Wednesday, July 12, 2006

COMICS - Spider-Girl is Back!

...or she will be, anyway.

CBR says...
AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL" LAUNCHES IN OCTOBER

The little comic that could has been given a second life as Spider-Girl, which ended at the milestone 100th issue, is now being relaunched as the Amazing Spider-Girl. Thanks to the most dedicated and enthusiastic fanbase in all of comics, the adventures of Mayday Parker will continue in Amazing Spider-Girl #1 with Spider-Girl creator Tom DeFalco still at the healm.
This pleases me, greatly.
I know that few of the few who read this blog have much love for comics. I'm sure that fewer still can resist smirking over the fact that I'm rather enthusiastic about the return of "Spider-Girl," whom they've probably never heard of, anyway.

Still, I unapologetically love comic books and THIS character was in a pretty darn good comic book. It spoke to the classic tone of comic books from waybackwhen and I'm very pleased to see that it won't end as has been reported.

Marvel's way behind, converting the 99 issues of her current, soon-to-be-rebooted series into digests, so it'll probably be quite a while until I catch up (although I'm hoping that they'll hurry so I can read the whole series, soon).

Once I do, I'll be looking for this new series to make it to collected volumes (hopefully some time soon).

7 comments:

Luke Cage said...

I can't front. Although I've heard of the character, I never had a penchant to reading her title. But any connection to the "other" spider person tends to work out well. ie; Spiderwoman, Spider-girl.. and so on.. Kudos anyway to the Marvel team for definitely listening to the loyal fan base.

Hey West, on other matters: what do you think of the current Civil War going on in Marvel? Whose side are you on man? I also peep Young Avengers, New Avengers, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man, Astonishing X-Men, Justice, Spawn and Sam & Twitch. I'm about to cancel my ultimate line of X-Men, Spider-man (at 100) and maybe the Fantastic Four. The art there is incredible...

West said...

re: luke cage's "I can't front. Although I've heard of the character, I never had a penchant to reading her title.

I don't blame you. I enjoyed her debut in "What If...?!" and gave the MC2 stuff a try, but ultimately it didn't interest me enough to keep me around.

One day, though, I read "Last Hero Standing" and fell in-love. It was JUST right.

I decided to give the Spider-Girl title a try, because of LHS. So, I scooped up a copy of her tpb at MegaCON (I think) for a sweet deal.

Damned if that didn't hook me. The rest of the series is in digests, only, but at least that keeps it inexpensive.

I'll comment on the rest of your comment in a separate blog post.

West said...

re: luke cage's "Kudos anyway to the Marvel team for definitely listening to the loyal fan base."

I forgot to mention that a buddy of mine is apparently convinced that this was all a sham, by Marvel.

He thinks they always planned to reboot the title, to boost sales. This'd renew interest and encourage newbies to give it a shot.

I ain't mad at'em, though - especially if they increase the artistic quality to something closer to the image I posted there.

princessdominique said...

I've never been deep into comics but girls need superhero role models too. I'll be waiting for it. Ahem, and share the poem, man...

West said...

I wonder how well it meets younger people's expectations. I think what I like about it is what I refer to as its "classic" tone.

I could see "classic" translating to "old," for some young folks... or even new comics readers.

I have noticed some issues where DeFalco makes (what were) contemporary references in a book that's set a good twenty years in the frickin' future.

Obviously, there are enough things out there to counter-balance that, for me, but still.

Anonymous said...

(Here via When Fangirls Attack, for the record.)

Actually, Spider-Girl is set in the present using a "sliding timescale" for the Marvel universe. In main continuity Spider-Man was created in the early sixties but now supposedly started his career in the early 90's; in Spider-Girl continuity the idea is that Spider-Man (and all the heroes of his era) operated in the 70's/80's, and Spider-Girl is web-swinging in 2006. Same principle, slightly different scales.

And yes, I am horribly enthusiastic about the relaunch, and considering it's the digest sales that saved Spider-Girl, I hope Marvel will use her brief downtime to catch up a little on collecting her issues into trades.

- tb

West said...

Thanks, tb.

I had no idea about the sliding scale, although I remember an ish in which Peter's past was represented as if it were in the era you describe.

I really thought the MC2 stuff was in the future, but I don't think I ever confirmed that.

Keep on schoolin' us.

(Also, I'm glad to hear you say that digest sales helped b/c after I got hooked, I scooped'em ALL up. Kinda makes me feel like I helped a little.)

What do you like about the series (no spoilers, please)?