"Spider-Girl: Legacy"

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

            Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained adhesive fingertips and toes; the proportionate speed, strength and agility of a spider; and a precognitive awareness of danger he called “spider-sense.” He also created web fluid. He used these powers to fight supervillains as the amazing Spider-Man. He fell in love with Mary Jane Watson and the two eventually married and had a daughter they named May. During a final confrontation with his greatest foe, the Green Goblin, Peter was injured, and hung up his webs for good. Peter got a job in the police lab and he and Mary Jane raised May like a normal child.

May nicknamed “Mayday,” was a straight-A student and a star basketball player as she grew up. Then, one day, during a game, she started to exhibit skills that were slightly beyond those of any normal basketball player. Everyone else just shrugged it off and said, “good game,” put Peter and Mary Jane feared it was something else, something more. While out with her friends Jimmy Yama and Courtney Duran, Mayday was attacked by Normie Osborn, who took up the mantle of the Green Goblin from his deceased grandfather. Normie left a message, inviting Peter to “the bridge.” Mayday had no idea what this meant, so she went home and told her parents. Peter and Mary Jane discussed this, and Mayday overheard the conversation, learning that her father used to be Spider-Man. Mayday started trying to learn her powers. Mary Jane told Mayday her legacy and showed Mayday her father’s and his clone Ben Reilly’s costumes and web shooters. Peter confronted Normie at the bridge. Mary Jane followed. Both were in mortal peril, until Mayday showed up in her Uncle Ben Reilly’s costume and defeated the new Green Goblin. Normie was arrested, and Peter, Mary Jane and Mayday burned the costume and all traces of the mysterious “Spider-Girl.” It was all over. Or was it?

            Mayday wanted to continue to learn her legacy. She did research and experimented with her powers. He talked to her father’s partner and her honorary “Uncle” Phil Urich, the former superhero, the Green Goblin, who was also aware of her father’s past. Mayday snuck out of the house every night to train herself. One night, she stumbled upon a crime in progress, being led by Mr. Nobody, a criminal with the ability to teleport. Mayday confronted him, but Mr. Nobody was able to escape when the police arrived. Mayday inadvertently alerted her Uncle Phil to her activities by leaving behind a calling card: webbing. Taking after her father’s web steps, Mayday fashioned herself a costume, creating the stunning Spider-Girl.

            Spider-Girl first battled Crazy Eight, but he escaped when the police arrived. That’s when Spider-Girl met Darkdevil, a costumed vigilante with demonic powers, who taunted her before teleporting away. Mayday tried to keep the existence of Spider-Girl a secret. Mayday faced off against Crazy Eight again and was able to defeat him and was once again taunted by Darkdevil. Mayday also tried to stop her friend Jimmy Yama, who had a crush on her, from getting into a fight with his bully Moose Mansfield, who was best friends with Mayday’s crush Brad Miller.

            Mayday and her friends Davida Kirby, Courtney and Jimmy went on a stop to the Fantastic Five Museum before Mayday was going to an award ceremony for her father. While there, the Museum was attacked by Spyral, a man who claimed to be from another dimension and was trying to steal an artifact from the museum that would get him back to his home dimension. Spider-Girl teamed up with the Fantastic Five to defeat him, but inadvertently missed her father’s award ceremony, and alerted the world to the existence of Spider-Girl.

            To Mayday’s surprise, Peter and Mary Jane were not supportive of Mayday’s extracurricular activities. While at school, the custodian, Carlton Hackmutter was mystically transformed into the Dragon King at being resentful of the way the students treated him, attacked the student body and the faculty, calling Spider-Girl into action to save the school.

            The Venom symbiote, that had once bonded with Spider-Man, had been in containment for twelve years. It learned of the existence of Spider-Girl and managed to escape. It bonded with Peter once again, becoming Spider-Venom. Spider-Girl turned to her Uncle Phil Urich to defeat the threat and save her father, but Peter forbade her to be Spider-Girl and took her costume, while secretly, Phil Urich decided to train her.
            A new hero arrived on the scene, Ladyhawk. Jimmy Yama arrived at the conclusion that Courtney Duran was Spider-Girl. Mayday got into a battle with Ladyhawk, who turned out to be two women, both of whom were also being trained by Phil Urich.

            Mayday once again battled Darkdevil, but this time seemingly won. However, bereft of her Spider-Girl costume, the superhero Nove mistook her for a cat burglar and the two got into a conflict. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Moose got into a fight, one that almost had fatal consequences for Moose. Mayday then went looking for a backup costume from her parents’ attic, but was caught by Mary Jane, who explained to her why Peter quit being Spider-Man, in the hopes of convincing Mayday to hang up the webs, but Mayday refused to give up.

