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Essential Spider-Woman #2
Essential Spider-Woman, Vol. 2
The first part of Spider-Woman's career concludes as her collection of challenges and crises is completed! Some of Marvel's most stupendous scribes set the heroine against Morgan le Fay, the Viper, Gypsy Moth and other fearsome foes, forgotten or otherwise! Plus: the first appearances of X-Factor's Siryn and X-Force's Caliban! But after tearing through a gauntlet of magicians, mad scientists, murder and mystery, what final fate awaits the webbed wonder? Guest-starring Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men and the Werewolf!
Collecting: Spider-Woman 26-50, Marvel Team-Up 97, & Uncanny X-Men 148
Collecting: Spider-Woman 26-50, Marvel Team-Up 97, & Uncanny X-Men 148
608 pages, Paperback
First published June 10, 1983
About the author
Michael Fleisher
567 books12 followersMichael Lawrence Fleisher's comic-book writing career spanned two decades in which he authored approximately 700 stories for DC, Marvel, and other comics publishers. His work on series such as The Spectre and Jonah Hex is still highly regarded, as is his work on the Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes. After a widely reported libel case his comic output declined, with his last published comic assignment appearing in the UK anthology 2000AD in 1995.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 27, 2019
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) was borne out of Marvel’s attempt to keep DC from stealing and copyrighting the name and parading the character around in front of their faces – so Marvel just wrote her into one of those Marvel Spotlight issues and, viola, a fifty issue run happened. The character was pretty popular for a while – having her own cartoon series…
…where her regular nemesis was the head of Hagar the Horrible.
She had her own View Master set...
…and was even asked to give energy conservation tips to the kids.
This book is the latter part of her initial run, with the addition of a Marvel Two in One issue where she “teamed-up” with the Hulk (it’s a Marvel commandment, “Verily, each of thy characters musteth appear with thy most Incredible Hulk at least a single instance”)…
…and had a girl’s night out with some of the X-Men, who were in fact, X-Women.
Quality in this volume is pretty much all over the place. Michael Fleisher pens the first part of this volume, with art by a cadre of artists. Here’s a prime sample of dialgue that hadn’t been written since Captain America and Bucky were throat punching Nazis.
Shekels? Oy Vey!
The volume even included a re-cap of Jessica’s origin, because back then, if the conversation lagged for any reason, just re-tell your back story.
Basically, Jessica was born in Wundagore. In order to save her life, her daddy injected her with a handy vial of spider serum. Her parents died (or did they?). She was put in cryogenic hibernation by the High Evolutionary, who attempted to raise her as his daughter. The High Evolutionary’s animal people were mean to her, she fled, accidently killed a dude mid-coitus (or did she?), was captured and brainwashed by Hydra …
…but broke her conditioning while pummeling Nick Fury. Skip twenty five issues of continuity and she’s living in Los Angeles using her Spider-powers as a bounty hunter.
I know. I’ve been there, Jessica. On a weekly basis, waking up achy and bound.
Chris Claremont took over the writing duties and did a decent job trying to make more sense of the character, her friends and her crappy rogues gallery (Morgan Le Fay…
…and a bunch of losers) – plus the X-Men.
He moved Jessica to San Francisco made her a private detective, but the book was losing readers and there were two signs the book was in trouble: 1) They brought in The Impossible Man as a foe and 2) they gave the writing chores to beginner, Anne Nocenti. Her first villain: Daddy Long Legs. A tiny ballet dancer who wanted to be…tall.
Bill Foster wouldn’t give him any Pym formula, so he knocked Bill out and drank everything because all of the growth serum was just sitting there on the desk.
Marvel tried to wrap up the plotlines with a jumbled issue #50.
Most of Jessica’s former allies and foes end up in a prison created by The Locksmith and Tick Tock (Who? Exactly!)
They’re freed, but even though their traumatized and shell-shocked by the experience, they all go party at Jessica’s house.
You would think it would be possible for someone to get Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night a friggin’ shirt?
Jessica has to fight Morgan Le Fay one more time, but even though she sort of defeats her, this time she ends up comic book dead.
Bottom Line : Both Brian Michal Bendis and Dennis Hopeless have done wonders with this character and unless you have a fascination for all that is super heroic and arachnid or dig ‘70’s comics, or are lying in a sick bed with nothing else to keep yourself occupied, I’d read something else.
I read this because it cost me about a $1 and reading black and white comics is like wearing some sort of metaphorical hair shirt.
…where her regular nemesis was the head of Hagar the Horrible.
She had her own View Master set...
…and was even asked to give energy conservation tips to the kids.
