"Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Gwenom"

 

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

                As a teenager, Gwen Stacy was bitten by a mutated spider. The bite transformed her, granting her amazing powers: a precognitive awareness of danger, adhesive fingertips and toes, and the proportional speed and strength of a spider. But those gifts were taken away when a super villain further tampered with her genetics, and Gwen had no choice but to embrace a symbiotic parasite called Venom to restore them. To the residents of New York, she is the dangerous outlaw called Spider-Woman.

                Former NYPD Captain George Stacy had been in prison awaiting trial for aiding and abetting Spider-Woman when he was brutally assaulted in jail by the supervillain Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino and went into a coma. Gwen sought vengeance for the wrongs against her father. In her anger, she was losing control of the Venom symbiote and giving in to her dark side. However, revenge against the Rhino was denied her as rogue police officer Frank Castle ended the Rhino in front of Gwen, but the blame for Rhino’s demise fell upon Gwen. Gwen broke into a S.H.I.E.L.D. prison to talk to Cindy Moon, the woman responsible for both the spider that created Spider-Woman and for the loss of Gwen’s powers for advice on how to defeat Matt Murdock/Kingpin, who had been pulling Gwen’s strings since the arrest of George Stacy. Gwen’s friends and bandmates The Mary Janes (Mary Jane Watson, Betty Brant, and Glory Grant) started a search for Gwen, who had been absent because of Gwen’s activities as Spider-Woman. They enlisted Ben and May Parker in their search. Spider-Woman had a run in with Castle, who offered a team-up against Kingpin. Kingpin had stolen Gwen’s interdimensional teleporter “watch” but was unaware of its purpose or how to work it, but it had been making a noise that Kingpin did not know how to stop. Gwen confessed her secret identity to The Mary Janes and the Parkers, unsure if she could defeat the Kingpin. Ben Parker insisted the war against the Kingpin was indeed Gwen’s fight. Gwen, Castle, and Samantha Wilson/Captain America took the fight to Kingpin. At the conclusion of the battle, Gwen found herself teleported from her home dimension of Earth-65 to another reality, where she ran into that reality’s version of Gwen Stacy. The Watcher of Earth-65 Utua and the Watcher of Earth-8 Utaa observed the dimensional travel and saw that an anomaly was occurring.

                Gwen was unsure of the reality she was in or when in the timeline she was and was afraid, she was on Earth-616 and talking to the Gwen Stacy that was soon to meet her demise and to preserve the timeline tried not to talk to her. She couldn’t find help from the Fantastic Four, so turned back to that reality’s Gwen. She confessed to being Spider-Woman from another reality and the two agreed to work together to get Gwen back to her reality. The Watchers traveled on Earth-8, where they ran into Charlotte Morales-Stacy/Spider-Girl and George Morales-Stacy/Spider-Max, the children of Miles Morales/Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman from that reality, when a Gwen Stacy/Venom arrived to reveal she and a council of Spider-Women were behind the anomaly to prevent Gwen from killing Kingpin. The two Gwens on what turned out to be Earth-617 went to Tony Stark, who created a device that could get Gwen home. Upon returning to her reality, Gwen went to J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the tabloid newspaper The Daily Bugle, and revealed her identity as Spider-Woman. She was dubbed “Spider-Gwen” in the newspaper. She had a confrontation with Kingpin, where she was able to get her watch back. She was put on trial for crimes committed as Spider-Woman and found guilty and sentenced to a year in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Maximum-Security Prison. She was assaulted daily by Titania. After six months, Captain America came to her with an offer that would release her early if she agreed to sign on for a S.H.I.E.L.D. assignment, but Gwen refused and decided to serve her sentence. While she was in prison, her father came out of his coma. Upon her release, Gwen went back to her life with her father, in The Mary Janes, and as Spider-Gwen.

