Spideydude.com

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-GIRL #2 Review

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-GIRL #2

“In the Shadow of Death!”

Writer: Tom DeFalco

Penciler: Ron Frenz

Inker: Sal Buscema

Colorist: Bruno Hang

“The Stronger I Am, The Sooner I Sleep!”

Writer: Tom DeFalco

Penciler: Colleen Coover

Inker: Colleen Coover

Colorist: Colleen Coover

“Red, White, and Ka-Blooey!”

Writer: Tom DeFalco

Penciler: Ron Frenz

Inker: Sal Buscema

Colorist: John Kalisz

Cover Art: Ron Frenz, Sal Buscema, and Chris Sotomayor

Be warned – there are SPOILERS ahead!

(This review will focus primarily on the main Spider-Girl adventure, but I’ll touch on the two extra features briefly when discussing the pros and cons.)

The Plot

Mayday continues the search for answers.  Peter learns more about the situation and promises Mary Jane that he’ll stop May from getting further involved.  Wes defends May, and Courtney suspects that he knows something he’s not letting on.  The Punisher gets answers and begins to plow through the gangs.  Spider-Girl learns that Mayhem is working with Man-Mountain Marko and confronts her.  The Punisher finds Spider-Girl.

The Good

Where do I start?

Right off the top, Frenz and Buscema once again deliver a great-looking issue.  There is a foreboding quality to both the lighting and the staging of the scenes, which sets up the darker tone.  At the same time, this is very much a Spider-Girl book – the violence is never gratuitous, and the proceedings are never so dark as to become unappealing.

Like many DeFalco stories, this one flies.  There are action scenes, informational scenes, recaps, and even a smattering of character moments.  These guys do more with sixteen pages than most teams do with twenty-two, all at a high, consistent quality.  If this is to be the end of Spider-Girl, I sure as hell don’t want this to be the end of DeFalco and Frenz.  (I love Sal and will miss him too, but I think he’s more than earned his retirement at this point.  The man is nothing short of a demigod to have continued to work regularly for this long!)

The Punisher makes his presence felt in this issue, and it’s great.  He may be more imposing on these pages, even as an older man, than he has ever been in a shared universe story.  He tends to lose his edge when you put him next to characters in bright costumes, but in this story he’s pure badass.  Like everything with this issue, it is beautifully understated.  DeFalco and Frenz never need to resort to gore or excessive violence to get their point across, something that I wish more creators would figure out.

Mayhem is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters, and that’s very surprising to me.  She’s supposed to be the bitchy sister (or cousin, according to their cover story) that nobody likes, yet she is never overtly villainous.  Like the Punisher, she seems to possess a twisted morality, a belief that the only way to stop criminals is to engage them on their level.  DeFalco also uses her as a microcosm of the shift from the ideal superhero of the Silver Age to the “grim and gritty” superhero of modern times, and in doing so gives a short commentary on the current state of the industry.  It’s a clever and classy way to handle the issue.

While all of this is happening, DeFalco and Frenz also cook up a couple of interesting subplots.  The first involves Peter and his desire to keep May out of the gang war.  The second involves Wes and Courtney, and what they know (or don’t know) about May.  Both of these have been simmering for several issues, but they seem to be boiling up and preparing for resolution.

As for the other stories in the issue, I liked them much more than the extras in the first issue.  For one thing, it’s all new material.  With the main Spider-Girl feature running sixteen pages, like all of the digital “reprints,” these extra bits pump up the pagecount to the standard twenty-two.  The Lil’Benjy story is what it always has been, which is a quick one-page short.  Like all the previous ones, this put a smile on my face.  The second story is a mini-adventure with The Buzz and (later) American Dream.  In a nice bit of synergy, DeFalco and Frenz use this backup to augment the main story, showing what happens at the chop shop after the Punisher blows the place up.  It was a nice use of The Buzz – after all, with Spider-Girl going away, this is likely the last opportunity for DeFalco to utilize his MC2 characters – and a quick, breezy story in its own right.  JJ’s constant passes at American Dream were pretty amusing, too.

The Bad

Even though I felt like the main feature was pretty packed, I think it stinks that they’re still restricted to sixteen pages.  Sure, these stories were likely in production before the miniseries was approved, but I would have to think that the timeframe could have allowed for more pages.  Being hamstrung by their commitments to the digital format hurt the customers of this paper format issue.

The Ugly

This really has nothing to do with the issue, but the ad inside of the front cover has Thor yelling “PLAY BALLS!”  What the hell does that even mean?  I feel uncomfortable just thinking about it.

The Bottom Line

This is another great issue of the best Spider-book on the stands right now.  (Yes, I went there.)  Grade: A