"Spider-Girl: Family Ties"

 

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

                May “Mayday” Parker/Spider-Girl and Normie Osborn chose to keep Normie’s decision to keep the Venom symbiote a secret, telling everyone else, including May’s parents Peter (formerly Spider-Man now a forensic scientist) and Mary Jane, that they had destroyed the symbiote following a fight at Normie’s engagement party to Brenda Drago/Raptor. Spider-Girl’s villain Funny Face escaped police custody looking for someone he loved. Peter assumed this to be Funny Face’s mother, the criminal Angel Face, currently in Ravencroft, a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane. However, Funny Face went to the Midtown South Police Department where Peter worked, looking for Bunky, his puppet friend who he believed he could communicate with that was being held as evidence in his trial. To get his demands, he took Peter hostage. Spider-Girl had to rush to the Police Department to secure the capture of Funny Face and save the life of her father. Normie decided he wanted to take his place as the head of the Osborn Corporation.

                Spider-Girl’s villain Apox, the Omega Skrull was granted the Power Cosmic and escaped from imprisonment. Mayday comforted her friend Maurice “Moose” Mansfield, the boyfriend of her best friend Courtney Duran, whose father had just been diagnosed with cancer. Nova, the Avengers, the Hulk, and Namor all fought Apox and lost. The Fantastic Five were in the Negative Zone, leaving their children Franklin Richards/Psi-Lord, Alyce Grimm/Rad, Jacob Grimm, Torus Storm/Super-Storm, and Kristoff Vernard/Doom behind in the Baxter Building. May decided she wanted to tell Franklin the truth about Normie and Venom and went to the Baxter Building, which was attacked by Apox. The Baxter Building was encased in a solar bomb that once detonated would destroy all of Manhattan. Apox was looking for the Fantastic Five and forced their location out of Torus and entered the Negative Zone Portal. Spider-Girl and Psi-Lord went through the Portal to the Fantasti-station, where Susan Richards/Invisible Woman, believed dead by the general public, was held in stasis, keeping a hole in the Negative Zone from breaching the Earth. Spider-Girl teamed up with the Fantastic Five to fight Apox and try to rescue Invisible Woman from the Negative Zone. Mayday’s classmate Sandra Healy came to Courtney, seeking aid against her abusive boyfriend Howard Kavanagh. Normie had his scientist team working on upgraded Green Goblin weaponry.

                Howard landed both Sandra and Courtney in the hospital, and Mayday had to stop Moose from doing something he would have regretted forever and see that Sandra and Courtney got justice.

                Spider-Girl was kidnapped by Melissa Carsdale/Misery and put through a hallucination scenario, but a guardian angel helped Mayday break through the simulation and fight Misery in the real world.

                A DVD of an old animated movie called “Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham: The Dark Pig Returns” saw circulation. Peter told Mayday of how he teamed up with fellow spider-hero Araňa and her reluctant sidekick Miguel to discover Jack O’Lantern had used the movie to lure the heroes to Jack’s studio, but the heroes had been able to subdue the villain. Mayday decided to investigate the same studio as Spider-Girl, and fought a robot of Jack O’Lantern, but Jack was not actually the person who wanted to assess Spider-Girl.

                Fashion designer Daniel Kingsley, brother of Roderick Kingsley/Hobgoblin, debuted a new line of clothing based on Spider-Women. Kingsley’s exhibit was crashed by La Fantome, who tried to eliminate Kingsley. Spider-Girl saved Kingsley but was unable to prevent La Fantome from escaping. The Spider Shoppe, a clothing store dedicated to Spider-Girl, was having a rally to defend the store from being bought over by a bigger corporation. Spider-Girl had to rescue Kingsley from La Fantome a second time. La Fantome tried to take the Spider Shoppe rally hostage, a rally both Mayday and Mary Jane attended, and with the help of her mother, Mayday was able to learn the identity of La Fantome and the person behind the Spider Shoppe. Normie invited Mayday’s honorary Uncle Phil Urich/Green Goblin to Osborn Plaza.

                Spider-Girl and the other reserve Avengers were called in after the resurfacing of the mutant master of magnetism, Magneto. The Avengers were instructed not to try to take on Magneto alone. Mayday was unable to contact her Uncle Phil. Nancy Lu/Push, a trainee of the X-People, and Spider-Girl heard of a Magneto sighting and went in to investigate. The two fought the villain, but not all was as it appeared. Spider-Girl’s status as a reserve member of the Avengers was suspended pending a formal hearing.

