Reviewer: Chris Delloiacono
Story Title: Becoming
Written by: Fiona Avery
Penciled by: Mark Brooks
Inked by: Jaime Mendoza with Victor Olazaba
Colored by: VC’s Rus Wooton
Lettered by: Udon’s Larry Molinar
Editor: Jennifer Lee
Creative Consultant: J. Michael Straczynski
Publisher: Marvel Comics
From my perspective, Amazing Fantasy‘s debut couldn’t have had more going against it. In the past six months Spider-Girl has become one of my favorite titles. After years of listening to endless praise, and watching the little-book-that-could escape cancellation, I’d finally given it a try. Hype surrounding Amazing Fantasy‘s lead, Anya Curazon, said that she was destined to be the “new” Spider-Girl. The long-running Spider-Girl series seemed to be getting the shaft.
Of course, that was just mindless ‘Net chatter, with no basis in reality. Amazing Fantasy wasn’t a dastardly plan by Marvel to shaft Spider-Girl fans. It was an attempt to engage young and old readers alike. Thanks to a quirk my cynicism evaporated.
I picked up the first issue of Amazing Fantasy in early September at the Baltimore Comicon. It was a buck, I just couldn’t pass it up. I knew that it was going to be lousy, but what the heck”¦it was a dollar.
Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. From the start, I loved the characters that Fiona Avery inhabited her book with, and Mark Brooks’ artwork was stunning, as always. The next Wednesday I picked up the remaining issues at my shop”¦and I’ve been a fan ever since.
The only negative thing that I’ll say about the book is its rather slow pacing. Six issues were a bit too long to go without going beyond Anya’s origins as Araña. I so miss the day of the one-issue origin. Yet the six-issues did allow for some extended characterization, a chance to get to know the various cast members, and a lot of details about the Spider Clan (the group Anya’s working for). Sure it was a slow-burn, but Fiona Avery laid a ton of groundwork in the six-issues of Amazing Fantasy.
This mont’s tale pulls together the final threads of Araña’s origin. Anya’s finally tapped her spider-powers, now her “boss,” Miguel, has to convince Anya’s dad that her “internship” is a good idea. From there we get a hilarious costume search. This type of sequence is a staple of comics, movies, and television, but this one, thanks to Avery’s punchy dialogue and Brooks’ perfect costume changes, works particularly well. We get to see Anya dress as everything from Supergirl, Spider-Girl, Trinity (from The Matrix), Magneto, The Bride (from Kill Bill), Wonder Woman, and Sailor Moon. The sense of humor on these couple of pages is perfect.
The storyline closes out with Araña confronting The Sisterhood of the Wasp and attempting to stop the genesis of her opposite number. The final shot shows Araña swinging through NYC in the outfit, and gear we’ve been waiting to see since the cover of issue #1. It’s a nice cap on the series, albeit a bit anti-climatic. This mont’s story was action-packed, compelling, character-centered, funny, and quirky. There’s a nice mixture of elements in this particular issue, and the series as a whole. It may have taken a little too long to get there, but in the end, Amazing Fantasy was well worth my time and money.
Come January Anya moves to a new title, Araña: Heart of the Spider. With the launch, Anya’s adventures from Amazing Fantasy also get the digest-treatment. With so much support from Marvel, I hope to see a youthful audience latch onto Araña’s path of super-heroism. This title clearly isn’t geared towards older, cynical fans. This is a book for a new generation”¦one that I’m enjoying, and I imagine younger people will love even more!
