Spider-Girl: Avenging Allies

Spider-Girl: Avenging Allies 

By Tom DeFalco, Pat Olliffe & Al Williamson with Sal Buscema (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-1658-3

The third volume of the collected adventures of the alternate Earth daughter of the Amazing Spider-Man picks up where we left off as May “Mayday” Parker keeps on attacking that learning curve on the way to becoming a proper superhero like her dad.

This time as well as handling the hassles of High School and the seemingly perpetual fights with other super-do-gooders (such as Darkdevil, Stinger and the new Avengers) she encounters her first extended plot-line as Very Bad Villain Kaine enters the murky corners of her life, waiting for just the right moment to leap out and become her ultimate nemesis. There are also angst-attacks and so-so baddies a-plenty, just in case you were anticipating a qualitative sea-change in approach from long-time creators DeFalco and Olliffe.

This wants so very much to be a “return to Marvel Greatness” but it too often feels forced and silly. And yet the comic book from which these stories are collected (issues #12-16 and the 1999 annual in this case) is one of the longest running of Marvel’s latter-day publications so it must have found some kind of appreciative audience.

© 1999, 2000, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.