I read up on Spider-Woman a bit after reading this comic. I was familiar with her mostly from her inclusion in Bendis's run on Avengers/New Avengers, but her earlier appearances were something I just have no experience with. From the sounds of the Wikipedia article, her early adventures were actually pretty good, so perhaps I'll have a look at them some day. The most amusing bit was Stan Lee admitting that they only ever really published her first adventure in order to keep anyone else from copyrighting the name "Spider-Woman." Well, that and that her original origin was that she was a spider mutated into human form.
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It also turns out that, shortly before this issue came out, Jessica Drew's own title ended with her death. While I've enjoyed the stories featuring the character that I've read, I often think that the propensity for resurrecting characters, especially B-List ones, is very harmful to superhero comics. When Bruce Wayne disappeared, and was presumed dead, we finally got to see Dick Grayson take over as Batman, and it was amazing. Beyond amazing. When the original Doom Patrol died to save a small village, it stood as one of the great moments of 60s superhero comics, referred to with an almost legendary sense of awe. So why not allow such characters to have dignity in their deaths, rather than treating death as simply a shelf from which a character can be pulled down when the need arises?
This is not solely relegated to comics, of course. Sherlock Holmes was never meant to survive his fall at Reichenbach.
So, Spider-Woman was actually dead, though her astral self was separated from her body beforehand, and is now trying to reconnect with her revived physical self. With some help from the Avengers, though they really don't do a lot in this issue. Maybe tomorrow.
To be continued.
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