"All of the director's musical, film and comic-book loves are on display; he gives much play to the grungy martial-arts melodrama Five Fingers of Death, evoking its use of Quincy Jones's Ironside theme and plucking several of its plot devices. As befits that kind of density, there are more entrances, back stories and origins in Vol. 2 than in the first hundred issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, Leone's Man With No Name trilogy and all the Shogun Assassin movies combined. But unlike the 100-meter-high hurdles of Vol. 1, Vol. 2 feels like a cross-country run, with hills and long stretches of flatland, as it settles into its casual, carnage-laden pace. It has the wily, extended cadences of Leone's movies, with the first 15 or so minutes filmed in loamy, luscious black-and-white and set in what could only be called exploitation-picture Texas. (What the master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro does with shadow, the director of photography Robert Richardson does with light, painting even the interiors with warm, bright flares. His harsh but loving glow permeates this adventure and, like Mr. Storaro's, his signature is instantly recognizable.)"