Rating:  -
Being a fan of the Loeb/Sale team (I was swtiched on after Long Halloween), I was naturally excited to find out they were doing their own take on Spidey. After all, they had done a great job with Superman and Batman, so the Marvel icon should be a great read too right? Well...
The artwork was amazing, as usual, Tim Sale adds his own flavor in creating a very 60's pop art feel to Spidey Blue. Sale has always delivered top-notch American artistry to his comics. Loeb's exposition is smartly written, but then the book lacks that universal appeal that would grab readers almost immediately. Inasmuch as the aim is to bring out Pete's blues over Gwen's death, Loeb fails to focus on the actual death for any first-time reader to understand what happened. It would have been interesting to see how Jeph Loeb would approach this milestone moment of Marvel Comics. In the end, it made me feel pretty blue...
Rating: -
I, for one, cannot understand what is going on with Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. After being a part of some of the best stories to ever be written and illustrated, their work has become stale with no magic to them. It seems that this is mainly seen when they came to work for Marvel projects. It's not caused by the fact that the characters are not colorful or interesting, it's more along the lines of what premises of these characters life Loeb wants to delve upon. This started with Daredevil: Yellow and continues with Spider-Man: Blue.
The story begins with a Peter Parker talking to a handheld recorder and recalling the past, mainly his life with Gwen Stacy. Though this story is a sure tear-jerker, but it has been played over and over by many books out there and I have to admit, some were even better than this latest offering. I cannot think of what this latest addition provides for the Spider-Man mythos. We know that Peter loved Gwen. OK, now what? Nothing. I truly wanted to feel more with this book. I wanted it to touch me and make me think of how bad it can be to lose a person you love, but Loeb doesn't deal with that much. All he and Sale are interested in is showcasing as much of Spidey's rogue's gallery as possible. Something that might have worked successfully in Batman's books, but not here and not with the focus he had in mind.
I have to admit though, Sale's art is really great. I think he captured the essence of characters really well. He draws a beautiful Gwen and an attractive Mary Jane, but you still cannot beat the magic of John Romita. I'm impressed that he doesn't have that ghastly long faces that he had with his Batman characters. Sale worked his magic to its best and carried the story further.
When the book was coming, Loeb swore that the Blue was the premise and not a color theme that Marvel was working on when DD: Yellow came out. With the same team working on the upcoming Hulk: Gray, it makes you think who was speaking the truth here.
Rating:  -
Jeph Loeb crafts a brilliant retelling of a story originally created by Stan Lee, when he was at his storytelling best. Peter Parker, the classic beautiful loser, has two stunningly beautiful women infatuated with him, and he must somehow make a decision that won't cause him to lose any friends. In this deceptively simple story, Peter Parker struggles with many difficult questions. Is there only one true love? Is it possible to love more than once?
After seeing Tim Sale's recreation of the Batman villains (in The Long Halloween), I was eager to see what he did with the second greatest rogues gallery in comics, and I loved his versions of the Green Goblin, the Lizard, the Vulture, Kraven and others, as well as his glamorous representations of Gwen and MJ. It was a brilliant homage to the definative Spider-Man artist, John Romita Sr.
Rating: -
Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have built a well-deserved reputation as chroniclers of early chapters in the lives of iconic superheroes. Their two �Batman� volumes, �The Long Halloween� and �Dark Victory,� are mystery masterworks. �Superman For All Seasons� was so good that Loeb got hired to write for the �Smallville� TV show.
Their work for Marvel hasn�t been as eye-popping, though. �Daredevil: Yellow� was pretty good, but for the most part, �Spider-Man: Blue� left me pretty stale, and I think I know why. Gwen Stacy.
So many of today�s comic pros grew up in the days when Gwen Stacy was the �it� girl, Spider-Man�s girlfriend, the woman he was meant to be with. Then, in a stunning act for comics of the 1970s, she was killed off. As those readers became the creators, a wave of Gwen nostalgia was kicked into high gear.
Problem is, I�m a child of the 80s, by which time there was a new �it� girl, Mary Jane Watson. She was the love of Spider-Man�s life. She was the woman he wound up marrying. But over and over again, the writers at Marvel seem to keep churning out these long, aching love letters to Gwen Stacy. I can appreciate her place as a character and as an important chapter in Spider-Man�s history, but she�s not a character I�ve ever really felt for.
Out of all these love letters, �Spider-Man: Blue� is probably the best done. It�s written well and Sale�s artwork, as always, is beautiful. Any one of the covers in this series has poster potential. But for all that, it�s just not for me. Gwen Stacy fans, this one is for you. As for the rest of us, I�m waiting for the days when Spidey fans who grew up with Mary Jane start writing the stories.
Rating: -
I enjoy Spider-man. I enjoy Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. And yet they all didn't mesh very well. Admittedly, I read the story as it came out over six issues. If I reread it, I might feel differently.
In the present-day, Peter Parker speaks into a tape-recorder, reminiscing about his late girlfriend, Gwen Stacy (about when Stan Lee and John Romita, Sr. were on the book, a great period), and the conflicts that arose from his love for her, his unresolved feelings for Mary Jane Watson (now his wife), and that fact that he is Spider-man. In between all of these concerns, Spider-man finds that many of his foes seem to be coming at him in a concentrated effort, suggesting an intelligent force at work.
The problem with this story does not lie with the creative team exactly. Loeb writes with passion and empathy, creating a meloncholoy atmosphere of simpler times, comparatively speaking, in Peter Parker's life. Sale doesn't try to compete with Romita, a smart move, and so brings his own unique style to the proceedings.
The main problem with this story is the fact that Loeb is essentially retelling stories already told. I read these stories in the Essential Spider-man. While Loeb does add the little bit of the surprise villain, it feels somewhat forced. I don't mind ret-conning or retelling, so long as there is some purpose to it. Here, the main purposes of the story are for Loeb and Sale to pay homage to Lee and Romita's run, and re-examine that run in a modern light. That's frustrating, as I loved "Batman: The Long Halloween," "Dark Victory", and "Superman For All Seasons". But this creative team's Marvel "year one" stories (this and "Daredevil: Yellow") have kind have left me cold. This is certainly because Marvel's continutiy is very tight, and retroactively fitting stuff in is almost impossible.
Thus, a perfectly good story is overshadowed by familiarity, and it's very hard to judge on its own merits. It may be the case that in a few years, when I re-read this, I'll find it stands better on its own. As it is, it feels ultimately redundant.
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