"Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Weapon of Choice":

 

            The following is a review of “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Weapon of Choice” as presented in Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            On Earth-65, teenager Gwen Stacy was bitten by a mutated spider. The bite transformed her, granting her amazing powers: a precognitive awareness of danger, adhesive fingertips and toes, and the proportional speed and strength of a spider. She uses those powers to fight supervillains as Spider-Woman and keep the multiverse safe.

            When she first got her powers, she tested them out wrestling to make money. She learned right from wrong when Ben Parker stopped a thief from robbing the box office. But it was the death of Peter Parker that turned her into a true hero. She has fought a myriad of villains over the years, some rather forgettable, like the Koala Kommander, teamed up with Captain America, joined and left the band the Mary Janes several times, and met Spider-Heroes from many other universes.

            Gwen Stacy of Earth-65 and Laura Kinney/Wolverine of Earth-616 woke up one morning to find their consciousnesses had been swapped. Gwen had to travel to Earth-616 to team up with Wolverine to solve the mystery of how their bodies were swapped, or their consciousnesses would deteriorate and leave them both mindless.

            After a battle against on Earth-616 against a villain, Gwen had her powers stolen. She needed to take a serum to use her powers, and the serum only granted them temporarily. Police detective Frank Castle had previously discovered Gwen’s secret identity as Spider-Woman. He teamed up with Kraven the Hunter to try to capture Spider-Woman. To that end, he sent dangerous animals after former police captain and Gwen’s father George Stacy at his house. During the fight, Gwen’s power injector was destroyed, and Kraven was able to steal the serum. Super genius Reed Richards was able to repair and enhance the device for Gwen. Gwen battled Castle again, and at the end of the fight, George Stacy turned himself in to the NYPD for aiding and abetting Spider-Woman. Following this, out of desperation, Gwen made a deal with the Kingpin of Crime, Matt Murdock: she would serve him as Spider-Woman in exchange for him to serve as her father’s lawyer.

            On Halloween, the Mary Janes went to the abandoned Cursed Carnival of Mysterio. As it turned out, Mysterio still haunted the carnival and forced the Mary Janes to face some of their greatest fears through the powers of his illusions.

            For Thanksgiving, Gwen invited the Spider-Woman of Earth-616, Jessica Drew, her partner Roger Gocking/Porcupine, and Jessica’s infant son Gerry over for dinner.

            The Kingpin brokered a deal with Cindy Moon, the imprisoned former director of the evil agency S.I.L.K. and manufacturer of Gwen’s spider-power-up serum, granting the Kingpin access to a continuous supply of the serum.

            On Earth-616, Miles Morales/Spider-Man’s father went on a mission for the peacekeeping agency S.H.I.E.L.D. into Earth-65 but went missing. S.H.I.E.L.D. director Maria Hill sent Miles to Earth-65 to find and rescue his father. Miles teamed up with Gwen, where Miles found this reality’s version of his father, who was actually a mob boss. Much more dimension hopping was involved over this caper, including where Gwen travelled to a future world where she and Miles were married with children. At the end of the adventure, Miles and Gwen felt a romantic attraction, but chose not to pursue it.

            Elsa Brock discovered an isotope for the serum that transformed Gwen’s friends Peter Parker and Harry Osborn into the Lizards that would essentially be a cure for Harry, but would also give Gwen her powers back. Gwen reluctantly accepted the mission and the symbiote. Harry’s location had been tracked to the island of Madripoor. However, Gwen wasn’t the only person interested in locating Harry. S.H.I.E.L.D. had also sent out two agents, Logan/Wolverine and Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat to locate Harry and bring him in. However, Wolverine and Shadowcat weren’t sharing the same mission and conflict broke out between the two. After the fallout of the mission, Gwen returned home to find out her father was in a coma after being attacked in prison. This caused the symbiote to overreact and created the birth of Gwenom.