                While craving a burger, Gwen ran into her old friend Harry Osborn. The two tried to catch up, but Peter Porker/Spider-Ham, the Spider-Hero of another reality, came to inform Gwen the Inheritors, a group of vampiric creatures who fed off of Spider-Totems, had returned and were after Spider-Heroes again. They had already ended Spider-Man Noir and Spider-UK. Gwen attempted to join the fight, but when she tried to transport realities, she lost her watch and was stranded. She decided to go to Oscorp, where she ran into that reality’s Gwen Stacy/Green Goblin. In this reality, Harry Osborn/Spider-Man and Green Goblin had been a superhero team, but after Spider-Man’s death, Green Goblin lost touch with her humanity. Gwen ran into this reality’s Peter Parker, who was a scientist, who informed her this reality’s Gwen would be able to create a reality transporter for her if they could bring Green Goblin back to her senses. Peter and Gwen went to this reality’s Mary Jane Watson, who informed them that this reality’s Betty Brant and Glory Grant were reporters investigating the Green Goblin’s hideout locations. Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane went after Green Goblin, followed by Betty and Glory who were hoping to get a story. Mary Jane was able to appeal to Green Goblin’s humanity, and Green Goblin was able to create a dimensional transporter for Gwen. Betty and Glory decided not to break the story out of respect for a hero. Gwen was able to rejoin the fight against the Inheritors, and though the Spider-Heroes won, it was not without great cost. Gwen was now the only Spider-Hero able to travel between realities. She went to the worlds of fallen Spider-Heroes to inform the Spider-Heroes’ loved ones of their losses.

                The Mary Janes were planning their big comeback. Gwen, a convicted felon, found herself unable to obtain employment, and decided to open a business as a hero for hire. The Man-Wolf and his gang decided to target Gwen. Gwen attempted a date with Harry Osborn, but the two were denied service at a fancy restaurant due to Gwen’s status as Spider-Gwen. Gwen started having headaches. Gwen decided to turn to Oscorp scientist Doctor Elsa Brock for help. Harry tried to help Gwen arrange an appointment, but the two were informed that there was no Doctor Brock employed at Oscorp. As the Mary Janes performed a concert, the venue was attacked by the Man-Wolf’s gang. During the attack, Harry was severely injured. Gwen then had to fight the Man-Wolf himself.

                Gwen traveled to Earth-616 where she teamed up with Peter Parker/Spider-Man to fight the supervillain Swarm, who was attempting to steal a rare dinosaur skeleton. After the fight, Gwen settled on a new superhero code name: Ghost Spider.

                Okay, now that we have the plot summary out of the way, let’s move on to the Tim Cubbin input segments of this review. We’re going to start with my personal reflections on this book. I found this book to be moderately enjoyable. While I liked it, I didn’t love it. Let’s talk about what I liked first. I liked Gwen meeting herself from other dimensions. I enjoyed how she met herself on Earth-617 in particular. Readers of “The Amazing Spider-Man” #121 know exactly what is supposed to happen to that Gwen that specific night based on the outfit she’s wearing, and I liked how Gwen didn’t want to tell this Gwen her suspicions as she was unsure if she was in 616 in the past and didn’t want to prevent her death in order to preserve the sanctity of the timeline, something she easily could have violated, and I liked the payoff that occurred from this meeting. I also enjoyed the “Gwen Goblin,” I thought it was a very interesting choice to make a Gwen Stacy the Green Goblin. I liked the follow-up to Spider-Geddon, with Gwen informing the fallen Spider-Heroes’ families of their loved ones’ passings, the Spider-Man Noir particularly hit hard with Aunt May’s reaction. I liked the jail issue, which was a huge surprise, you don’t often see your protagonist superhero due jail time, and I thought that issue was fascinating, especially when she wouldn’t take the deal to get out early. That may seem odd to like, but what I liked about it was that it showed Gwen takes accountability for her actions, and it showcased her sense of justice and her resilience, and the strength and willpower of her character, that she would go to jail for her beliefs and willingly accept her punishment and serve it to its full time. I liked how she tried to reestablish her life after jail and all the hiccups that came with it, unable to get a job, too much public attention, getting turned down at a restaurant, then forming her own business as a solution, I thought that was great and actually very realistic and that the writers did a good job with that storyline. I liked the relationship between Gwen and her father; I found it to be very heartwarming how devoted Gwen was to her father and how supportive George was of his daughter. But while I liked all these points, these were the highlights for me. The rest of the book I mostly coasted through. The whole story arc with the Watchers felt unnecessary and was slightly confusing, and while supposedly a key point in Gwen’s journey, really didn’t seem to have much of an impact on the story. Also, I have to complain about the art from “Spider-Gwen” #25-34, I honestly didn’t particularly like it, it just didn’t visually appeal to me. However, the art in “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider” #1-10 was actually highly enjoyable. Our final thing to touch on in my reflection is the title. I feel that “Gwenom” was a very accurate title for this volume. The storyline was one of the longest storylines in the book and the symbiote was a key component to this volume, so I think this was the best choice for a title for this book.

