This is a review of Marvel Masterworks: Spider-Woman Volume One. Spider-Woman came into existence because of a copyright issue. Learning that another company was about to create a character named Spider-Woman, Marvel sprang into action and beat them to the punch! The result: a one-shot issue written by Archie Goodwin that is a marvel of efficiency. Spider-Woman, evolved from a spider by the High Evolutionary and then brainwashed by the terrorist organization Hydra, is sent to kill Nick Fury (the director of SHIELD). At the issue’s end, she throws off her brainwashing.
Spider-Woman’s next appearance is in Marvel-Two-In-One, a comic series which featured characters from the Marvel Universe teaming up with The Thing (of the Fantastic Four). This five-issue storyline, in which Alicia Masters (The Thing’s girlfriend) is transformed into an enormous psychotic spider/human hybrid that wrecks London, pretty much jumps the shark on every level. Spider-Woman’s origins become further muddled when Mordred the Mystic joins the party.
Next we have the Spider-Woman series, written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by Carmine Infantino. Mr. Wolfman is a legendary comic writer who wrote Tomb of Dracula, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and the New Teen Titans, and under his guidance Spider-Woman becomes an uneasy hodgepodge – it has horror elements, it has superhero elements, it has elements of a fetish comic.
Wait, what? Yes, it’s true. In Issue #4 we have The Hangman, a villain who could double as a Rope Daddy. Spider-Woman finds herself in a jam, let’s put it like that, which makes no sense because she has super strength. It’s a scene that goes on for a number of pages, immortalized by Mr. Infantino’s skill at drawing Japanese rope bondage. Honestly, I have no idea how this issue made it past the Comics Code Authority.
If you read enough superhero comics, you know that this is hardly the only time a female character gets tied up. Still, as the most overt example of shibari bondage in mainstream comics I’ve ever seen, it’s worth a mention. When I read the mass market paperback 40+ years ago as a kid, this scene was the only thing I recalled decades later. Frederic Wertham was right, comics really do influence young minds!
Anyway, this is a weird graphic novel. If you ignore the Marvel Two-In-One storyline, it contains some pretty good comics.
Abandoned Places 