            Okay, so I do have to say, I was slightly disappointed with this book. Last week I reviewed “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse” which precedes this book. I stated multiple times in that review that Earth-65 is “unique,” and that’s one of the things I love most about Spider-Gwen. I never know what to expect. But some of the changes were a little too unwelcome. In every other reality, George Stacy dies, so having a reality where he’s still alive is very unusual, especially with him in such a huge capacity supporting role. But him quitting the police force is just so out of character. Doing anything to protect Gwen isn’t, of course, but going to jail was a bit extreme. Frank Castle teaming up with Kraven the Hunter was also out of character. Gwen selling her soul to the Kingpin was extremely out of character, almost to the point of unbelievability. I could never see a Spider-Hero actually making a lasting deal with the Kingpin, even if the Kingpin is Matt Murdock. And the whole book with Gwen not naturally having her spider powers and getting them through artificial means just didn’t work for me. On top of that, the Miles/Gwen multiverse crossover just wasn’t as appealing to me as the Spider-Women crossover. This one was a little sloppy, with too many universes visited, and it was also a little stale having Miles’ father turning out to be a villain on Earth-65, just like Cindy Moon-65 was a villain. It just seemed a little too cliché at the point, like if you have a Spider-Gwen crossover someone heroic on Earth-616 has to be a villain on Earth-65. My biggest issue, however, was the art. I just did not like the artwork in Spider-Gwen at all. “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse” and “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Weapon of Choice” shared some artists, and in my prior review I said the stylized artwork didn’t appeal to me. Once again this was true. I mean no offense to the artists, but in the most case, this just wasn’t my kind of artwork. I appreciate what the artists were attempting to do, but for me, it just didn’t work.

            Okay, so let’s talk about accessibility before we go any further. Honestly, if you didn’t read “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse” you definitely should not read this book. This is a direct continuation and if you didn’t read the previous volume, it will be extremely difficult to pick up on the story. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s not easy. Also, you should know a bit about Miles Morales since the crossover is really not self-explanatory for the “Spider-Man” series of the time period. I don’t feel that this is a starter Marvel graphic novel. What I mean is if you’ve never read a Marvel comic before and are looking for a place to start, this is not it.

            Okay, I’ve gone on long enough, you probably want to hear just how good I thought this book was, giving it a numeric score. If you’ve read any of my reviews before, you know how this works, but for you newbs, I’ll explain. I score on a scale of one to ten. One means this is a terrible book, do not by any means read this. Ten means this book is one of the best books you’ll ever read, go out of your way to read it. My regulars know I’m a pretty harsh scorer, I don’t just go around giving tens, and you can tell by now this book does not get a ten from me. I have to take everything into account, the story and the artwork when I give my score, so, all cards on the table, I score this book as… drumroll please… six. To me the book was mediocre story wise, and the art just didn’t do it for me.

            Next, I’ll tell you if I recommend this book or not. In all honesty, I don’t generally recommend it, but if you are a Spider-Gwen fan, I would say you should give it a read, especially if you’re newer to Ghost-Spider and want to read the earlier stories, this does fill in a lot. I would just say you have to read “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse” in the Modern Era Epic Collection format first or you’ll have a difficult time picking it up. Other than that, I think you might enjoy it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t read it, especially if you’ve read this review and have met all my prerequisites and are interested in reading it, because I say in that case you totally should read this book, but if you don’t meet the prerequisites or are on the fence, I wouldn’t tell you to rush out and read it.

            Well, I feel as if I’ve gone on long enough. I really don’t want to bore you any further. So, I say to you if you’re reading this at this point, you are THE BEST, I appreciate you! I can also tell you to expect more content sometime in the next couple of weeks, so I really hope you’ll come back for that, and I will say that until then, Tim Cubbin… out!

“Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse”

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            We all know the story. Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained spider powers and became Spider-Man. Well, on Earth-65, Gwen Stacy was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spider-Woman. She has adhesive fingertips and toes, the proportional speed, strength and agility of a spider, and a precognitive awareness of danger. She also created web shooters. She uses her powers to fight crime.

            Her best friend Peter Parker became obsessed with Spider-Woman. He wanted to be “special” too, so he created a serum intended to give him powers, and he became the Lizard. Spider-Woman battled the Lizard, not knowing it was her best friend. At the end of the battle, Peter sustained a fatal injury. He reverted back to his human form. Spider-Woman was seen then and was blamed for the death of Peter Parker and became a wanted fugitive. Gwen’s father, George Stacy, is the police captain and lead the hunt for Spider-Woman.

            Gwen and her friends Mary Jane Watson, Glory Grant and Betty Brant formed the band the Mary Janes, for which Gwen became the drummer. On the night of the Mary Janes’ big gig, Captain Stacy was in attendance. Captain Stacy was responsible for putting away the former Kingpin of Crime in New York City, Wilson Fisk, but the new Kingpin, Fisk’s lawyer Matthew Murdock, planned to take down both Spider-Woman and Captain Stacy, so he hired a thug name Aleksei Sytsevich, also known as the Rhino, to attack the concert. Spider-Woman defeated the Rhino, but was cornered by Captain Stacy. Out of desperation, Gwen unmasked. Captain Stacy let Gwen go.