                Next up, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I’ve been over this over six dozen times at this point, and I know I have previous readers who already know what I’m about to explain again, but I know I always have newbies for every review I write, so I always have to explain this for them, so regular readers, bear with me for a few seconds. When I use the word accessibility in one of my reviews, it applies to if a new reader, who has never heard of or knows nothing about Spider-Gwen, can find this book online, or in a bookstore or comic book shop, or a local library, or at a friend’s house, and decide that they want to read this, and be able to completely understand what they’ve read without any prior knowledge on the subject matter. I will tell you that this book is highly inaccessible. This book, which is marketed as Vol. 3, picks up directly where Vol. 2 left off, and that built up from storylines from the first volume, so reading those are pretty essential to understanding this particular volume, and not having read them is a huge amount of missed storylines. Also, this book crosses over into “Spider-Geddon,” which was a Spider-Man crossover event. This book had only the “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider” issues of the event, as Epic Collections almost never include the main series of the events, only the tie-in issues of the particular characters that are the focus of the collection, so not knowing the other Spider-Heroes is also detrimental to understanding this particular volume. So, if you’re looking to get into reading Marvel Comics and are looking for a starting point, this book is not the point to jump in on.

                Continuing on, we’re going to get to my numeric score. My score is, of course, one of the key points of my reviews. I score on a very basic system: exact integers on a scale ranging from one through ten. If I give a book a score of a one, that is my lowest score, which signifies that this book is so horrible it’s not worth taking off the shelf and shouldn’t even be bought If a give a book a ten, that is my highest score, which signifies that this book is sheer perfection and it would be a sin if this book didn’t fly off the shelves. When I give a graphic novel a score, I take three factors into account: the story, the artwork, and the title. A graphic novel can have a perfect story, but the art can be horrible, and the title could be a complete misnomer, and I’d have to deduct two points. On the other hand, a graphic novel can have the worst story ever told but still have fantastic artwork and the most perfect title ever and get points just for that. So, let’s take a quick look at our ingredients here: we have a story that for me had good points, but this was still only a book I could coast through. The artwork was only enjoyable for me for half of the book. The title was an accurate representation of the book. So, we’re going to take these three factors, throw them in a blender, mix it until it’s completely blended, then the score we’re working with here is… a six. To me, this book was mid-level, but I still feel like it falls on the high side of mid.

                The next topic on our agenda is my recommendation. In this segment, I will answer two questions. The first is do I personally recommend this book to my readers or anyone who I talk to about comic books? The second question is completely independent of the first question, and it is who do I believe would be the best audience for this book? The answer to the first question is that I believe if you’re reading this review and are interested in reading this book based solely on what I’ve been writing, I would tell you that I feel like you should give this book a try. As for the best audience for this book, beyond the obvious fans of Spider-Gwen, Marvel Comics, Jason Latour, and Seanan McGuire, I would say this book is for comic readers who enjoy stories about family bonds, as this is a story about a daughter seeking vengeance for the wrongs committed against her father. Also, if you like comics about alternate realities, this is a good book for you. If you like comic books about a character fighting their dark side, this comic is perfect for you. And if you like comics about the justice system, you might like this book.

                Okay, we’re at the point where I’m going to start wrapping things up. There are a few things that should be noted before I sign off. First, I have been working on this blog for five years now, I’ve done over 170 posts. I’ve done over six dozen reviews of Marvel Epic Collections, as well as reviews of prose novels, events, and even a few manga. I’ve also written several short stories and poetry, as well as essays, articles, and editorials. I have done reviews of almost every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection, and I have written a review of every Ultimate Epic Collection. I purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after their release, and if possible, I post a review as soon as I can after I finish reading it. If you liked this review, check out my reviews of “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse” and “Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider: Weapon of Choice” for more Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider content, and keep checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com for other posts, I’m sure you’ll find something else here you’ll like as well. I post on a very frequent basis, so keep checking back for more. You can expect my next review “Spider-Girl: Family Ties” sometime in the next two months, so keep checking back for it. And with that, I release you from your bonds to me. You can go back to doing what you were doing, and I’ll move on with my life. But until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Spider-Verse"

