Spider-Man: The Secret of the Sinister Six

Gentleman, not. At least if you want to have the Sinister Six working for you, anyway. Castro has put together a pretty decent Spider-Man yarn here, from explaining the facts of lameness to a new bad-guy calling himself Disk Jockey who apparently is so oblivious, while living in Marvel New York, that he has no idea what superheroes or supervillains are. Neither Spider-Man or the retired newsagent he has to help out from this doofus can believe it. There are more serious problems though than the aforementioned character, not to mention the Sinister Six, a new member of whom may be linked to Spidey's past, or even related to him. Luckily getting away with their confrontation this time, the webslinger has a little help in the form of the raygun wielding SAFE agents. A few bits and pieces scattered throughout, some homages to other writers with 'an Oltion generator', an Askegren, etc., and a truly bizarre cameo in Wold-Newton style at the end. Oh, and Wolverine. 3.5 out of 5

This is a terrific book- it doesn't take itself too seriously, there are some interesting details provided about Spiderman's double life and it ends the series nicely, while leaving room for future superhero adventures of course. Villains get what they deserve and characters who really, desperately needed a happy ending get it. I have to disagree with other reviewers- the ending was as fun and satisfying as the rest of the book.

I was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining this book actually is! While somewhat put off by the rather cheesy cover-art, I took a chance and was well rewarded. This book has excellent character development, well-written and interesting battle-scenes and everyone's very much "in character". Gustav Fiers is a villain of such moral emptiness, so vilely unlikable and so hateful that regular Spidey villains such as Dr. Octopus and Electro almost come off as the guys next door by comparison. The books' main flaw was that after all was said and done, an ending of such unbelievable tackiness and cheesiness was pasted on as to almost defy rationality. It's really bad, folks. Really, really BAD. That said, I hope we see more about the Spider-Man mythos from this author. I'd recommend this to anyone the least bit interested in or familar with the Marvel universe.

Mr. Troy-Castro has bested himself in this book. I loved the way he portrayed both Electro and Mysterio, Mysterio especially, with his illness and him being so defensive about it. But the only thing I din not like about this book is that Spidey doesn't get ... beat enough! (Come on, the bad guy should be able to get some glory once in a while!)

The Sinister Six are still following the directives of the Gentleman, but they are getting restless to resolve his plan. Especially those who are rebelling against his authority, Doctor Octopus mainly.Spider-Man is still besieged by doubt over the origin of Pity, the newest Six member. Implications from the previous novel in the trilogy pointed to her being his sister, but there are still considerations to support the contrary. The story moves along very fast, and is the first among the Marvel novels really to have some graphic violence. But it is not too gratuitous, keeping in character with the murderers it is related to. Sometimes the story might seem a bit disjointed due to the narrative style of going back several minutes in time to describe what was happening off-stage, as it were. There are some twists near the end, but they are not too surprising. There is good resolution and updating with regard to the comics, as Castro fills in a bit on what the future holds for our villains after this novel occurs. The very end gives us some revelations that, to me at least, seemed tacked on. A certain character appears to provide these new insights. The only part of this interaction that I liked was the reactions of Peter and Mary Jane to finding this person in their home. Now THAT was funny.I liked this book, as it really kept to the comic book perceptions of the characters. However, there were an atrocious number of typos, grammar errors, and just poor editing, even for a first edition like this. It really detracted from the reading experience, so my advice is to wait for a later edition; hopefully this issue will be rectified. Spidey fans should definitely like this one.