            A new villain soon appeared, Adrian Toomes, the Vulture, equipped with a flight suit. Captain Stacy found himself taken off the Spider-Woman case and was replaced by Frank Castle, a cop with a more aggressive approach at policing. Gwen found herself at odds with the Mary Janes after disappearing during their big break. Gwen sought the Vulture down, engaged him in battle and was defeated badly. The Kingpin made a deal with the Vulture to try to do the job the Rhino failed to do and attacked Captain Stacy in his own house. The Vulture struck just when Gwen and her father were attempting to reconcile. During the climax of the confrontation, Frank Castle arrived and fought Spider-Woman. Gwen won, but not before being unmasked by Castle, who was surprised to see that Spider-Woman was “just a girl.” Following this, on a guilt trip, Gwen paid a visit to May and Ben Parker, Peter’s Aunt and Uncle. May was becoming convinced the Spider-Woman may not have been responsible for Peter’s death, giving Gwen a confidence boost. She was then able to reconcile with the Mary Janes and perform with them again. Detective Jean DeWolff was then put on the Spider-Woman case. The Mary Janes got another big gig staged, opening for Felicia Hardy and the Black Cats. Felicia was also a high profile burglar on the Kingpin’s radar, and Murdock thought this was a perfect opportunity to take Felicia out, so he sent a squad of Ninjas after her, prompting Spider-Woman’s presence and a face-to-face between the Kingpin and Spider-Woman, revealing to Gwen just who her true enemy was.

            Gwen tried to be responsible and got a job at the Dollar Dog, which was regularly held up by Gwen’s “nemesis” the Bodega Bandit, but the Bodega Bandit got more than he bargained for when the store was attacked by reptilian humans, similar to Peter Parker’s Lizard form. This led Gwen to an investigation, where she encountered Samantha Wilson, the legendary superhero Captain America. The encounter did not go well for Gwen as Captain America believed Spider-Woman to be a murderer. The two battled both each other and more Lizard creatures, and Gwen was able to escape. Gwen and the Mary Janes went on a retreat to a lake house owned by Mary Jane’s Aunt Anna, where Gwen reunited with her old friend Harry Osborn. Harry, Peter and Gwen had played role-playing games, and Harry had earned the nickname “the Green Goblin,” for being rich, a name Peter loved to use but Harry hated. Harry had been blaming himself for Peter’s death. Harry had made a romantic advance on Gwen before prom when Peter used the serum to become the Lizard. Still, Harry swore revenge against Spider-Woman and used his father’s company’s technology to become the super villain the Green Goblin. During the battle between Spider-Woman and the Green Goblin, Harry took the Lizard serum. Captain America arrived on the scene, and the three battled, leading Cap to realize that Spider-Woman just might not be so bad after all. And tired of all the hypocrisy, George Stacy quit the police force.

            Gwen travelled to Earth-616, where her fellow Spider-heroes Jessica Drew, that reality’s Spider-Woman and Cindy Moon, also known as Silk, lived. They just wanted to have a regular breakfast, so Gwen suggested a nice place on Earth-65, Clowntown. Jessica was a brand-new mom. Cindy had been locked away in a bunker for ten years to hide from a group of evil beings who would have killed her if they had been able to locate her, and her parents had passed away and her brother had gone missing. Despite trying to have a normal girl’s breakfast, the Spider-Women were called into battle when a robot called the Super-Adaptoid attacked. While suiting up, the evil organization known as S.I.L.K. watched and stole Gwen’s dimensional transporter, trapping the three Spider-Woman on Earth-65. Cindy’s curiosity got the better of her and she decided to see if her family existed in this reality. In fact, they did, but it turned out that in this reality, Cindy was the director of S.I.L.K. She was rich, she was evil, but she didn’t have superpowers. Jessica went to search for the transporter and found out it had been taken by Earth-65’s version of her, Jesse Drew, who was a high ranking Agent of S.I.L.K. Cindy-65 used the transporter to go to Earth-616 and steal technology from Stark Tower, Alchemax and Parker Industries to try to gain powers of her own. Cindy-65 was able to use her technology to rob Gwen of her spider powers, powers that she claimed she had responsibility for. It all came down to a final battle between the heroic Spider-Women and the evil Cindy Moon of Earth-65.

