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