Spider-Woman #4 // Review
It’s a bit of a perilously unassuming location in Eastern Europe. Wundagore Mountain has a strange history about it. One of the most totally evil books in the whole of the Marvel Universe was written there quite a long time ago. Later on, there were weird experiments conducted there. Among those involved in those experiments was a guy who became the father of Jessica Drew. Drew is forced to return to that mountain fortress in Spider-Woman #4. Writer Karla Pacheco constructs a story that brings bewildering family history into sharp focus while launching Jess into really fun action that is brought to the page with impressively dynamic energy by Pere Perez.
So it turns out that Jess’s mother isn’t dead. And it turns out that her employer Michael is also her brother. It turns out that there have been a number of lies and basic violations of trust that would make any family counselor positively catatonic with horror. Jess and company have little time to come to terms with things before the sudden arrival of a very sinister woman named Octavia Vermis. Jess had to steal from her. She’s arrived at Wundagore for a bit more than what was stolen from her.
Pacheco finesses a lot of things in this issue that really have no business working as well as they do. A sudden revelation about family relations hits right at the beginning of an issue. Logic dictates that serious interpersonal drama shouldn’t lead a chapter. Yet, Pacheco and company launch into it with a sly sense of style that has little difficulty drawing-in a reader. From there, the actual action is a great deal of fun. Pacheco works with a refreshingly female-centered ensemble. Four out of the five central characters are women, and two of them are powerfully badass matriarchal figures. It’s endlessly cool to see matriarchal women as the main focus of an action fantasy story like this.
Perez frames that action with powerful angles and bone-jarring percussion. There IS an attention to simple body language and dramatic subtlety. Still, Perez’ framing of action with deeply dramatic perspective makes all of the action feel every bit as powerful as it needs to in order to keep the action fresh every single page of the issue. An issue-long siege of Wundagore could’ve been more than a bit tedious if Perez hadn’t handled it with from as many different angles as he does. Jess throws a simple punch in the second half of the issue that could have laid pretty flat on the page, but Perez slams it through the skull of an android with the kind of impact rarely felt in a single blow on a comics page.
Pacheco and company have been setting-up for an issue like this all series. Elements have been gradually lowered into place that finally come together in a very big way with the fourth issue. The assault on Wundagore continues next issue. Pacheco prefaces what’s to come at the end of the issue by saying, “Spider-Woman’s about to get really bonkers, and you’re all going to be mad at me!”
Okay. Sounds like fun. After an issue like this, Pacheco’s audience might follow her just about anywhere.
