So I was reading Spider-Man Family and while that title is usually reviewed by my good buddy Chris on SpiderFan, I felt that I had to add my two cents into the mix. Seriously, what a badly-written story lead off this issue. I mean, it wouldn’t have been so bad if it had appeared in one of the Marvel Adventures titles (which are targeted for a younger audience), but this one is supposed to be a continuity implant or at the very least occur within the “normal” Marvel timeline.The story has (for no apparent reason) Spider-Man and Marvel Girl literally babysitting Dr. Robert Bruce Banner (who is wandering through Mid-town Manhattan) so that he won’t get excited and turn into The Hulk (obviously this particular story is timed to coincide with the imminent release of The Incredible Hulk this June). Only, there really is no logical reason for this set up, (something about the SHIELD Helicarrier, and a UFO over Central Park), plus, the guy who is supposed to be Banner looks nothing like Banner, and makes a pass at Marvel Girl (I realize that they like to play fast and lose with the age of their characters, but Marvel Girl is in her early 20s while Banner is closer to late 30s early 40s).
So, the story itself has Marvel Girl and Spidey (both in costume) escorting Banner (in a suit) around Manhattan, and a pair of robberies being pulled off in full sight of the two heroes (the costumed crooks both explained that they saw Spidey, but didn’t think it was him). Seriously, nothing in the story hangs together as reasonable. It was as if some random fanboy thought it would be a cool idea to have these characters appear in the same story, and then simply wrote it up and (somehow) got it published. (Hey, you ever read fan fiction? Most of it blows chunks.)
By way of salvation, the second story reads much better (and should have been the Lead). This was followed up by an old Venom story, a Spidey Limited series tale, and Spider-Man J (the Japanese travesty that editorial insists on foisting on us). Ever since the start of BND I have been saying that virtually all of the other Spidey books read much better than what is going on in BND. Here is a most notable exception.
