MGNC The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home Review (4.5/5)

Come Home right now and read this great first Marvel Graphic Novel if you haven't already!
The Marvel Graphic Novels Collection is a great idea on Hatchette Partworks' part with so many big superhero movies coming out this year, allowing fans of the super-powered icons like myself (the fan bit, not the icon, although I would love to think of myself as such!) to get a better background of their contextual history and past adventures. The first 'issue' was The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home, a dark tale investigating the possible mystical powers that fuelled Peter Parker's origins story in a way he had not considered, only for these to lead to the question of whether he is a 'pure' superhero, and if so whether that makes him prey to one of the deadliest monsters to walk the Earth. Of course, the idea that the cause of Peter's powers was supernnatural rather than scientific caused some controversy among fans at the time of the comic-book's original release in 2004, but I'd say it works rather well to bolster an interesting storyline involving immortal foes and testing our webbed protagonist to his very physical limits. As you'd imagine for an early 21st century piece, the artwork here is sublime, putting an inert focus on every single element be they minor or major, and making for a tour de force in Marvel's constant benchmarks for this industry. Considering that Coming Home was released at a price of just £1.99 as part of the MGNC promotion, I can't recommend it to you in the same way as normal as you'll probably need to shell out a tenner or so for the graphic novel now this edition is out of stores. However, if you did already buy it and have been waiting on this reviewer's verdict as to whether to read it or not, I'd say Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home is wholeheartedly worth your time, by far capitivating enough to keep you gripped as much as to read it within a couple of sittings. The ending is a little rushed and ambiguous, two facets which always seem to plague graphic novels, and what with the random bimonthly nature of this publication we're not going to see the revelation teased in the story's cliffhanger for a little while now, but of Hatchette can keep up the variety of this collection (and judging by 'Issues' 2 and 3, X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Iron Man: Extremis, that seems to be the case), and keep up the great extra features (origins; writers' other work etc.), they could well be on to a real winner here.