Comic Info
Comic Name: Spider-Girl (Volume 1)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Tom DeFalco
Artist: Pat Olliffe/Ron Frenz
# of Issues: 7
Release Date: Release Date
Spider-Girl #2
Reprints Spider-Girl (1) #0-6 (October 1998-February 1999). May “Mayday” Parker is a popular athlete at Midtown High School. Like other girls her age, May is finding that she’s going through some changes…mostly in the form of gaining superpowers. May’s life is turned upside down when she learns that her father Peter Parker was Spider-Man and she’s gained his powers. Now with the moniker Spider-Girl, May is out to be a hero…and her parents can’t stop her.
Written by Tom DeFalco, Spider-Girl 1: Legacy contains the first six issues of the long-running Marvel series. The first issue is a reprint of What If (2) #105 (February 1998) which introduced the Spider-Girl character and due to a limited print run was reprinted as Spider-Girl #0. Marvel entitled the line M2 and featured other M2 titles like A-Next and J2. The series features art by Ron Frenz on Spider-Girl #0 and Pat Olliffe on Spider-Girl #1-5.
Spider-Girl just seemed like a bad idea to capitalize on the Spider-Man character. Marvel at the time was experimenting with a new Spider-Woman in Mattie Franklin and Spider-Man seemed to be even more places in the late ’90s than Wolverine…despite this, I really enjoyed Spider-Girl.
Spider-Girl #5
The series played out much like the original Amazing Spider-Man series in the ’60s. Each issue of the comic was rather independent of each other with some over-arcing storylines. May is likable and the opposite of Peter Parker at the beginning of his own series.
In addition to being a reversal of the original Spider-Man storyline, the comic allows for a lot of fun “what if” storylines in that the characters of the Marvel Universe are all sixteen years older. You see what becomes of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men and Spider-Man’s victims. It is a great way to get to show an alternate reality (as in What If? where the character premiered), but a feature series allowed the world to be explored and played with…which is different than a lot of other Marvel alternate realities.
Spider-Girl was a great series that got more enjoyable with every issue as May’s world was fleshed out. Unfortunately for Spider-Girl, the character just never could get a strong enough core audience to keep the series from being on the bubble for almost its entire run. Despite this, DeFalco and his team put up a good fight, and Spider-Girl had a solid run. Spider-Girl 1: Legacy was followed by Spider-Girl 2: Like Father, Like Daughter.
