Spider-Woman #1. A Future Uncertain!

Mere weeks ago, I took a look at the pulse-pounding debut of The Savage She-Hulk, the comic which proved women could smash things up too.

But She-Hulk wasn't the only female imitation of a male Marvel superstar to receive a comic of her own in that era.

We also got the start of a brand new series for Spider-Woman, brought to us by the dream team of Carmine Infantino and Marv Wolfman.

As the cover blurb informed us, to know her is to fear her! And, let's be honest, there are some who fear the writing of Marv Wolfman and the art of Carmine Infantino.

But what of me? Can I survive such three-sided terror, with my sanity intact?

We start with Spider-Woman hanging from a ceiling in a deserted London supermarket, at night, contemplating whether to steal from it, having not eaten in days.

No sooner has she decided not to lower herself to such robbery, than an agent of SHIELD, called Jerry, tries to arrest her for shoplifting, on behalf of Scotland Yard.

She gives him the slip - but not before he's seen her face and declared that he recognises her.

Actually, he says something along the lines of, "Your lovely, lovely, beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent face! I've seen it somewhere before!" I am paraphrasing there but it gives you an idea of the sort of thing Jerry from SHIELD likes to blurt out.

She declares it to be impossible for him to recognise her and rapidly returns to her rented hovel to bemoan her lot as an unemployed super-heroine who no one likes because, being half spider, they find her disturbing.

A lengthy flashback then tells us she's Jessica Drew, daughter of a scientist who wanted to inject us all with spider serum so we can survive the pollution and radiation the future's guaranteed to bring us.

Happily for the story, he wasn't a lone lunatic because his best friend was the man who'd go on to become the High Evolutionary and, when little Jessica started to die from radiation sickness, thanks to the massive quantities of uranium that lay beneath their base in Wundagore, her father injected her with his spider serum while the High Evolutionary started super-evolving her until, after several years, she became half-woman and half-spider.

Now living in London, she spends her time agonising over her life, failing to get a job and repulsing everyone, with her latent air of spideryness.

But, as it happens, roaming around the city again, she sees Jerry fighting a bunch of criminals armed with laser guns and she quickly puts a halt to their activities.

But it's all too late for Jerry who's been lasered, good and proper.

So, she rushes him to the hospital, gives him a transfusion of her blood and flies off, leaving him to lie in his bed and, not at all creepily, declare that he wants her as he's wanted no other woman!

I thought issue #1 of Black Goliath was depressing but it's nothing compared to this. Our heroine really is in a wretched situation and it seems to be getting worse with every moment. She has no family, no friends, no sense of identity, no sense of purpose, no food, no money, everyone hates her for reasons they don't seem to know, and the law is after her.

There are strangenesses to all this.

For instance, just why is a SHIELD operative guarding a supermarket while on secondment to Scotland Yard? I can only assume Hydra's been a bit quiet lately.

Also, Jessica decides to dye her hair black, so Jerry won't recognise her if he sees her again but, at the same time, she alters her mask, making her hair visible. Thanks to this, if Jerry ever does see her again, he'll be able to spot, at once, that she's changed her hair colour, ruining the whole point of her changing it.

Also, how exactly is she paying her rent?

I have to say it, Marv Wolfman's script is terrible. No one talks like the people in this comic talk and Jerry, who I assume we're supposed to like, comes across as a weird, stalkerish madman. Try as I might, I think I'm going to have serious trouble accepting him as Spider-Woman's Steve Trevor.

Carmine Infantino's art is fairly heavily buried beneath Tony DeZuniga's inks, so it looks noticeably more stylish than it often did during this phase of his career.

So, has knowing Spider-Woman caused me to fear her?

Well, not really.

I just feel a sense of hopelessness for her.

And that's probably my problem with the book. It's certainly more interesting than that first issue of She-Hulk but it's such a downer that I'm not sure I'd want to read any more issues of it.

Then again, there is a part of me that's curious to see just how it goes from here and whether this aura of misery and depression is maintained or if it's quickly abandoned for something less offputting.

Items of possible further interest: