Sony
Spider-Geddon, the sequel to the 2014 Spider-Verse storyline, begins in an exciting way. The Inheritors, the supervillains who literally eat people, have escaped the decimated world they were imprisoned on and they're thirsty for revenge. The supervillains' creator Christos N. Gage is also back to write the main storyline with art by Clayton Crain, who also illustrated the cool cover art for #0.
Marvel Comics
Set in Earth-1048, the comic opens up with Spider-Man listening to Jonah Jameson's podcast while swinging through the city, then Mary Jane informs him about the villain tearing up a bank who has a Spider-symbol on him. He learns that the villain is the predatory Tarantula. His steel spider-arms are equipped with a variety of weapons: flamethrower, blades, and a gun.
Marvel Comics
This is an exciting action-packed opener but the more powerful antagonists are not introduced in this issue yet. It quickly becomes more interesting when Superior Spider-Man of Earth-616 shows up after Tarantula is taken down with the dynamic web bomb. The initial conflict shows off a fun variety of Spider abilities. As Peter Parker puts it: "Can we put the brakes on variant Spider-people for two seconds?" Each character's powers, personality, and looks are distinguishable though. Superior Spider-Man's robotic spiders add to the high-tech feel of their short battles, which look less physical compared to Spidey's famous fights in the movies. Instead of taking hard punches and firepower, they get wrapped up in webs.
Spider-Man's famous witty attitude and humorous dialogue about Tarantula's "copyright infringement" shows us the fun side of Parker's web-slinger while Superior Spider-Man (Otto Octavius) has the tech-smarts and seriousness that contrast well with Parker's humor.
The plot progresses from what seemed like afternoon to night, giving us various shades of blue and purple of urban horizons in the background. While this issue teases the bigger conflict the various Spider heroes will have to face, this chapter is more like a prologue that characterizes two different Spider-Men. The dialogues between Parker and Octavius clearly show their differences in personality and capabilities, not just their costumes and style. Their teamwork against Tarantula is probably just a taste of their unity with the other Spider heroes.
Overall, this is a good start to a fun Spider-Man storyline I can't wait to continue. Crain's artworks here look great, and the Gage's writing is a good, lighthearted build-up to an epic storyline. The meeting of these two Spider-Men develop these characters well but their interaction also hints that they're just parts of a bigger multiverse and that there's another Peter Parker and Mary Jane in a different universe. It's a fun concept to see various Spider heroes meet but it's so coincidental to see that the same familiar characters somehow know each other within their universes. It's kind of like a huge snow-globe. There's a lot of space for possibilities inside but it seems formulaic to bring together a Peter Parker, an Octavius, and a Mary Jane in each universe as if they're all trapped in a web of connections. Nonetheless, Spider-Geddon #0 promises to be an epic journey that will show us the various fun sides of our favorite web-slingers.