Spider-Man & X-Factor: Shadowgames

Marvel put out a lot of unneccesary crap in the 90's and this 3 issue mini-series is a prime example of some of that crap. There really is no reason for this series to exist, but I picked it up anyhow because it was written by Kurt Busiek. Yeah, the same Kurt Busiek that's known for NOT writing crap.

The premise of this series is treading on "already done this a thousand times over" territory. A clandestine government organization is trying to make superheroes. To do this, however, they need to kidnap superheroes to sample their DNA (but they can't do it to mutants because their powers are natural). So who do they go for? Spider-Man, of course. They send a group of throwaway mind-controlled prisoners with temporary superpowers after him.

Eventually Spider-Man gets captured, but X-Factor tracks him down and saves him. One of the supervillains, however, decided he should go kill Flash Thompson so Spider-Man runs off after him while X-Factor fights the baddies. There's a bunch of fighting and bad one-liners, but eventually the baddies are knocked out and everything is good again.

The only decent part of this series was the occasional splash page with some decent art by Pat Broderick. Other than these splash pages, however, this titled looked like the majority of Marvel's titles from the 90's.

Ratings:
Art: 2
Story: 2
Overall: 2