This book is the latter part of her initial run, with the addition of a Marvel Two in One issue where she “teamed-up” with the Hulk (it’s a Marvel commandment, “Verily, each of thy characters musteth appear with thy most Incredible Hulk at least a single instance”)…
…and had a girl’s night out with some of the X-Men, who were in fact, X-Women.
Quality in this volume is pretty much all over the place. Michael Fleisher pens the first part of this volume, with art by a cadre of artists. Here’s a prime sample of dialgue that hadn’t been written since Captain America and Bucky were throat punching Nazis.
Shekels? Oy Vey!
The volume even included a re-cap of Jessica’s origin, because back then, if the conversation lagged for any reason, just re-tell your back story.
Basically, Jessica was born in Wundagore. In order to save her life, her daddy injected her with a handy vial of spider serum. Her parents died (or did they?). She was put in cryogenic hibernation by the High Evolutionary, who attempted to raise her as his daughter. The High Evolutionary’s animal people were mean to her, she fled, accidently killed a dude mid-coitus (or did she?), was captured and brainwashed by Hydra …
…but broke her conditioning while pummeling Nick Fury. Skip twenty five issues of continuity and she’s living in Los Angeles using her Spider-powers as a bounty hunter.
I know. I’ve been there, Jessica. On a weekly basis, waking up achy and bound.
Chris Claremont took over the writing duties and did a decent job trying to make more sense of the character, her friends and her crappy rogues gallery (Morgan Le Fay…
…and a bunch of losers) – plus the X-Men.
He moved Jessica to San Francisco made her a private detective, but the book was losing readers and there were two signs the book was in trouble: 1) They brought in The Impossible Man as a foe and 2) they gave the writing chores to beginner, Anne Nocenti. Her first villain: Daddy Long Legs. A tiny ballet dancer who wanted to be…tall.
Bill Foster wouldn’t give him any Pym formula, so he knocked Bill out and drank everything because all of the growth serum was just sitting there on the desk.
Marvel tried to wrap up the plotlines with a jumbled issue #50.
Most of Jessica’s former allies and foes end up in a prison created by The Locksmith and Tick Tock (Who? Exactly!)
They’re freed, but even though their traumatized and shell-shocked by the experience, they all go party at Jessica’s house.
You would think it would be possible for someone to get Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night a friggin’ shirt?
Jessica has to fight Morgan Le Fay one more time, but even though she sort of defeats her, this time she ends up comic book dead.
Bottom Line : Both Brian Michal Bendis and Dennis Hopeless have done wonders with this character and unless you have a fascination for all that is super heroic and arachnid or dig ‘70’s comics, or are lying in a sick bed with nothing else to keep yourself occupied, I’d read something else.
I read this because it cost me about a $1 and reading black and white comics is like wearing some sort of metaphorical hair shirt.
April 21, 2020
I read these issues separately but they have since been merged into this collection
Issue #37 Read: 1 Nov 2019
Actual rating 3.5 stars
Origin update for Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman! Plus a soft-spoken, philosophical Nick Fury?
I was quite surprised at how big of a retcon there was in this issue but it did expand on Jess’s origins.
Plus they made her time with Hydra seem more like she was just an innocent swept up and not a hired killer. That did make the beginning a little slow but the ending was intriguing.
Issue #38 Read: 21 Nov 2019
Continuing from the last ish, Spider-Woman has been arrested!
Not for long though and Jess makes it back to her apartment (and to the party that's still going on). No rest for the wicked though as Jess runs into some X-Men!
It was cool seeing Spider-Woman team up with the X-Men but it just felt a little random. Especially with that shoddy explanation.
Issue #50 Read: 18 April 2020
This issue started off not too badly. The Locksmith had an unrealistic dream but what’s new for a villain? Ticktock seemed like he could’ve been more than just a lackey.
Then it got a little weird when Magnus (an old friend) jumped into the body of Jessica’s (ex-)boyfriend and led Jess to the past to face off against Morgan le Fay. Aaand that's when things got stupid.
Somewhere in the middle of their fight, Jessica embraces the ‘Spider-Woman’ (because she hadn’t done that in the entire run of the series) and kicked le Fay out a window, killing her. But before that happened, the dark sorceress somehow managed to kill Jessica’s body??
But Jess, surprisingly takes her death REALLY well and doesn't want her friends to mourn her. Which somehow leads to Magnus erasing her existence from literally everyone’s mind!
Sure, let’s just make the past 49 issues (not to mention the brief appearances she made in other comics) totally obsolete!
I honestly don’t know what the point of that was. I know this ending is retconned but it was just dumb to do it in the first place.
