Sunday, January 27, 2013

CBR Spider-Girl

 

Time for another comic book review!

Like I wrote in the past I kinda grew up on Spider-man comics, though I'm not really a fan of his more recent on-going series.
I feel the brand popularity made Marvel make poor decisions regarding the series, be it keeping Peter Parker eternally young and rehashing the same stories over and over again or just plain going out of topic with the stories...
Spider-man's always been synonymous with simple fun colorful adventures.
Spidey is an average joe turned super hero, he is The friendly neighborhood Spider-man after all. His stories should be easily approachable by new readers and long time fans alike.



Today's review is for one of my favorite Marvel Comics characters and don't let the "girl" part in her name fool you, she's a strong woman that kicks major ass!

For more stories of AMAZING FANTASY check those out!!

Comic title: Spider-Girl
Art by Pat Olliffe, Ron Frenz, Al Williamson & Bill Sienkiewicz
Story by Tom DeFalco

Published by Marvel Comics
From 1998, 2001
Lineup MC2, Spider-Girl
Format: Trade paperback collecting Spider-Girl issues #0–8 (#0 is a reprint of What If #105).

Launched in 1998 in an issue of What If - an on-going series that allowed long time Marvel fans to see past storiestaking alternate turn of events..
The original story was just a one-shot by then-editor and writer Tom DeFalco.
The story followed a now older Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson who had kept their child, now a teen named May "Mayday" Parker.
During a basketball competition, May's later spider-powers kicked in and she now was starting to get the amazing abilities Peter received long ago from a radioactive spider!

Thus was born Marvel Comics 2, MC2 in short.
DeFalco orchestrated this entire new alternate Marvel Universe in the pages of Spider-girl and other titles were published alongside filling in the blanks.
The idea was to offer a different Marvel U that was free from years of continuity, yet for fans it would connect and make sense to see the bigger picture.
Spider-girl, A-Next (future Avengers) and J2 were launched as 12-issue limited series. But only Spider-girl continued uninterrupted and other titles replaced those two such as The Fantastic Five and Wild Thing (daughter of Elektra and Wolverine).
Spider-girl was canceled some times but due to her success and fan demand, DeFalco was able to get the book brought back under other different titles.
The MC2 wasn't completely stopped over the years and thus some mini-series, crossover or allusions were still made to it here and there once or twice.

It was an alternate future of the MU but set in present time.
(if the original Spider-man really debuted in 1962 with a 16 years old Peter Parker, he now was "in 1998" in his 50s)
More accessible to new readers and aimed at a wider audience. What Marvel would try again later with their Ultimate Comics imprint.


Spider-girl tells the adventures of May Parker as she discovers her heritage.
Peter and MJ never told her anything about Spider-man.
Now she resents them for hiding this from her...
Was her athletic prowess at school only due to her abilities? (May is on the basketball pro team)

Anyway, she doesn't get much room to think about all of it when Normie Osborn, son of Harry Osborn, decides to attack the Parker family. He wants his revenge on Spider-man and blames Peter for the loss of his father and grandfather (Norman, the original Green Goblin).
May springs into action, dons one of the spare Spider-man costumes lying around and is able to stop the crazy madman.

Exactly what Peter was trying to avoid at all costs.
But it's already too late, she now had a taste of the exciting life of the wall crawler.
And she won't let that go easily.


The Spider-girl series follow Mayday as she attends school at Midtown High while leading her double life as the Amazing Spider-girl!
It's both a school drama and a family comedy. The tone is definitively "old school".
It's a very fun book, probably one of the most fun teen comic books since the Silver Age. And I'm not even kidding.
This comic is definitively worthy of the original Spider-man series. It's quite reminiscent of Stan Lee's penned original series.
"We are “old school” because A) our heroes act like heroes…B) we don’t believe in decompression…C) we tell single issue stories with subplots that build from issue to issue… and D) there’s a lot of action and angst in every issue." - said Tom DeFalco in an interview for the comicboards.
And it really shows throughout the pages. The stories are self-contained yet episodic enough to let Mayday grow over the series. It's very fun. And there's a lot of action and adventure in true Spider-man fashion.
Sure, the enemies seem a bit over-the-top and colorful but nothing unlike what you'd expect in a Spider-man comic.
Mayday quickly face down some recurring foes such as the teleporter gangster Mr. Nobody and the wild acrobatic Crazy Eight.
There's a lot of enemies she meets over the 8 issues such as the Dragon Lord, the mysterious Spyral, the return of the Venom symbiote and more!


Spider-girl is simply my favorite.
Is it because she's a Spider-man character or a girl?
No, the truth is simply because she's awesome!!

She's more defined and full of life in a few pages in her series than the actual Spider-man is in his own current series these days.

I like how DeFalco made the series fun and even a bit self-aware.
The characters often joke around the situation, Mayday always wants to skip the usual "heroes fighting amongst them-introduction", villains monologue, etc.
And it's great to finally see a hero not ridden by angst and guilt.
She originally becomes Spidey not out of guilt like Pete wasn't able to prevent the death of his Uncle Ben, but to avoid it ever happening.

The entire course of these first issues is one big central story arc.
Mayday proving to her parents and to herself she is worthy of the webs.


The story takes place in an alternate Marvel Universe that took a slight different turn of events.
Most heroes are now aging, dead or replaced.
But there's still plenty of family faces around.
Legend has that Daredevil perished mysteriously several years back, yet there's now a strange "Darkdevil" haunting the streets of New York. (from the clues here and there it really seems like DeFalco originally planned him to actually be the real deceased Matt Murdock brought back from the dead)
The Kingpin of Crime still leads crime in NYC from his cell in prison.
Pete's long time friend Phil Ulrich works now at the Police Precinct with him but still longs for the day he was known as the "Good" Green Goblin.

There's a lot of characters in such a young series.
Mayday's school is full of fun faces from Davida Kirby - Mayday's best friend - to the nerdy Jimmy Yama and the brute Moose.
It's a whole new generation of Flash Thompsons and Felicia Hardys that fans will discover. (those still appear here and there, now older)

Will May finally obtain her family's trust? Will Pete finally deem her worthy of the webhead's tradition?
The story does come full circle by the end of this trade paperback, it makes one self-contained origin story out of these first issues.
It might appear like a big responsibility but if there's one thing the Parkers live by is that with these great powers Mayday should always do whatever's in her power to help others.


Overall, I truly adore this series!
What a great start.

The first arc does put the setting in place - no need to check out other MC2 titles if you just want to grab a copy of Mayday's adventures.
Some other characters do appear in support roles in these pages, such as the Fantastic Five and J2.

Honestly I feel like this book's the one true continuation of the classic Spider-man, despite still using more recent 90s stories such as Venom, the Clone Saga or the various returns of the Green Goblin.
The tone is light and fun and unlike anything you usually see in other super heroes story, here the parents known all about her super powers!

Most Spider-girl's original series has been reprinted in the form of digest-sized comics, thus only the first issues and later series are available as regular trade paperbacks such as this one.

Spider-girl is truly worthy of Peter Parker's legacy!
And she was here to stay! (until Marvel canceled her book one too many times, but that's a story for another time...)

I give it:
3 / 3 SpiderHams!
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