Spider-Woman, Vol. 1: Spider-Verse

Spider-Woman (2014)

by Dennis Hopeless (Writer), Greg Land (Illustrator), Jay Leisten (Inker)

Jessica Drew has been an agent of both S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.W.O.R.D., an Avenger and so much more. But nothing could prepare her for the multidimensional insanity that is Spider-Verse! A war is brewing, and every spider-character in the multiverse is a target! But being a target is something Jessica Drew just won't abide. She's a woman with a mission - and with Silk, the newest spider on the block at her side, she'll need to put all her training to the test if she wants to make it out of Spider-Verse alive! Now, undercover in the most dangerous place in the multiverse, Spider-Woman is in the tightest spot she's ever been in. What if even succeeding with her mission means her death? And can Silk handle a solo mission?

Collecting: Spider-Woman 1-4

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 2015

About the author

Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum is an American comics writer from Kansas City, Missouri who has written for Marvel Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Boom! Studios, Arcana Studio, and Oni Press.

See also under Dennis Hallum

Reviews

[Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great read. Amazing graphics!







Mel ❤️

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure why they decided it would be a good idea to start up a title with the Spider-verse crossover event. Hello? Maybe we could just focus on Jessica for the first volume, you know?



Despite the fact that this one was a bit all over the place, & would probably confuse the hell out of anyone who wasn't following the Spiderverse stuff, I still enjoyed it.
Jessica comes off as a capable heroine who's fully in charge of her abilities, and she's a badass super-spy to boot.



Ok, Jessica starts off protecting Silk (Cindy Moon) who is the main target of Morlun & the creepy portal/universe-crossing twins.
There are also cameos from Spider-Gwen, and the 1930's (40's?) Spider man from Edge of Spider-verse, as they pop in and out of the storyline.
Silk proves to be a bit of a handful, what with her unwillingness to stay put and sit still, but it doesn't matter very much anyway. Jess is pretty quickly reassigned by Pete to take on a more dangerous/important mission. She's going undercover in Morlun's universe to try to take him & the other Inheritors out.



Once there, she discovers her doppelganger, hooks up with Namor the pirate, and finds a Spider who can tell the future.
And then?
{insert abrupt story cutoff here}
Which is why I hate crossover events. Whatever happens in the Final Battle, doesn't happen here, so I'll be tracking down more of this Spider-verse shit later. Jessica and the rest of the team do make a reappearance in Morlun's universe in order to fix the power vacuum, but that's about all the conclusion to this story that you're gonna get here.



I felt the need to bring some attention to Gwen's awesome line about alternate universes, b/c it made me giggle.

Spider-Gwen: I know, right? Somehow in YOURS I'm Peter Parker's dead girlfriend. Fridged off a bridge.



The last issue deals with Jess making a Big Decision about her future with the Avengers, and includes some nice scenes with her BFF Carol (Aka Captain Marvel).



I'm kinda hooked on this chick, so even though this was a mess (thanks to the crossover), I'm coming back for volume 2!

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the character of Jessica Drew a lot, but I almost didn't read this book at all. I hate Greg Land's art, how he always oversexualizes female characters, and how all of his women look so much alike. Which is especially galling because his male characters have much more variety. I only decided to read this because I wanted to read the Spider-Verse stuff because... Actually I don't remember why I decided to read Spider-Verse. Anyways, I should have stuck with my initial gut reaction on this book.

I don't think this book adds much to either the character of Spider-Woman or the Spider-Verse story. Her part of the whole thing isn't actually a very good idea for a story. Worst of all, I got bored about halfway through the book. It does start to look up a bit in the last issue, once the event stuff is over, but it's a little too late for me. Of course, Land's art is as it ever is, which was no help to mediocre book.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not entirely sure I like Jessica Drew all that much. Yeah, she’s trained to be a leader and she’s the female equivalent of Peter and she’s a badass (as far as she acts) but she’s … kinda heartless.

Spider-Woman is not my favorite among all the female spiders. *sigh*

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

"Blazes! Spider-Man should sue this dame for violation of super-powers!" - Nick Fury



Enjoyable glimpse into the spider-verse war with appearances from Silk and Spider-Gwen. Included as a bonus is the origin of Spider-Woman (called Arachne for most the issue) as an Agent of Hydra in Marvel Spotlight #32.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

It might be because I don’t know any of Greg Land’s other work, but I don’t have the problem with his art in this book that other people identify. It sounds like he uses fairly formulaic compositions? But I’m not the greatest at visual-anything anyway, so it probably wouldn’t bother me. To me Jessica looks badass and capable, and uses her skillset well for fighting and spying.

