Sinister War #1

Sinister War #1

Marvel Comics 2021

Written by Nick Spencer

Pencilled by Mark Bagley

Inked by Andrew Hennessy, John Dell & Andy Owens

Coloured by Brian Reber

Lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna

DOCTOR OCTOPUS IS BACK! AND THE SINISTER WAR HAS BEGUN!

Ock’s got a new Sinister Six and if you think he’s thought big in the past, think again. What Ock DOESN’T know is that the VULTURE has a sextet of his own: THE SAVAGE SIX! It’s an all-out WAR between two of the greatest villains in the Marvel Universe, and the only person they hate more than each other is SPIDER-MAN! Spidey’s in deep trouble with the toughest battle that he’s ever faced.

I wasn’t going to read this, I’m not a fan of these event style stories anymore they seem to happen at the drop of a hat. But the opening and the ending for this issue dealing with these two characters had me the moment I opened the issue. I gave the book it’s proper chance, you have to otherwise it’s doing the creators a disservice. I am intrigued and I’m not ashamed to say it because this is MJ’s big chance and Peter’s along for the ride and for a change it isn’t Spidey that drew these villains here it was someone else entirely and that fact makes me want to learn more.

I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold ass well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react tot eh situations and circumstances they encounter flesh them out continuously. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story it keeps generating more and more intrigue.

I like the way that this is being structured and how the layers within the story as they emerge and grow. The avenues we see opening up throughout the issue contain the characterisation, the twists & turns and whether these work with the main arc or swirl around it they add some great depth, complexity and dimension to the story. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved incredibly well.

The interiors here are really solid but I expect nothing less when it comes to Bagley’s work. There are a lot of characters in this issue and a lot of action sequences and i’m beginning to see the need for multiple inkers. It really is rather impressive to see this amount of work being put into so many characters that we see here and it is truly spectacular. The composition within the panels, which includes how we see these backgrounds, to bring us this depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is really magnificent. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a supreme eye for storytelling. The colour work is equally as brilliant. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is beautifully rendered.

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I make no secret that I don’t follow Spidey’s adventures it just doesn’t feel that easily accessible to me. But I know the basics and to see this issue and be wowed and in awe of what we see is phenomenal stuff. I love who and how this is centred on and how it unfolds and Peter gets involved and I’m sure this is a bonus to all involved considering they had a different target in mind. So yeah I’m interested in how all this plays out now because honestly it seems to tie a lot of the history between Peter and MJ, including the whole Mephisto pact. So yeah this is a huge story arc and yet it feels like it’ll be contained to the Spidey books or even better just it’s own title but regardless I wanna see what happens so bravo to the entire team here.