"Spider-Girl: Comes the Carnage!"

 

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

            After nearly perishing in a battle with the supervillain Roderick Kingsley/Hobgoblin, young superhero May “Mayday” Parker/Spider-Girl was convinced by her mother Mary Jane Parker to give up the webs and live a normal life. As a result, her grades went up, she had more time with her friends and even found a boyfriend in Eugene “Gene” Thompson, son of Coach Eugene “Flash” Thompson, high school rival-turned friend of Mayday’s father, former Spider-Man now forensic scientist, Peter Parker. With the support of her best friends Courtney Duran and Davida Kirby as her campaign managers, Mayday was running for student council at Midtown High School against the popular Simone DeSantos. Fellow Midtown High students Jimmy Yama and Reynard “Wes” Westin were drawing and illustrating a Spider-Girl comic book. Mayday and Courtney were volunteering at St. Andrews Shelter under the supervision of Caitlan Leiber. One of the women staying at the shelter, Mona Carlo, was sought out at the shelter by her ex, Charlie Kurkle, but Caitlan turned him away. Mona had an item that Charlie was sent by the Hobgoblin to obtain. It was a disk that contained information on all the people that the deceased Wilson Fisk/Kingpin had ever paid off, information that would boost whoever possessed it to the status of the new Kingpin of Crime. Fabian LaMuerto/Black Tarantula, current Kingpin who was hiding out in South America, also wanted that disk. Unhappy that Charlie did not possess the disk, Hobgoblin sent one of his stooges to take out Charlie. Mayday was on her way to Café Indigo to meet her friends, including Gene, when she came upon the scene of Charlie about to be put down. Covering her face, Mayday sprung into action and saved Charlie. Charlie returned to St. Andrews, where Mayday had to prevent Charlie from starting a fire in an attempt to lure Mona out. Mona, knowing she was at risk for carrying the disk, went on the run. Mayday then joined her friends at Café Indigo. Hobgoblin went to St. Andrews and attacked Caitlan looking for both Mona and a list of Caitlan’s teenage volunteers, under the impression that Spider-Girl was secretly volunteering at St. Andrews and was the daughter of Hobgoblin’s archnemesis Spider-Man. The police were called to the scene, including Detective Vincent Drasco, who was secretly in the employ of the Hobgoblin. Hobgoblin planned to send two of his stooges, Rudy and Barney, after the teenage volunteers, aided by a battle armor Hobgoblin had come into possession of. On her school lunch break, Mayday went to St. Andrews looking for clues and ran into Hobgoblin’s stooges. Mayday barely escaped, but the stooges were not under the impression they had just battled Spider-Girl. Mayday returned to school late for class, where she was caught by assistant principal Slattery, who gave Mayday detention and Simone leverage in the student council election. While in detention, both Peter and Mary Jane attempted to call Mayday to warn Mayday that Hobgoblin was looking for the teenage volunteers, which only irritated Slattery, but when Slattery answered Mayday’s phone and spoke to Mary Jane, Mary Jane was infuriated Slattery dared to answer Mayday’s phone and sprung Mayday from detention. Mary Jane returned Mayday’s Spider-Girl costume, telling Mayday that Mary Jane could not accept it if Spider-Girl were prevented from saving lives because of Mary Jane, but to keep this a secret from Peter. Spider-Girl returned to battle Rudy, now called Reverb, to save Courtney. Following Reverb’s arrest, Mary Jane took back possession of the Spider-Girl costume.

Former St. Andrews refugee Betty Forest/Bitter Frost returned to St. Andrews, intent on revenge against Caitlan, who failed Betty when Caitlan first started as a social worker years before. Mona contacted Handsome Richie Valentine, attempting to find a buyer for the disk. Bitter Frost went after her abusive ex-boyfriend Wayne, intent on ending him. Caitlan and Drasco went after Bitter Frost to prevent her from succeeding, but their lives were put in danger. Mayday stole the Spider-Girl costume and swung in to save the day. Mona came into contact with Chesbro, representative of the Black Tarantula.

