After the events of The End of the Spider-Verse, Spider-Boy’s secret history as Spider-Man’s sidekick was nearly forgotten forever. But now those mysteries will be revealed while they embark on exciting new adventures… TOGETHER! Spider-Boy #1 kicks things off with a debut issue that’s perfect for new readers to dive into.

I haven’t read any Spider-Boy at all. I generally don’t read Spider-Man comics, so the character’s debut, while intriguing, isn’t something I spent time exploring. So, that meant I got to come into Spider-Boy #1 fresh with no history at all. And, it’s a pretty fun start overall.

Featuring two stories both written by Dan Slott, Spider-Boy #1 feels like the low stakes type of fun superhero comics that are a bit of a throwback. The opening sequence involves a villain with a bowling theme terrorizing a bowling alley. It’s not exactly a world threat and is the low level type of adventure you’d expect from a hero that’s a kid. We’ve seen with previous Spider-Man comics, there’s an escalation of threats that feel like they’re a bit grander than the age of the hero attempting to stop them, so it’s nice to see something like this.

There’s also a bit of a retro aspect to it all with heroes taking on very silly villains and that’s emphasized in the second story that involves gasses and balloons, a riff on Batman 89 it felt like. But, overall, there’s a retro sense of fun to the comic. It does that all while baking in a mystery as to who this character is.

What’s nice is Slott takes a decent amount of time to catch readers up. That’s also just part of the story as Spider-Boy attempts to figure out what happened to him and his origin. So, as he learns the readers due to making it very new reader friendly. It doesn’t feel like you’re missing much if this is your introduction to the character.

Paco Medina with Erick Arcieniega provide the art for the initial story while Ty Templeton with color by Dee Cunniffe handles the second story. Joe Caramanga provides the lettering for both. The two art styles are so different with Medina’s more of a modern flashy style and Templeton having a bit of a retro throwback aspect to it. What’s nice though is the clash of styles works towards the comic. The second story is a bit of a forgotten adventure, so the look of the comic very much fits that aspect of it.

Spider-Boy #1 is a nice start to the series which requires little to no knowledge of the character. It delivers more than enough to stand out from the other Spider characters and series out there with an almost quaint low stakes focus.

Story: Dan Slott Art: Paco Medina, Ty Templeton
Color: Erick Arciniega, Dee Cunniffe Letterer: Joe Caramanga
Story: 8.0 Art: 8.0 Overall: 8.0 Recommendation: Buy

Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

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Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle