Spider-Woman #5 // Review
Jessica’s half-brother is the head of a pharmaceutical company. He has much to answer for in this respect. One does not land as a CEO of a company that makes drugs without being involved in shady things. He gave Jessica a serum that made her stronger and more unstable. There is now the small matter of serious danger in a facility for advanced research that has a long and checkered past in Spider-Woman #5. Writer Karla Pacheco ushers Jessica Drew through her 100th legacy issue...a legacy that includes great writers like co-creator Archie Goodwin, Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont, and more. Artist Pere Pérez draws the main story with Mattia De Iulis handling an issue-ending story that launches Jessica into a crossover with Captain Marvel's next issue.
The ultra-secure Wundagore facility has become very, very insecure. Jessica’s mother has turned out to be something other than his mother. Now she, her half-brother, and his daughter are running for their lives from a psychotic machination of weird science in the form of her late mother. What’s more: the facility is also playing host to a similarly psychotic woman named Octavia Vermis. Jessica has to protect members of her family from the two women if she’s going to be able to survive. When all is said and done, Wundagore is going to look quite a bit different.
Pacheco fuses action with drama that crawls, punches, hammers, runs, and rolls through a metal-lined lab bunker out in the middle of nowhere. There’s one innocent girl looking-on in horror as violence explodes around her. And then everything else does. The mix of drama and action are blended quite well. Pacheco does a good job of allowing the action to amplify the drama and vice-versa. It may have been a 100-issue-long life that’s been through many, many adventures, but Jessica really seems to have been through something in Pacheco’s last few issues. There’s a truly harrowing sense of adventure that’s brought to the page in the 100th issue.
Pérez slices the action across the page in long, narrow panels that occasionally explode across the page at wildly skewed angles. Pérez’s layout is beautifully expressive...broadcasting the action across the page in powerful amplification. When characters shout at each other, the anger could be felt across a room. Pérez manages this without making anything seem over-exaggerated. De Iulis’ work at issues’ end is allowed to be a lot more relaxed and reflective. There’s a beautiful sense of nuanced emotion in his rendering of Jessica Drew in more muted moments that serve as a nice contrast to the aggressive combustion of much of the rest of the issue.
The leap into the next issue that hits at the end of #5 feels like a bit of a lurch. This is odd as Pacheco has done such a good job of making sure that the pacing has been quite nearly perfect throughout the past couple of issues. The sudden journey out to meet with Captain Marvel is a jaunty lead-in to next issue, but it feels ever-so-slightly at odds with the dramatic weight of the rest of the issue. There’s almost nothing connecting the end of one issue with the beginning of the next. It’s nice to get a preview of what’s coming next month, though.
