What a difference the art makes. Khoi Pham is still drawing Scarlet Spider, and either his talents have gone completely downhill, or the inker and colorist have done a terrible job, because the art in Scarlet Spider #13 is atrocious. Sketchy, awkward, off-model, it brings the whole issue down. This might actually be a good issue of Scarlet Spider, but the bad art is just so distracting. It doesn’t help either that the villains are generic werewolf people. And that Pham can’t draw werewolves to save his life.

Scarlet Spider #13

We’re finally getting answers about Aracely, but whatever impact those answers might have is completely lost due to horrendous art. I hope this is just a bump in the road. A switch to bad art is always a sign that a series is nearing its cancellation.

Comic rating: 2/5: Bad.

The mysteries of Aracely have never been that big of a deal to me. She’s definitely come into her own in this series, and was a standout in the last issue. But I haven’t particularly cared where she came from. Still, writer Christopher Yost was definitely going to get around to it eventually. And it seems like he’s tying it deeply into Mexican folklore and more. I’ve never particularly cared about Mexican folklore either, but maybe he can win me over. Yost definitely does a fine job detailing how Kaine uncomfortably fits into this scenario. I think it will be a fun adventure for our hero. He’s already an outsider in the normal world, now he’s even more so. That should be good for him.

But like I said, the art is terrible. And the villains could use a big boost to make them interesting. Right now, they’re just generic evil werewolf criminals. How boring. Here’s an idea: why not make them were-something else? Why is it always wolves? There’s a lot of talk in this issue about ‘coyotes’, which are what they call the people who transport Mexicans over the border for a fee. Why not make them werecoyotes? That would be interesting and cool!

Instead, all we get is mostly bland.

Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!

Confession time again, I never reviewed the Scarlet Spider Point One issue. Scarlet Spider #12.1 came out a few weeks ago, and it was absolutely fantastic. Kaine went after a human-trafficking ring after one of the girls was killed using a similar power to his old Mark of Kaine trick. Back when he was evil, Kaine had a power similar to Spider-Man’s ability to walk on walls. Only Kaine used it to stick his hand to people’s faces and then rip their flesh off. He was a pretty bad guy. Now Scarlet Spider has found a similar mark, and it leads him to a human trafficker who is working with the Hand (and possibly the Kingpin). Kaine tries to take him down, but in the end, one of Kingpin’s business men shows up and has the trafficker killed for breaking the rules. Then they leave Kaine alone.

I really should have reviewed the issue. It was a 5/5 for sure. Total greatness. But I had a lot going on that week, and I’ve been using these Point One issues as an excuse to save myself some work.

If only this real issue was as good as the Point One issue…

We open with an introduction to The Wolves, they’re a brother and sister team known as the Lobo Cartel. In one of Houston’s bigger gun areas, they’ve apparently slaughtered a whole room full of people. They greet a gang that comes bursting in and tell them they’re working for the Wolves now. The brother appears to be the strong silent type, wearing a suit and sunglasses. The sister seems a little more wild.

Women wolves be crazy, amiright, fellas?

We cut to Kaine still investigating human trafficking. He narrates us through a scenario where a 13-year-old girl has been delivered to United States with a promise of a bright future – only to find out she’s actually being sold as a sex slave to some fat pervert. Raped, drugged, turned into a prostitute…or at least that’s what would happen if Scarlet Spider didn’t get involved. And he just keeps getting involved. Kaine kicks the guy’s ass, while at the same time realizes that the girl isn’t running. She doesn’t have anywhere to go. She’s an illegal immigrant. The only people she knows in America are the perverts who bought her. Kaine gives her some money and drops her off at the church, lamenting the fact that she’ll probably just get deported.

Such is the wickedness of the beast. Every time he takes down a ring, another pops up. And it’s not like there’s much help for these girls.

There are better ways to spend a Monday

Elsewhere, Aracely is having a weird dream. She sees herself in a big meadow of red flowers, with pink skies and butterflies. She calls the place Aztlan. A space coyote tells her that the fifth creation is ending, and Aracley replies, “Mictlan rises.” The world has suddenly turned into a wasteland covered in bodies. Really, this is all just one big crazy monster dream. Like that one Homer Simpson had after eating the Merciless Peppers of Quetzlzacatenango!

The dream is pretty freaky. Aracely is told that she needs a champion. She sees her mother dying. There are other people dying. Xiuhcoatl from the first issues grabs her and tells her that “Mictlan rises”. It’s all very freaky deaky.

I’ve had worse dreams

She wakes up screaming and Annabelle runs in to check on her. Aracley’s psychic empathy is also causing Annabelle to cry. Annabelle says they need to find Kaine.

But this is weird. Why is Annabelle sleeping in the same room or apartment as Aracely? Is Annabelle living with Kaine now? When did that happen?

We take a moment to cut to the Wolves, who are riding in a limo. The girl asks the guy what he’ll ask for as a reward, because apparently that’s a thing they’re working towards. He says he’ll ask to get their other brother back, who is apparently dead. The girl just laughs at his sentimentality. She’s not going to waste her reward on something like that. Then she smells Aracley.

Aracley and Kaine are walking in the park having ice cream. She’s told him all about her freaky dream. He tells her that they need to go to Mexico to track down where she came from. But then Aracley senses the wolves attacking someone, and soon they are there.

Maybe Aracley just doesn’t like vanilla

As you can see, the art is getting a little worse. Kaine is definitely off model in this issue. I like the implication that Kaine is ‘the spider’ in their tapestry. They’re the wolves, and he too is an animal spirit. At least it sounds kind of cool to me. Kaine grabs Aracely and leaps them out of there while the Wolves pursue. He swings her to a nearby rooftop and starts getting into costume. Aracley starts to howl, and Kaine starts putting the pieces together. The crooks he defeated on the pier in his first issue were talking about the Wolves. And Roxxon had some files on them. Everything has been leading up to this poorly-drawn attack.

Where are the vampires?

The fight is on. Scarlet Spider struggles against the Wolves while simultaneously trying to keep them from getting Aracely. There’s clawing, biting, webbing and more. But Pham doesn’t do action very well, especially not as well as original artist Ryan Stegman did. Scarlet Spider tackles one of them and considers driving a spike through its brain, like he did with Carnage, but he hesitates at killing for just a moment and gets attacked by the other wolf. At least he bought Aracely time to run.

Scarlet Spider is defeated. Broken and bloody, his vision goes dark as he realizes the Wolves are eating him…

Not the right kind of kinky

I was not impressed by this story. Khoi Pham’s art has seemingly gotten worse from when he first took over. His Kaine doesn’t look anything like Peter Parker. His pencils are sketchy and his action scenes lack life. I’m very disappointed in the art. But maybe it’s the inker and colorist’s fault. I don’t know art that well enough to decide.

But then the story doesn’t do much better. The Wolves are as generically boring as a villain could get. They’re just werewolves. They might be criminal cartel werewolves, but we don’t get to see that aspect of them. Sometimes they’re a crazy brother and sister with bug eyes, and sometimes they’re just two werewolves. That’s all they really do in this issue. They may be behind everything that’s happened in Scarlet Spider up until this point, but I couldn’t care less. They strike me as just two plain villains. There’s nothing unique or new about werewolves. They’re everywhere in fiction.

And Scarlet Spider fighting a couple of werewolves does not strike me as very interesting.

Now, werecoyotes, that would be something to see. But consider them trademarked as of this moment! Somebody get me Marvel on the phone…