Fighting crime for two.
Note: this is a spoiler-free advance review of Spider-Woman #1, which will be released on Wednesday, November 18.
It wasn’t until it moved beyond the Spider-Verse crossover and found a new artist and new direction that Dennis Hopeless’ Spider-Woman became the comic it needed to be. And thanks to Secret Wars, Hopeless and artist Javier Rodriguez only had a half dozen issues to explore that new direction before Secret Wars cut things short. This relaunched series brings back the creative team and many of the familiar trappings, but unlike some All-New, All-Different Marvel titles, quite a bit has changed in those missing eight months. Jessica Drew is pregnant, and it’s putting a serious cramp in her superhero style.
The early images of a pregnant Spider-Woman definitely turned some heads, and invited all manner of questions. Mainly, “Who’s the father?” and “Why would she endanger her unborn child?”. Hopeless tackles the latter question head-on in this first issue. The real conflict of the series doesn’t involve some new villainous mastermind or world-ending threat. It’s Jessica’s struggle to accept her new life as a stay-at-home mom on superhero maternity leave. As for the identity of her baby daddy? That looks to be an ongoing mystery for the time being.
The whole point of Hopeless’ big status quo shift in the previous volume of Spider-Woman was to ground Jessica and force her to deal with more street-level problems away from all her fancy S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avengers resources. In that sense, the new twist fits right in with the general tone of the book. When she isn’t dealing with ice cream cravings or her own treacherous body, Jess is forced to wrestle with being relegated to the sidelines while Ben Urich and Porcupine do the heavy lifting. The new direction builds nicely on the strong group dynamic Hopeless put together in the previous volume. Jessica’s almost motherly affection for the reformed Porcupine is touching, and especially interesting in light of her struggle to find similar affection for her unborn child.
It should be noted that this issue doesn’t devote much time to recapping past events or really introducing the various main characters and their relationships. It’s hardly an inaccessible read, but I’d have to recommend going back and reading Hopeless and Rodriguez’s work on the previous volume to fully appreciate the character relationships. Luckily, that doesn’t require a huge time investment given how quickly the previous volume was relaunched.
This issue builds the foundation for what could be a very interesting character study of a reluctant mother learning to embrace her new lot in life. At the same time, Hopeless makes it clear that Jess can’t escape the the weirdness of her old life so easily, and there”s a satisfying amount of weirdness to offset the more ordinary aspects of the conflict. If anything, the new series is a little bigger and more bizarre than the previous book was, opening up Spider-Woman’s adventures to the wider Marvel U. once again.
It’s nice (if not terribly surprising) to see that Rodriguez is able to juggle the outlandish on down-to-earth elements so well. The story is laid back at times and outlandish at others, and Rodriguez brings a unified look to it all. Rodriguez’s page layouts stand out thanks to their variety and strong sense of design. At times he relies on smaller, grid-like layouts, while at other times the page opens up and allows Rodriguez’s elegant figure-work to breathe. Rodriguez also colors this issue, and his vibrant hues do a lot to enhance the story. Whether it’s the moody glow of a fire in the early pages or the eclectic hues seen in the final sequence, Rodriguez’s work leaves a strong impression. Granted, the cover is a little wonky in terms Jessica’s posture and proportions, but generally the figure work is much stronger inside the comic.
The only thing new about this series is the status quo. But considering how little time we got to savor Dennis Hopeless and Javier Rodriguez’s Spider-Woman before Secret Wars cut things short, and changes to the creative team would be a disappointment. This first issue makes the most of the book’s core character dynamics as Jessica grapples with her new life as a superhero mother-to-be. This issue even opens up her world to bigger and crazier conflicts again, promising an exciting road ahead for Spider-Woman.