            Spider-Girl next had to defend the police station from the combined threats of Mr. Nobody and Crazy Eight when Mayday and Courtney came to support Jimmy as he faced the charges filed against him after his fight with Moose. This fight impressed Peter and showed him the need for Spider-Girl, and Peter agreed to train her in the use of her powers.

            Spider-Girl fought a new supervillain called Killer-Watt, who managed to defeat Spider-Girl and was about to unmask her when he was scared off by Darkdevil. Meanwhile, Jimmy started to get a swollen head in school, thinking himself the big man on campus after defeating the school bully Moose Mansfield. Moose now had both a fear for and a crush on Courtney Duran, now believing her to be Spider-Girl. Spider-Girl then had a rematch with Killer-Watt, but this time was successful.

            Next, Spyral escaped from lockup, intent on returning to his home dimension. Spider-Girl followed him as he went through a portal. She thought she had defeated him, but soon discovered she had traveled back in time to when her father was in high school. She then ran into her teenage father in costume. Thinking her attempting to be a defaming imposter, Spider-Man faced off against Spider-Girl, but the conflict ended when Spider-Man had to stop a crime in progress. Spencer Smythe and J. Jonah Jameson sent out the Spider-Slayer robot out to capture Spider-Man, but found Spider-Girl first, who managed to escape from the robot. She then faced off against the Human Torch, who also believed her to be a Spider-Man imposter, but she was able to defeat him. She then ran into her teenaged mother. Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, and the Human Torch then teamed up to track down Spyral to return Mayday back to her home time.

            Spider-Girl once again faced off against Darkdevil, who was chasing down Kaine, an evil clone of Peter Parker. During their confrontation, Mayday learned she also had the power to repel items that were stuck to her, a power which her father did not have. Kaine managed to escape. The tabloid newspaper the Daily Bugle began to investigate stories on Spider-Girl, but held off on judgement on characterizing her as hero or villain, unlike they had with the original Spider-Man.

            May, Davida and Courtney went to see Leonard Groote, a teen heartthrob who was shooting a film in town. While there, he was attacked by his ex-girlfriend Melissa Carsdale, now calling herself Misery. Spider-Girl swung to the rescue and defeated Misery. Mayday went back to school, where she found herself facing a plagiarism charge on a paper that convinced Coach Thompson to suspend Mayday from the basketball team. Then, tragedy befell upon her family at the hands of the Green Goblin, who returned to have his revenge. Mayday then discovered she was in the Grief Machine and that these terrible things didn’t actually happen and that she hadn’t yet beaten Misery, a fact she then rectified.

            A mysterious new character called the Buzz arrived on the scene, but Spider-Girl wasn’t sure if he was a hero or a villain, she just knew she had some new competition.

            Mayday had a dream of all her villains challenging her to a basketball game, which got her thinking of how to use her powers in practical ways she never had before.

            Mayday and Mary Jane saw the New Avengers at the mall, and Mayday decided she wanted to join the team. The Avengers declined her application but challenged her to a game of flag football to consider her for reserve status.

            Spider-Girl got caught up in a battle between the mutants Wild Thing (daughter of the legendary X-Man Wolverine) and Sabreclaw and Enthralla, which had to be ended by the Fantastic Five.

            Mayday tried to learn more about Kaine, much to Peter’s horror. Spider-Girl was able to track Kaine down but was badly defeated. On top of that, she was told off by Darkdevil.

            The tabloid newspaper the Daily Bugle continued to investigate Spider-Girl, as Spider-Girl teamed up with the superhero called Speedball to fight Mr. Abnormal, and Moose put the moves on Courtney.

