Spidey: School’s Out is the digital exclusive series currently on comiXology in partnership with Marvel. To read this series you can buy a digital copy from the site ($2.99USD) or read for free with the comiXology Unlimited subscription ($5.99USD/month). If you like Marvel, then a subscription is a good way to go because the partnership between comiXology (owned by Amazon) and Marvel has opened up thousands of their titles that you can read for free. In addition, you are now also getting exclusive titles, like Spidey: School’s Out. As of this time, there is no word as to if any of these exclusives will ever go to print in physical form, so digital is the only way you will read them.
The set up for this series is that it takes place a year into Peter Parker’s life as Spider-man. If you’ve watched the latest Spidey cartoon (Marvel’s Spider-man currently in its second season), then you can feel a bit of similarity toward this series. These are new and updated takes (outside the Marvel 616 Prime Universe, Earth-TRN576 to be exact), so you will get characters you love, new versions of characters, and just new characters completely, all added into the mix for a fresh retelling. The story takes place at a Stark Summer Science Camp that Peter has been invited to. Here, he meets some of the smartest high school kids in the nation, but he still doesn’t quite fit in. Especially when duty calls as Spider-man.
In this second issue, a science project by classmate GG (Gloriana Grant) goes haywire and Spidey has to rush into action to save his fellow students, protect his identity as Peter Parker in a hilarious way, and ultimately find a way to beat this video game baddie come to life.
The dialogue and story from John Barber are snappy and has a very easy going flow to it. The new take on the characters is fresh, and you don’t have to worry about decades upon decades of history here. Art duties from Todd Nauck (pencils and inks) look great. The action in each panel is framed perfectly. Colors from Rachelle Rosenberg pop and look vibrant. The art is in good hands here. From the pages within to the cover by David Nakayama, make no mistake, this may not be the regular monthly but this isn’t a second tier B team creative group here. This is a quality book that is fun for any Spidey fan to read.
Wrap Up
If you buy comics for the story or have a comiXology Unlimited subscription (like me on both counts), then digital is the way to go. The exclusive content you get these days is also nice because we’re getting perks that the physical copy fans are missing out on. I know, I can hear it now… “You don’t own the copy you buy,” and that would not be true. If you have the Unlimited Subscription you borrow it, but if you buy the digital book, you own it. You can download the DRM FREE copy to your local space and use any of the other various free readers out there to read it if you want to go that route.
Digital comics are here to stay and with exclusives like Spidey: School’s Out being released, we’re going to see more and more people making the transition to an all-digital collection sooner, rather than later. So check it out!!!
