Character Assassination: Spider-Girl in Spider-Verse

BEWARE SPOILERS!

I've been genuinely moved by comics on only a few occasions. Usually to tears. But for the first time ever I'm genuinely angry at a comic book.

Spider-Verse- I had such high hopes for this event. I thought perhaps a giant crossover with all the various Spider-People across the multiverse would be good fun. They'd quip, they'd swap stories and compare lives, maybe collectively grieve over the many losses they've all suffered as result of the dangerous lives they all lead. As a concept, I liked it very much. It even had genuine drama built into it by the mere fact that every world is built on differing choices and outcomes. Imagine, May 'Mayday' Parker confronting 616 Peter Parker about his missing marriage. Or Peter being confronted with a version of himself that has gone down a dark path and wondering if perhaps he's capable of the same deeds. All of these things would have made for a rather entertaining read, and we could have had a nice thread or character beat to take away from it all: Exactly who are we if there are in infinite number of us- all making different decisions. Does what we do even matter in the grand scheme of things. Wouldn't that have been worth exploring?

But this isn't really about missed opportunities or how my perception and expectations weren't met. This is about bad writing. This is about not understanding a character on a fundamental level. This is about the character assassination of May 'Mayday' Parker aka Spider-Girl.


The first time we see May during the events of Spider-Verse, she's already been beaten, lying helpless beneath the fiend Daemos' boot. It's very apt, actually. May never really manages to achieve anything for herself throughout this story, remaining beneath the writers heel the entire length of this bloated event. Many Spider-People, old and new were given a spotlight for this event- both in the lead up and during the story proper. Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Woman, Silk and many more. Oddly enough, they were all given an active role in their own stories. Here, in Spider-Girl's own little prelude to Spider-Verse however, she does nothing but react as everyone around her makes decisions. That's not Mayday. She steps up to the plate when times are tough and she gets tougher.

May's entire family (excepting her baby brother Benjy) and her boyfriend are seemingly slaughtered and her family home burned to the ground. Mayday's entire world is built around her support network: Her allies, her friends and most especially her family. It's part of the appeal of the character that she isn't mired in the cliché superhero origin/motivation of having a dead loved one to inspire or drive them to do heroic deeds. May does the right thing because she knows it's the right thing to do. She was raised by good, loving parents who taught her right from wrong. Moral lessons such as 'With Great Power Must Also Come Great Responsibility.' And really, isn't that all we really need to be a good person? It's an intrinsic part of the Spider-Girl mythos to have family drama and conflict. Sure, the Parker family is loving and caring, but that doesn't mean everyone get's along 100% of the time.   Peter and May often clashed over her heroic identity. I can certainly say that growing up I didn't always agree with my parents, but I never doubted their love for me.It's a fairly simply yet effective way to create interesting and relatable drama. In a shortsighted way, killing off Mayday's parents certainly drives her forward and provides drama. But you can only play that out for so long and when it's all said and done they will still be dead and we've lost the core relationships that made readers care about the characters in the first place.

The removal of any of those familial relationships during Mayday's formative years utterly and completely alters her outlook and worldview on a fundamental level. Killing Peter leaves a gaping hole in May's life that can never be filled by any other character. Peter is May's role model, her mentor, her ideal of what a man is and most importantly, he is her father. Throwing an alternative world's Uncle Ben into the family doesn't somehow make things magically better. He can't adequately fill the void- no one could! Which leaves May as a different person going forward. Suddenly May is just another superhero with a dead loved-one. Only she's not being motivated or inspired by Peter's death because he already inspired her heroic actions during his life. His death adds nothing and is thus pointless as well as unearned from a narrative viewpoint.

Furthermore, instead of inspiring Mayday onward, her father's death merely leads to some out of character shouting about forgoing morals and oaths to enact revenge on Daemos. Sure, you could argue that it's a character arc, that May's distraught and upset, that it's resolved when May witnesses the 'Superior' Spider-Man slaying the Weaver for no apparent reason. But I'd argue that it wasn't a character arc, more a long string of Mayday shouting angrily about killing Daemos or finding Benjy, with no real progression until it's abruptly resolved without any clear thought process behind it. We only once see Mayday's true pain and anguish: during Tom and Ron's story (not Dan's!). Unfortunately it is unable to resolve May's story on it's own, being constrained by the larger Spider-Verse's own arc.

