Spider-Woman #7 Review

 

Writer: Steve Foxe

Artist: Ig Guara

Colorist: Arif Prianto

Letterer: Joe Sabino

Cover Artists: Leinil Francis Yu & Sunny Gho; Peach Momoko; Todd Nauck & Rachelle Rosenberg

Publisher: Marvel

Price: $3.99

Release Date: May 1, 2024

 

HYDRA turned her son Gerry against her. Like Skid Row, Spider-Woman can’t stand the heartache. She tried switching things up with Spider-Boy, but the team-up only reminded her what she’d lost. So, Jessica Drew hopped on her motorcycle and hit the road. The streets of San Francisco beckoned, but Star incinerated any attempt to center her being while cruising historic Route 66. Still, Jessica's reached The City By The Bay. Can Jessica find peace in new experiences and surroundings? Let’s recharge our bioelectric batteries, leap into Spider-Woman #7, and see!

 

Story

Jessica Drew may be starting anew, but she’s not reinventing herself. She’s still determined to win Gerry back. She can’t do that if HYDRA keeps brainwashing and controlling him. So, Jessica sets her sights on one of the terrorist organization’s wealthiest shell companies. Echidna Capital Management funds emerging technology companies. They’re also causing a stink in San Fran by devouring poor communities and using the high-priced land to build a gleaming corporate campus.

 

Unlike Carl Fredricksen, the locals don't limit their opposition to sitting on the front porch and protecting their mailboxes. They protest outside the fenced-off low-income housing they used to call home, and no one’s holding a balloon. Echidna Security personnel reward the protesters’ efforts with riot shields, truncheons, and tear gas. It’s a toxic environment primed to explode, and one Jessica Drew doesn’t want to confront on her first day. She’s happy to reschedule that joy for this evening when the protestors go home. Then, under cover of darkness, she can quietly slip into the corporate buildings in her bright red and yellow suit and see how many heads of HYDRA she can discover.

 

In Spider-Woman #7, Steve Foxe transplants Jessica Drew in a new city. She inhabits a barren apartment with few belongings except the clothes she brought, while others are losing their homes. As she fights to recapture her family, she also fights for those losing their heritage. She'll meet people she can help and who may be able to help her. She won’t have everything her way. Still, Jessica might find a new home and friends she can rely on.

 

 

 

Art

The sun shines through puffy clouds on The City By The Bay. As Jessica Drew walks along the street clutching her coffee, a cable car crests the hill and halts to take on passengers. Then yellow sparks appear above her head, and her blissful smile falters. Did lightning strike the cable car and transform passengers into superheroes? Sparks fly from the wheels as the driver applies the brakes. Jessica leans into the cable car's hood and digs her heels into the street. Concrete chunks fly into the air. Passengers lean outside the cable car, and the driver grips a handrail while pressing his other hand into the roof. Can this stranger stop them in time?

 

Ig Guara awakens Jessica from her dreams of smiling, happy people in Spider-Woman #7. While a cable car driver frowns, protestors shout, and Echidna Security personnel hide their expressions behind visors and masks. Yet, as bioelectric energy swirls around Jessica's fists, a familiar face emerges from the rising smoke. His smile diffuses her anger and lets her smile again, at least for a while.

 

Arif Prianto lavishes a full palette of attractive colors on fraught action scenes. Prianto imbues San Francisco with the bright, cheery hues that make the city so appealing. Yet readers will likely remember the latter half of Spider-Woman #7 when the familiar figure clad in red and yellow confronts another in yellow and orange. Then, a storm of colors will emerge from the blue night sky, surrounded by lines of crackling energy, as Jessica meets five Young Avengers outside the Echidna campus.

 

Yellow uppercase letters fill red narrative boxes as Joe Sabino shares Jessica’s thoughts in Spider-Woman #7. Large black uppercase letters fill white dialogue balloons as Jessica makes new contacts in her adoptive hometown. It's a cheery place where black music notes surround a bicycle rider wearing headphones, and green letters outlined in blue introduce a superhero team. Yet a villain will cast colored words into jagged white dialogue balloons with red borders while vibrant sound effects announce that the Echidnamania has begun.

 

Thanks to Marvel Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Jessica Drew leaps to others' aid, reunites with an ex, trades venom shocks with a fiery foe, and meets a group of ultrapowered strangers in Spider-Woman #7.

 

Rating 9.6/10 

 

To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.