All-New Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #3 // Review
Gwen and her friend have tracked down a monster. It was kind of an accomplishment just to track it down. But not what are they going to do it? It seems like a pretty serious threat. And it's a real danger to them. But it's a real danger to everyone else as well. So they might as well try to put it down before it has a chance to do anything really awful to anyone else in All-New Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #3. Writer Stephanie Phillips and artist Paolo Villanelli continue Gwen’s latest adventures into Spider-Man-adjacent danger with colorist Matt Milla.
Wes is dead. Silk is in the hospital. Things aren;t looking good. The big question is: what exactly is the monster? They find out pretty quickly. That thing is somehow related to symbiote-style predatory behavior. And it's not like they haven't dealt with that before. Or at least she has. That doesn't necessarily mean that she's going to have an easy time of things. There are certain elements of the symbiote which had clawed their way into her brain. And it's only a matter of time before they come out given the current circumstances.
Phillips isn't playing with anything that is too terribly new here. It's kind of fun to see it trotted out again in a different direction. And it's really cool to see it in relationship to someone like Gwen. Aside from a brief intro involving a side plot, Phillips doesn't spend a whole lot of time. Exploring a whole lot else other than the central action of the dangerous, aggressive, physical conflict between the principal characters. There is more than enough in that conflict to maintain the readers interest. However, it's largely elements and aspects of things that have been echoing through with Spider-Man related title for a very, very, very long time.
Villanelli gives the monster quite a bit of menace. There's some very, very heavy black going on throughout the entire issue. It's a fight between people who largely wear black at night. So it's going to be far from colorful. But there's a lot of jagged edges around the corners of everything to keep it all interesting. The perspective on the action continues to be appealing as well. The action races across the page with a degree of grace that feels suitably entertaining. It all seems to fit together so well.
Phillips is a solidly respectable writer. She's been doing a really good job with the character. It just feels like the current direction is an echo of an echo of an echo of things that I've been going on for far too long to be very interesting. The central action and the current issue is very appealing. It's no questioning that. It's just a matter of it feeling like so much of what we've seen before. But with Philip, it's only a matter of time before she finds the right direction in which to make things starting to feel fresh again.