If you were to bring out all the fan favorite Spider-Folk for a big crossover story, wouldn't you want them to be portrayed as the fans know and love them? Which is the issue I have with May's depiction throughout the story: It's not even really Mayday. No, I'm not going to try to tell you how this character clearly isn't the real Spider-Girl because of incorrect internal monologue structure or whatever. I'm saying if you want to push all these Spider-characters (and judging by all the new Spider-Titles, that was part of the plan) then you want to be selling the reader on what makes them unique and interesting. Kaine's all dark and brooding and not so quipy. Superior Spider-Man is a ranting super villain. Spider-Gwen is...well, Gwen Stacy with witty dialog. Spider-Ham is a anthropomorphic pig, for crying out loud.  Miguel O'Hara is snarky and brilliant. So, where exactly was Spider-Girl accurately represented or portrayed, even remotely? No, instead we get May shouting vengeful epithets and calling everyone else in the room a fake.
 

Can you see why I'm upset? I really thought Spider-Girl showing up in this big story event after years of dormancy would do wonders for the character's exposure and marketability. I regret to inform you all I was terribly wrong. I think Mayday would have fared far better away from all this wanton death and destruction. As it stands now, May is no longer even called Spider-Girl and no longer wearing her distinctive costume. Instead, she's yet another in a long line to call themselves 'Spider-Woman'. Considering both Jessica Drew and Gwen Stacy both have a series (Spider-Woman and Spider-Gwen, respectively) it seems unlikely that May will receive her own title, which was secretly my fond hope following all this bloody exposure. I thought surely, with all these female Spider-heroes getting books, Mayday will merit a 'Spider-Girl' title.

The name Spider-Girl was earned by May 'Mayday' Parker over twelve long, hard years of continuous publication. To see it stripped from her again with such disregard makes me finally start to believe those that say Marvel doesn't really want May as Spider-Girl but are happy to trade on her title and goodwill. Which brings me to the costume. A gender-swapped Spider-Man costume? Are you kidding me?!? "The costume she's synonymous with isn't good enough, let's stick her in something generic that say's 'I'm just Spider-Man with boobs'." As if to infuriate me further, the actual gender-swapped Spider-Woman, Petra Parker from the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon sports this look. Don't tell me that's a coincidence.

I'm done thinking Marvel cares about or wants to promote Mayday unless they can change her into someone or something else on a fundamental level. The glimmer of hope I see on the horizon is Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz are contributing to the Secret Wars crossover.

I apologize for all the negativity but I felt I had to express myself. Hopefully sometime soon I will return with more positive things to talk about.

 Until Spider-Girl is restored to her former self, I remain

frogoat
  

Spider-Verse Team-Up #3 Review

This is a re-post of my review from Spidey-Dude.com which you can read here.

Story:

Disclaimer: This review was written before the conclusion of the Spider-Verse event. As such, points raised may later be addressed. Just go with the flow.


Mayday Parker is angry. She wants the other Spider-People to accompany her to the home-world of the Inheritors and rescue her baby brother-here referred to as 'Benny'. The others tell her it's suicide to go there, and the Spider-Totem of this world- Ben Parker- attempts to convince Mayday to stay in the safety his bunker, much the same way he did following his family's death, while the rest of his world was destroyed. Mayday calls Ben a coward and tells him her father would be ashamed of him.
Mayday runs off deep into the bunker, frustrated and angry at the others, telling herself they are imposters and fakes and that they don't understand what it takes to be a hero. Breaking down, Mayday begins crying and admits that the lose of her brother Benny is her own fault, that her parents are dead because of her.

Ben arrives and attempts to calm down Mayday but Mayday tells him that his family would be ashamed of him, that her father would be sickened to see him like this. The two fight it out with Ben admitting that he failed to act after the lose of his family and Mayday making the point that if they stay and do nothing, eventually the Inheritors will swarm in and kill them all.