“Mad Dog” Rassitano, reality television bounty hunter, announced his intention to catch Hobgoblin, a task he had done once before. Mayday’s return as Spider-Girl was beginning to have an impact on her school and social life. Jimmy and Wes made a deal with Deacon, owner of Deacon’s Den, a local comic book show, that if Deacon sole Jimmy and Wes’s Spider-Girl comic book, Spider-Girl would come to the release day event herself. Jimmy intended to have his girlfriend Heather Noble dress the part of Spider-Girl since Jimmy was not convinced Jimmy and Wes could get the real Spider-Girl to promote the comic book. Mad Dog went to Hobgoblin’s brother Daniel Kingsley for information on Hobgoblin’s location. Daniel, who was hiding his brother, sold Mad Dog a location the Hobgoblin was going to be at. However, this was an ambush, and Hobgoblin was not really going to be there. Spider-Girl helped Mad Dog take down the thugs who ambushed Mad Dog, and Mad Dog promised not to televise Spider-Girl’s presence on the scene, mostly because Mad Dog thought being rescued by Spider-Girl on national television would look bad for his reputation. This skirmish caused Mayday to miss a date with Gene.

Drasco and Black Tarantula both obtained Mona’s location. Drasco and Chesbro both went to attempt to get the disk. Spider-Girl swung to Mona’s rescue but needed an assist from Mad Dog. Spider-Girl managed to obtain the disk. Mayday almost missed her campaign speech, but in a turn of events, dropped out of the race and nominated Davida in Mayday’s place, saying Davida would be a better candidate. Hobgoblin learned that Spider-Girl was scheduled to appear at a launch event at Deacon’s Den.

Mayday turned to her confidante Felicity Hardy/Scarlet Spider to try to crack the information on the disk, but Felicity was unable to get past the decryption. At the launch event, Hobgoblin abducted Heather, but realized Heather wasn’t the real Spider-Girl. Spider-Girl saved Heather and lied to Hobgoblin, saying that Spider-Girl had destroyed the disk. Hobgoblin believed Spider-Girl. Spider-Girl was saved from Hobgoblin by Chesbro and one of Black Tarantula’s snipers. Spider-Girl gave the disk to Drasco, unaware Drasco was in the employ of the Hobgoblin. Mayday told her parents that she had returned to being Spider-Girl and intended to keep being a superhero.

Rosetta Morgan/Ladyhawk sought revenge on the Hobgoblin for ending the heroic career of Rosetta’s sister Regina Morgan/Ladyhawk. Harlem crime lord Morgan arranged a meeting with Hobgoblin. Spider-Girl and Ladyhawk came to Morgan to get information on the Hobgoblin. Morgan gave Spider-Girl and Ladyhawk a fake address to the meeting between Morgan and Hobgoblin. Morgan’s meeting with Hobgoblin was actually an attempt to take Hobgoblin out of the picture. Drasco heard shots, and Drasco and the police prevented Hobgoblin’s demise, and Hobgoblin escaped. Mayday realized how much strain being Spider-Girl put her parents through and promised to stop being Spider-Girl until Mayday’s parents said otherwise.

Mayday’s fellow Midtown High classmate Sara Hingle manifested her mutant powers in class. Sara was taken into custody. Mary Jane and assistant principal Slattery visited Sara’s parents Duane and Cindy Hingle. Duane was not handling the fact that his daughter was a mutant very well. Duane decided to send Sara to a mutant boarding school, despite Cindy wanting Sara to stay with Duane and Cindy. Sara escaped custody and tried to return home. Mary Jane tried to talk Duane out of Duane’s decision, saying Duane should love Sara no matter what Sara was. Mayday revealed to Sara that Mayday had powers and promised to try to help Sara live a normal life. Sara’s parents decided to let Sara stay at home. Slattery was impressed with Mary Jane’s empathy and offered to discuss a position for Mary Jane at Midtown High as a guidance counselor. Peter and Mary Jane decided that Mayday was ready to be Spider-Girl and gave Mayday back the Spider-Girl costume.

