Unfortunately, a discombobulated story and an odd sketchiness to the art finally bring a halt to the so-far fantastic Scarlet Spider series. Not that they make for a bad issue, mind you. But the stellar quality has definitely taken a dip. The villain comes out of nowhere, the supporting characters are a little off and the ending is rather abrupt.

Scarlet Spider #6

Plus this comic has nearly as many epilogues as Return of the King.

Comic rating: 3/5: Alright.

Sadly, this is also artist Ryan Stegman’s last issue of Scarlet Spider! The guy has been fantastic, infusing a lot of energy and style into the book. Sometimes it looked a little cartoonish for the grittier tales that writer Christopher Yost was trying to tell, but the art was clean, detailed and very cool. Stegman had a flair for highly energetic and dynamic action sequences. His fight scenes were awesome.

But for some reason, the art in this issue is a little grainy. The fight is still cool, but there’s just something off about the art…not sure if it’s intentional or not. The same thing could be said for the writing – it’s a little grainy. I’d say this issue feels a little rushed all around. It’s not bad, but it’s definitely a bump in the road.

Scarlet Spider is a hero! Turns out the whole world, and especially Houston, know that the Scarlet Spider saved them all from a terrorist’s nuclear bomb in the last issue! I thought he was hiding, but I guess not. Houston has Scarlet Spider fever! He’s on all the news channels. His buddy Sergeant Layton is singing his praises, as is Jessica Michan, spokeswoman for the mayor. He’s beloved by the public. And people are getting Scarlet Spider tattoos!

Kaine, however, is getting some stupid, pointless tribal tattoo of some kind.

Well I think it’s stupid

Why? What’s that supposed to indicate? He’s never mentioned wanting a tattoo before. And if he gets one, why a tattoo that’s so nondescript? Why not something relevant to the narrative? Ah well, whatever.

As Kaine leaves the tattoo parlor, he reveals via inner monologue why his costume is red. Back when Kaine originally took the costume from Peter Parker at the end of Spider-Island, it was black. Kaine tells us that he wanted a black costume, then people could have called him something cool like ‘Dark Spider’. But Julia Carpenter did something to the costume and now it’s stuck as red, and people just happened to pick the name ‘Scarlet Spider’. He hates that name because it reminds him of the original Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly.

If you’re not familiar with your Clone Saga history, both Kaine and Ben Reilly were clones of Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man. Ben, a hero, died at the end of the Clone Saga. Kaine, often a villain, is the one who lives on trying to eke out a new living. And fate just so happens to have saddled him with Ben’s old superhero name…

Before he can worry about it too much, Aracely suddenly appears on the sidewalk. She has this power now where she can feel Kaine and knows where he is, and it’s kind of weird. Still, he agrees to take her out for barbecue, where Aracely acts even weirder.

So much for their sexual tension

I’m not sure what’s happening. This is almost an entirely new Aracely. She says more in just this one page than she’s said in the entire series so far. Now she won’t shut up. And it’s all so cryptic and mysterious. Yost just throws Aracely’s new ‘powers’ and abilities at us, whereas before they were only hinted at. Though I suppose Kaine is expressing the same frustrations I am as a reader. Sadly, this also seems to eliminate Aracely from the running as a potential love interest. Now she’s definitely a younger sister type.

Which leaves only Annabelle as the love interest. And speaking of which, we cut to her immediately.

Nice dye job

Oh great, not only is she a sexy bartender, but she’s also in a sexy band.

I dunno. I just think it takes all the drama out of the story if there’s only one, obvious love interest. There was always going to be a love interest, that’s just how stories work. But to make it so obvious? Where’s the fun in that? Kaine’s supporting cast is too small. It makes sense that he’d only want so many friends, and he barely likes these friends as it is, but considering how important the city of Houston has become to the book, there should be more people.

But that’s just my complaint. There’s no drama if Annabelle is the only girl in the world, so to speak.

Anyway, Kaine has gone to her concert, which is being held in a church. He’s rather perturbed at what young people do for fun these days and considers leaving – until Ana Kravinoff shows up, the daughter of Kraven the Hunter. She was spying on him earlier in the issue. For those who don’t know, there was a big story in Amazing Spider-Man a few years ago where Kraven’s family tried to kill Peter Parker in order to resurrect the original Kraven. At the last minute, Kaine was exchanged for Peter without the Kravinoff family knowing. And since it was a clone that was sacrificed, Kraven came back to life all wonky and weird. Spider-Man eventually beat him and the family…and then the Jackal showed up in an epilogue and brought Kaine back to life.

