Spider-Girl #0-5

Spider-Girl #0-5

Originally released in 1998

Written by Tom DeFalco

Art by Ron Frenz

Legacy characters are an interesting aspect of comic books that aren't seen often in other media.  Whether it gets kind of silly for a character to stay a teenager for fifty years or an old concept gets reinvented for a new audience, a character taking on someone else's identity can help to keep a story fresh.  However, there are some cases when the status quo can cause issues with that - becoming Batman might be seen as a natural continuation of Dick Grayson's story, but as long as Bruce Wayne is around, that's not going to stick.

Setting a story in the future serves as a way around that, like what was done in Spider-Girl.  Set roughly fifteen years after the main comics of the time, Peter Parker and Mary Jane have a daughter, May Parker, who is discovering that she inherited her father's spider powers after growing up not knowing that he was Spider-Man.

One way that children can be set apart from their parents in generational stories like this is to make them the opposite of their parents in some way.  There are times where this works well, like with Gohan in Dragon Ball Z, but other times where it can backfire and make the new protagonist unlikeable.  Boruto, the son of Naruto from the manga of the same name, lacks his father's work ethic or determination, so he starts off the manga as ungrateful and constantly trying to take shortcuts.  Harry Potter and the Cursed Child fell victim to this as well.  Thankfully, May is more of the Gohan route.

Unlike Peter, May was athletic before she even got her powers, in addition to being a great student, so she has a varied friend group and doesn't have to deal with Peter's isolation problems.  However, this causes issues of its own.  Upon discovering that she has powers, May begins to feel bad about continuing to play basketball - after all, between her super reflexes, agility, and Spider-Sense, she has a massive built-in advantage over everyone else. (May definitely took her parents' lessons about taking responsibility to heart)

Peter's still an active part of her life along with Mary Jane, and he struggles to balance his worry over May being a superhero with the knowledge that he did the exact same thing when he was around her age. He lost his right leg in his final battle with Norman Osborn, which cost the Green Goblin his life, and this serves as a reminder about the dangers of this lifestyle and how close it brought him to death.

Even though this is May's story, Peter and Mary Jane remain fleshed out and well-developed characters, which was nice to see. Their concerns are portrayed as reasonable, especially after everything they've been through, while May's perspective is also well-justified, thanks in part to what her own parents taught her when she was a kid.

May's early rogues gallery is a good mix of old Spider-Man enemies and threats that are unique to her. Her first issue has her face off with Normie Osborn, the grandson of Norman and the son of Harry, who wants to avenge the death of his father and grandfather.  Despite being roughly twenty years old, there are times where he talks like a young child, and his tattoos are a little silly.

May still deals with the Spider-Man staple of juggling school, superheroics, and overscheduling, though unlike Peter, she doesn't have to worry about looking after a sickly relative, the media has been positive towards her (for the most part - some are calling her a threat or menace), and her dating life isn't a concern yet. (Though there's still romantic drama)

Throughout this comic, we get little hints about how things have changed over the years.  Daredevil is dead (or at least believed to be dead), while Kingpin is in prison.  Reed Richards went through an accident that left him as a disembodied brain in a robot, while Sue Richards is nowhere to be seen. (Pun not intended; it's unclear if she's retired or dead)

Issue five reveals that one Spider-Man villain, the Venom symbiote, has been locked up for ten or twelve years after Eddie Brock perished. Naturally, seeing a picture of a superhero who resembles Spider-Man is all the motivation that it needs to break out.

Unfortunately for May, with Eddie dead, the symbiote's next choice for a host is Peter Parker.  This causes her no shortage of angst, as she's not quite sure how much of the taunts are coming from the symbiote and how much of them are coming from her father.

I had a good time with these first few issues - May makes for a nice contrast with Peter while still being an effective and interesting protagonist.  As well, Peter and Mary Jane's uncertainty about being parents to a fledgling superhero is well-written, compelling, and not the sort of conflict that would appear in the main comics. (Or, at least, it would take a while to get to that point)

While Peter and Mary Jane figure out Spider-Girl's identity immediately (they forbid her from being a superhero, she does so anyway, and once the existence of Spider-Girl becomes public knowledge, it's not exactly hard for them to figure out that the girl with Spider-Man's powers is their daughter, who has Spider-Man's powers), issue five ends with mixed messages in that regard.  Peter believes he's convinced his co-worker, Phil Ulrich, to discourage May from being a hero, but he's so vague about it that Phil thinks he means that Peter wants Phil to train May in secret.  This is inevitably going to blow up in everyone's face, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it happens.