break his world turns upside down. He becomes drawn into a secret world that he had no idea existed, one that not only holds the secrets to his past, but threatens the handful of friends he makes along the way.

The world of Ferals is surprisingly well crafted, and we make the same journey as Caw as he slowly learns more about not only his powers, but the history of the Ferals and of Blackstone City. He, and the reader, don't get told everything up front, nor do we get the answer to every question, but we learn enough to not only understand how the rules of this universe work, but also the danger that our heroes face. Despite not meeting the main villain until the final handful of pages, we learn so much about him, and what he did in the past, that once we do we have a good handle on how much of a threat he is, and what it means for this world.

It's not just the world of Ferals that's well crafted, however, the characters are also brilliantly written. We learn a lot about Caw over the course of the book, and get a really good sense of the kind of person he is, but even the smaller characters are incredibly well realised. The other Ferals in the book, some of which fought against the evil forces in the past, each have their own distinct personalities and sense of style, even those that we only get to see for a handful of pages.

Jacob Grey has managed to craft every aspect of the book so well that feels like a living breathing world, full of characters that have deep and rich backstories and their own motivations, no matter how little we see of them. As the first part of a trilogy the book does an amazing job at establishing the world and the players, and left me hungry not only to see where the story goes, but wanting to find out more about the history, the Ferals, and to meet more exciting characters.

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Execution Force - Book Review

'Darkness is rising on Achyllus Prime. Severin Drask, sorcerer lord of the Crimson Slaughter Chaos Space Marines, works to harness the power of the Temple of Shades and unleash a tide of daemons upon the Imperium. All that stands against him is an Execution Force of the Officio Assassinorum, four Imperial Assassins – Vindicare, Callidus, Eversor and Culexus –who must set aside their distrust and fight as one if they are to kill Drask and thwart his evil plan.

'A fractious alliance of Imperial Assassins is only called upon in the rarest and most dire of circumstances. When the forces of Chaos threaten to tear a hole in the galaxy, only an elite Execution Force can prevent it. This is the first time you get a look into the heads of the four assassins and see all of their exotic technological spy gear in action.'

Set within the dark future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe Execution Force follows four of the deadly Imperial Assassins as they are sent to a world ravaged by the forces of Chaos, in order to prevent a powerful sorcerer from opening a tear in reality that will allow a Chaos fleet to invade Imperial space.

The set up for the book is great, and it sounds really entertaining, however, there are a few issues that do end up having a negative effect upon the story. The first is that the book is based upon the Execution Force board game. The game dictates the story somewhat, that one of each of the four assassin temples will be sent out as a team against a Chaos sorcerer, and whilst this might make a great game it doesn't really work all that well within the realms of the books story.

The Imperium is facing a huge threat here, with hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions of Chaos warriors and daemons ready to invade Imperial space if Drask succeeds in his mission. This is not really the kind of situation where just four assassins would be sent. There are no Imperial Guard, or Space Marines sent to stop this threat, and this feels incredibly strange. It wouldn't have taken much to combat this incongruity by having combat taking place elsewhere on the planet whilst the assassins go behind enemy lines, or simply saying that other Imperial forces are on the way, but wont make it in time, hence the need for the assassins.

The second issue I found with the book, which may go some way to explaining why more couldn't have been included to solve my first issue, is that the book is very small, topping at just 128 pages. This page length means that the action flows incredibly quickly, yet also means that there is little room for world building and character development.

As such, the four assassins feel like almost faceless caricatures rather than fully formed people, and we feel very little connection to them. Now I know this is a Warhammer 40,000 book, and that invariably some of the 'good guys' will die, as is the nature of a setting where there is only war, but the best books that deal with this universe always allow you to get to know your characters a little before they die, giving you a connection to them that makes their loss hit all the harder. As it is, there's no sense of sadness or disappointment whenever one of the assassins falls in battle.

Despite these issues the book itself is pretty entertaining, and can easily be read in a single sitting thanks to the short page count and the fast pace. It's not a book that will stick out in my memory for a long time after reading it, but it kept me entertained whilst reading it.

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