Spider-Girl #76 Review

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Reviewer: Chris Delloiacono
Story Title: Keeping the Faith

Script, Plot, and Pencils by: Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz
Finished Art by: Sal Buscema
Colored by: Gotham
Lettered by: V.C.’s Dave Sharpe
Assistant Editor: Nicole Wiley
Editor: Andy Schmidt
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz certainly know how to tell a powerful story. Spider-Girl #76 is action-packed, but the focus is on the characters and relationships more than the fisticuffs. Mayday Parker has been so viciously attacked by her enemies Canis and Lady Octopus the last few months that she has resorted to accepting the aid of another villain, Black Tarantula, in hopes of stopping the “bigger” menace. Topping her woes off, has been a ever-increasing difficultly with her costume that led to her adopting a new/old look…that of the black costume (it’s not the symbiote, but a store bought fabric costume) that her dad wore prior to Venom being unleashed on the public. This new costume isn’t exactly met with open arms as we start this month.

The issue begins just after Mayday has returned home from her first foray in the new duds. Her mom, you know her as Mary Jane, walks in on her daughter and freaks out at the site of the black costume. Since May didn’t take the time to discuss the changes with her mom and dad, the shock of seeing what appears to be the symbiote in her house is understandable and well played by DeFalco. The ability of DeFalco to tell a reasonably plausible story about a teenage-superhero and her dual struggles is a big reason for the book’s creative success. Peter and M.J. have been through everything that May is going through in one form or another, but she usually ignores their advice or doesn’t seek it at all—like a real teenager would. There are a lot of books out there that claim to be about real teenagers, and some are actually successful, but DeFalco’s Spider-Girl is one of the best.

To curtail the hysterics of her mother, Mayday tears the mask from her new costume, which sets up some strange antics later in the story. Team Spider is a group of gun toting bounty hunters that Black Tarantula has working for Spider-Girl in her war on crime. Together they are going to crash a crime summit in NYC. Of course Spider-Girl’s costume isn’t quite up to the challenge. She spent the last of her cash on the previous costume, so she’s forced to combine the hood from one of her dad’s old costumes with the black costume, creating a very odd look.

Before she meets up with Team Spider for the action packed final act of the story, DeFalco throws in further development with May and her high school friends, a hilarious scene where Spider-Girl goes to Avengers Mansion in hopes of scoring some money from her friend Stinger, but Jarvis is the only one around—of course she refuses to borrow from Jarvis. The character development and strong supporting cast is also evident in a scene with the superhero Darkdevil and Kaine, who heads up a government sponsored superteam. DeFalco excels at including a large supporting cast and each character rings absolutely true to form. Ron Frenz equally excels at bringing the varied settings and characters to vivid life.

The issue furthers a great many subplots, solves Spider-Girl’s costume dilemma, clarifies what it’s going to be like for her to work with Black Tarantula, and gives us an idea of what Canis and Lady Octopus have planned for the future. Every month there is (not seems to be) an enormous amount of story and development packed in just twenty-two pages. Spider-Girl reads as a complete story, and a portion of May’s life.

While the book is a potential future, it’s set in our modern era, and I always get the feeling that I’m reading along with a comic that would be coming out today if Stan Lee had never issued the edict of “appearance of change” decades ago. This is a book that is allowed tremendous creative freedom and takes advantage of that. No issue is wasted money, and you’ll never have to wait 4 or 5 issues for the point of the story to be reached. Spider-Girl is a REAL comic book, not a chapter of a trade paperback, like so many of today’s books. Good or bad, if that’s what you want, if that’s what you need, that’s for you to decide. BUT, if American comics are ever going to appeal to today’s youth this is the way to get them!