Marvel Knights, Spider-Man: Fight Night Review (Matt Kindt, Marco Rudy)

Is Matt Kindt a real person or a writing programme for companies like Marvel to churn out product with? I’m serious because it says Matt Kindt wrote this book but it reads like someone input the regular Spider-Man elements into a programme and it spit out this POS script. 

Spider-Man’s going to fight 99 villains because dumbass comics readers only want to see the hero socking a villain as often as they can - they’ll clap their drool-inflected paws together at this and love it! Remember, it’s Spider-Man so have him mention Uncle Ben several times, quip quip quip, and then throw Mary Jane in there so he can kiss her and make it seem like the story has a semblance of a heart. Have we hit the required page count? Ok, send it off to an artist who can hit deadlines, print and SELL SELL SELL! 

Kindt’s writing really is that shallow. The whole “hero running the gauntlet” storyline has been done before and can be interesting to read - Bane makes Batman go through multiple villains to wear him down before he steps in and breaks his back in Knightfall, and Jason Aaron sent Vietnam-era Punisher into that good night after he’d killed his way through his rogues’ gallery once and for all in Punisher MAX.

But here? It’s so rushed and inconsequential that it barely matters whether you read the words on the pages or not, and the ending doesn’t make any sense at all - it’s so contrived and cynical a book, you can tell this was something Marvel just wanted to throw out there. Kindt doesn’t care about this story, it’s not something he’s always wanted to tell, it’s just crap product designed to make money from Spider-Man fans who’ll read anything starring their favourite wall-crawler. 

I won’t say anything more about the script except that it’s so bad, it makes Jeph Loeb’s Spider-Man work look good in comparison.

The art on the other hand looks flashy but feels derivative. Spidey gets drugged and sees things hazily so Marco Rudy goes for an art style that feels exactly like Dave McKean’s in Arkham Asylum - very art school-y and “avant garde”. Elsewhere, Rudy utilises page layouts that feel like inferior versions of JH Williams III’s or Yanick Paquette’s, and other times his figures feel like they were drawn by late ‘90s-era Paul Pope. 

I felt that Rudy’s art was a composite of other artists’ styles rather than his own so while technically it’s pretty good - though the pages look a little too busy at times - I can’t say I was impressed much with it. But he does an ok job with the book considering how little he was given to work with from Kindt. 

I kept reading because I was fascinated with just how bad this was, wondering how on earth this script got approved in the first place before realising that so long as Spider-Man’s in it, Marvel will print ANYTHING, no matter the quality. 

Don’t bother with Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, guys - this is one of the worst, most forgettable Spider-Man books ever created.

Marvel Knights: Spider-Man - Fight Night