S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill came to government special agent Arthur Weadon and his team of rehabilitating convicted supervillains (Earthshaker, Mr. Abnormal, Killerwatt, and Kaine) with the mission of guarding an item code-named Specimen 297. Kaine turned to Reilly Tyne/Darkdevil for assistance in watching the transfer of the bioweapon that was being transferred to a government lab because it was believed the specimen might have medical benefits. Courtney’s boyfriend Maurice “Moose” Mansfield, whose father was in a hospital dying of cancer, was staying in New Jersey and not getting in touch with Courtney. Courtney learned Moose was coming to Midtown Medical Center to see Moose’s father and Courtney decided that Courtney wanted to see Moose to see where their relationship stood. Slattery offered Mary Jane a job at Midtown High. Courtney arrived at Midtown Medical and found Moose with another girl. The transfer of Specimen 297 was attacked by a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents led by Contessa Valentina Allegro De Fontaine. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team obtained Specimen 297. Spider-Girl attacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. team, and in the confusion, Specimen 297 escaped. Specimen 297 was one piece of the Carnage symbiote, which had been broken apart and was held in government custody. It was now believed that the symbiote could cure cancer. The escaped symbiote bonded with Moose, and a new Carnage was born. Moose was insistent on trying to curb Carnage’s murderous tendencies. Carnage attacked Café Indigo and scared Courtney and Davida, but Mayday fought Carnage until Carnage decided to leave. Weadon tasked his team with apprehending Spider-Girl. Kaine and Darkdevil contacted Spider-Girl to warn her about Carnage. Mary Jane went to school with Mayday to speak with Slattery about the guidance counselor position. Slattery offered the position to Mary Jane. Mary Jane said she would get back to Slattery with her decision. Carnage came to the Parker’s home and abducted Peter and Ben, Mayday’s baby brother. Spider-Girl went after Carnage and fought the symbiotic being. Peter managed to escape from Carnage’s imprisonment. Carnage went to Midtown Medical Center to find Moose’s father. Spider-Girl fought Carnage, and Carnage fled. During their fight, Carnage infected Ben with a piece of the symbiote. Ben attacked Spider-Girl. Hill and Weadon’s team tried to apprehend Spider-Girl but failed. Carnage took Ben back to Midtown Medical. Kaine and Darkdevil found Val and her agents and learned the truth about Specimen 297. Courtney found out the woman she saw Moose with was Moose’s cousin Donna Mansfield. Peter came to Midtown Medical with the Reverb armor, which fired sonic blasts, Carnage’s weakness. Peter faltered when he realized Carnage had infected Ben, so Spider-Girl took the sonic blaster and shot the symbiote off of Ben, causing Ben to have hearing loss. Mayday defeated Carnage before Carnage could infect Moose’s father, causing Moose, a huge Spider-Girl fan, to hate Spider-Girl, saying if Moose’s father died, it would be Spider-Girl’s fault. The doctors told Peter they had to run more tests to determine if Ben’s hearing loss was permanent.

Mayday felt overwhelming guilt over Ben’s predicament, but Peter and Mary Jane did not blame Mayday. Peter and Mary Jane brought Ben to the doctor. Hobgoblin disguised himself as his brother Daniel and locked up the real Daniel Kingsley. The day of the student council election came. Hobgoblin turned to William Turner/Mindworm to form an alliance against Spider-Girl. Gene, feeling neglected in his relationship with Mayday, broke up with Mayday. Ben began to manifest spider powers in front of Mayday. Gene moved on with Simone DeSantos. Hobgoblin went searching for Madame Web, hoping to learn a way to defeat Black Tarantula, and found Anya Corazon/Araña, disguised as a priestess. Araña told Hobgoblin the “heart of the spider” was the only weapon that could defeat the Black Tarantula. Moose announced he would be coming back to Midtown High, accompanied by his cousin Donna. The Parker family’s observed “May’s Special Day” arrived. Mindworm began to psychically implant illusions of Spider-Girl’s enemies into Mayday’s mind. Normie Osborn helped the Parkers arrange an appointment with Dr. Milton Kaplan, one of the nation’s top ear, nose and throat specialists. Mindworm learned Ben had an appointment with Dr. Kaplan, and Hobgoblin kidnapped the doctor. Mindworm attempted to manipulate Spider-Girl to learn about the “heart of the spider.” Hobgoblin abducted Spider-Girl and tried to force her to reveal the “heart of the spider.” Spider-Girl’s allies Darkdevil, Ladyhawk, Jack Jameson/The Buzz, the Fantastic Five, Mad Dog, Weadon’s team, the Avengers, Green Goblin, and more came to Spider-Girl’s rescue and fought off Hobgoblin and Mindworm. Mayday returned home to celebrate her special day with her family.

