Spider-Woman #1. Jessica’s So Called Life

Spider-Woman #1 Review

The Spider-Verse is in full swing and completely blowing my mind, but probably not in the way you would think. The Spider-Verse is so intense and confusing that it’s actually made my brain hurt. So many spidermens so little time, but one spider with the support of her popularity has managed to spread her web wings and branch out on her own, no not the too cute Spider-Gwen, the powerful and independent Spider-Woman.

The emotionally damaged Jessica Drew takes to the scene with her ongoing series with Spider-Woman #1. The Spider-Verse is under attack from vampires who crave spider blood. I’m not quite sure how it all works, like I told you, the Spider-Verse is hella confusing. Nevertheless Jessica has been tasked with protecting and hiding Silk, a spider that draws the vampire family out like hipsters to PBR’s on nickel beer night.

Spider-Woman #1 is filled with the Spider-Verse, taking Silk and Jessica back in the prohibition days with some type of steam punk spidey and a silver masked Black Cat. The story here isn’t as important since Jessica probably wont be dealing with much of this anymore, because Spider-Man, of Earth 616, our most common Peter Parker and deemed strongest among all spidermens has given her a new job, one too large for any other Spider and one only he trusts her with. Babysitting is not Spider-Woman’s strong suit anyways.

Starting Spider-Woman #1 as part of the Spider-Verse does it a huge injustice. Dennis Hopeless does a great job building Jessica as a brilliant and strong combatant, no one in the right mind would start a fight with Ms. Drew. It should be no surprise then that Jessica will be moving away from the Spider-Verse and going her own sort of way in this new ongoing series. Personally, it needs to be this way if Spider-Woman is going to gain any respect in the Marvel Universe right now.

Hopeless get’s some great help from Greg Land in the art department of Spider-Woman #1. Each page is crisp with clean action sequences, which they need to be since Spider-Woman isn’t necessarily the funny quirky character like Parker, so a lot of her book is going to demand much more attention to her aggressive prowess on ever page.

Spider-Woman #1 is only as strong as where it’s going to go. If Jessica stayed in the Spider-Verse I would have disregarded the book, but with her branching out of that universe, it’s opened up my curiosity enough to see where she’s going next. I love the Spider-Woman character, she’s almost one of my favorite female Marvel characters only after Dazzler, and She-Hulk…and Black Widow…ok, and Kitty Pryde.