Quirky Cat
Written on Mar 22, 2018
During the events of Spider-Women Gwen took some pretty serious hits. The one that is freaking her out the most is the one that took away her powers. She now has to rely on this little device with a limited number of power ups included. Some would see this as a new lease on life; Gwen finally has the chance to walk away from the superhero thing. It’s been torturing her for ages anyway, so why not? The problem is Gwen has pretty much become addicted to being Spider-Woman, and she’s too stubborn to even consider giving that role up. So here we are.
So remember how Spider-Gwen’s universe is actually a different one from the one we always see? And how that means that there are things reversed of changed between the two worlds? Well in Gwen’s universe Frank Castle isn’t a vigilante trying to avenge his dead family, but is actually a crooked cop with an obsessive personality (on the bright side his family is actually alive – they just left him because he was never there for them). His current obsession is catching Spider-Women; and since he knows her alter ego this should be a pretty easy run. You know, if he’s willing to ignore all the laws and regulations a police officer is expected to follow.
There was one situation in particular where I feel like Gwen could have played it a different way. Frank went after her out of costume, in public. Had it been me I would have let it look like I had gotten taken down – I’d have let me friends call in the legit police. That would have bought me some time, if nothing else. I know playing possum wouldn’t have made Frank believe what he had seen wasn’t the truth, but it would have made it a lot harder to go after her. But that’s just my two cents.
On the whole I was having trouble appreciating the tribulations Gwen was facing in this volume. I get that Frank is an actual threat to her safety, but I don’t think that responding to his violence with more violence would solve anything (I mean, unless she was willing to kill him I don’t think he’d ever stop – at least not on his own volition). Likewise I don’t understand the whole difficulty with her father, such as why he felt the need to turn himself in (and how he thought that would help Gwen). On the whole this volume just ended up feeling a little soap opera-esque, which is pretty disappointing. I actually think the character of Spider-Gwen has a lot of potential. It is clearly dependent on the plots she gets however, as evidenced by my not loving this one. Hopefully the next one will be better.
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