Spider-Man Noir GN-TPB [Paperback]

Hello and please forgive any spelling mistakes as i am terribly dyslexic!

I have read this spiderman noir book and i must say that i did enjoy it. I thought it was a very interesting idea to set something in a different time period. Comic books in many ways are like modern day shakespeare. They are timeless tales that can be set anywhere, any time, any location and the core of the thing always remains.

I love gangster and noir anyway so to see spiderman in this time was a great joy. I loved how the characters translated and how it touched on the issues of the time, which in many ways relate to our own predicaments right now in 2011. I thought the characters worked and although i did want to see a bit more of a final duel i was impressed in how they taylored the villains into freaks and gansters.

I did however leave this book wanting more. i think they could have expanded on the story even more so. I think the characters could have been given a bit more leeway and i did want more form them, especially the goblin and his history. However this was in some ways good as it made me go out and by the "face without eyes" book which was even better than this one. Spider-Man Noir: Eyes without a Face

HOWEVER my main problem with this product is that round about chapter TWO which is about 25 pages in the book started to fall apart, literally!!! The pages started to fall out like i was tearing them from a notebook. i got a replacment book TODAY and the same thing happened. I would therefore advise that if anyway is thinking of buying this paperback book to check those pages carefully or even email the seller before you buy to make sure you don't suffer the same sting i did. It is not the fault of Amazon however, its the books that are dodgey so please beware. I'm not saying they all are but certainly the ones i have had. Its like it comes apart at the spine like its not fixed in properly.

All in all, good story but bad book!

Harry Dyer

It's the winter of 1932 and millions across America are without employment and starving in shanty towns in the cities. May and Peter Parker are socialists, trying to energise the people into a revolution until they come across Norman "The Goblin" Osborn's thugs who stomp on Peter. Ben Urich, photographer for the Daily Bugle takes pity on Peter and shows him how the city operates behind the scenes. That's when Peter decides to take things into his own hands and goes down to the docks one night to see Osborn's thugs transporting goods meant for the Metropolitan Museum, one of them a sacred Spider God monument...

The "Noir" series has been pretty average really which was why I was surprised by how good this one was. The story is well written and involves you from the start with the not-so-obvious choice for main character, Ben Urich, as we get introduced to the famous characters in their newly imagined settings. There were a couple of curveballs in the plot, enough to keep me sitting up as I read and which I didn't see coming. I wondered if David Hine would give Peter his spider powers but if he didn't then Peter would just be a hooded vigilante with a gun. The final confrontation between Peter and Norman, while surprising in one sense, wasn't as strong a conclusion as the story itself merited.

Carmine di Giandomenico's artwork is excellent throughout. The action scenes feel very fluid and the character's expressions are subtle but clear. I also really liked his design for Spidey.

Hine takes a few liberties with Spidey, for one he's a killer, and for two he's not the cheery, quipping hero we all know and love, more a sullen, almost miserable, man with a chip on his shoulder and the world on his back. But then I suppose that's why it's called "Noir". Also there's no Mary-Jane or Gwen Stacy so maybe that's why he's so angry, but there's another "Spiderman Noir" book which probably has one or both of those characters in so maybe Peter does cheer up a bit in that.

Overall, the best in the "Noir" series and a pretty good Spiderman book to boot. I enjoyed reading it and loved the artwork, I heartily recommend it to Spiderfans everywhere.

While initially you may think that Spider-man is not suited to the noir style, his character has been altered just enough to make him a believable protagonist. The story is very well written and the artwork really matches the style of the storytelling. This is a darker universe with a less sympathetic hero and it is interesting to see well known marvel characters re-purposed, yet familiar at the same time. My only disappointment was that the story was fairly short, as I managed to finish it within an evening, but none of the story elements felt "rushed" - all the main character introductions and back-story were dealt with in the first "issue" leaving room for the story to develop over the course of the 4 issue run.

As for the physical book itself, it was slightly smaller than I expected (the book is approximately A5), although I'm not sure if there is a size difference between the paperback and hardback editions - I imagine there would be. It really doesn't matter though; either way your getting a quality graphic novel, one of the best I've ever read anyway. I don't know when the second book "eyes without a face" is released, but I would still recommend reading this now rather than waiting to buy both together - because the story is fairly self-contained and doesn't necessarily scream "sequel", so you don't need to worry about any cliffhanger endings.