Issue(s): Spider-Woman #47
Cover Date: Dec 82
Title: "Twisted"
Credits:
Ann Nocenti - Writer
Brian Postman - Penciler
Carl Potts - Inker
Mike Carlin - Assistant Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
Ann Nocenti's first issue of Spider-Woman. The beginning of the end, really. She introduces a character called Daddy Longlegs. He wanted to be a dancer, but he was too short, so he went to Bill Foster looking for a growth serum. Foster refuses to help, so the dancer beats him up and tries a few potions.

The result is that he gets really long legs and arms.

He goes on a little rampage at a dance hall...

...and Spider-Woman stops him...

...but he mysteriously teleports away before she can bring him in.

Nocenti's style of writing is very... metaphorical, maybe? Everyone's dialogue is very stilted, like they're spouting philosophy instead of just talking. Some people like it a lot. I can't stand it.

This issue opens with Spider-Woman taking out a killer named Digger, who was a Crypt Keeper-like host in the b&w Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness.

After he's defeated, Digger says that everybody's dead and it's up to him to seal them up. Spider-Woman says that "there can be no why's for such an act". Like a lot of characters that appear in Spider-Woman, Digger will return as a member of Night-Shift. I guess it's this story that establishes that he's in continuity.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Daddy Longlegs? Plus Digger? Maybe that's worth a 2?

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Ann Nocenti's dialogue would get much worse; everybody she wrote would sound like they were mentally ill or suffering from extreme ADD or had the brain of a 5-year-old.

I don't know, I kind of like Daddy Long Legs, in a Steve Gerber-y kind of way.

He was weird. That was the type of stuff I wanted to see in the Spider Woman comic.
I found what Nocenti was doing on the book was different from most other comics, and I enjoyed that.

I loved the Ann Nocenti Daredevils when I was a kid. Reading through this site I'm kinda nervous to see what they're like now.

I find that sometimes Nocenti's 'metaphorical' writing works and sometimes it doesn't. I 1st thought she was trying too hard in following Frank Miller's Daredevil by trying to be 'profound' but I've since realised that's just her way of writing. I just think it can come across a little bit pretentious sometimes.

wow, bill foster. you thought losing to stilt man was a low point. How about losing to a five foot tall ballerina?