Thursday, January 22, 2015

Spider-Woman #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

All right, this issue makes marginally more sense than the last one.  It's still jarring that we've gone from Jessica and Spider-Man Noir guarding Silk to Jessica trying to gather intel on the Loom World, but you've just got to go with it here.  (You've unfortunately also got to go with Greg Land, so, honestly, Marvel is asking a lot of you.  You should know that upfront.)

We learn that Jessica's doppelgänger on this world just so happens to be the head of the Inheritor's household (or at least responsible for procurement) and the girlfriend of Morlun.  Surprise!  (I am actually legitimately surprised that Morlun is dating the help.  It seems way too pedestrian of him.)  Also, we watch as Silk just so happens to jump to an Earth shattered by a thermo-nuclear war.  She apparently can process radiation, so the Twins realize that it's the one place where they can't follow her.  (Though, in all seriousness, it seems like Jennix could pretty easily build radiation suits for them, so it's hard to see it as a long-term win for Silk.)

If you couldn't tell, it's all just a coincidence too many to make it remotely believable.  I mean, "Scarlet Spiders" has relied on a similar number of coincidences, but Costa has put some effort into trying to explain them, like asserting that Iron Man would likely check the source of the disturbance that the three clones create at the start of the first issue, given that that Earth is a police state.  Hopeless just conveniently sets Jessica a few steps from her doppelgänger, and Silk just magically finds herself on a safe world.  It feels like he's really just checking boxes here.  Moreover, Costa has made the stakes clear in "Scarlet Spiders;" if the team succeeds, the Inheritors can be definitively killed.  We still don't know what sort of intelligence Jessica is collecting here or how it could help the overall effort.

In other words, in the battle of the tie-ins, I'm team "Scarlet Spiders" all the way.

** (two of five stars)

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