It Takes A Neighbourhood To Raise A Spider-Man: Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man #1

Another Number One, another Spider-Man book.

This time around, what will set this Spider-Man book apart from all the others is a focus, we are told, on Spider-Man's neighbourhood.

I wasn't aware of any demand for that, but I admittedly do not have my finger on the pulse of what comicdom wants, aside from scantily clad women and lower cover prices. But I checked this out, regardless.

Written by Tom Taylor with art by Juann Cabal, the series kicks off with Part One of the Mother of Exiles storyline. In it, we see Spider-Man welcome people to his neighbourhood by rescuing them from death in a car crash. We then meet some of the people in his apartment building, one of who gets kidnapped by a crew of guys who look like toughs from a Forties gangster film.

It's fine, but not terribly exciting. Taylor writes Peter as sarcastic yet helpful. We see the dynamics of the building, from his roommates to a judgey older woman to the woman in distress, who is beautiful and mysterious and clearly full of secrets.

I liked Cabal's art on X-23, and really wish he'd stayed there. There's a sterile coolness to his art that works with X-23 moreso than it does with Spider-Man, I feel. Cabal has a very strong Kevin Maguire talent with expression, but his art feels more like stills from a movie than the flow a good comic should have.  His take on Peter looks like a cross between Steve Ditko's classic Parker and the Mego action figure from the Seventies. It's cool, but I'm not sure if I like it.  I did like his interpretation of Spider-Sense, though, which again, looks like something cinematic from the Seventies.

There's an unnecessary back up story about Aunt May seeking treatment for possible cancer while hiding it from Peter that already feels laboured. The art here is by Marcello Ferreira, and it's a lot warmer than Cabal's. There is a great scene with Peter and MJ that I really liked, but the rest of the tale is overwrought. Not with just the Aunt May melodrama, but with Spider-Man lecturing kids about being bullies. It's just cringy.

I've liked Tom Taylor in the past, especially with his Injustice work, so I'll give him the benefit of a doubt here. But this wasn't a great debut for a new book. It may look great, but it already feels tired.