by Kevin Gaussoin, Editor-in-Chief

It’s Week One of Marvel’s latest crossover: GANG WAR! This week we start the Gang War with ASM: First Strike, Luke Cage: Gang War #1, and Spider-Woman #1 and this event will continue across seven titles, 26 issues in all, all the way into March 2024. 

For those of you old heads like me, here’s a bit of an update for ya to get started: Back in 2007-2008, Joe Quesada ruined decades of Peter Parker’s growing up and maturing continuity with “One More Day” / “Brand New Day” (yes Editor Nick Lowe, the vast majority of us are actually still sore about it, no matter what you say in the letters page of ASM 926/35), then eventually Dan Slott came in and sneakily reintroduced a grown up mindset to Peter over Slott’s impressive 164-issue Spider-Man run. Recently, Zeb Wells came in with JR Jr, and… It’s hard to say. I was wrong about the Slott initial run and I wanna be wrong about the Wells run too, but I am still having trouble buying that Peter was such a complete idiot and such a jerk to all his allies. I guess bottom line is that it seems he’s been a dumb jerk to his friends and still isn’t back with Mary Jane and their kid is still unaccounted for. We still remember and we’re still bitter and no amount of letters page denials or Mephisto’s magic can change that continuity.

Maybe more critical to this Gang War crossover: Last year in the Daredevil crossover “Devil’s Reign”, Kingpin Wilson Fisk was ousted from being Mayor of NYC (I know, right?) by none other than Power Man himself, Mayor Luke Cage, but not before Kingpin established Fisk’s Law, aka the Anti-Vigilante Act which basically made super-hero vigilantes illegal while Fisk put super villains on the city payroll as a new roster of dark Thunderbolts to do his bidding and legally take down super heroes. It was a good story that weirdly led to Kingpin currently being on the side of the angels, sorta, as he’s teamed up with the X-Men and all of Marvel’s mutants (most all of their lives and stories are crumbling in the current “Fall of X” storyline) because his wife Typhoid Mary is a mutant, and if Wilson Fisk is anything good at all, it’s that he’s adamantly a loyal and devoted husband. 

So since Kingpin has been away, Hammerhead has become the de facto chairman of the current NYC crime factions and he of course wants more territory and he’s going to get it by using the old, tired, but apparently still effective “set your opponents against each other by tricking them into thinking they’re already attacking each other” plan. 

Oh, also germane to this crossover is that recently Elektra has taken up the mantle of Daredevil. Matt’s still alive, still sort of Daredevil, and the two of them got married while powering up to fight Frank Castle, the demon-possessed powered-up Punisher who due to the finale of that story clearly won’t be returning soon himself. Matt probably won’t join us much if at all for Gang War, as he’s been pretty foggy (heh) in his new magically-gained identity as a priest who works at an orphanage. 

And finally: Shang-Chi is one of the crime lords, so one of the books crossing over is Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu: Gang War.

All of this leads us to now…

Creative Team:
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artist: Carola Borelli
Colorist: Arif Brianto
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabino

Official Description:
Recently, Spider-Woman (A.K.A. Jessica Drew) was severed from the Web of Life by a special dagger that unraveled her life and caused her to slowly be forgotten as though she’d never existed. Fortunately, her friends and fellow Spider-people were able to mend the Web of Life and bring back Spider-Woman before she disappeared forever. But she didn’t quite return to the life she left. Something very important is still missing.

SPOILERS: It’s her kid. Someone search Joe Quesada’s trunk.

But seriously, what do the Spidey creative teams have against keeping spider-kids around? That last End of Spider-Verse series was trash, and this is where Jessica ends up after Spider-Woman Volume 7, probably her best of all time? Ugh, okay.

So with today’s Spider-Woman Volume 8, Issue 1, Spider-Woman starts off in a bad place, but she’s gonna fight to get justice… Hey wait a minute, this is the formula for the Gang War titles this week? First Peter, then Luke, and now Jessica: All of them start in a really crappy situation and will be teaming up with other heroes (and assumedly eventually each other) to seek justice.

Like Pete and Luke before her this week, Jessica has guest stars a plenty as well: Armadillo, Diamondback (not the one who used to date Captain America, the one who made the end of Luke Cage Season One suck), Madame Hydra, Captain Marvel (Carol), Madame Web (Julia), Green Mamba, and Spider-Man (Peter) swing by at the end to recruit her.

I don’t recognize Steve Foxe or any of this Spider-Woman #1 creative team, but they had big shoes to fill, and so far I’m really digging it. Does Carola Borelli’s art in this issue remind anyone else of Bill Willingham meets Ryan Ottley?

Next Week: Amazing Spider-Man #39 (#933)

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Spider-Woman #1 – 4/5 first clues on her latest search for justice and Gerald. 

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