Okay, now that we have that lengthy plot summary out of the way, let’s move on to my individual bits of this review. As always, we’re going to start off with my own personal opinions about this book. I will say that I loved this book. I thought the stories in it were fantastic. Let’s talk about what I enjoyed the most. I loved watching Mayday trying to find her identity as both Mayday Parker and Spider-Girl. Her conflict between wanting a normal life and wanting to be a superhero was explored in a phenomenal way. Mayday tried to get her grades up and run for student council and because of Spider-Girl ended up in detention and her best friend had to take Mayday’s place in the election. Mayday tried to have a boyfriend, and Spider-Girl led him into the arms of her rival. I also loved how Mayday had to face the consequences of her battle with Carnage. Spider-Girl turned her greatest supporter into a Spider-Girl hater, and caused hearing loss in her baby brother, and then had to deal with the guilt of her actions. I enjoyed watching the Hobgoblin’s war against Black Tarantula with Spider-Girl caught in the middle, and that Spider-Girl wasn’t even Hobgoblin’s main concern, just an annoyance on the side. I enjoyed Mary Jane’s developments, from not wanting her daughter to be a superhero, to encouraging her daughter to be a superhero, then confronting the Hingle’s on how they should love their daughter no matter what she was and being offered a position as a guidance counselor at Mayday’s school. I enjoyed seeing the villains double-crossing with fake meeting locations and ambushes. I liked watching Slattery being an antagonist and assistant to Mayday and Mayday’s family, and particularly when Mary Jane stood up to Slattery after Slattery put Mayday in detention and answered Mayday’s phone. There was so much about this book that I thoroughly enjoyed. However, I will say that I do feel like the artwork did go wrong a lot. For the most part the art was relatively good, but there were just moments where the faces and bodies just didn’t look right. Now, I’m also very nitpicky about the title and cover being appropriate for the content of the book itself. Every issue in this book had a different title, and there were fifteen issues in this book, so including each individual issue title and the option to make an original title not taken from the title of any issue in the book, there were sixteen potential choices for a title. The title “Comes the Carnage!” was the title of an issue in this collection. The Carnage storyline was an ongoing storyline in this volume, and while I don’t particularly feel it was “the best” title for this book, I will say that I will approve this as an appropriate title. As for the cover, it very simple portrays Spider-Girl web-swinging through New York City. I feel like this simple cover is perfect. It offers the promise of seeing Spider-Girl swing into action in this book, and this book delivers on that promise. So, I will say that all in all, this book was an amazing production, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time going through it.

Next up on the list of topics we need to discuss is accessibility. I know I’ve explained my definition of this over seven dozen times at this point, but I feel obligated to explain myself again because I know that there are some readers here who have never been to this blog before to experience a Tim Cubbin review. So, for you newbs here, when I use the word “accessibility,” what I’m saying is how easy it is for someone who knows absolutely nothing about Spider-Girl or Marvel Comics to obtain this book, read it, and understand it as it is written with no outside knowledge on the source material. So, when asking if this book is accessible, I will say that, yes, it is. This book contains the first fifteen issues of one new series, and contains a recap issue (which I did not discuss, I only cover actual comic-style material and not expository-style material when reviewing a graphic novel, so since that issue was not written in a comic narrative style, I didn’t include that in my review), and it does not pick up directly off of any previous stories, crossover into any other series, or tie into any events. As such, getting into this book is actually pretty easy. If you’re looking to get into reading Marvel Comics and are looking for a good place to start, this book offers an excellent jump-on point.

