Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider #15 // Review
Loki has just killed another version of himself. There are a lot of monsters who are standing around in shock. And Gwen’s...thinking about what makes for a good story. It’s really important work under the circumstances given where she is, which is to say: in great danger. It’s at times like this when a hero really has to think about...what makes a good story. She comes-up with some pretty good insight in Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider #15. Writer Stephanie Phillips delivers one of her better scripts in an issue brought to page and panel by artist Von Randal. Color manifests itself on the page under the power of colorist Matt Milla.
Things are looking pretty grim with a god of mischief essentially possessing omnipotence of a kind. The thing is...Gwen has a certain amount of omnipotence herself as well. And so naturally she’s going to...go into her mind. And when she’s there, she’s going to run into herself. And as she runs into herself, she’s going to see herself...sitting at a desk and writing. With a pen and everything. (Which is a bit weird, but y’know...this is a metaphor and it’s up to her to decide how it’s all going to end.)
Phillips’ brilliantly crisp and distinctive sense of humor powers an issue that could have been really, really awful. Like...even the overall plot that she comes-up with for the issue in question could have been really, really bad were it not for the fact that she’s just...deeply, deeply funny and insanely clever with the dialogue and internal monologue of Gwen. She’s a deeply enjoyable character to hang out with. She’s been through a lot...and by the end of the current issue she’s also been through cosmic power in a way that feels a lot more sophisticated than the way Spider-Man did with Captain Universe back in ’89.
Von Randall is called upon to move the narrative in a whole bunch of drastically different directions in the course of the issue. The action hits the page impressively at times, but the most visually engaging part of the entire issue has to be the conversation between Gwen and herself in her own mind. The expressiveness of the mask and her overall comportment in costume is contrast against a much more casual emotional personality in a way that feels like a vivid visual manifestation of the conflict going on deep within her. Very cool stuff.
Gwen Stacy has been through a lot over the course of the past 60 years. (She celebrates her 60th anniversary early this coming September.) Phillips and company deliver a story that really embraces a progression for the character that shows how far she’s come even if she’s not the same person she was when creator Steve Ditko introduced her back in the Silver Age. Very few characters have had the benefit of being through nearly as many different drastic and lasting mutations and interpretations over the decades. This makes Gwen one of the more durable characters in the history of narrative fiction. (Okay...that DOES sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.)
