CSBG Archive
Spider-Man Family #3 Review
It’s interesting, the idea of changing the cover of Heroes for Hire #13 has come up before, and the practicality of changing it was questioned, so it was amusing when Spider-Man Family #3 was released.
When the cover was solicited, here is what it looked like:
At the time, I remarked that Pierre Alay’s cover, while pretty good, had a really weird facial expression by Mr. Fantastic on it.
Well, the actual book came out this week, and check out the cover…
Pretty hilarious, huh?
In any event, while I may have thought his Mr. Fantastic on the cover looked a bit weird, Alay’s art inside the comic book was excellent. Really good, and the lettering by Nate Piekos really accentuated the art style wonderfully.
It was almost like reading a really good mini-comic instead of a Spider-Man comic.
Paul Tobin’s story is simple, but a lot of fun. The basic hook is that Spider-Man accidentally hits the Invisible Woman (while she was invisible and about to hit Elektro with a brick), leading to the rest of the Fantastic Four attacking him (it doesn’t help when Sue mumbles “Spider-Man…hit me…”).
Tobin’s dialogue is sharp and often humorous, and the character interaction is well-done.
It’s a real throwback story, except with a modern sensibility you probably wouldn’t find in a “classic” Spider-Man story.
The other new story is by Fred Van Lente and Leonard Kirk, and continues a Marvel tradition by having a new hero (Scorpion) tussle with a old villain with the same name (Scorpion…now Venom). It’s a pretty good story, as well, but the real draw for this comic is the lead story.
A story that had Marvel change their minds about the cover after solicitations. 
Recommended!
13 Comments
Rohan Williams
June 9, 2007 at 12:18 am
Haha! Spider-Man Family is a GREAT book. I’m not sure I’ll love it quite as much without McKeever, but yeah, it’s good stuff and great value.
But come on, changing this cover is hardly similar to what you were talking about with Heroes for Hire. And I actually think that the final version of this cover isn’t as good as the solicitation, but that’s just me.
Brian Cronin
June 9, 2007 at 12:28 am
It’s a change in the solicited cover. That’s all. Just saying changes are easy to make.
Ditko Hands
June 9, 2007 at 2:26 am
Not really a change per se, it’s adding the logo and a big bar on the right-hand side. The point is that they couldn’t do the same to the Heroes for Hire cover.
Patrick Joseph
June 9, 2007 at 5:11 am
Oh, they could easily put a big black bar across the Heroes For Hire cover. One about 8 1/2″ by 6 1/2″.
Ian Astheimer
June 9, 2007 at 8:57 am
Kind of a shame Alary took the time to redraw Reed’s face and make it look less menacing, then. Here’s the original.
Brian Cronin
June 9, 2007 at 10:34 am
That’s quite interesting, Ian.
So he redrew it and they STILL ended up blocking it?
So weird.
Denn
June 9, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Spider-man hits yet another woman. Move over Hank Pym, there’s a new wife-beater in town.
yo go re
June 9, 2007 at 11:07 pm
no, this is just him hitting a girl he thinks is cute. That’s acceptable.
Neither of those Reed faces is too hot. I support the Big Black Bar!
T.
June 9, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Brian, who said that such changes would be hard to do? They happen all the time, I’ve seen lots of cases where solicits and final cover don’t match. Regardless of how easy it is to do, marvel still should not do so. First, the PC crowd will be emboldened to bitch about any perceived slight more loudly and more frequently than ever in the future if they start thinking such tactics will affect publishing policies. Tamora Pierce and Lea Hernandez will pen open letters online daily to complain about new offenses that must be changeed. 2nd, it would be like implicitly admitting it really was a rape cover, which would just damn Quesada further in the eyes of his detractors. 3rd, the people a move like that would please probably don’t buy the book anyway so no gain pleasing them. But the people who became intrigued by the controversy will probably buy the cover as a collectors item thanks to the publicity the detractors have given the book. Changing the cover now will lose that new business.
Good job by Marvel.
Brian Cronin
June 10, 2007 at 8:39 am
A bunch of folks said it was impractical. Check out the messageboards on the topic.
Matt Brady
June 10, 2007 at 9:21 am
There was an All-New Atom cover a while back that people were talking about when it was solicited because it had a cross-section of a guy on it, and you could see (half of) his penis. But when the issue came out, it was cropped so that the penis wasn’t visible. I don’t remember anybody talking about it (after it was released), but I thought it was interesting.
km
June 10, 2007 at 10:03 am
Uh-huh. And Heaven forbid the complaints should actually be, y’know, justified or anything.
I’m sorry, T., I do understand where you’re coming from…it just strikes me as a seriously cold and cynical way of looking at things. ‘Not politically correct’ is in no way automatically equivalent to ‘right’.
Anyway, back on topic, I kind of like the revised cover better. Borderline-Insane-With-Love-of-Sue Reed Richards is not my favourite take on the character.
Brian Cronin
June 10, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Just like the Adventures of Superman cover that had a woman in a bathtub that had an entirely new cover made up for the comic release.
Those “PC people” were so emboldened by that that no one remembered anything about it!