Okay, moving on, we’re going on to the numeric score. I know that some people consider this section the most important segment in my reviews because it cements exactly how good I feel a book is. I also know that some of my readers come to these reviews primarily so they can read about the stories. I know that to different people, every segment in my reviews is the most important to some readers. But this is one of the primary segments of my reviews. So first, I will explain exactly how I score graphic novels. I work on a scale of exact whole numbers ranging from one to ten. One is the lowest score I can give, and if I give that score, I felt like this book is not even worth reading. If, however, I give a book a ten, that is my highest score, and that means that this book is sheer perfection and should be the top seller at all the retailers. To get a ten, a book has to have a story that is enjoyable all the way through, artwork that is consistently visually appealing, a title that fits the content of the book, and a cover that delivers on what it shows on the front of the book. So, when I take all these factors into consideration, the score I’m giving this book is… a nine! I loved almost everything about this book, and while I do feel the art could use some improvement, I thought this was a great effort.

Next up is the recommendation segment. This segment answers two separate questions. The first is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers? The second question is, regardless of whether I approved of this book or now, whom do I think would be the best audience, aside from the obvious fans of the characters, Marvel Comics, or the creative team? To answer the first question, yes, I do recommend this book. If you are reading this review, and now, based solely on the words you’ve just spent the past few minutes reading you’ve decided you want to read this graphic novel, I would tell you to go to your favorite bookstore or online retailer, or your local comic book shop or library, or your Marvel obsessed friend or family member, and try to get your hands on a copy of this book at your earliest convenience, you will definitely enjoy it. As for the best audience, I would recommend this book to teenagers or people who like reading stories about teenagers, females or people who enjoy reading about heroic female protagonists, people who like stories about characters trying to discover who they are, and people who like soap operatic stories.

Well, we’ve come to the ending paragraph of my review. There are still things that need to be said before we move on with our lives. If you have any spare time, please continue checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com for more of my content. I’ve been doing this blog for six years now. In that time, I’ve published over 190 posts. Some of these posts are short stories, some are poems, some are essays, some are articles, some are editorials, but the majority are reviews. You will find a few reviews of prose novels, manga, and comic book events here. Primarily, you will find over seven dozen other reviews of Marvel Epic Collections just like this one. The current focus of this blog is on Modern Era Epic Collections and Ultimate Epic Collections. I purchase every one as soon as I can after it is released and post a review of it as soon as I possibly can. As such, I post on a very frequent basis, so expect to see plenty of content from me pretty often. If you liked this post and have some spare time, please feel free to check out my reviews of “Spider-Girl: Legacy” “Spider-Girl: Keeping the Faith” and “Spider-Girl: Family Ties” for more Spider-Girl content. As for the future of this blog, keep checking back because sometime in the next four weeks, you can expect my next review “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Sitting in a Tree” to be published. You can also keep expecting to see more content coming from me for a long time, I intend to keep doing this blog for as long as I can, and I don’t think anything is going to stop me soon. If you have anything you’d like to say, feel free to leave a comment, please like, share, retweet, reply, spread the word, do whatever you can to get me out there and let me know what you think of what I’m doing. I’d really love to hear from you guys. That’s really all I have to say for now. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"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!

"Spider-Girl: Keeping the Faith"

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

            May “Mayday” Parker/Spider-Girl is the daughter of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson-Parker. She has the proportional speed, strength and agility of a spider, adhesive fingertips and toes, and a unique precognitive awareness of danger called “Spider-Sense.” She fights crime in the legacy of her father.

            May got a tip from ex-boyfriend and fellow superhero Jack “JJ” Jameson/Buzz that the supervillain Doctor Jade might be back in the game. Jack was living with his grandfather J. Jonah Jameson in the absence of his parents, who were in Europe due to Jack’s mother’s lecture tour. Jonah informed Jack that Jack’s parents would be coming for a visit, but Jack was not happy about this prospect because he figured his parents would jet off again right away. May had just quit her high school basketball team due to the expulsion of Nancy Lu, a student and teammate who was outed as a mutant and May thought this treatment was unfair. This put her at odds with her former crush Brad Miller, who turned out to be anti-mutant and her best friend Davida Kirby, who outed this student as a mutant. May was worried about Jack’s erratic behavior and placed her father’s “Spider-Tracer” on Jack so she could keep track of his location and see what he was up to and to get a lead on Doctor Jade. Another of May’s former crushes Normie Osborn was recovering in the hospital, watched over by his girlfriend Brenda Drago/Raptor, another superhero. Buzz tried to bust one of Doctor Jade’s operations and was almost captured in the process, but Spider-Girl was able to swing to his rescue, a fact that only made Buzz angry at Spider-Girl.

