Oh Multiverse, you vex us so. The premise of the Multiverse is awesome. Its execution has been sketchy and inconsistent, with some characters and worlds being much more enjoyable than others. By far, the best job at establishing multiple protagonists in the same or different timelines is Spider-Man. It’s so effective at it that you can simply call it the Spider-Verse. Around the Spider-Verse: An Original Graphic Novel Collection is a new collection stories within that world that grabs your attention regardless of where your knowledge is about Spider lore.
The cover kicks off the curiosity by having Miles Morales, Ghost-Spider and Arana in a glossy, reflective illustration. They’re each doing their spider-thing in their own particular manner. Place the graphic novel in front of an elementary or middle school student and have them not touch its cover. Resistance is futile, they will run their fingers over the figures, and then open the graphic novel, thumbing through the illustrations.
It doesn’t look like most graphic novels they’re used to. The static illustrations seem to move. They have a casual, playful attitude that’s in-line with Across the Spider-Verse or Into the Spider-Verse. The art is realistic, but also hazy at times, with a very occasional dose of manga absurdity.
Part of this variety can be explained by the fact that there are three different stories. Miles Morales has an action-based story where he battles Mysterio at a museum. Ghost-Spider has her own story. She’s dealing with the idiocy that happens in high school, making friends, humbling the jerks who inhabit the lunchroom, and willing her band “The Mary Janes”, into fruition.
Arana starts Around the Spider-Verse: An Original Graphic Novel Collection. Who’s Arana? Don’t worry about it if you don’t know. I didn’t know when I started the story. It caught my interest and immediately shed the ‘baby Muppet’ curse. She’s trying to spend time with her father, but he’s distracted by a big story he’s researching. His eventual disappearance leads her to The Bronx Zoo where she meets Ana Kravinoff, the daughter of Kraven the Hunter, Rhino and Spider-Man himself pops up too.
The thing that sets Spider-Man stories apart, including those that happen within the Spider-Verse, are how they blend action, purpose, heart and an ability to build a world. The reason that The Amazing Spider-Man is one of the go-the comic book series is that it ebbs and flows with all of those ingredients. Around the Spider-Verse: An Original Graphic Novel Collection does the same thing, but in a short story format. Each story is different, but has DNA that’s just similar enough to allow fans of any Spidey-entity to follow along and have fun.
It’s a Graphix graphic novel. Graphix is the imprint of Scholastic that nails elementary-aged graphic novels to the floor. Your elementary school student or child might not know the brand name, but they recognize the quality when they thumb through it. For those who do know the name brand, it manages to cross up into older demographics like any great all-age comic book does. This is superhero fun that punches, or web slings, above its weight.
Around the Spider-Verse: An Original Graphic Novel Collection is by Pablo Leon, Justin A. Reynolds, Penelope Rivera Gaylord, Roseanne A. Brown and Maca Gill and is available on Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic.
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