                Mayday spotted a Green Goblin leaving the Osborn Corporation and discovered that Normie had given Phil a power upgrade. Normie hired Mary Jane’s cousin Kristy Watson, his former nanny, as his personal assistant, and Kristy announced she would be living with the Parkers. Tony Stark, formerly Iron Man, decided the current Avengers weren’t good enough and called in veteran members Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Jim Rhodes to assist. Kaine and Spider-Girl shared a precognitive vision of an organization called the Brotherhood of Scriers ending Spider-Girl and told Mayday the only way to prevent this vision from coming true was for Mayday to stop being Spider-Girl. Ant-Man was able to discover that Normie was the new host of the Venom symbiote. Cassie Lang/Stinger of the Avengers called Mayday to tell Spider-Girl that the veteran Avengers, Mainframe, and J2 were on their way to apprehend Normie. Spider-Girl, Green Goblin and Raptor rushed to the scene to defend Normie, and Scarlet Witch used a hex, which missed and hit Jim Rhodes. Jim Rhodes was an android and blamed Tony Stark for his original self’s murder and announced his intentions to end Tony Stark. The Avengers, Spider-Girl, Green Goblin, Raptor, Normie, and Iron Man all teamed up to fight Jim. Moose’s father, who was a firefighter, was injured during the fight. Kaine went after the Brotherhood of Scriers to learn why they intended to harm Spider-Girl, unintentionally informing them of Spider-Girl’s existence, and the Scriers decided they could use her to get to Kaine. Normie declared his intention to join his fiancé’s government sponsored supervillain rehabilitation team.

                Felicity Thompson/Scarlet Spider tried to get Mayday to rejoin the Midtown High School girls’ basketball team because her father Eugene “Flash” Thompson was at risk of being fired due to the poor performance of the team he coached. Spider-Girl teamed up with Scarlet Spider to survive an attack from the Brotherhood of Scriers. Courtney saw Mayday offering comfort to Moose. Raza, the head of the Brotherhood of Scriers decided to employ the Hobgoblin to destroy Spider-Girl.

                The Brotherhood of Scriers busted Roderick Kingsley out of custody. Normie planned his wedding with Brenda. Mayday decided to prevent the vision from coming true, she could switch to a costume she wasn’t wearing in the vision and returned to her black and white costume. Normie informed Kristy Normie was the host of the Venom symbiote and the real reason he hired Kristy was to alert Spider-Girl should Normie ever turn to the dark side so that Spider-Girl could destroy Normie. Fabian LeMuerto/Black Tarantula learned of the Brotherhood of Scriers’ intentions to end Spider-Girl and decided he could not allow that.

                Kristy let slip to Peter and Mary Jane that Normie was hosting the Venom symbiote. Peter, angry that Mayday lied to Peter, asked Mayday to turn over her costume and web-shooters to Peter and informed Mayday that she was grounded. Courtney’s jealousy of Moose’s reliance for advice from Mayday increased. Mayday returned to her black and white costume. The Hobgoblin took out the Ladyhawks, the Buzz, and Raptor to lure Spider-Girl to him. Hobgoblin went after Phil Urich. Moose and his brothers decided to move to New Jersey with their uncle while their father recuperated in the hospital. Moose’s friends threw him a goodbye party, and Moose’s desire for Mayday’s presence at the party heightened Courtney’s jealousy. Spider-Girl confronted the Hobgoblin and was defeated. Peter decided to save his daughter, Spider-Man had to live again. When Kaine’s vision came true, Spider-Man, Normie, the Venom symbiote and Kaine were left to end the threat of the Hobgoblin, and Black Tarantula faced Raza to take the Brotherhood of Scriers out of the heroes’ lives.

