Spider-Man: Torment! [Paperback]

Todd McFarlane (Author)

Book Description

Series: Amazing Spider-Man | Publication Date: June 17, 1997

Blood washes the streets of the Big Apple. Torment plunges Spider-Man into the darkness within us all as he hunts the Lizard through the streets and sewars of New York City, trying to put an end to the bloodthirsty, homicidal rampage left in his wake. But what is driving the Lizard? Is it an answer that Spider-Man is prepared to face? Or will it be so shocking that it will make even the most courageous hero question his sanity? Collects Spider-Man #1-5.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Marvel Comics (June 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871358050
• ISBN-13: 978-0871358059
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,628,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Reading this book was "Torment"...., July 30, 2005

By 

Jorge Ruben (West Hempstead, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spider-Man: Torment! (Paperback)

When "Spider-Man #1" was first released in 1990, it sold 2.5 million copies. That number is a bit misleading, since there were about 5,000 different cover variations that collectors just had to snap up. Todd McFarlane, Marvel's Golden Boy, had just been given a plum assignment: Write, pencil and ink his own Spider-Man comic book, far away from the constraints of drawing his pretty pictures over someone else's plots and scripts. It was a match made seemingly in heaven: McFarlane, who had taken "The Amazing Spider-Man" out of the doldrums and turned it into the #1 selling comic, handling the character that had made him the hottest artist around.

To say that McFarlane failed in his first assignment as a writer is an understatement. "Torment", the five-part opening arc to the series, is a disaster of unparalleled magnitude. Gone are the witty musings of previous Spider-Man scribes, replaced by the repetitive rantings of an artist who was ill-equipped to handle the plotting and writing of so complex a character. The book opens with Spider-Man lurking in the shadows and stopping a robbery (in the process calling the robber a punk, like some third-rate Dirty Harry-ripoff). Unfortunately, that can pretty much be considered the highlight. The entire series goes downhill from there. I can describe the entire five-story arc in a few sentences: Calypso raises the Lizard from the bottom of the East River (don't ask what the Lizard was doing there; Todd never bothers to explain it) and conjures some voodoo spells to torment Spider-Man (hence the title). The Lizard scratches Spider-Man with his claws, which are poisoned courtesy of Calypso. A delirious Spider-Man spends the next four issues whining and complaining about Calypso attacking him for no reason. That's it. That's the story. Oh, and Todd also throws in some pages showing Mary Jane club-hopping. Maybe I'm just missing the super-heroic aspects of dancing to '80's nightclub staples, I don't know.

Part of the problem is McFarlane's melodramatic, disjointed and overly redundant writing style. Instead of the happy-go-lucky Spider-Man that preceded, McFarlane's Spider-Man is some weird Batman wannabe, patrolling the melodramatically darkened streets of Gotham Ci.... err, New York. This is probably due to the fact that 90% of the story takes place at night in the shadows. McFarlane seems more content in drawing splash pages that serve no purpose except to show that, wow, Todd has mastered the art of drawing Spider-Man. As such, he seems to consider the story secondary, as he draws out page after page after page of non-action over five issues. The end result is a story that could have been wrappd up in two issues with a better writer. Instead, we get five issues of NOTHING. It gets so absurd that the final issue takes place over the span of five minutes, Marvel time. That's right. FIVE minutes. Todd just had no concept of how to pace and plot a story, and it shows.

The second problem is the choice of villain to kick off the series. Calypso? What happened to Doctor Octopus? The Green Goblin? The Sandman? The Rhino? Heck, I would have even taken Hydro-Man. Instead, we get a third-rate villain in the enigmatic Calypso, and the more fearsome of the villains, the Lizard, is reduced to a mindless lapdog for the scantily-clad voodoo priestess. Editor Jim Salicrup stated that when the time came to pick the villain(s) for the premiere issue, most of Spidey's usual rogue's gallery already had plots sketched out in upcoming issues. But STILL. I'm sure they could have come up with someone better than Calypso. It's obvious from Todd's handling of the character that he just didn't know what to do with her, save for casting a spell on Spidey and drawing it out for five issues. Lame.

Maybe we should have gotten the hint when, in the letter columns of the book, McFarlane admitted that he didn't really feel the story was as important as the artwork, that people picked up a book for the art and not for the story. Unfortunately, he decided to follow his inner muse and put this abomination on paper. To be fair, his writing would improve, and one need look no further than the "Perceptions" storyline to see that Todd finally "got it" and started understanding that, hey, maybe the plot and writing ARE important. And once he left Marvel and formed Image, his writing and artwork on Spawn was light years ahead of anything he did at Marvel.

Anyone who wants to see what the big fuss was about McFarlane's handling of Spider-Man would be wise to pick up the "Spider-Man vs. Venom" trade. David Michelinie does a great job scripting, and Todd's artwork just leaps off the pages, something that was sorely lacking in "Torment". "Torment" is a car-wreck, and is recommended only to those who like to watch the aftermath of such a thing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not great., June 10, 2010

By 

D. L. Haynes "Samurai-D" (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Spider-Man: Torment (Marvel Premiere Classic) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this more as a sixth grader than I did as a thirty year old. The artork is beautiful and the idea of a sequel to "Kravens Last Hunt" is cool but it just doesn't come off that well. Calypso and the Lizard are a good pairing of baddies but there needs a little more plot development.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Art, OK Narrative..., July 16, 2011

By 

A. J. Nowaczyk "That Guy" (Athens, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spider-Man: Torment (Marvel Premiere Classic) (Hardcover)

I know I've seen this on some other reviews but seriously, the "DOOM DOOM DOOM" is so annoying. It's a mediocre story that has somehow been propelled into somethingness. Not a necessary Spider-Man read by any means. Michelinie (spelling) did some great writing during this time period on Spider-Man, check those out.

I don't know, just felt like sharing my $.02 and I really HAD to say something in response to the whole "DOOM" thing... annoying!

Adam