            May needed to recover the Spider-Tracer from Jack and invited herself over to his house to study, which was also an effort to evade Brad. John and Ashley Jameson were there arguing with Jonah. John and Ashley wanted Jack to come back to Europe with them, which Jonah was not happy about, but the choice was left to Jack. Meanwhile, Peter and Mary Jane had their hands full with their new baby Benjamin “Benjy.” John Jameson was abducted while getting his gear from the airport, which led to Ashley Jameson confessing to Jack that John and Ashley weren’t really on a lecture tour, they were treating patients who had been mutated by a rogue genetic engineer. Jack swore to prevent his parents’ work from being exploited. Meanwhile, May turned to her ally Darkdevil to look for John Jameson. Spider-Girl was signaled by a man calling himself Chesbro who served as an envoy for the crime boss the Black Tarantula, who agreed to give Spider-Girl John’s location in exchange for a favor, an offer Spider-Girl accepted. Spider-Girl found Doctor Jade and her ally Carolyn Trainer, the new Doctor Octopus, already in conflict with Buzz. The evil Doctors were able to mutate John into the Man-Wolf. Spider-Girl fought with Doctor Jade, Doctor Octopus and Man-Wolf to try to help Buzz save his father. Following this fight, the Black Tarantula contacted Spider-Girl.

            Spider-Girl teamed up with Avenger J2 to fight invisible monsters. Jack discovered the Spider-Tracer and he and his handler Richie decided to use it to try to learn Spider-Girl’s secret identity. They followed it to the Midtown South Police Station and falsely assumed Spider-Girl was a cop. May learned of the Spider Shoppe, a store devoted to Spider-Girl memorabilia. Spider-Girl and J2 turned to Doc Magus, Sorcerer Supreme, to combat the invisible monsters, believing them to be magic based.

            Mary Jane hand washed May’s Spider-Girl costume while May was at school. May was contacted by Chesbro, who informed May that Lady Octopus was attempting to recruit allies, including Handsome Richie Valentine, a member of the Canis crime family. Canis was in jail for taking down Wilson Fisk/Kingpin. Chesbro also informed May that Normie was in trouble. May was in a rush to be Spider-Girl and put her costume in the dryer. She swung to the hospital to check on Normie, who seemed to be okay, while Brenda informed Spider-Girl that Brenda was preparing to talk about engagement with Normie. Spider-Girl then went to Valentine Motors, where she battled Lady Octopus again. During this battle, Spider-Girl’s costume began to rip. When Brenda spoke of marriage with Normie, Normie instead decided to end their relationship. Following this fight, Spider-Girl was again contacted by Chesbro.

            Fellow student Christopher Jarkoer was majorly crushing on May. He was trying to ask her out when May thought she saw a sign of Lady Octopus. She swung in as Spider-Girl, only to discover it was a cat burglar calling himself Claw. As they fought, Claw hit on Spider-Girl. Agent Weadon, who oversaw a team led by former mercenary Kaine and including Raptor, was contacted by authorities who believed Spider-Girl was fighting Lady Octopus, and the team went in to bust up the fight. Chesbro informed Spider-Girl to look in on Normie and discovered that the reason Normie wouldn’t marry Brenda was because he was already “married” to Élan DeJunae.

            May went to watch a high school basketball game. While this game was on, Canis was being transferred from Riker’s Island to the courthouse. Lady Octopus busted up this transfer and freed Canis. Spider-Girl was contacted by Chesbro, who informed her of Canis’ escape. Spider-Girl swung in and fought Lady Octopus and Canis but was unable to prevent this escape and had to be rescued by Darkdevil.