Issue #37 Read: 1 Nov 2019
Actual rating 3.5 stars
Origin update for Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman! Plus a soft-spoken, philosophical Nick Fury?
I was quite surprised at how big of a retcon there was in this issue but it did expand on Jess’s origins.
Plus they made her time with Hydra seem more like she was just an innocent swept up and not a hired killer. That did make the beginning a little slow but the ending was intriguing.
Issue #38 Read: 21 Nov 2019
Continuing from the last ish, Spider-Woman has been arrested!
Not for long though and Jess makes it back to her apartment (and to the party that's still going on). No rest for the wicked though as Jess runs into some X-Men!
It was cool seeing Spider-Woman team up with the X-Men but it just felt a little random. Especially with that shoddy explanation.
Issue #50 Read: 18 April 2020
This issue started off not too badly. The Locksmith had an unrealistic dream but what’s new for a villain? Ticktock seemed like he could’ve been more than just a lackey.
Then it got a little weird when Magnus (an old friend) jumped into the body of Jessica’s (ex-)boyfriend and led Jess to the past to face off against Morgan le Fay. Aaand that's when things got stupid.
Somewhere in the middle of their fight, Jessica embraces the ‘Spider-Woman’ (because she hadn’t done that in the entire run of the series) and kicked le Fay out a window, killing her. But before that happened, the dark sorceress somehow managed to kill Jessica’s body??
But Jess, surprisingly takes her death REALLY well and doesn't want her friends to mourn her. Which somehow leads to Magnus erasing her existence from literally everyone’s mind!
Sure, let’s just make the past 49 issues (not to mention the brief appearances she made in other comics) totally obsolete!
I honestly don’t know what the point of that was. I know this ending is retconned but it was just dumb to do it in the first place.
March 7, 2014
This book, showing the dwindling of Spider-Woman into a cancelled magazine in the early 80s, is generally overcomplicated (Marvel in the 80s, in other words) and randomly switched between three random writing epochs, in a few short years.
1. Michael Fleischer/Steve Leoliloha (sic?) in the "freewheeling LA superheroine lady"- It's pleasant enough to read, but it is a bit shallow, because Jessica Drew gets swept under the rug and her Spider-Woman persona is gung ho, thugs come and she beats them in 1 or 2 ishes.
2. Chris Claremont/ Leoliloha (sic?) in "self exploration and stuff""- Leoliloha (sic)'s art work gets a little overbearing. He's good, but a lot of little dark details fill up the page (especially in BW reprints!). The stories themselves are much better, as moody thought bubbles about Jessica Drew interrwine in Spider-Woman and her friends. Even a crossover with the X-Men. Solid stuff, but I think Claremont was running thin on story material before he left.
3. Ann Nocenti/Brian Postman in "some better freewheeling adventuring/THE END"- they seem to be do a lot better about using Jessica Drew to mix in with the adventure, also Postman just draws better.
Also, the ending (no spoilers, I promise) is a abrupt and oddly disturbing. IT makes the rest of the book seem worthless.
What keeps the book actually good is the humanity in JEssica Drew, her roommate Lindsay, and others. It makes not just fighthing bad guys important, but how taxing it is on their personal lives, moving from LA to SF and things like that, making the hero stories much more relatable to the audience.
It's not the greatest book ever, but it's MUCH BETTER THAN Essential Spider-Woman 1, and it fits well into the Marvel canon (like the excellent Marvel Team-Up and X-Men crossovers).
5/5 (although, yes, it's not the best 5/5 I've given. Spider-Man and others, like X-Men and Marvel Team-up, are better in the genre. For female greatmness, She-Hulk and Ms. MArvel are better too. So basically everything's better, but it's still good).
1. Michael Fleischer/Steve Leoliloha (sic?) in the "freewheeling LA superheroine lady"- It's pleasant enough to read, but it is a bit shallow, because Jessica Drew gets swept under the rug and her Spider-Woman persona is gung ho, thugs come and she beats them in 1 or 2 ishes.
2. Chris Claremont/ Leoliloha (sic?) in "self exploration and stuff""- Leoliloha (sic)'s art work gets a little overbearing. He's good, but a lot of little dark details fill up the page (especially in BW reprints!). The stories themselves are much better, as moody thought bubbles about Jessica Drew interrwine in Spider-Woman and her friends. Even a crossover with the X-Men. Solid stuff, but I think Claremont was running thin on story material before he left.
3. Ann Nocenti/Brian Postman in "some better freewheeling adventuring/THE END"- they seem to be do a lot better about using Jessica Drew to mix in with the adventure, also Postman just draws better.
