Amazing Spider-Man Annual #25, Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #11, Web of Spider-Man Annual #7 Synopsis and review by guest writer, Don DeGracia The basic gist of this three part cross-over in the 1991 Spider-Man annuals is that the Roxxon Corporation has invented a synthetic form of vibranium. This pulls all kinds of creepy crawly villains out of the closet including Kingpin, Ultron, a Moon Knight rip-off called the Ghost, and Sunturian. The first three want to steal the synthetic vibranium, the last one is protecting it for Roxxon. Spider-Man, the Black Panther and Ironman team up to thwart the greedy machinations of the villains. In principle, the main concept of "The Vibranium Vendetta" is really interesting and could have made a really great story. Unfortunately the execution was lacking. In a nutshell, the stories are dull and boring, and the art looks rushed, like it was slapped together in about 15 minutes. None of our favorite characters even look like themselves. One of the few cool scenes in the whole story occurs when Spidey and the Panther are attacked by a bunch of Ultron's robots and the Panther grabs a machine gun and starts to blow the robots away. In terms of substance, there isn't very much here. T'Challa is obviously interested in the synthetic vibranium because it threatens the economic security of Wakanda. It turns out that the synthetic vibranium is rotten and decays to "antarctic" vibranium which destroys metal. The Roxxon executives know their vibranium is bad and cover this fact up. Meanwhile, the Kingpin wants the synthetic vibranium because he knows it'll make him rich. Ultron wants it to incorporate into his body to make him stronger. All throughout "The Vibranium Vendetta" there is no suspense, the motives of the villains are pathetically simple, and the characterization of the super heroes is flat out boring. I've never much liked Ultron (sorry to all you Avengers fans) and he is portrayed very poorly here. It's hard to imagine a robot having so many petty feelings. The Kingpin is never in the action at all but behind the scenes pulling strings. And the Ghost is about as two-dimensional as you can get. In the end, Spidey, the Panther and Ironman sniff out the bad guys and Ironman buries the bad vibranium several miles underground. By this point in the story, if you are not sleeping, you are most assuredly either yawning or artificially sustained by caffeine. I only got these issues because I'm a Black Panther fan and wanted to read a story with the Panther in it. From this point of view, the stories were really disappointing. The Panther takes a back seat. It's as if the writer just had a knee-jerk reaction to involve him at all: "Oh, we have vibranium in the story, so we better put the Black Panther in because...doesn't he have something to do with vibranium?"

Writers: David Michelinie Artists: Guang Yap and Jeff Albrecht (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #25); Marie Severin (Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #11); Yap, K. Aiken and B. LaRosa (Web of Spider-Man Annual #7) "The Vibranium Vendetta" is nothing less than a disaster. It's everything we never want to see in a comic story: poor art, dull story, and flat characterization. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get into this story at all. I read it mainly because it featured the Black Panther, but the way the Panther is portrayed in this story, I can't even take it as legitimate. Even though this is primarily a Spider-Man story (and a poor one at that!), the story makes no use at all of the volume of Black Panther history. This story adds nothing to the development of the Black Panther as a character and adds little to T'Challa's personal history. The story is simple-minded brain candy. In summary, if you are totally bored, feel like wasting a few bucks, and have read every other story with the Black Panther in it, then you might want to pick these three issues up. About the only reason to do this would be if you are a hard-core Black Panther completist and want to collect and read all the stories the Panther has ever been in. This is definitely one of the worst.

Return to Stories.