Posted - July 19, 2014 | Updated : August 27, 2015

I'm not sure whether to consider writer Reginald Hudlin a shirker or wonderfully creative. I'm of two minds about his Marvel Knights Spider-Man #15. For one thing Reginald went to Action Comics #1, that's right DC's Action Comics #1 and just "borrowed" several pages from that iconic work to include in Marvel Knights Spider-Man #15 . No kidding. They even have the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster artwork. See here . . .

Maybe the right statement is he was inspired by the classic Superman story. Yeah, that's it.

Maybe shirker is not the right word at all. I don't think it's about of laziness, it's very tongue-in-cheek and quite entertaining. The slight changes that Hudlin makes to the Superman story are worth noting. First is the spacecraft that young Superman lands in.

Yup, that's a Jack Kirby spacecraft complete with Kirby dots.. I almost said Marvel spacecraft but the King also did a lot of DC work in the seventies.

Next from Mr. Hudlin is this panel.

Yup, Mom has healthy urges and Dad "shocks the monkey", "slaps the salami" , you know when he's not "taking one-eye to the optometrist".

The cherry on top of Marvel's Superman sundae is this.

That's right, Superman is now Spider-Man's apprentice. Oh yeah.

On the art front, Billy Tan is joined by Mark Buckingham. Tan's visuals were good to begin with but Buckingham's involvement gives everything a noticeable polish. Here's a very close up view of Spider-Man with the police in the background.

The panel below would have been a really great panel if they had gotten the two small upper left panels out of the way.

Wow. That building in the background. Really good.

Clark is going around with a hodgepodge costume with a half mask just like The Shadow minus the hat. So, of course, Peter will recognize him. Superman has x-ray vision so he can see through the Spider-Man mask so he knows Spidey is Peter. This is a good move on Hudlin, the whole secret identity thing was frayed from the time Peter and Clark went into action against Absorbing Man last issue.

Let's to take a peek at Absorbing Man and his mystery partner. They are just now reporting to their boss.

This is Wolverine's big brother, the Owl. In a Kingpin-less world (temporary I'm sure) he's the top mob boss.

And now a new player joins us.

Thank God for the costume because that face is not recognizable to me as Frank Castle - its both leaner and younger than what I'm used to - I was raised on the John Romita Jr. version of the Punisher.

The Punisher manages to shoot the Absorbing Man while Creel is in human form. He panics but Ms. Whats-Her-Name gives him great advice.

Lastly, let's tackle Peter's lost wallet. If it was you what would you do? Would you ask for help? From whom? My first thought is Dr. Strange. But for a lost wallet? That's a bit insulting to the Doctor isn't it? Maybe Professor X? Same situation. The thing is, a lost wallet is extremely embarrassing for Spider-Man. Aunt May getting kidnapped he can ask help from the big guns, but a lost wallet? Peter, ever the genius, has recourse to Hank Pym, specifically to Pym's Ant-Man powerset.

Well, look at lucky Hank Pym.

Nice house in the country, able to do what he loves at leisure. It must be heaven to be part of the 1%. And as a bonus, he gets to bone Janet Van Dyne.

So Peter has to do the very difficult thing of telling Dr. Pym that he lost his wallet. The reaction is understandable.

Look at the two panels above. First panel, Pym lets fly with the coffee. And the second panel shows that Spider-Man moved aside to dodge and is now facing the other way. It' s a very small detail but these attention to detail really adds up and is very much appreciated.

Back in Marvel Knights Amazing Spider-Man #12, the Green Goblin made a comment about the Parker genius that invented web fluid. Here Pym makes the same comment but this time its about the Parker genius that created the Spider Tracer.

Both comments are along the lines of "why are you engaging in slugfests when you should be in the lab?". Man, if Peter went in the lab exclusively the whole Marvel empire would collapse.

So this issue? The Superman thing is getting old. The Absorbing Man subplot is good, let's go with that. Plotting seems to be all over the place. Art is solid though. It's enough to make me curious about issue 16. No cliffhangers this time around which I find really refreshing.

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