                Okay, now that I’ve thoroughly analyzed the plotlines of this graphic novel with an attempt to minimize spoilers, let’s move on to my own personal input for this review. So, we’re going to start, as usual, with my thoughts on the quality of the content of this graphic novel. I will definitely say that I thoroughly enjoyed this graphic novel. I really loved all the stories. I liked Tom DeFalco’s portrayal of Funny Face, and his odd attachment to Bunky was actually kind of touching. I had a toy I talked to and was really attached to when I was a child (granted I didn’t believe it could talk back or have the emotions or desires Funny Face claimed Bunky had), so it kind of resonated with me. I honestly didn’t see him as a villain, just as someone who needed his friend, and the depiction of how Spider-Girl handled him was moving. She still kicked his butt, but she didn’t do it with malice, and I thought that was brilliant. I enjoyed the Apox story, I thought the children of the Fantastic Five were interesting characters, and I honestly would enjoy to see more of them. I thought the abuse issue was handled well, I thought the resolution of the story was perfect. I enjoyed the Misery issue, Mayday turning into a turtle and everyone acting like it was completely normal was quite amusing, and I loved the guardian angel in the story, I thought that was great. The Spider-Ham issue was entertaining, I enjoyed the plot twist of the identity of the baiters at the end of the story, I was not expecting that and the last line was perfect. I thought the Spider Shoppe issue was great, I did not see the endings coming at all, the identities of La Fantome and the owner of the Spider Shoppe totally surprised me, and I love when a comic can catch me off guard like that. I liked the Magneto issue, the twist ending to that one was great, too, I liked the team up between Spider-Girl and Push. I enjoyed the old Avengers storyline, I found it reminiscent of the death of Captain Stacy, and I felt it emotional for all the involved parties to have to face the consequences of their actions. I was moved by the whole story of Moose following his father’s injury and was caught up in Courtney’s jealousy of Mayday comforting Courtey’s boyfriend and Moose’s reliance on Mayday, of course knowing it was strictly platonic, but Courtney’s emotions were valid. I enjoyed the encroachment of Kristy Watson into Peter, Mary Jane, Mayday and Ben’s daily lives, I thought she was an entertaining character. And I thought the Hobgoblin story was phenomenal, the way he methodically went about all his actions to hurt Spider-Girl in every way he could before ending her, I thought this portrayal of the villain was truly heinous and it was excellent. All-in-all, I felt like DeFalco did a fantastic job writing this book. I would be remiss in my duties of reviewing a graphic novel if I didn’t discuss the artwork as well. I thought it was excellent. It was a visual treat to look at the art as I read this graphic novel, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing the artwork. Finally, before we move on, we have to talk about the title. I’m actually pretty picky about choices for titles of Modern Era Epic Collections, I will complain if I feel the title is inadequate to the content of the graphic novel. Often, titles for the Collection are chosen from titles of storylines, usually choosing from one of the ongoing story arcs contained in the Collection. This particular Modern Era Epic Collection had one story arc with a collective title, but every other issue in this book had a separate title. There were seventeen issues in this volume, so there were a lot of potential choices, or the editors could have just made up a title of their own that they felt fitting. In this case, one issue was in fact called “Family Ties,” and I actually feel like it encapsulates this volume very well, despite not being the ongoing storyline. A lot of this book was about family. Mayday and Peter and Mary Jane. Normie trying to live up to the family name. The children of the Fantastic Five. Moose and his father. Kristy Watson living with the Parkers. Felicity Thompson trying to get Mayday to rejoin the Midtown High basketball team to save her father’s career as coach at the school. I do question the choice for the front cover as they chose to use the cover from the Magneto issue, depicting Spider-Girl, Push and Magneto, and I honestly don’t feel like it was the right cover for this book as it doesn’t truly capture the essence of this book, as it’s not in any way primarily about Push and Magneto, they both only appear in the one issue. I would venture to say that in my opinion it is the most appealing cover in the book and that the editors probably thought that this would be the one to sell this book best, but it’s just not an accurate depiction of the book itself. But the book itself was, in my opinion, spectacular, and I thought it was an outstanding effort by all parties involved.

                Next up on our agenda of topic to discuss, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I know my regular readers know what is about to happen now, but I always have those new readers who are just discovering me for the first time, so I have to do this as usual. Some of you may be wondering just what the heck I mean exactly by using the word accessibility like this. I know that I’ve explained this over six dozen times now, but I have to do it once again for those newbies. Now, what I mean by using the word accessibility like this simply is that can a person who knows absolutely nothing about Spider-Girl pick up this graphic novel, read it, and understand what they have just read based on the content contained solely in this volume? I will say that this volume, which is marketed as Vol. 6, picks up directly where Vol. 5 “Keeping the Faith” left off and continues the storyline where that book ended, that being Normie deciding to keep and tame the Venom symbiote. That said, this volume does explain that in thorough detail, so it’s not something you’ll not know about if you didn’t read the previous volume. This book does have a lot of obscure characters, but they are not used in any way that their history needs explaining to understand their particular presence in this book. There is reference to a miniseries called “Last Hero Standing,” but it is explained in a way that reading that storyline is not required (I myself have never actually read it and I got through this volume just fine knowing nothing about it). Otherwise, there are no other series contained in this volume, there are no actual crossover event tie-in issues collected, so I would say that this book is relatively accessible.