Fast forward to today, and Kaine is alive and well and the Kravinoff family is in the gutter. Now Ana has hunted him down for revenge!

Revenge is a dish best served covered in blood!

Unfortunately, none of this means anything if you didn’t read that Amazing Spider-Man story – which I didn’t. So Ana just shows up, there’s very little explanation given and she gets into a big fight with Kaine in the middle of the concert. It’s a fun fight, I suppose, especially when the whole place catches on fire. But there’s just so little known about the opponent that it doesn’t matter as much. Perhaps if I’d read that earlier story I’d care more. But I didn’t read it. And it’s the writer of Scarlet Spider’s job to make me care about Ana Kravinoff even if I didn’t read that earlier story.

As it stands, there’s not much to the fight. Ana barely explains herself. She just seems to want to kill Kaine all over again. She’s poisoned her knife, but that does little to slow him down. Nothing is really settled between the two characters. They just fight in a big, flaming room, which at least provides a badass look.

Fire makes everything more badass

The fight ends when the fire damages the church enough that the whole place starts coming down, at least the insides. Ana offers some threat that Kraven is going to be hunting Kaine, but that doesn’t entice me very much. I suppose it will make for a cool issue someday in the future. But as of right now, meh. I’d rather something be established between Kaine and Ana. But the fight ends with her getting away and Kaine fleeing the church, all bloodied and stuff. Annabelle finds him and calls for help, but Kaine tells her he’ll be OK. Then he warns her to run away from him, that he doesn’t want to see her get hurt.

With tears in her eyes, Annabelle tells Kaine that she isn’t going anywhere. Ain’t that sweet?

Then we start in with the epilogues. The first has Kaine returning to the church the next morning, where a priest is sweeping up the rubble on the steps outside. Kaine asks to speak to the priest, as people often do. Kaine wants to know why he was given a second chance. He was a bad person, he did bad things. And he had a ‘brother’ who as a good person, and he died. Kaine doesn’t mention his name. Why did the good person die while he, the bad person, gets to live? The priest tells Kaine they have a lot of work to do.

Kaine suddenly, out of the blue, seems to really be reflecting on Ben Reilly for some reason.

Hey Kaine, ever hear of personal space? Get out of mine!

It’s weird, since I don’t think Ben has been mentioned since the very first issue. Why, all of a sudden, is Kaine thinking about Ben? Is it because Aracely was wearing a blue sweatshirt earlier? Either way, it comes out of nowhere and doesn’t seem at all connected to the fight with Ana.

This series needs to have a Ben Reilly issue. He was the original Scarlet Spider, and it would go a long way to help provide some explanation and backstory for this series as a whole. It could build Kaine’s character too. He seems too afraid to even say Ben’s name. Oh well.

The second epilogue has the Salamander in prison being visited by a mysterious man in a suit with a cane and a dog. He tells the Salamander that the darkness is coming, which is something Ana said to Kaine.

The third epilogue finds Julia Carpenter walking with her daughter in New York City. Julia is the new Madame Webb, and she can see the future. She’s suddenly struck by a violent vision of the future. Julia sees someone, a woman, coming after Kaine.

The fourth epilogue has Ana returning to her father and reporting everything she spied about Kaine, all his friends and whatnot. Also that Kaine trying to be a hero  which has made him soft. Kraven tells his daughter that she did good.

So yeah, four epilogues! Jeez louise! I guess Yost really wants to tease some of the upcoming stories. None of them sound particularly exciting to me. But I read this for Kaine, so just seeing him kicking ass and being awesome is what’ll keep me coming back. And like I said, this was an alright issue. Kaine’s story furthered in terms of the two women in his life. He had a big, fiery fight with a tough opponent. And he’s started to try and be a better person. But everything felt a little too addlepated. The story was all over the place. And the art took a step backwards.

Hopefully this was just a temporary matter as Yost tries to move some pieces around his chest board. I fully expect a stronger, tighter, more focused story to come. And can we do something about the love interest?