Also, the ending (no spoilers, I promise) is a abrupt and oddly disturbing. IT makes the rest of the book seem worthless.
What keeps the book actually good is the humanity in JEssica Drew, her roommate Lindsay, and others. It makes not just fighthing bad guys important, but how taxing it is on their personal lives, moving from LA to SF and things like that, making the hero stories much more relatable to the audience.
It's not the greatest book ever, but it's MUCH BETTER THAN Essential Spider-Woman 1, and it fits well into the Marvel canon (like the excellent Marvel Team-Up and X-Men crossovers).
5/5 (although, yes, it's not the best 5/5 I've given. Spider-Man and others, like X-Men and Marvel Team-up, are better in the genre. For female greatmness, She-Hulk and Ms. MArvel are better too. So basically everything's better, but it's still good).
November 11, 2010
Not an amazing read compared to more modern comics but still a fun look back at one of my favorite Marvel characters. This book is charming and entertaining, if not much more than that.
November 29, 2021
I'll admit this was hard to get through and I struggled on the rating based on how good Steve Leialoha's artwork is during his run on the book. But in the end the stories and plot were just... inchoate. I picked the book up as a curiosity because of Claremont's run on the book (13 issues towards the end of the volume) and because as a kid I had picked up issue 50 due to the photo cover and had always kinda wondered what came before. The answer is: nothing really impressive.
This is what happens when a character is created with no real reason to exist and no central theme. While the equally Copyright-Protecting She-Hulk had the central theme of "what happens when a woman is powered by anger?" to always fall back on no matter how weak her initial stories were, Spider-Woman lacked that concept. Her origin story changed between her first and second appearance, she's a techno-weirdness character infused with magic trained as a spy who gets tangled in macabre menaces until she becomes a bounty hunter and then a PI, while occasionally fighting a 6th century sorceress....
Each new idea is played on for a year and then abandoned, maybe to be picked up again later. It's not fair to the readers or the character.
This is what happens when a character is created with no real reason to exist and no central theme. While the equally Copyright-Protecting She-Hulk had the central theme of "what happens when a woman is powered by anger?" to always fall back on no matter how weak her initial stories were, Spider-Woman lacked that concept. Her origin story changed between her first and second appearance, she's a techno-weirdness character infused with magic trained as a spy who gets tangled in macabre menaces until she becomes a bounty hunter and then a PI, while occasionally fighting a 6th century sorceress....
Each new idea is played on for a year and then abandoned, maybe to be picked up again later. It's not fair to the readers or the character.
July 3, 2026
Read this series to see how Jessica Drew ties into the later xmen comics. Realized about two comics before the end I was NOT going to be fulfilled. This series was long and muddy and it ends with a pointless wimper. I guess they were feeling drastic when the book was cancelled. Apparently this haphazard end is resolved in the Avengers later that year.
October 9, 2008
Reprints Spider-Woman #26-50, Marvel Team-Up #97, and Uncanny X-Men #148. Spider-Woman leaves bounty hunting to become a private eye, moves to San Francisco, and fights strange villains like Daddy Longlegs. Spider-Woman was interesting in that she was not a clone of Spider-Man (literally in today's comics) but there didn't seem to be much of a plan for her. Her rogue gallery was pretty bad but fights with mainstream villains didn't work very well. The series seems to end pretty abruptly but at least it had a conclusion until the Avengers issues where she returned (which should have been included in this collection since it rounds out the story).
June 16, 2014
Wow. The off, non-plot stories and "villains of the week" issues were fantastic. The overall arc is pleasurable and inventive, save for the disturbing, upsetting and wholly bizarre ending. Jessica Drew is a great character with truly memorable villains- Turner D. Century was my favorite. This would make a great tv show. Confusing and convoluted at times but overall deeply enjoyable and remarkably diverse for the era.
December 30, 2009
This series art starting peaking with Leialoha; unfortunately, the writing declined when Claremont came along as writer and totally ignored the heart of this character and instead made it about things Japanese and mutants and feminism. It really reached its nadir with Ann Nocenti, whose writing is virtually incoherent and (unlike Paul Pope's virtually incoherent writing) not entertaining at all.
February 22, 2014
Great finish to a great series. I loved the first volume, which was mostly written by Marv Wolfman, but the second really takes off under the pen of Chris Clairmont as he brings Jessica Drew truly into the Marvel Universe.
April 21, 2015
I enjoyed this a lot more than Volume 1. Much more background story was revealed, secrets were unearthed. The finale was connected with everything that has happened so far, so altogether, a very recommended read.
February 15, 2016
Very nice collection of this mostly forgotten 1970s hero. Recommended
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews