Well, this has ended, a 4 Part mini series (With 2 one shots) where Bryan Reed takes a shot at resurrecting the 2099 universe. Initially I had high hopes for this, it looked more true to the original 2099 universe than Robert Kirkman’s Marvel Knights 2099, which had nothing to do with any previous 2099 save the date, however this series was badly disappointing.
I should at this point say, I was a huge Punisher 2099 fan, and really liked Spider-man 2099 under Peter David, and this looked kind of faithful. The plot centres on Alchemax sending the Punisher (Jake gallows, as nutball 2099 Punisher) back in time to supposedly kill off heroes. In fact he’s sending them to 2099.
This wasn’t quite the 2099 we used to know, it has the same people, and its corporate run, but in this world heroes are corporate mascots, the police are punisher themed for example. This is explained near the end, and we do get a brief glimpse of the real Doom and Punisher 2099. However the rest of this series was a pretty big disappointment. It is basically Spider and Wolverine in the future, but with a rather confusing time travel plot. What actually kills this series is its closeness to the original 2099. It feels tantalisingly close, so how have they got it so wrong, who decided to remake Spidey 2099 as a kid, and as a near carbon copy of the present day spidey? And who came up with an intriguing notion of a slight change to the 2099 universe, only to more or less use it only for backgrounds.
This is the real problem, it feels like setup, when what I wanted was my old 2099 universe back, and the setup of a new spidey 2099 who is markedly less unique and interesting than the original 2099 spidey, and a group of near enough X-men led by wolverine of the future just doesn’t wet my appetite at all.
In short, Reed obviously wanted to put his own stamp on this, but sadly it is too unique to be what I wanted, and too like the old universe to be something new (Which at least Kirkman’s one shots had in their favour)
Marvel, next time you want to do 2099, let peter David do it, in fact, bring back the first 2099 team.
I'm inclined to agree sadly. This series really lost me over its changes to Miguel O'Hara who, as you say, was a much more interesting character in the original 2099, and is now just a Peter Parker clone.
ReplyDeleteI will give Reed credit for at least explaining at the end that the timeline had changed shifting the normal 2099 into this new one, so at least they acknowledged and explained why everything was different.
A real pity though, as for the first issue or so, I thought this revamp was actually pretty interesting. It appeared to nicely toe the line between bringing in familiar elements of 2099 but doing something different with them. However it went off the boil as it went on.
Hopefully its not put a tin lid on future 2099 projects. They could pick up this version and run with it with some tweaks (fix Miguel).
Yeah, I did like the explanation as to how the timeline had been altered, and I do hope it doesn't end all 2099 projects, either this version could be picked up again with a fixed miguel (Place it 10 years later, 2109 perhaps) and have him grow up more like his old self.
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