Spider-Girl #3 – Review

By: Paul Tobin (writer), Clayton Henry, Tim Seeley & Sergio Cariello (art), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Tom Brennan (editor)

The Story: Spider-Girl continues to deal with the death of her dad.

What’s Good: Marvel is really doing some ambitious stuff with Spider-Girl.  I would LOVE to know if Marvel has made some kind of 12+ issue commitment to the title because Paul Tobin isn’t starting this story in a very predictable place.  What you might expect given that Anya Corazon/Spider-Girl is a spunky teenage girl hero is a rollicking fun 6-issue fight against some D-list villain like Speedball while she juggles high school and boys.  But, Tobin has tossed both us and the character right into deep waters by having her father (and Anya’s only parent) die in the second issue.  Suddenly, she’s an unpowered hero who is also a teenage girl who will have to be responsible for paying the rent and feeding herself.  This issue watches as we deal with Anya’s issues and her attempts to reach out through her support network to find anything she can hold onto during this trying time.  All you people out there demanding “diversity” in comics should be checking this title out because it promises to be unafraid to deal with some very human issues with a character who is relatively unexplored.

The superhero aspect of the title isn’t neglected either, even if it takes a back seat.  How will Spider-Girl react to seeing Red Hulk again?  She’s clearly going to be very angry with him, but what would a 90 pound teenage girl do when she is angry at a SUPER-level character?  How will Red Hulk react to this?  You’ll have to read to find out but it promises to be an interesting story.

In short, this is a really good series that could become something special if Marvel gives it a chance to grow.

The art works.  I’m not going to gush about it because it does look like the art was done by three different artists.  But, if you want your books to ship monthly, that’s the kind of stuff that’ll happen sometimes.  There’s nothing about the art where you think “bad art” and there are a few really nice panels throughout the issue (e.g. the Red Hulk – Spider-Girl panel on page 5 is really nice).