The Spider-verse in general… Eh. I like the plethora of female stars that have come out of it, or had a part to play — Anya Corazon, Cindy Moon, Jessica Drew, Gwen Stacey… and the idea of all the alternate Peter Parkers was pretty cool. Silk acts pretty spoilt in some ways; haring off on her own and getting other people into trouble. Jessica shares some aspects of her background, a thing I mentioned in my review of Silk’s solo volume, but she’s much further along the road to finding her place in the world.

I love her friendship with Carol and the other Avengers, and so it’s nice that this volume finishes with her taking her leave of the Avengers, choosing to go and figure out who Jessica Drew is. It’s a fun enough volume, though perhaps not memorable.

Originally posted here.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being a Spider-Woman fan and wishing she got a decent series (or even a movie), I could not bring myself to give this book more than 3 stars. The main story had moments of fun but was rather silly, and frankly, the idea of a "Spider-Verse" with alternate versions of Spider-Man and various other Spider-heroes all being chased around by a family of immortals who "eat" them to drain their power is... No, seriously, a "Spider-Verse"???

Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman, infiltrates the "Inheritors" homeworld, where they rule like medieval dictators and, it turns out, her alternate self in this universe is a crony and lover of the main Inheritor patriarch. Jessica punches out her counterpart and then has to play footsies with the Big Bad while trying to figure out how to undo their evil schemes. In tone, it was like a post-apocalyptic story blended with Pirates of the Caribbean, with various Spider-peeps wall-crawling around.

Part of what makes the story a bit uneven is that this collection consists of the Spider-Woman issues that were part of a storyline that spanned all the various Spider-titles. So there are references to events happening between issues in other series.

While I think the idea of a Spider-Verse is kind of silly (okay - very silly), and Silk, the perky teenaged spider-girl who is the MacGuffin of this saga, is a character who really has no reason to exist, I was kind of amused by Peter Parker, the do-gooder pistol-packing Spider-Man of a 1930s alternate Earth, and Spider-Gwen Stacy, who replaced Peter Parker in her universe.



It's very meta when memes inspired by comic books start recirculating back into the comics themselves.

The story is illustrated by Greg Land. Land is apparently somewhat notorious for allegedly doing a lot of tracing of other artists' work, and/or basing his figures on photographs often taken from glamour magazines or porn.

After reading this volume, I have to say that the criticism seems somewhat justified - while Land's work is quite pretty, the facial expressions and body positions were often just... off. Like a model taken from somewhere else and just plopped into the scene.



And there is some definite porn-face going on in some of those panels:



So yeah, as fond as I am of cheesecake, it felt kind of creepy to think that Spider-Woman was being traced from Greg Land's porn stash.

As a bonus, this volume includes the original first appearance of Spider-Woman, back in 1971's Marvel Spotlight #3. It is pretty much the story retold in Spider-Woman: Origin, but with that old Stan Lee cheesiness.



It's not a bad book, but I would not make this the starting point for anyone's Spider-fandom (except maybe the vintage origin story in the back), and it seems unlikely to win a lot of new fans for my girl Jess.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like this Jessica Drew interpretation- under fire, she's got her moves and plans together, but doesn't quite have her shit together.

Like this dialogue by Dennis Hopeless. He's got funny down well enough to stand with the best Spider-Man writers, and some natural-sounding quips and outbursts from the rest.

Don't know how much of the Greg Land "catalogue of stock poses from his swipe file" I'm going to be able to take. Terrible paint-by-numbers, half-the-time-WTF-level-of-inappropriate-or-just silly staging of the scenes, 'cause he ain't got the time to bother finding an appropriate set of figures, poses and camera angles to trace over. I mean, how does this punch even work? I'll give you a minute:



Back to the good parts: Hopeless has finally do in a great storyline/character to imbue his talents in. I can't believe I'm enjoying every page where Jessica appears - I mean I love the character (especially when Bendis or DeConnick do their thing) but I had pretty low expectations for Dennis "what the fuck was that Avengers Arena mess?" Hopeless. I gotta give this dude another shot - he's seriously caught my attention with this.

Jess is skulking around the home world of the enemy and doing her damndest to spy her way to victory, but life gets in the way. Then Silk and Spider-Gwen get in the way, then help out. Then -Woman gets caught by her doppelgänger's lover, then escapes. Then pirate ship. Fun, but let's not focus too much on the plot M'kay?

I'm headed off to finish Spider-Verse, then come right back for some more Spider-Woman - and I'm actually excited because it's *not* with Greg Land!

Except that issue #4, which was only enjoyable because of some post-SV fun with her bestie Carol Danvers. Their banter is just awesome - Kelly Sue DeConnick should be proud her fictional doppelgänger's in good hands.

