Marvel’s Spider-verse event saw different Spider-Men from across the multiverse join forces to battle against the Inheritors, a force that looked to destroy and consume each universe’s “Spider-Totem.” The event excavated the most odd and hidden tangents of Spider-Man lore, while also providing the single largest expansion of the Spider-Man mythos. Creators were able to rewrite and tweak the well-established Spider-Man origin for each alien universe.
It became an amusement park of “what ifs, .” It was a chaotic, but fun exploration of the butterfly effect let loose in a legend. The reader was given the feeling of being present in the writer’s room and seeing every crazy scenario that the Spider-Man shepherds over at Marvel scribbled on their white board.
What made Spider-Verse’s warping of the known Spider-Man legend so fun was seeing how slight changes caused massive shifts in who Spider-Man turned out to be. It prevented the event from feeling like “Adventures of Spider-Man and his Merry Band of Stormtroppers.” Two of these characters have emerged as fan favorites and have been given their own series.
Last week saw the release of Silk #1 and this week it was Spider-Gwen #1. While both characters owe their genesis to the same creative inception (exploring the fallout of altering the Spider-Man origin) their first issues achieve very different levels of success.
Spider-Gwen and Silk begin to fork away from each other in quality with their execution of this idea. Silk does not stray far enough away from the Spider-Man we have known since 1962, while Spider-Gwen presents us with an endearing and interesting new character in a world that that is original yet comfortable.
Silk exists in the 616 universe along with the original Spider-Man. Cindy Moon (Silk’s alter ego) was bitten by the same spider that gave Peter Parker his powers. When she fights bad guys, she has the same glib, smart ass demeanor. She even works for J. Jonah Jameson. Since she has so many binding attachments to Spider-Man, it gives her pilot issue a stale feel.
Silk was locked in a bunker for a decade to hide from the Inheritors. Her upbringing in isolation and the social retardation the experience would create could have caused her to develop into a more novel protagonist. Instead, she carries an only mild awkwardness with her cliché, smarmy action persona.
Spider-Gwen has an advantage, in that, she has her own universe. A world where familiar characters, like, Peter Parker, Daredevil, Punisher and Vulture, occupy unfamiliar roles. Seeing these characters in concert with another familiar character, Gwen Stacy, in the unfamiliar role of Spider Woman gives the reader the enjoyable feeling of nostalgia while still keeping them interested in what new take on their favorite characters is coming.
It’s not just a different color of paint on the same canvas that makes Spider-Gwen so exciting. Gwen as a character, and as a Spider hero, feels nothing like Peter Parker. Writer Jason Latour was able to make Gwen feel like an accurate realization of a teenage girl.
There is a struggle for purpose behind Gwen. She is trying to corral her newly found powers, her uncontrolled social life and a firehouse of unfocused angst into something good. This is not just Spider-Man with boobs. This is a new character in an uncharted world.
It’s hard to give a fan the feeling of wandering the unexplored when your story takes place in a world that has been around for over fifty years but in its first issue Spider-Gwen does it.
We still have only read the first issue of each of these books so the people both characters will become is not finalized. There is time for Silk to distinguish herself and time for Gwen to regress to a boring normality.
However, Gwen’s path has me excited to partake on an expedition to a new universe piloted by an unknown captain, while Silk has inspired a feeling that I imagine would be similar to if I found out Batman was getting yet another new Robin.
The purpose of a first issue is to get the reader attached to a character. I am ready to accompany Gwen as she swings through her foreign version of New York. Silk needs to stop following Spider-Man if she wants me to start following her.