            Spider-Girl received support from Black Tarantula, including training from Elektra Natchios and a strike force headed by two women called April and June. Kodiak, an agent of Canis, went after Handsome Richie Valentine for ignoring promises to Canis. Spider-Girl swung to his rescue in her new black costume, which she bought to replace her tattered red and blue.

            May’s new costume scared Mary Jane, who was reminded of Venom, a supervillain who had a similar appearance. Canis and Lady Octopus planned a crime summit so Canis could stake his claim as the new undisputed Kingpin of Crime. Kaine and Darkdevil instructed May to contact them if she saw Élan, who was the daughter of a major European crime boss. May busted up another of Canis’ agents trying to establish Canis as the Kingpin of Crime, and June was injured in the fight. Black Tarantula provided May with a whole closetful of Spider-Girl costumes, both red and blue, and black.

            Black Tarantula prepared for the inevitability that Spider-Girl would turn against him after Lady Octopus and Canis were apprehended. Kaine contacted Spider-Girl to inform her Kaine had orders to bring in Black Tarantula dead or alive. Canis attempted to start his crime summit, only to realize that he had been double-crossed by Lady Octopus and that the actual crime summit to establish the Kingpin of Crime was being held in a different location by Black Tarantula. Spider-Girl called in assistance to apprehend Canis, then went after Lady Octopus and Black Tarantula. Kaine’s team was called in as well and instructed to treat Spider-Girl as hostile. Meanwhile, Élan revealed to Normie that she was a member of the Order of the Goblin, a cult dedicated to Normie’s grandfather Norman Osborn/Green Goblin. Spider-Girl returned to her red and blue and attempted to call Normie, but Élan had Normie tied up.

            Élan planned to use the Goblin Serum on Normie to turn him into a true Goblin. May considered a romantic relationship with Chris. While with Raptor, Spider-Girl received a phone call from Élan, who told her she had Normie. Spider-Girl and Raptor rushed to Normie’s aid to fight the Goblin Queen. During the fight, Spider-Girl was injured.

            Kevin Hartman was a student at Midtown High School who was bullied. He turned to Carlton T. Hackmutter/Dragon King, former custodial engineer, now mutated supervillain, in an attempt to get revenge on his bullies. Courtney Duran, May’s best friend, encouraged May to repair her friendship with Davida. Davida and May stumbled upon Dragon King, but May was forced to resolve the conflict without changing to Spider-Girl in order to protect her secret identity. Courtney’s boyfriend Moose Manfield had been acting odd for a while, and he finally opened up to May about exactly what was going on in his life that was bothering him so much.

            Spider-Girl fought supervillain Allison Dillon/Aftershock, the daughter of one of Spider-Man’s villains, Max Dillon/Electro. Normie and Brenda actually got engaged. Electro turned himself into the Avengers and asked to speak to Spider-Man. He was unable to touch his daughter due to different frequencies in their electrical auras that caused physical pain upon contact. He didn’t want his daughter going down the same path he went down and ending up in jail like he did. Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, the Avengers and Electro confronted Aftershock to try to convince her to end her criminal ways.

            May invited Chris to Normie and Brenda’s engagement party. The Goblin Queen crashed the party and threw the Venom symbiote at Normie, turning Normie into Venom. The Fantastic Five tried to fight Venom but were impeded by the Goblin Queen. Reilly Tyne/Darkdevil and Spider-Girl swung in to fight, but Darkdevil was severely wounded by Venom, and the villains were able to escape. Spider-Girl brought Darkdevil to the Avengers, who called in Doc Magus and Doctor Strange to try to save him. May’s “Uncle” Phil Urich/Green Goblin flew in to fight Venom and the Goblin Queen, and May donned her black costume again.