[K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, here's the thing: I only picked this up because I saw that it was Marvel Now. And usually, the first volume of any Marvel Now comic is intended as a fresh start, somewhere for newbies to jump into a series and not have to worry about decades of backstory.

And yet this? Was the opposite of a typical Marvel Now volume 1. Jessica bounces through multiple universes. There's a lot of backstory that isn't explained anywhere. There are multiple Jessicas, multiple Peters. Silk and Spider-Gwen feature repeatedly, but with only passing comments about who they actually are. Carol Danvers turns up at the end, which was a breath of fresh air, but it also features Old Man Steve Rogers with no mention of how or why he's suddenly old, and basically? AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH THIS WAS NOT A GOOD INTRODUCTION TO ANYTHING.

The art was...fine? You know, if you can get past the fact that every single female character looks the same and was drawn in a very sexualised way. The way female characters were standing seemed really...odd??...a lot of the time, and other reviews are telling me that the artist is a great one for taking shots of models or stills from pornos, tracing them, and inserting them into comics. That certainly explains a hell of a lot about the weird poses and the porny facial expressions that the female characters often have.

The thing I enjoyed most about this? The original appearance of Spider-Woman from the 1970s. Despite the terrible, dated art, that story made a hell of a lot more sense to me than anything in the Marvel Now story, which was basically a big ol' hot mess of confusion unless you're an ongoing fan of the Spider-verse.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sigh... Y'know, it's bad enough when an ongoing title is derailed by being forced to accommodate yet another editorially mandated crossover, but when a new book begins during one? Tragic.
Having said that, I actually enjoyed Spider-Verse... but mainly the parts involving Spider-Man. Spider-Woman's parts just seemed like a three issue advertisement for Silk and Spider-Gwen, which is rubbish and disrespectful to the character whose name is on the cover.
The only reason I'm giving this volume three stars instead of a lower score is because (a) the fourth issue was actually pretty good, once the Spider-Verse stuff was out of the way, and (b) I'm totally stoked that Jessica Drew has her own book again. I'm really hoping volume 2 brings a quantum leap in quality. Don't let me down, Marvel!

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically, already read the entirety of this volume when I read the Spider-verse omnibus.

[Jaye Berry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Imagine if I actually did a half second of research and learned that this is all just a tie-in to the Spider-Verse event. I've read none of that so I didn't know what was going on from the beginning. Even when I kinda understood it, this is all connected to other shit so in the last issue of this volume, the storyline just abruptly drops mid issue before going to other stuff?? Like why though??? It builds up to a final battle that we don't get to see and comics are highkey so dumb for doing this.

This wasn't Spider-Woman's story at all and I have no grasp of her characterization besides she has girl boss energy. The art was okay but I actually hated it because of how sexualized the women were. I know I shouldn't expect anything more from these dudebro artists and yet they still disappoint me with how ridiculous they make these women look. Like I get Jess is wearing a spandex suit but also choke. I don't know if this is just Spider-Woman's costume in general but man it is ugly as hell.

I did like seeing her friendship with Captain Marvel though but you could (and should tbh) just skip to the second volume without losing anything.

Like why would you start a character's run with a damn crossover event that has like 10 million other ones to read?

[Terry Mcginnis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though a fun adventure and sometimes humorous adventure, this is a terrible way to launch a new series. This "Volume 1" was a direct tie-in to Spider-Verse. If one has not read or is familiar with that story, then this simply makes no sense. It cannot stand alone. Volume 2 of this run is really the beginning. Also, this is included in the bigger Spider-Verse trade, which is where it is more fitting. Not sure how to recommend this one. Skip?

[Eric Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is all the story from the Spider-verse story so if you aren't familiar it will be confusing. But the writing is good and the art fantastic so worth a look, But I'd recommend reading it all within the collected Spider-verse story.

[Kris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jessica Drew is awesome, but unfortunately this isn’t. I’m trying to soldier through, but this Spider-Verse stuff is turning out to be massively confusing, as with most crossover events. Stories #1-3 were kind of a multiverse-hopping mindfuck to me, but the second half of #4 improved. That was when Jess’s best friend Carol Danvers showed up and there was some entertaining banter. (Would I love to see a solid Spider-Woman/Captain Marvel team-up? Hell yes.) I liked that the ending seemed like it was setting up a new direction for Jess in the future and I loved that there were so many humorous, cool female characters who popped up in this, but ultimately this was a very disappointing volume.

