Friday, June 05, 2020

I remembered the cover, anyway.


It's a great cover! Easily my favorite part of this one. From 2016, Spider-Woman #8, written by Dennis Hopeless, pencils by Javier Rodriguez, inks by Alváro López.

The next three issues were Civil War II tie-ins, so this may have been intended as a last bit of fun before the grimdark crossover machine started up. Jessica throws down with the "kingpin of Staten Island," Tiger Shark--who doesn't get a single line of dialog all issue, which makes me wonder how effective a crime boss he was. Well, he's intimidating, anyway. After a fight in TS's swanky apartment smashes open his giant fishtank and releases a worryingly large squid, Jessica gets a couple lucky breaks: a texting ambulance driver hits Tiger Shark, knocking him into the sewers. She's not about to follow, but gets dragged down, and it looks pretty bad until the squid wrecks the Shark. Jessica still takes the win--and the credit.

Meanwhile, at home is pretty domestic-blissy for her, with her new son and new love interest-slash-manny, the Porcupine. I had to look up that he wasn't the original, since I know he died in an issue of Captain America, but...why would you take that identity? Even if it was just yours for the grabbing. Anyway, Jessica had a new costume and new motorcycle in this series as well, and I wonder if all of them haven't been rolled back for her newest series. It happens. Aside from the cover, I didn't love this one? Maybe because I feel like Namor, Tiger Shark should be pretty unbeatable if he manages to get the fight into his element. Maybe the previous issue established his grudge with the squid and I missed it...

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

I didn't care for the new costume or addition of a baby, but seeing these panels makes me curious about the series overall. Maybe I'll read an issue or two online.

Yeah I don't get why anybody would want to assume the identity of the Porcupine either. Dude was d-list at best (and only ranked that high due to fighting Cap) z-list at worst.