            Okay, I haven’t done one of these in a long time, my laptop died last year, and I moved and haven’t been able to settle down and post on this website. I’m probably going to be doing these a little differently than I used to because of that, so my regular readers will have to forgive my changes, but I hope they’re welcome changes. So, let’s start with my opinion on the book. First off, I remember reading “Edge of Spider-Verse” #2 in 2014 and I was floored. What a unique concept! Taking a character who is ill-fated in just about every other universe and making her the hero was just brilliant! We’re all just so used to Peter Parker being Spider-Man that we never stopped the think that, what if maybe it was Gwen Stacy who got bitten by the spider? I will, however, say that the title of this book is a misnomer. If you’re looking to get a “Spider-Verse” graphic novel, this is NOT one. “Spider-Gwen” was introduced in “Edge of Spider-Verse” #2, and that issue is in this book, but none of the other issues have anything to do with Spider-Verse, unless you want to consider the “Spider-Women” storyline a “Spider-Verse” story, which I guess you technically could, but it’s officially not. And the “Edge of Spider-Verse” issue is also the first issue in the book. I think the title was chosen simply as a marketing ploy as they thought that would sell, especially since this graphic novel was released around the same time as “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” was getting ready for its theatrical release. This book also contains the original five issue limited series “Spider-Gwen” which was tested and actually succeeded, as well as the first eight issues of the “Spider-Gwen” ongoing series, and the crossover issues of the “Spider-Women” story arc. Okay, getting back on track, having Peter Parker die as an origin story is pretty rare, it’s only ever happened a few times, but in this way, for Gwen, having Peter being her best friend, it means more. It did bother me, however, that “with their great power comes an even greater responsibility” was said by J. Jonah Jameson. Jameson is such a minor character in this book, he has such little panel time, and his presence rarely means much, so for him to say such an iconic line, it takes away from the meaning a bit, in my opinion. We all know Uncle Ben said it originally, and Uncle Ben is alive on Earth-65, couldn’t he have imparted it to Peter and have had Peter say it to her? That would have had so much more meaning in my opinion. I say “in my opinion” all the time because I respect that you may or may not agree with me, and I actually invite you to disagree with me, that’s the beauty of the human mind, we can think what we want, I’m just saying what I feel. I also liked how the writers made Earth-65’s Captain America an African American female. Now THAT is unique. I also felt like the villain choices for Gwen’s first outings were adequate. None of them were too overpowered that it made it unbelievable that a novice could beat them. I liked the Kingpin twist, too. Having Matt Murdock, who we all know as Daredevil and we all know always battles the Kingpin, actually BE the Kingpin was (again) unique. I know I’m using that word a lot in this review, but let’s face it, this reality IS unique, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, there’s really no other word for it. Now, of course, we have to talk about the costume. The costume design is interesting, not going to lie, but there’s just something about it I don’t quite like, I just can’t quite say what it is. It doesn’t look like any other Spider-hero costume, so it really stands out, but I don’t think I will ever call it iconic. As for the stories themselves, I thought they were well written, I highly enjoyed them, I would give this book a near perfect score… except for the art. Hate to say it, but I’m just not a big fan of the artwork in this book. I’m not saying I think the artwork is bad, I see that some of the artists are going for a kind of stylization, and it just doesn’t appeal to me.

            Now, I usually talk about accessibility, or how easy it is to just pick up a book if you know nothing about the characters. Yes, this is a first appearance book, and I do think it’s accessible to new readers. I know Silk is a relatively obscure character, her story in “Spider-Women” might be a little hard to pick up on if you don’t know anything about her, but I don’t think it’s a true obstacle. There are details that are missing because Epic Collections don’t actually contain events, because again, this is NOT a “Spider-Verse” book, but it’s relatively self-contained. I think if you’ve never read a Marvel comic book before and are looking for a place to start, this one is decent enough to pick, as it’s the start of a new reality, but I’m not saying it’s the best pick.

            Okay, I know I’ve been going on for a while, so I’ll get to the most important part: my numeric score. My regulars know how this works, but for my new readers, I’ll explain. I score on a scale of one to ten. One means it’s trash and don’t go within five feet of it, ten means run out and buy it the second after you read the word “ten.” You’ve probably gathered by now, though, that ten isn’t going to happen. I have to take EVERYTHING into account when I score. So, put it all together, story and art, I give this book… drumroll please… EIGHT! Like I said, the story would have been near perfect, but I had to detract due to art.

            Next, I’ll tell you if I recommend this book. Yes, I recommend this book. If you’re a Marvel fan of any kind, comics or film, and want a unique, fresh, new kind of read, this is your book. But again, this IS NOT “Spider-Verse,” so don’t go expecting that.

            Okay, I’ve totally droned on for way too long now, it’s time to end this. If you’re still here reading this, you are THE BEST! But until next time, which will be soon, I guarantee it, Tim Cubbin… out!