Now on to the art… this is what truly killed it for me. Greg Land is one of the worst artists I’ve come across. He’s a controversial figure in comics (seriously, go look it up if you don’t already know) and I’m annoyed with how it looks like every woman in this stepped out of a porno. I just don’t care for that in my comic books. I mean, the one panel where she looks like she’s orgasming after getting punched in the face? Please. Holy male gaze, Batman. And let's not forget to mention that all the women seem to look the same.

All that being said, I’d love to see Spider-Woman get some good storylines in the future.

[Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like what I've seen of Spider-Woman before, but this was a terrible first volume. It drops you right into the middle of some massive Spider-verse war and proceeds to hop all over the place. Hopefully future volumes are a lot smoother and less of a mess.

[Jordan Lahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely couldn't stand on its own without the Spider-Verse main series, but a fun female focused multi-verse hopping adventure. Looking forward to Jess's "bold new direction"

[Franzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 ⭐
This was my first Marvel comic, so I probably would've appreciated it more if I actually understood all the back story of the Spider-Verse. But honestly, I feel like I should be able to get into a solo run without knowing intricate plot details of the universe.

So, the storyline was just all over the place and I basically had no clue what was going on but also wasn't really invested anyway. Silk and the other spider-people were fun enough Jessica seems like a great character and I'd love to read more about her, I feel like this comic didn't really do her justice. And oh god, that art. Why, just why.

I really liked the ending though, I'm never to complain about Captain Marvel and Steve :) I'll definitely continue reading because what I mainly disliked about this comic was all the confusing plotlines and I hope that changes in the next volume.

+ That vintage comic extra was super nice. Yes, overally dramatic and a bit out there but that's what made it so enjoyable!

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review is for the individual issues making up this collection.

SPOILERS

to follow.
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I have a love/hate relationship with Marvel Comics. Love because Marvel has some truly awesome characters and can tell a damn good story. Hate because almost every one of those stories is part of what I refer to as some Company!Wide!Crossover!Spectacular! or another, and if you’re trying to read something that isn’t a group comic, or follow a small group of solo comics, most of the time what you’re reading isn’t going to make nearly as much sense as it should.

This first volume of Spider-Woman, a mere four issues long, is the perfect example of how a series born from an event can make for a mess of a run.

I didn’t read any of the Spider-verse event. Full disclosure, I don’t care a lot about the Spiders as a whole, so I have no desire to read the Spider-verse event. What I DO like is Jessica Drew. I only get to read about her in small bits and pieces here and there, so I was thrilled when Marvel announced a new solo series for her. I waited months for this series. I pestered my comic shop constantly. Can I pre-order it now? How about now? Now? Now?

I realized pretty quickly that I had set myself up for serious disappointment.

The first issue gives us enough to get a glimpse of the bigger picture going on in the Spider-Verse. Two evil siblings called the Inheritors are after all the Spider-characters to make a meal out of them in a very literal fashion. A new Spider called Silk must be protected at all costs because...well, that part’s not made particularly clear. She just must, okay. I’m sure it was explained in the event. It’s just not here, aside from a note in the introduction that compares her to being like chum for sharks in terms of how badly the Inheritors want her. (No, I’m not making that part up). So, Silk must be protected at all costs. Roll with it.

Fine.


Jess and Silk have the ability to multi-verse hop because....well that’s not made clear, either. I’m sure it was explained in the event, but....

Sigh. Fine. So...Jess and Silk are hopping around the multi-verse avoiding evil blond baddies and Jess is punching dinosaurs and being a bit bitchy about the whole protecting Silk thing because it's so dangerous and hard and make no mistake, this girl will get you killed; all of which makes Silk understandably feel a bit crappy. After Prohibition-Era Spider-Man is injured during bodyguard duty, Arachne and Spider-Gwen are sent in to take over. Silk takes off on her own after overhearing Jess tell them how brutal this bodyguard business is, which is fine because we really don’t get to know much about Silk anyway. Bye, Silk. Bye presumably-awesome Spider-Cameos. We hardly knew ye, but assume you'll pop up later because OMG Spider-Cameos!

Jess ends up on the homeworld of the Inheritors, and is confronted with her doppleganger in this world, which leads to heaps of mistaken identity and, inevitably, trouble.

The first three issues are fine tolerable in their own “you’re only getting part of the story because why aren’t you reading the rest of the Company!Wide!Crossover!Spectacular! ” kind of way. But between the surprise ending of Issue 3 (an older sibling of the Inheritors has a thing for this world’s Jessica and now thinks Spider-Woman is her!) and the beginning of issue 4, things fall apart in spectacular fashion. We go from setting up for something good to the war is over and now we must deal with the aftermath with no explanation whatsoever.

