Is It Good? Spider Woman #4 Review

Spider-Verse ends this week, but it’s also the end of Spider-Woman’s much talked about costume as she changes gears next month. Can the issue remain pertinent even though it’s a tie-in? Is it even a tie-in? And is it good?

Spider-Woman #4 (Marvel Comics)

Turn out it is a tie-in, but only halfway. Literally half of its 20 page story involves Spider-Verse, more specifically the battle on Loomworld. This portion is a nice reflection on Spider-Woman and her Loomworld doppelganger who’s also a pirate. They have long conversations about who they are, if Loomworld Spider-Woman could be a good guy and whether or not she’ll help them. The second half takes place three days later and is all about Spider-Woman gaining the courage to tell Captain America something.

Recap crazy.

While the script is dialogue-heavy, writer Dennis Hopeless does a stand-up job keeping this issue interesting and relevant. It serves as a salvo to the Spider-Verse climax and shows us how Spider-Woman actually made a bigger difference than it appears if you only read Amazing Spider-Man #14. The latter half does a great job setting up her new direction while delivering some fun dialogue between Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman as well as some fun surprises from Vision and Beast. Overall this is a good issue that serves up two great stories, but both remaining honest to the character of Spider-Woman.

The art by Greg Land is good in a Greg Land sort of way. It’s widely known his work is repetitive as he takes a Photoshopped approach to faces and poses, but overall it’s interesting and flows nicely. The second half story has a wild looking monster that’s well designed and the action sequence is extremely fun. There are two double page spreads Land uses to recap the Spider-Verse story and to show some action. Both fall a bit short. The recap is okay, but a bit useless at this stage of the game. The action double page spread is awkward however, as well as boring. The two panels don’t seem to go together even though they are of the same battle. Aside from that it’s serviceable and well paced throughout.

Fun.

Is It Good?

This is a good issue with two stories going on that both exemplify the Spider-Woman character and offer a great lead in into her new direction and costume next month.