Enter The Devil Of Philly: Reviewing ‘Spider-Punk’ #3

As with all other mediums, comic books can fit into a variety of spaces from the powerful and profound or wild and wacky or heavily emotional or spread relevant important messages about the current world. At the end of the day though no matter which of those areas a comic fits into, it’s a medium that at its heart is just pretty darn fun.

Anyone looking for comic books that are just fun from start to finish while being relevant & powerful where the art is taking full advantage of the medium, look on further than Spider-Punk #3.

With the previous issues dealing with beating down Nazis, this one brings in Earth 138’s versions of Daredevil and Kingpin, in order to tackle what happens when one great power is toppled, and another just rises to take its place. Just like the previous issues, there are quips and tons of great dialogue, both fun and serious, flying around as Cody Ziglar makes these characters feel like they’ve had years of character building rather than most only appearing in this series. While we see some of these characters regularly in main Marvel books, these versions on this Earth are wildly different since their world is wildly different. Ziglar taps into the similarities in order to make the differences not feel so different, a skill to make these characters feel like old friends.

Artistically Justin Martin, Jim Charalampidis, and Travis Lanham are putting on a masterclass on how to create gorgeous, fun, kinetic, powerful comic books that tap into everything that this medium is possible of giving. Martin’s art is smooth with powerful kinetic energy, making the action moments just flow into one another with his paneling choices just making it so much better. There is weight to what is happening, which one can see instantly with the opening scene of the familiar mutant bikers chasing down the Spider-Van with the flames everywhere. Hell, just gazing at how they showcase the powers of Daredevil is enough to make comic fans downright giddy with joy.

Use of the white space to border panels or to separate them really helps with the framing and plays well against the bright but also muted color palate that Charalampidis brings to the pages. Scattered around there are bright pops of colors to be found (neon greens and pinks and reds) in some scenes whereas the rest is more toned down with shadows. This leaves room for the panels and pages where those bright swaths of color take over and become the background to really highlight a moment of action or a character close-up or other imagery.

Following along with the chaotic but fun energy of the character/action artwork are the SFX, which are big and dominant in the moment when needed. Following alongside whatever they are meant to represent sound or moment-wise so that they are part of the moment rather than standing beside it.

Within the lettering, Lanham plays with the same sorts of energy and colors as the rest of the art, as we see the continued use of bold bright red to emphasize certain words and bubbles that take on jagged or unusual shapes. It keeps up the metal/punk sort of flavor of the series, while also incorporating font changes that make sure that we know when a character is talking versus yelling or whispering, which is so important. We cannot hear the tone when characters are talking in comics, so letterers that make sure this is clear are aces in my book.

I would read a series from this creative team with these characters regularly in a heartbeat because there is just so much here still to explore. It’s also a team of characters that are far more diverse than most team books we tend to get from mainstream comics, and we need far more like this.

Spider-Punk #3 is now available.