Issue(s): Spider-Woman #7
Cover Date: Oct 78
Title: "July 4, 1978..."
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Writer
Carmine Infantino - Penciler
Alan Gordon & Stephen Leialoha - Inker

Review/plot:
Jerry Hunt takes Spider-Woman to a SHIELD base in order to use the computers to help find information on her father. The computer is depicted as filling up an entire room like in 1950s sci-fi stories (even as the technician mocks Hunt for saying the computer uses "tubes") and just like in those 1950s stories, instead of displaying relevant information on a monitor, it prints out a piece of ticker tape with the single word "Pyrotechnics" in response to all the various data that was input. The computer as a fortune cookie.

Still, Spider-Woman investigates Pyrotechnics for a second time and learns that her father may have been kept there against his will. She goes after congressman James Wyatt and the board of Pyrotechnics but is defeated by Brother Grimm.

It turns out they had some wacky plot to launch a neutron bomb. They would survive because Dr. Drew had developed an anti-radiation antidote for them, but it's not clear what they thought they would do after they killed everyone else. In any event Hunt helps Spider-Woman escape and they defeat the bad guys and Nick Fury gives them a pat on the back. Spider-Woman tells Nick Fury that she "found my father's killer, which allows him to rest in peace... but I can now live in peace -- because I found the man I love!" before proceeding to make out with old-enough-to-be-her-father Jerry Hunt.

As terrible as this issue was, at least there was no mystical stuff and at least the plot kind of wraps up at the end (although we don't see Brother Grimm again after he knocks out Spider-Woman) and even 'settles' Spider-Woman's investigation of her father's death. Next issue promises a "bold new direction for Marvel's Dark Angel", however.

Infantino's art is pretty good this issue. Stephen Leialoha, co-inker for this issue, will eventually become the series' penciller during Claremont's stint as writer.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

A contemporary review of the title asked:"Wouldn't it be interesting to see if Infantino could draw Jessica so that it wouldn't look like she'd burst if somebody bumped into her bustline?"

James T. Wyatt (full name given in this issue), should be tracked as appearing in this issue, #3 and #4-6.

Thanks AF.

I guess this must be the first occurrence of writers calling Spider-Woman "Dark Angel," which I always associated with Claremont's run on the book. I remember reading it, with characters like Beast saying things like " my darling Dark Angel", and thinking, Give it up, Claremont. It's not going to happen.

I don't have any comics in front of me, but I believe Spider-Woman was called "the dark angel of the night" in her introductory text box on the top part of the splash page since her first or second issue.

Ah. I don't have the comics either, but I do have Pocket book 83026-0, and it looks like Marvel first used that intro box for Spider-Woman in the previous issue, #6, End of a nightmare!