[Dr Kain]

Last night I finished reading the Erik Larsen Spider-Man Omnibus and overall, it wa quite subpar. There were a couple of good stories in it such as one where Spidey and Punisher had to team up to take on a government drug facility, the stuff with Venom, Styx, and Stone, The Return of the Sinister Six story, and I highly enjoyed the two parter between Doctor Doom and The Fox. Everything else was pretty bad, but the worse was The REvenge of the Sinister Six story. That thing was a complete incohrent mess. Well first, I should start with the Beast story where MJ and Peter are arguing over if they had a kid they don't want it to be a mutant. That was completely insulting and very out of character for the couple.

However, the worse was how pissy they were with each other during the Sinister Six story all over a movie that MJ was going to have to have a nude scene. Peter was such a jackass to MJ during that bit. Oh yeah, the Sinister Six where in this thing. Most of them were also way out of character. Yes, they have killed before if people got in their way, but they were never the mass murderers Erik Larsen wrote them to be in this story, which just goes to show how the man has no idea who these characters even actually are. We also never actually saw what they did in the alternate dimension they went in, how they got their weapons, how they recruited Gog, and how they came out. The artwork was bad, really bad. In all of the Omnibuses for Spidey I have read over the last 12 months, never was the artwork these god awful. Addtionally, the layout to the panels were all over the place and sometimes you couldn't even tell what was going on in them. Everything was so ugly. Then we have Spidey with a robotic arm cast that is like 4 times bigger than it needed to be. Everything was so angsty for the sake of being angsty. If you asked me to recite the plot to this story, I couldn't tell you and I just read it. Stuff happened and that it, end of story.

The last three issues in the book were stories from when they started Amazing's number run over for some reason. I wasn't reading Marvel by that point, so I have no idea who came up with this "brilliant" idea. Anyway, the first issue dealt with Brock's wife committing suicide and then Venom vowing revenge, only for him to not even show up in the next two issues, which had Smythe using mini Spider Slayers on Jameson and Peter. First, the Venom story makes no sense because Peter's costume is missing, so he goes to Aunt May's house to see if he has one left there and it ends up being his black suit? He burned that way back in issue 301 when he and MJ decided it was best for him to no longer wear it due to Venom. Oh, and MJ was apparentely killed in a plane crash or something. Well I know how this story ended up since I read Straczynski's run, but seriously? Who also at Marvel thought this was a good idea? Has Marvel made any good decisions after 1990 when it came to their comics? The Clone Saga, giving the X-Men generic leather jackets, turning Cyclops evil, One More Day, Brand New Day, killing Captain America, wiping out the Fantastic Four, turning Cap into a Hydra Agent, good god, how have they stayed in business for this long?

Overall, I am done with this Omnibus and I am so happy I am done. I can not believe these were the comics I grew up on as they were borderline crap. I'm now looking over at my comic box wondering if I should just try to sell off the 90s comics I was planning to keep for nostalgic purposes because maybe I don't need them after all. With that said, now that I am out of Spider-Man Omnibuses to read (at the moment, not sure I really want to get The Clone Saga books anymore) it is time I move onto the Lee/Kirby run of Fantastic Four.