E

Edge Of Spider-Verse

featuring Dan Slott, Alex Segura, Karla Pacheco, D. J. Bryant, Dustin Weaver, Mallory Rosenthal, Ramzee, Chris Giarrusso, Nikesh Shukla, Sanshira Kasama, Zack Davisson, Jordan Blum, David Hein, Tee Franklin, J. M. DeMatteis, Steve Foxe and Phil Lord

(Art by Martin Coccolo, Caio Majado, Pere Perez, D. J. Bryant, Dustin Weaver, Ig Guara, Ruairi Coleman, Paco Medina, Chris Giarrusso, Mark Bagley, David Baldeon, Gerardo Sandoval, Abhishek Malsuny, Sumeyye Kesgin, Hikaru Uesugi, Michael Shelfer, Luciano Vecchio and  Ty Templeton )

As spider-totems across the multiverse are threatened by Shathra and the Sisterhood of the Wasp, Madame Web, Arana and Spider-UK work to gather an army of spider-people.  Here we get eighteen stories featuring characters such as Spider-Man Noir, Sakura Spider, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham and more.

Aside from a common framing story, there is no coherent narrative to this book as a whole, instead consisting of a whole bunch of very short vignettes of various spider-characters.  It means that it doesn't make for a terribly satisfying overall reading experience, especially when almost all of the actual Spider-Verse crossover this ties into happens elsewhere.  Don't expect the start of the story, the meat of it or the conclusion to be found in these pages.

What did win me over somewhat, however, were some of the spider-variants we get to see here.  Oddly for me, it was some of the more comedic stories that I found most endearing, in particular the one where Spider-Ham (an old favourite of mine) has become a darker and more brooding character but has his whimsy somewhat restored by an encounter with Pete Spiderman, complete with dad-bod and bumbag (that's 'fanny pack' to Americans).  I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed the story of Spinstress, which riffs on various Disney stories and features characters like the Fairy Gob-Mother, Norma.

If nothing else, this book is worth opening just for the story where all of the characters are sentient cars (like in 'Cars') and the main character is Peter Parkedcar.  That pun is 10/10 in my book.

3 out of 5

Essential The Punisher Volume 3

featuring Mike Baron, Roger Salick and Gregory Wright

(Art by Erik Larsen, Scott Williams, Bill Reinhold, Tod Smith, John Beatty,  Jim Lee , Mark Texeira, Lee Sullivan, Kim DeMulder, Dwayne Turner, Russ Heath, Mark Farmer, Jack Slamn and James Sherman)

Containing twenty issues and two annuals worth of Punisher stories, this book sees Frank Castle take on organised crime in boxing, ruthless ninjas, corruption within the US military, biker gangs, drug cartels and supervillains such as Viper, Doctor Doom and the Reavers.

What I love about the Punisher, something that was here in abundance, is his total lack of awe.  His whole attitude is that his war on crime knows no limits and he will continue even if it costs him his life, which means that there's no situation where he entertains the idea of being out of his depth.  This includes (more or less) single-handedly capturing a US Navy nuclear submarine.  My favourite two examples of this on offer here are where he teams up with Moon Knight, never for a second pausing to consider if he and the god-empowered, moon-branded-helicopter-owning superhero are a reasonable match, and where he fearlessly confronts Doctor Doom himself.  In fact, the best bit of the book is where Frank is so undaunted by Doom (who, let's not forget, is one of the most powerful supervillains of all time) that, despite them clashing, he actually earns Doom's grudging respect.

I was a bit worried that the mundane street-level crime stories might get a bit boring but actually that's not the case and Mike Baron, the writer responsible for the majority of stories on offer here, keeps them fresh and engaging.  Put simply, these are some genuinely great Punisher stories.

4 out of 5