            I do have to say that a lot happened in this book, but almost every issue in this book was one part, as compared to later comics that have storylines that continue on for several issues, and I do have to say that for me, that was a plus. Sometimes if a story goes on for so long it gets boring and convoluted. The short but sweet and self-contained stories in this book really appealed to me. It felt like I got more that way. Now, I’m going to talk about the concept. This was from a Marvel alternate future universe. It originally started as a “What If…?” issue that got such high demands for more that Marvel decided to continue it. Back in the 1990s, Mary Jane Parker had been pregnant and lost the baby. This was a future where she didn’t lose the baby. I have to say, I thought the concept was brilliant. I thought the execution was excellent. I especially liked that at first Peter was resistant to the idea of his daughter being a superhero. The writer could have written it having her idolizing Spider-Man her whole life, with all the stories of how “daddy was a hero” and all, but he didn’t do it that way. Mayday didn’t know she was the daughter of a superhero until she absolutely had to know. And he didn’t write it as “you have powers, May, go out and fight crime,” Peter didn’t want his daughter to be in danger. Yes, with great power there must also come great responsibility, but the responsible thing to Peter was to protect his daughter. Mayday being a superhero was something that scared him. I felt like that made this series work better. I’ve seen superhero movies where the superhero parents are all for the kids joining the family business, so Peter telling Mayday “No” was refreshing to me. The supporting characters were interesting to me, it felt to me like a good drama. I might have appreciated this series a bit more when I was at a younger age, this did almost feel like a teen drama, but even at this age I still enjoyed it. I liked the concept of having Phil Urich be Mayday’s “Uncle” and be in on Mayday’s secret, even helping hide it from her father, the man he works with. I liked Darkdevil as the mentor/antagonist, I thought that having the enigmatic stranger was a brilliant idea. I do have to say, her villains weren’t as good as her father’s, but Spider-Man is considered to have one of the best rogues’ galleries in all of comics, so beating that is difficult, but they were still at least interesting enough, and bringing Venom back was nice, too, but I wish the writer would have done a little bit more with him. I loved the artwork; I thought it was all great. Some of my real long-timers know I’m partial to comic book art from the mid- to late nineties, and the issues in this book were published between 1998-1999, so it was from a time-period I really enjoyed. I would have liked a little more humor, it seemed to be missing some comedic elements in my opinion. The time travel storyline didn’t work, though, unless the past she went to was an alternate past, or else Peter would have known about a Spider-Girl from his time in high school.

            Okay, next, I’ll discuss accessibility. What I mean by this is how easy it is to pick up. If you’ve never heard of any Marvel comic book before you came across this review and are intrigued by this, I will say this is a very good entry point. I feel that it’s easy to pick up no matter how familiar with Marvel you are. Knowing a bit about Spider-Man helps, of course, but I think if you’re looking to start reading comic books, this could be a good book to pick. It requires very little background knowledge and I feel like it’s very self-contained. It’s the start of a new comics universe. There is a little outside content from the New Avengers and Fantastic Five, who both had separate series at the time, but knowledge of them aren’t necessarily required, and I don’t even know about the time period, since I’ve never actually read comics from this universe before, so this was actually all new territory for me, so that’s why I’m pretty confident that it’s easy enough to pick this book up, even if you don’t know comics. It’s a semi-rebooted future universe, so Marvel history did happen, but I didn’t feel like knowing it was essential to reading this book, especially since it started in a “What If…?” issue. It felt self-explanatory in my opinion, so I don’t think it would be difficult to pick up if you know little or nothing about Marvel Comics.

            Okay, I’ve talked enough at this point, let’s get on to the main reason we’re here: for me to actually rate this book numerically. My previous readers know the drill by now, but for you newbs I have to say it again, so here goes: I score of a scale of one to ten. One means absolute trash, the worst, don’t read this at all, ten means this is gold, the best book you will ever read, go out and read this book right now. Now, you’ve probably established by now that this book is not a ten, but you’ve also established this isn’t a one. I enjoyed the stories a lot, the short bits really helped my opinion of the book. I loved the artwork; I thought it was exceptional. If you’ve read a lot of my reviews, you know I’m a harsh scorer, I don’t like handing out perfect scores very easily. So, let’s put it all in, story and art, everything combined to get my score, the whole book into consideration. Giving it a numeric score, I rate it at… drumroll please… seven. I really enjoyed it, but there were just some flaws here and there which I just couldn’t overlook. The time travel story was wonky, and I just didn’t like the New Avengers or the Fantastic Five. I didn’t say that before because it didn’t fit in with a review of “Spider-Girl,” but I’m saying it now as a generalization, the teams just didn’t really work for me. The Avengers were all new characters I didn’t know and quite frankly didn’t appeal to me, and the Fantastic Five’s portrayal fell flat. It could have been done a little better.

            Finally, I’ll say if I recommend this book or not. I do, I highly recommend it. If you like Spider-Man and are looking for something fresh and different, pick this up, I think you’ll find it worthwhile. I especially recommend this book to younger audiences, like teenagers. It felt a lot like a teen drama to me, so I think that age range is the best audience, but adults can appreciate this book, too. This is also a good pick for female readers. I know sometimes there’s the stigma that comic books are mostly for men, so a strong female lead like Mayday is very empowering for women to read. If you read this review and have an interest in reading this book, I honestly don’t feel like I should stop you, no matter what your familiarity with Marvel may be. Sometimes I do tell some of my readers to hold back, but I don’t think this book requires that at all.

            Now, I’ve gone on for way too long at this point, so I have to start wrapping this up. I will say that I have done dozens of reviews like this one on this site and you can expect another one sometime within the next three weeks. I’ve also written short stories, free verse poetry, articles, editorials, and several other kinds of pieces, so there’s plenty more content to check out if you liked this post. I will be back, but I will say until next time, as always, Tim Cubbin… out!