![]() | |||||||||
Spider-Woman #16Issue(s): Spider-Woman #16 Review/plot: Then Spider-Woman is invited to meet the owner of the Hatros clinic at her home. It turns out to be Nekra... ...who is interested in Spider-Woman's pheromones because they have the potential to affect her the same way the Mandrill's did, and she doesn't want to ever be manipulated like that again. She knows Spider-Woman's secret ID. Nekra uses a potion to subdue Jessica's pheromones, and she's pretty powerfull... ...but Spider-Woman survives the fight long enough for the potion to wear off and then she's able to win the fight when Nekra's hate is suppressed by the pheromones. Also this issue, Jerry Hunt stops by to tell Jessica that he's been reassigned to a new location. He invites her to come along with him but she refuses, as he thought she would. Bye bye, Jerry! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out! Something i've never really been aware of until this issue: Spider-Woman's long hair is actually a wig that is a part of her costume. It comes loose in her fight with Nekra. It makes sense, and i guess i'm just so trained to accept inconsistent art when it comes to secret identities that it never really occurred to me that Jessica's hair was any longer as Spider-Woman. Quality Rating: C+ Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (5): show CommentsA subsequent letters column ran a criticism of the frequent Jessica Drew cleavage, and singled out this issue in particular. Posted by: Mark Drummond | July 18, 2011 1:13 AM The title refers to the 1967 Beatles song "All You Need Is Love". Posted by: Mark Drummond | September 4, 2011 4:23 PM I think Gruenwald's run is heights above the earlier Wolfman issue. This issue in particularly is very good for the run. Unfortunately, Infantino's art starts lokking odder and odder - I think the earlier inks by DeZuniga were much better than Gordon's. Gruenwald also has a much better handle on the "Dark Angle of the Night" aspect - and some of his new villains are inspired. Unfortunately, some of the later issues aren't so good, and once it becomes a "standard" superhero title under Fleisher, any charms it had for me just ends. Posted by: Chris | November 18, 2012 10:16 PM Gruenwald liked the idea of long-haired super women wearing wigs so much that he returns to it several times. During his Captain America run, we find out both Snapdragon and Coachwhip wear wigs as part of their costumes. Keep an eye out, there may be a few other instances as well. Posted by: Walter Lawson | May 18, 2014 9:48 PM The wig idea was fairly good. It helped make the distinctive visuals more realistic. It does not explain why Jessica never again had light brown hair after #1, but some mysteries are not to be clarified. Note that as of #48-49 she has switched to an alternate costume without the wig, apparently for some time (she has to rip her own hair short and comments later that the wig wig "still fits"). Posted by: Luis Dantas | April 2, 2015 9:28 PM @Walter Lawson: Jessica dyed her hair black in SPIDER-WOMAN #1 so she could elude Law Enforcement. She wore her hair shoulder-length, but grew it out when Chris Claremont & Steve Leiloha worked on the series. Jessica ripped her hair off when Gypsy Moth telekinetically tried to drown her with it! Posted by: Andrew DeLoach | September 1, 2016 5:41 AM Oops, that was for Luis! Posted by: Andrew DeLoach | September 1, 2016 5:42 AM Spider-Woman's wig actually first appeared in #10. There was a letter in that issue asking about the discrepancy between the length of Spider-Woman's hair and Jessica's. This was acknowledged as being 'exaggerated for visual effect' but an in-story explanation of a wig was shown too - check out page 2, panel 4. Posted by: Garuda | September 18, 2017 10:56 AM Note that Nekra's age when she met the Mandrill is raised from 10 in the original story to 14 here- possibly to explain why she was affected by his power when Dian in the Defenders wasn't because of her young age. Posted by: Michael | January 30, 2018 9:46 PM Nekra makes a good antagonist for Spider-Woman and she should have been used again. She's a powerful female villain who could have given Spider-Woman a good challenge. Her white on black design is strong and appealing even though she needs a little bit better costume than this strange thing she's wearing. And she's not being used by anyone else. The only downside is that a villain who knows the secret identity of the hero risks running into the same trap that the Green Goblin did. You either need to give her permanent amnesia, or go through a bout of temporary amnesia again and again. There can be a permanent solution where the villain decides not to use her secret ID against her, but it takes a lot of effort. However, her ties to the Cult of Kali would have seen a return of the Shroud as a good recurring character, and made the introduction of Dansen Macabre (introduced this same year in MTU #94) to Spider-Woman's rogues gallery as well. If HYDRA was then brought in given her established ties to them, they could be used as another ongoing antagonist especially if they used some of the more super powered villains associated with HYDRA. A souped up Blackwing would have fit the horror theme, and even someone like El Jaguar would fit especially if supported by Dreadnoughts, Fixer & Mentallo, and Hydra goons. You can't always reuse the same villains, but some amount of repeated villains is a necessity to build a mythos around a character. Posted by: Chris | April 8, 2018 9:09 PM Comments are now closed. |
|||||||||
![]() |
|||||||||
SuperMegaMonkey home | Comics Chronology home |