Straight into the fire we go!
Creative Staff:
Story: Dennis Hopeless
Art: Greg Land
What They Say:
Spider-Verse Tie-In! Jessica Drew is a woman with a mission and with Silk, the newest spider-character on the block at her side, she’ll have to put all her training to the test if she wants to make it out of Spider-Verse alive!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With all the attention on this book over the last few months, from artist to variant cover, I was certainly curious what Spider-Woman would be like. Written by Dennis Hopeless with art by Greg Land, the book hits right in the midst of the ongoing Spider-Verse event, which is covered lightly in the preface page that fills us in on Jessica Drew’s origin and why she’s bopping around the multiverse protecting a young woman named Silk alongside a 1930’s prohibition era Spider-Man as well. It’s the kind of setup that, while it makes sense, is complicated enough in itself that you can imagine it being a hard way to launch a new book. And to a good degree it is, especially if you’re hoping to draw in completely new readers who want to support a female-centric book that may not be reading other Spider-Verse material.
The premise is straightforward enough though in that we have Jess, Peter and Silk making their way around, trying to stay out of the death-clutches of a pair of Inheritors that feed on the life force of those with powers like theirs. While we have a sprawling war going on across the multiverse, in this particular group Jess is definitely the senior player with what she’s seen over the years, especially since Silk is basically a teenage girl that’s been locked away for a decade in a world that was pretty much fallen apart. Adding in a heroic 1930’s Spider-Man with a very simple view of the world and its workings, she’s more babysitter and protector for all of them as opposed to just Silk. So a decent chunk of time in this issue has them on a strange world trying to lie low, only to fall to their base need of being heroes, which in turn draws in the sibling Inheritors to consume them.
The action is decent and the banter you expect is there, but it’s a rabbiting plan that’s in motion as they can’t win against these opponents yet. And with Peter wound, all Jess can do is to bring him back to his own time with Silk, leave him there and move on since her end goal is protecting her. That provides for a bit of the moral problems going on here since Silk wants to do the right thing by Peter, and she knows that leaving him there to be helped is only going to get him killed sooner or later by what else is out there. Jess is well portrayed here since she’s at the end of her rope with all that’s going on and is focused on the realities of the mission, which is why when we get the arrival of “our” Peter alongside a few others, she gets pretty resentful when he pulls her off this mission for one that only she can handle, leaving the bodyguard work to Spider-Girl Anya and Spider-Gwen.
In Summary:
As an opening issue, it’s… well, it’s what I expect in a way since it’s a tie-in to the Spider-Verse storyline and I’m not reading that. It’s not the most accessible book in the world (I can’t imagine a complete newbie thinking this is worth it) but for those who’ve read comics long enough, you can latch onto the basics well enough and run with it, partially thanks to the preface page. Dennis Hopeless keeps things moving here and it works well enough to give us a sense of Jess in this particular kind of situation, but little about her. And it’s a setup for the split events that the book ends with. Unfortunately, this doesn’t feel like a Spider-Woman book but just a Spider-Verse book, so there’s a wariness about it from me. I do like Greg Land’s art in general as he has some good layouts and panel design, and obviously the characters look good (though not overdone). I definitely like the second half for his work better since there are actual backgrounds in it and the whole thing felt a bit more cemented. I’m interested and curious, but still mainly for Jessica as opposed to the Spider-Verse storyline.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 19th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