 

The following is a review of the Marvel Comics Event “Spider-Verse” as presented on Marvel Unlimited. It is not a review of the film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” nor a piece about the film “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

Howdy, everybody, you have now clicked into From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin! This is Tim Cubbin reporting! I’m a certified journalist, yet due to my disability, I am unable to get a true, steady job, in the journalism field or any other career. But, I want to get my words out there, so I do this blog unpaid, out of the goodness of my heart, hoping someone like you will read my little posts, and if you are reading this, despite knowing I’m NOT talking about Spider-Man films, you are THE BEST!

Okay, if you’re new to From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin and have never read my reviews before, I usually try to keep a standardized format of… well, reviewing it. Today, the first thing we’re going to do (after my boring intro) is talk about a few of the main characters. Regular readers know I give backgrounds, including origins of the characters and some of the history of the story needed to actually survive this review. BUT! This IS “Spider-Verse” and there were dozens of Spider-Men, Spider-Women, and even Spider-Animals, so I’m only going to talk about a select few that are either the best known or the most important. After that, I will continue the synopsis which will be briefly described in the character introductions and tell a good deal about the stories, avoiding spoilers as much as possible (and thank you NOT to the people who have already spoiled “No Way Home” and ruined the surprises, oh the joy of social media). Following that, I’m going to put in my two cents and talk about my personal take on it, including things I liked and disliked and how I felt reading it. After that, I’ll tell you how much I think you need to know about Spider-Man history in order to fully get it, which I call accessibility. Following that, I’ll give this whole event my own personal numeric score (we’ll get to that when we get to that). Then I’ll tell you if I actually recommend this story, especially including who I recommend the story to, looking back to accessibility. Then I give my boring conclusion paragraph where I tell you what else my blog has, and then you are free to go about your merry way. Well, now, let’s go to what you ACTUALLY WANT to read instead of my incessant blabbing (which, if you’re still here makes you THE BEST!).

First off, I’ll briefly tell you some of the major or most well-known Spider-Men, Spider-Women and Spider-Animals involved in the story. I am avoiding origin stories this time as it would take FOREVER to do and I only want to hold you for a few more minutes. Most of the Spiders are Peter Parker, but we do have a few other Spiders mixed in. The main Spider is Peter Parker/the Amazing Spider-Man who was introduced in 1962. We also have Peter Parker/Otto Octavius/the Superior Spider-Man (Doctor Octopus from the main Marvel Universe in Peter Parker’s body), Billy Braddock/Spider-UK, Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (best known as “Spider-Gwen), Miles Morales/Spider-Man, Peter Porker/Spider-Ham, Cindy Moon/Silk, Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew/Black Widow, Ben Reilly/Spider-Man, Kaine Parker/Scarlet Spider, Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man, Penelope Parker/Sp//dr, Ben Parker/Old Man Spider-Man, Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099, Peter Parker/The Spider-Man (better known as Spider-Man Noir), Peter Parker/Spider-Monkey, Ashley Barton/Spider-Woman, Anya Corazon/Spider-Girl, Mayday Parker/Spider-Girl, May Reilly/Lady-Spider, Peter Parker/Six-Armed Spider-Man, Peter Parker/Captain Universe, Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk, May Parker/Spider Ma’am, many other Peter Parkers from other media such as cartoons and movies, several other Spiders who are not Peter Parker, those who were so minor they weren’t really identified; I mean, SO MANY SPIDERS! There are THOUSANDS of universes, most of them having at least ONE Spider, this list could go on for pages if they were all identified.

Okay, now, we’ve talked about ALL the Spiders I could think of, now we’ll talk about the villains. The Spiders are facing a family of energy suckers who feed off of the essences of Spider-Totems, all of them now obsessed with our group of Spiders who are all big juicy Spider-Totems. This family call themselves the Inheritors. This family is made up of Solus, Daemos, Verna, Brix, Bora, and Morlun. An Inheritor cannot truly be destroyed as they will return to clone bodies upon their deaths.

