After a brief rendezvous with the likes of Automan and the Holyoke Cat-Man, it’s time for the Keeper to once again focus on the heroes and villains responsible for transforming this blog from an incredibly obscure outpost in the World Wide Wilderness to a slightly less incredibly obscure outpost.
So let’s turn our attention to Marvel’s dark angel: Spider-Woman.
Of course, we’re not talking about the ultra-kewl, quadruple-spy who received breast implants from Hydra. Here at the Fortress, the only Spider-Woman of interest is the pill-popping, pheromone-secreting lost soul chronicled by writer Mark Gruenwald and artist Carmine Infantino. (Issues #9 - #19)
Sadly, the pill popping is still a few issues away. As we enter Spider-Woman # 10, Jessica is merely dating an egocentric lout and living with a centuries-old magician in a boarding house populated by sinister dollies.
Nothing too far out of the ordinary for the late-’70s Marvel universe.
Our story opens with Jessica (Spider-Woman) Drew moon-bathing on a beach with her “lover” Jerry Hunt, Agent of D.O.R.K. Although recovering from getting his a$$ whupped by a withered old man carrying a large needle, Hunt attempts to get to first base with Jessica.
Fortunately, a little something called “the plot” stops Secret Agent Man in his tracks.
A mysterious winged figure zips overhead, and faster than you can say “whew” Jessica transforms into Spider-Woman and takes flight. Despite a strange attraction to the “figure of unnatural beauty” (Hmmm, this never happened to Spider-Man and The Human Fly), the Dark Angel loses sight of the mystery woman.
Returning to Jerry, Jessica receives a tongue lashing for chasing every “flying freak” she sees. Hunt also wonders why he allowed her to bring the costume, but we all know the answer to that, right?
Later that evening, Jessica joins her magician friend Magnus (no relation to the robot-fighting guy) at a swank ’70s Hollywood party straight out of Annie Hall.
While the ladies love Magnus, however, most of the attendees are strangely repelled by Jessica (those old pheromone thingies). Fortunately, an ice-breaker named Gypsy Moth disrupts the party.
At this point, the mysterious moth unveils her sinister plan by, um, turning women’s dresses into living cocoons. Spider-Woman pursues, hoping to reason with the Gypsy Moth, but finds her costume unraveling instead.
(Whee! Pre-Internet fan-fic!)
Suddenly, Our Man Hunt enters the building and - using his finely honed intellect - pulls out his gun and sprays bullets all over the place. One of the bullets hits the Moth, prompting Jessica to cream Jerry with a venom blast.
(Ah, young love…)
Gypsy Moth escapes, leaving Spider-Woman and Hunt to bicker in the Mighty Marvel Manner.
A story like this would have no place in the “hyper-noir” Marvel of Quesada and Bendis. Back in 1979, though, Gruenwald was free to craft a story that was both absurd and unsettling.
(The guy would have made a great DC writer…)
Gypsy Moth’s motives were puzzling at this point (Readers would later discover she was a mutant. *Yawn*), making her “freak” status all the more intriguing. Infantino’s highly stylized art kept things sleekly erotic - in a manner approved by the Comics Code of course.
While by no means an all-time classic, Spider-Woman #10 is another off-beat delight that would have fit nicely beside a Doug Moench-penned issue of Detective. Jessica Drew had established a clear distance between herself and a certain friendly neighborhood wall-crawler, setting up the interesting possibility of a viable female “creature of the night.”
Sadly, it would only last nine more issues.
Coming up: Madame Doll and The Brothers Grimm!
