Nick Spencer is making great comics for Marvel right now, and how much I love his Secret Avengers and Superior Foes of Spider-Man probably means I should get caught up on Morning Glories, too. I’ll definitely be first in line for his Avengers World project with Jonathan Hickman, too. Right now, we’re talking SFSM #6, and it’s a glorious bit of small-time crook shenanigans.
First of all, this is a book where Boomerang, aka Fred Myers, aka Guy Who Throws Boomerangs, is the lead character, and we get to see him on a date. When have we ever cared about Boomerang’s personal life? Never, but now we do, because he’s a manipulative wheeler dealer who’s just trying to get ahead, and he’s managed to score a date with a woman who doesn’t take any of his crap – and yet they find some common ground in baseball (which just happens to be Fred’s ex-career). Also, it turns out Fred’s liberated a painting of the True Face of Dr. Doom (the story of which is told here with goofball glee) from The Owl’s personal collection, and that particular crime boss is holding the rest of his fake-Sinister Six squad hostage over it… and Fred couldn’t care less. He’s got problems with B.S.ing his parole officer, one Abner Jenkins, former Beetle and current Mach Something-Or-Other.
Thankfully for the Six (which are actually just three – it made sense in Fred’s mind), they’ve got the current Beetle. Overdrive may panic and Speed Demon may have a bum leg, but she’s got an ace in the hole and doesn’t blink at Owl’s threats – and that ace turns out to be her father, who happens to be an underworld heavy you may have heard of named Tombstone.
Spencer’s dialogue is very entertaining, and it’s obvious he enjoys juggling hair-brained schemes and criminal shenanigans like this. It’s always a good time when great writers take obscure characters and just have a ball with them in ways that make sense. Plus, Steve Lieber’s artwork is a lot of fun, imaginatively detailed and very much in the David Aja Hawkeye vein, which gives this book a very contemporary and snazzy feel. You just feel like you’re reading something cool when you open up Superior Foes of Spider-Man, so you should do that. Read it. Keep it going. Because small-time supervillains in a world of big-time superheroes is always an engaging juxtaposition. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it looks great. What more do you need out of a comic book?