After working together to fight off Mutant Spiders Ben tells Mayday that she needs to get her emotions under control and again offers her safe haven in his bunker if she'll forget about going after the Inheritors. Mayday tells Ben she can't live without her baby brother as he's all she has left. Mayday adds she hopes there is a world out there with a Mayday Parker untouched by the tragic events she's recently endured, as she will fight for them when she rescues Benny and kills Daemos.

Review:

I have to begin by saying welcome back, Tom, Ron and Sal! It's been too long, gentlemen! The classic team back doing a story with Spider-Girl would normally fill me with unadulterated joy. But under the current circumstances of the Spider-Verse event, I think there was always going to be some reservations going into this adventure.

I love Tom's classic writing style and his ability to pack so much into only ten pages is a testament to his skill. The mere fact that Mr Defalco is writing a very different Mayday from the one he worked so hard to develop for over a decade would make the adjustment jarring. Admittedly it is a different take on the character we see written here. Subtle and not so subtle narration refer to the way Slott characterized Mayday in Amazing Spider-Man #8 and the most recent Spider-Verse issues. A few examples including May calling herself 'Mayday' in her opening narration and referring to her brother has 'Benny' rather than 'Benjy' could be read as an implicit confirmation that this 'Mayday' isn't the Mayday the Spider-Girl crew created. There's also the 'With Great Power Must Also Come Great Responsibility' line which is something May would know. Alternatively this could simply be Tom and Ron attempting to maintain the narrative style put forward by Dan Slott. Or everyone is reading to much into all this, who knows?

A few positive points for me were the interactions between Mayday and Uncle Ben in this story. Essentially, the story is ham-strung by the fact that Ben Parker doesn't change his mind about staying in the bunker until Amazing Spider-Man #13 and Mayday (at the time of writing) has not gotten through her grief, anger and revenge arc, something Mr Slott is likely going to resolve in the conclusion of the story arc. So, what do Tom and Ron do? They USE that as a strength. The interactions allowed Ben and Mayday to call one  another out on their actions and attitudes while also reinforcing their own opinions about how to address the threat at hand. Obviously, neither is 'right' but that's where I found the crux of this story because it's a differing of opinions, rather than a 'right and wrong' dilemma. Ben's desire to stay safe in his hide-y-hole and live with his regret is understandable, but so is Mayday's thirst for revenge and her own desire to save the last of her family. It's a great contrast.

Both Ron Frenz and Sal Busema are on fire for this Spider-Girl reunion! The inking is some of the best I've ever seen from Sal with a soft touch on the shading that really brought out Ron's strengths. Ron's layouts on this issue are astounding! Just take a look at page three of the story: Nine panels. Nine! It's utilizes the space in each panel to demonstrate Mayday's anger, sadness and guilt, using larger panels at the top of the page, progressively becoming smaller as the walls metaphorically close in on her. It's superb storytelling. There were a few coloring mistakes from Andrew Crossley but nothing major. I think his color palette is a great fit for this story. The reds are darker, the shadows have weight and the backgrounds are lit in such a way that you feel how depressing the confines of the bunker truly are.

Ron also put in some possible clues that we are not reading the MC2 Spider-Girl with her costume. For starters, her web-shooters are a different design to those seen in Amazing Spider-Girl. Her spider-emblem is slightly different, using the design from the original Spider-Girl series while the section of blue under the arms is reminiscent of the Amazing Spider-Girl costume design. If that wasn't enough, the eye-pieces on the mask are different to any design I've seen before, with the 'points' near the nose area pointing down as well as having a different size and shape. It's a distinct yet subtle costume shift.

Overall, I enjoyed this story on it's own merits but I feel it was a missed opportunity by Marvel to promote Spider-Girl through this Spider-Verse event. Once again, we are dealing with a very different take on the character when compared to what made her so unique and interesting in her own series'. That makes it hard for a new reader to appreciate what it is that fans enjoyed about May's adventures. That said, I believe Tom, Ron and Sal have all brought their 'A' game to this story and I walked away very happy for having read a good, solid story told well. I'll give it a straight 'A'.

Until the gang returns to write a new Spider-Girl series, I remain

frogoat