            Okay, so we’ve had a very thorough synopsis of the book where I tried to leave out as many spoilers as I could. So, since I’ve rattled on for so long, I’m going to try to make my parts a little briefer, so I don’t totally waste your valuable time, and also, I have been working on composing this post for over two hours now and am getting ready to move on. So, the first thing you’re wondering is did I enjoy this book. I can absolutely confirm that I did, in fact, enjoy this book. However, I will say this is not exactly what I expected. First let’s talk about what I enjoyed. I found the stories to be of excellent quality and highly entertaining. I felt like the high school drama, the family life, and the superhero struggles were all in good balance and made for an enjoyable read. I found myself invested in and caring about the characters and what happened to them and what they were going through. I liked how they utilized new characters inspired by older characters from previous comics. I will say that I must complain about the artwork slightly. There’s something about the shape of the characters’ heads that bothers me in almost every issue in this graphic novel. I want to like the artwork, and I mostly do, but the heads are just a little wonky and off-putting in my opinion. Now, when I say this is not what I was expecting, I say this because of the cover. On the cover, May is wearing her black costume. This intrigued me before I purchased this book, leading me to believe May was going to get the Venom symbiote. Her not getting the symbiote in this book was a disappointment, but I was still able to enjoy the book for what it was.

            Next, we’re going to talk about accessibility. Now when I say this, I mean how easy it is to get into this book, especially if you know little or nothing about Spider-Girl or Marvel Comics. I will tell you that the accessibility rating of this book in my opinion is low. It does draw on a lot of history from Spider-Girl and her universe. What doesn’t help is that this is Vol. 5 and the only other Spider-Girl Modern Era Epic Collection available at the moment is Vol. 1, so at this exact point in time of my composing this post, there is a lot of Spider-Girl history unpublished in Modern Era Epic Collection format. I will tell you there is a lot that left even me, a twenty-three year Marvel veteran, lost because I’ve never actually read Spider-Girl before and these Modern Era Epic Collections are my first times experiencing her stories. So, if I was lost, there’s a chance you might be lost if you don’t know anything about Marvel Comics. In other words, if you’re looking to get into Marvel Comics, this is not the right place to start.

            Now, we’re getting to the most important part of the review: my numeric score. I work on a very simple scale. I rank my reviews on a scale of one to ten. One means this is trash and should be burned, ten means this is outstanding. Now, this book was really good, but like I said, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, and I feel like it detracted from my enjoyment of this book slightly, and the artwork did have a mild displeasing look here and there. So, I do have to give it a high score, but I do have to take a little away. So, since I absolutely must do this, I’m going to score this book at… eight. For what it was, it was really good, but the artwork just had to take off a point, and the story just wasn’t total perfection, so I do have to deduct another point there, but otherwise, I really found it to be an enjoyable read.

            Next, we’re going to talk about if I actually give my own personal recommendation of this book to you, my readers, and regardless of if I actually personally recommend it, to whom do I recommend this book. So as far as giving it my personal recommendation, I give it a resounding yes, this book is highly recommended by One Tim Cubbin. However, it does come with a caveat. As I said, this book does have accessibility problems, and I can’t recommend it to just everyone who reads this review. However, if you are a fan of Mayday Parker from any point in Marvel Comics history, this book comes highly recommended by me, I’m telling you that you should read this, I think you will find it extremely enjoyable. And if you do want to read this book with no Marvel knowledge at all, I mean, hey, that’s your choice, that is all up to you, I can’t stop you, I just don’t recommend you do that. But if you do read this book, please feel free to leave some kind of comment, I’d love to hear your opinion, too. I’ve never actually gotten a response from a reader before and I would love for you to be the first, that would actually be really cool.

            Okay, so I feel like it’s time to say goodbye for now. I’ve rambled on for quite some time, and if you’re still here, you are honestly THE BEST! I will tell you that I post on a very frequent basis, you can expect another post sometime within the next four weeks, probably sooner than that. I have written over one hundred posts, including dozens of book reviews just like this one, and you can expect plenty more to keep coming. I literally buy every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection that comes out as soon as I’m able to get it, so there’s going to be plenty of content keeping on coming to this blog. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty more to read. I’ve written a bunch of things called B’ings if you want to totally waste some time. Just keep looking at timcubbin.blogspot.com and keep coming back for more, I’ll be here. And so, I say to you until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"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!