Woman, Mind Your Business

Since Brian Michael Bendis has reached the limits of Facebook friending, I had to do some actual research on his really real website www.jinxworld.com to get a sense of who he is as a person. Clearly, the website was no help at all in that department but it did offer an insight to his escapades in comicdom. He was apparently instrumental in launching something called 'Ultimates' for Marvel and has written every single issue of 'Ultimate Spider-Man'. Ultimate might be a word he should avoid in the future so as not to wear it out. A long time ago he worked on Hellblazer and created something called Jinx or whatever. Then there was Powers...blah. What I'm here to talk about is a newer project he's got going on called Spider-Woman (not much of a mention on the main site...might want to tighten that up?).

As evidenced by the glowing reviews posted on his site Bendis is a prolific writer among the comic-reading throng. And, since I've yet to bash anything too horribly on the blog, I guess I have to begrudgingly agree. Spider-Woman, thus far, is a slow burning super-heroine noir story. There's a smoldering quality to the way the issues present themselves to the reader as you get along in the series.

Issue #1 finds Jessica Drew in her home, alone and paranoid. Not without good reason. Once an active Avenger, she's now ostracised from the community. During the preliminary stages of the Secret Invasion, Jessica was kidnapped and replaced by the shape-shifting Skrull queen. Every aspect of her life was assimilated by the Skrulls. No one trusts her and she can't blame them. Then...an opportunity arises in the form of a job offer from Agent Brand of S.W.O.R.D. Become an agent. The mission? Skrull hunting.

The ember burning in Jessica's gut radiates the sweaty heat from that first issue on through. Confrontations with a tortured Super-Skrull, Madame Hydra (who claims to be Jessica's mother), a Spider-Man doppelganger, and Norman Osborn's bastardization of the mighty Thunderbolts only make this a far grittier story. Now, that's an interesting thing to point out in a comic...especially a superhero book. The more outrageous the 'comicness' in this book, the more you feel like Jessica is embroiled in something personal. This is a credit to Bendis' writing, IN PART! The other part here lies in the mixed-media art provided by Alex Maleev (New Avengers, Daredevil, Stephen King's N.). Maleev uses a combination of photorealism and a painted media approach to his panel work. It is striking in it's emotion and at the same time removes the reader from one reality to one from another world. He uses actual models for his artwork and manipulates them as he sees fit. The result is completely fitting to the nature of the book.

Issue #8 drops in April

Tyler