                Okay, I know I’ve been going on for quite a while now and you’re probably starting to get bored of me, so let’s move onward now, shall we? The next step on our docket is the numeric score. This is one of the main reasons some of my readers come to read my reviews, to know exactly how good I think this book is before they purchase it for themselves, because my regular readers will know how hard I am to please when it comes to scoring a book. Now I also know I have some readers who come to read my reviews so they can hear about the story. I know I have at least one person out there (you know who you are) who comes to my reviews so they don’t have to read the books for themselves, which is why I’ve really tried harder to cut back on spoilers compared to how I’ve been over the course of the past couple of years, so that they might actually consider trying to read something so maybe we might have a discussion about something (I doubt that will happen, but one can always hope). But the numeric score is a very important component in my reviews as it reflects what I feel the readability level of this particular story is. So, let’s start by explaining my scoring system. It is extremely simple. I score on a scale of whole numbers between one and ten. One is my lowest score and that means that this book was so awful every copy should be taken off the shelves, put through shredders until they are no longer recognizable, and then never reprinted again. Ten is the highest possible score I can give, and I rarely give those out, because that means that this book is sheer perfection and one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had in my entire life and that every copy should be bought off the shelves and there should be a need for this book to be reprinted on an annual basis. In all honesty, that is a little extreme to say a book should be demolished or purchased until it’s out of stock, but I’m just using these examples to emphasize my point. To be succinct, one just means it was awful to the point where I would not tell anyone to read it, ten means it was absolutely amazing, and I found everything about this book to be enjoyable and there are no faults. As you can probably guess, this book is getting a higher score. The thing is, I don’t feel like it was perfect. Yes, the stories were phenomenal, the art was fantastic, the title was accurate, but it just wasn’t a book I can give a ten to. There are a lot of things I didn’t like, the details of the stories that I really don’t have the time to delve into here, but the story about a boy attacking both his girlfriend and a girl trying to help her wasn’t enjoyable, it was extremely depressing what happened to Moose’s dad, and Courtney’s jealousy was misplaced, just to name a few. That does hit my score a little bit. Also, I find fault with the choice of the front cover, which I’ve never actually complained about in one of my reviews before now, but will now be included in all future reviews, so be prepared for that new insert. So we’re going to take everything into consideration here, the phenomenal story, the fantastic art, the accurate title, my gripes, the misleading cover, and we’re going to mix it all up completely until we have a score, and the score we are looking at here is… an eight. I thought this book was totally great, I loved reading it, but it was far from perfect. I think that the art was stellar and deserved to keep the score higher as well. I’ve done reviews where the book had a perfect story, but the art was absolute garbage, and I had to deduct two or three points just for that. On other occasions, the story was totally horrible, but the art was so amazing that I mostly scored the book for the art and ignored the story. This book did well in both story and art, but there were just factors about it that I had to deduct a couple of points for.

                Next on our agenda is my recommendation segment. In this segment, I discuss two things. The first is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to anyone reading this review and to anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in conversation with me about this without having read it? The second topic is, regardless of if I would recommend it personally, who do I think the best audience would be, and I try to go beyond the obvious, as it can be pretty obvious who would want to read it, so I need to say who in more or a specific kind of category this book would appeal to? To answer the first question, yes, I absolutely, positively, one hundred percent recommend this book to you if you are reading this review and your curiosity about this book is piqued. I would totally say you should go to your favorite bookstore, or online retailer, or comic book shop, or see if your comic obsessed friend or family member has it, or even try a local library, just do what you can to get your hands on it and read it. As for a more specific demographic of readership, I would say fans of teenage dramas would enjoy this. You can either be a teenager yourself or just be a fan of the genre at any age, it really doesn’t matter, but I feel like teenagers will really resonate with Spider-Girl, particularly females, but that’s a little obvious. If you like stories about families, this is a good book for you. Or if you like stories about trying to avert deathly prophecies, then this book is perfect of you.

                Okay, I think we’re getting to the point where we’re just about ready to get on with our lives. There are a few things I’d like to say before I log off and post this. The first is that I have been doing this blog for five years now and I have done over 170 posts. Over six dozen of them are on Epic Collections just like this one, and if you enjoyed my review of “Spider-Girl: Family Ties” and are new to From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin, feel free to search for “Spider-Girl: Legacy” and “Spider-Girl: Keeping the Faith” for more Spider-Girl content. I’ve also reviewed prose novels, manga, and events, so there are even more reviews there. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, but the main focus of this blog at the moment is to review Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Marvel Ultimate Epic Collections. I post on a very frequent basis, as I get each new Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after their release. Right now, I have two more Modern Era Epic Collections in my possession, so you can expect more reviews shortly. The next review will be “Star Wars: Darth Vader: Vader Down” which will be posted within the next two weeks. I hope you’ll join me then. I’ll keep doing this blog for as long as I can, until I’m either blind, unable to type, or dead, so expect this to be going on for quite a while. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!