Well, now that we’ve got all of them squared away, let’s talk about the stories. Like many good stories, the central story focuses on a prophecy. It tells of the Inheritors’ defeat by the Spider-Totems of the Multiverse. The only way to prevent their demise is to slay three Spider-Totems: the Bride, the Scion, and the Other. This would insure that no other Spider-Totems would be created and the Inheritors will inherit the Multiverse. The identities of the Spider-Totems in the prophecy are Cindy Moon/Silk (the Bride), Benji Parker (the Scion), and Kaine Parker/Scarlet Spider (the Other). The Spiders band together with missions to defeat the Inheritors, travelling through all different realities where friends are foes, foes are allies, and things are all backwards from their home realities.

So, now I have a few things to say. I thought this story was AMAZING (no pun intended)! I LOVED EVERY ISSUE! I thought the writing was top notch. I thought all of the writers, er, spun a good web.  Some of my readers know that I am VERY keen about artwork. This can TOTALLY interfere with my scoring. The artwork never disappointed me. I especially enjoyed the throwbacks to specific realities. In one story, several Spiders travelled to the reality of the original 1967 cartoon, and I thought that was great. The artist TOTALLY caught the essence of the old series, mimicking the original artwork style perfectly, and it was like putting speech bubbles in the cartoon (I’m about to turn thirty-four in a month, but I watched that cartoon on DVD when I was a kid). I also liked the story featuring Peter Parker from the “Ultimate Spider-Man” animated series. And there were several other Easter eggs that long-time Spidey fans would pick up. All-in-all, I thoroughly enjoyed this event, and prior readers of this blog know I am very hard to please.

Okay, now we move on to accessibility. I don’t actually give this a numeric score, but I do say how easy a story is to pick up. In this case, I thought the event was very much self-contained. I feel that it’s relatively easy to pick up, even for fans who have never read a Spider-Man comic before and have only seen films or cartoons or have never had any prior experience with Spidey. Knowing a little background helps, but I don’t think it was essential. Some of these Spiders were only just introduced in the event, and there were origin stories contained where they were needed, so I feel this makes this easy to understand. Yes, there were Spiders with established history (considering Spidey was created in 1962 and this event was published in 2014), but I don’t think the long-term history is a hindrance. Hold that thought, we’ll return to this in two paragraphs.

Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for… my numeric score. I’ve already talked a lot about my feelings so this paragraph will be relatively brief. I score on a scale of one to ten. One means this was absolutely horrible (but you know I’m not scoring ANYWHERE near that), ten means in was mind-blowingly awesome. So I score it at… drumroll please… NINE! There were a few points that I didn’t like so unfortunately I couldn’t give it a perfect score, but it was pretty close for me.

Alright, we’re almost to the end (if you’re still here you are THE BEST!). Well, let’s see, I did say something about recommendation, didn’t I? So, do I recommend it? YES! YES! A thousand times, YES! If you’re a fan of any Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, or Spider-Animal, check this out as they are just about guaranteed to be there somewhere. If you’ve always wanted to read a Spider-Man comic but don’t know where to start, I think this book is a pretty good jump-in point. If you just saw “No Way Home” and want to get a TRUE Spider-Verse story, this is the right book for you. If you’ve never even HEARD of Spider-Man before reading this post and decided this sounds interesting, I totally recommend reading this. HOWEVER! I CANNOT tell you if this is a good story. For me, yes, it was a great story. But it might not be good for YOU. I can’t tell you how to feel. There are those of you who may say “No Way Home” was the best movie ever made, while some of you may say the hype was wrong and regret buying a ticket. We’re all entitled to our own opinions. This post is mine, feel free to have yours.

Okay, I’ve probably bored you just about long enough. BUT! If you liked this, I’ve already written more than seventy posts, many of which being book reviews, so feel free to read more book reviews when looking for something to read, I might have a few good recommendations for you. I also write editorials (being a certified journalist), I write essays, I write short fiction and non-fiction, I write poetry, I do all kinds of things, so if you like my writing style, feel free to explore more From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin. So now, if you’re still here, you are THE BEST! I hope you’ll come back, I post fairly regularly so keep checking, and till next time, Tim Cubbin… out!