You may not have thought that 2006's controversial Spider-Man: Reign miniseries required a sequel nearly two decades later, but that's exactly what Marvel Comics is giving everyone this week. Writer and artist Kaare Andrews returns to his story of an aging Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Reign 2 , and the results are about what you'd expect. Reign 2 #1 summons a couple of meritable ideas, but those fresh concepts are drowned out by a tidal wave of nonsense.
Reign 2 picks up with Wilson Fisk having emerged from the rubble of the Empire State Building to become a tyrant king of Manhattan. The entire world outside the island has completely collapsed and those who remain under Kingpin's rule appear to be the only living beings on the planet. Meanwhile, Peter has essentially been living in the Matrix. He begins the issue hooked up to a machine, living inside his imagination with a still-breathing Mary Jane.
Much to Peter's dismay, he's awoken by a young vigilante known as Kitty-Kat, who was hired to bring him back to the real world so he can save it. Somehow, things only get more unhinged from there.
Unlike the original Reign , its sequel doesn't seem to have anything original to bring to an older Peter. He's just a man filled with regret, hoping to slowly die in a fantasy world of his own creation. This Peter is stuck in the past and there's really nothing new about that, which makes the big hook of the series that much more frustrating. Rather than dealing with the future he fears so much, Peter is returning to the past once again.
The time travel element that will likely influence the rest of the series appears to be taking away from perhaps the best idea Reign 2 had going for it. This seemingly hopeless future, where the people of New York face an almost certain apocalypse while under the thumb of a tyrant is devastatingly relevant in 2024. There's a layer of reliance on technology that also seems worth exploring. But both of these creative concepts are being undercut by nonsensical narrative choices as Reign 2 barrels toward its second issue.
The character designs in this series are bound to be as controversial as the story itself. Kingpin is grotesque and often hard to look at, but not in a cool, horror movie creature sort of way. His entire aesthetic is simply off-putting. And then there's Spider-Man himself, an old man with a long white beard flowing out of the bottom of his mask. With the randomly zany expressions on his face and that spindly frame, Peter spends much of this issue looking a lot like Jafar's elderly alter-ego in Aladdin .
Reign 2 's final pages make a grand villainous reveal that I'm not keen on spoiling here, but it's hard to envision a future in which that twist brings anything but mess and frustration. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this count, but I'm just not sure how that character in that role can possibly work.
Spider-Man: Reign is a strange exploration of Spider-Man that, despite a couple of strong ideas, continues to worsen with time. Reign 2 feels like a whole lot of the same.
Published by Marvel Comics
On July 3, 2024
Written by Kaare Andrews
Art by Kaare Andrews
Colors by Kaare Andrews and Brian Reber
Letters by Joe Caramagna
Cover by Kaare Andrews
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