Knowing it will be a team effort to defeat Carnage 2099, Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis #1 establishes many key characters and the villain for what will be an epic month-long story arc. Since it's not a Spider-Man 2099 solo story, it feels bigger, exciting, and a maximum 2099 extravaganza. Read Full Review

Steve Orlando already did more than enough to prove he's got a great vision for the 2099 world of Miguel O'Hara, and this latest adventure is just further confirmation that he's the writer for the job. Read Full Review

With more focus, Orlando could potentially turn his love for 2099 into something a little more organized, exciting, and better written. Bringing in more 2099 versions of fan favorite characters is a promising reason to keep reading. Read Full Review

Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis #1 starts a new adventure for the hero of tomorrow when social/class strife leads to violent protests, and a new Carnage emerges to become the weapon of revenge for the people. The art is solid, and the technical aspects of the writing are good, but the story gets painfully heavy-handed with social commentary. Read Full Review

It's a direct sequel to the author's Exodus miniseries. While it's more promising than Exodus (so far), I can't go so far as to call it "good."

It's not as scattershot as the previous series, but I wouldn't say it's really focused. It doesn't rely on continuity links to decades-old comics I haven't read, which is a plus. And it handles the world-building job of defining class conflict in 2099 pretty well.

But it *does* demand that the reader is familiar with Exodus. While Dark Genesis hasn't jumped the rails, it's not yet engaging enough to justify trundling through the often-disappointing prequel.

Justin Mason's chunky, dynamic art is a big positive, though. The clarity of the visuals frees the reader up to concentrate on parsing the just-a-little-too-busy script.
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