This book seriously and very literally ignores the story and any kind of climax and goes straight to the aftermath. Nothing is explained. Nothing. At all. Just set up....then epilogue with nothing in between.

Oh, and Namor’s a pirate, but you don’t actually find out it’s Namor until a throwaway line in issue 4, which I thought was a joke at first, until it got repeated.

I know that Marvel wants to constantly shove down our throats remind us that all their characters are part of a larger, connected universe because they want us to buy every single comic in order to get a full story so we can line their pockets it makes for a more complete world or some such, and it’s cool to see all our favorite heroes interacting, but the first arc of Spider-Woman is a disaster in terms of storytelling, introducing characters to new readers, and standing on its own outside of the Spider-Verse event.

Also, Greg Land does the art, so naturally every page includes some version of a woman giving her best O-face because that seems to be the only female expression he knows how to draw. Also, playing the inevitable game of “spot the tracing job reference” gets old quickly. And I know that all the controversy was over Milo Manara's first issue cover but, seriously, where the heck are Jess's lower legs on Land's cover image? This kind of sketchy anatomy is almost forgivable in an interior panel? But to see it on a cover, much less the cover of the first issue and, apparently, the trade paperback, is downright sloppy.

The final pages set up for a new story for Jessica Drew, hopefully free of any crossover insanity and therefore able to tell a decent story. But, with Secret Wars on the horizon, I doubt that will be the case.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I normally like Jessica, I like Cindy but this was a bit meh.

[Tris · Rating 3 out of 5]

So confused. I've read what the Spider-Verse event was all about and think it's pretty dumb... Still wanted to read this for the sheer lack of Jessica Drew in this world.

[Alex Sarll]

This year, Marvel have been publishing three books with spider-powered solo female leads. Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman was the first of them, but also has the title which has been attracting the least excitement. Adding insult to injury, the two young pretenders - Silk and Spider-Gwen - both pop up here, lending a bit of guest-star shine. Hopeless' script does a fairly good job of keeping them all distinct, even if he occasionally forgets that Jessica's espionage background should make her a bit more of a natural in some of these situations. The art, alas, is by Greg Land, so they all look like basically the same swimsuit model, forever showing off their shampoo-ad hair in the middle of battles. It's a shame on a book which, despite the spider in the room of them all being Peter Parker brand extensions, could otherwise easily have done the publisher's feminist credentials some favours.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revised 5th Oct. 2016 -Just finish reading Vol. 3 which I've added to my All-Time Favorites shelf. So, I wanted to pop back here to Vol. 1 to revise this review. Hold steady and keep reading: this series will turn into something really special and wonderful.

Original review: 4 issues is hardly enough to judge a series by... And these 4 are entwined into the tail end of the Spider-verse story. At least the first 2 or 3 are. Looks like it will be a good set up for a series. Greg Land doesn't usually stick around for on-goings so I don't know who the series artist will be. Jessica talks about a new costume. Leaving the Avengers. Getting an apartment. Dating. Having a more normal life. I'll be back for Vol. 2 and see how this all shakes out.

[Dubzor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow...just, wow. That was quite the screw up on Marvel's account. Why would you start a title run with a crossover event? WHY??

Aside from being tossed into the middle of a story, and even if you try judging it for what it is SUPPOSED to be, it's not very good. The titular character has to share her own title comic with some new unknown (at the time) and when Jessica does get to do things, they have little to no impact on the story at large.

Seriously, if you want to read about Jessica Drew having adventures, skip this book. You won't find any of that here.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really enjoying this run. I HATED AA, so I wasn't sure what to expect when Hopeless took the reins on this one, especially since Jess is such a tricky character, what with her mental instability and vv difficult background. But he's actually doing a pretty good job! We don't see much by way of her mental problems, but her personality is there, and it's a really fun run. I like it so far!

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Jessica Drew, this collection was a little wonky because there is so much going on across the multi verse, but it looks like this issue set us up for a new Spider Woman story free from time and space travel. It actually skipped over a multiverse war between issues 3 and 4, so that seems kind of lazy... So, we'll see

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume may have not been the best one to start with it. There was zero introduction to Spider-Woman, just tossed in to a larger Spider-verse storyline. I had no real clue what was going on and the vol didn't do a great job of clueing you in.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dennis Hopeless and Greg Land successfully navigated Spider-Woman and Silke through the Multiverse . A wild wacky ride as they try to escape from the Inheritors.

[Jonathan Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only good part of this book was the artwork and even that was not up to Greg Land's usual (seemed rushed). Convoluted story with attempts at humor.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

superheroínas superheroineando estupendamente 10/10