I recently found several series of graphic novels called Marvel-Verse that covered a variety of Marvel characters. And while I found villains, they are mostly the heroes. Since they are all similar (you get a few stories for each character as the feature and they do their thing. They range from 1960s classic, 1980s and even now), I can pretty much say: “Which Marvel character do you like?” You then answer and I can say Yes or No they have it. Of course there is Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America and Black Panther. And the ladies are represented, too, with Black Widow, She-Hulk and Captain Marvel. The more contemporary ones such as Miles Morales as Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch (a future publication) and Shuri are there, too. There are ones you might not know (Moon Knight, Ironheart, Morbius or Monica Rambeau: Photon). And as I said a few villains like Kraven the Hunter, Venom, Thanos, and Loki will show up in their own collections.
I have watched more Marvel movies, but have read more DC stories. Therefore, it was interesting to see what I could learn. I will start with two of the Spider People: Gwen and Jessica Drew aka: Spider-Woman. While I knew there was a Gwen Stacy SpiderPerson, my knowledge of the Spider People was limited. I knew the traditional cast (Peter, Harry, Mary Jane, Aunt May, Green Goblin, Doc Ock, etc), but it was not until Miles and the Spider-Verse movies came into play that I was introduced to Gwen.
Marvel-Verse: Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider with various contributors (such as Jason LaTour, Robbi Rodriguez) has the question, “What if Gwen Stacy had been bitten by the radioactive spider and not Peter Parker?” Well, for one, she would become Spider-Woman, Peter would be her death to make her want to make justice and we would get the stories included in the collection. It is about four or five Spider-Gwen stories. While they do make references to previous titles, these are not completed story arcs or necessarily flow into another story. This group does manage to hold its own in the single story is okay to read as you don’t need a lot of background, but it doesn’t hurt to know something. As said, there are various authors and creators included in each collection and some will be seen in another collection as well. Overall, while they are fun, they are probably not for the casual reader, but even if you’re new to the scene, it could work. More mature themes, so at least ages 10 and up, but I would say more likely 12 and up due to some concepts. And as I said, I didn’t know Spider-Woman well, but once I started reading the older costume did ring a bell, so I might have seen an old comic in my travels (I have younger uncles who were more like brothers sometimes) or seen a cartoon. Again, we have various authors and illustrators in Marvel-Verse: Spider-Woman (the ones I located Marv Wolfman, Carmine Infantino, Joe Sinnott , Jen Van Meter, Gerry Duggan, Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and Kelly Sue DeConnick) and they start us off in Europe era 1960s/1970s and we end in space 2000s. There is a stop in LA and a lot of information about her not like the others origins. Again, we have a short story collection of Spider-Woman stories. While they do make references to previous titles, these are not also not completed story arcs or necessarily flow into another story. The fun part of this collection is that we see some classic tales of this anti-hero/superhero character as well as some modern adaptations. This time around, I felt there were more mature themes and the stereotypical female superhero costume design (in another collection the fact her navel shows is mention and I was amazed there wasn’t a comment on her frontage in any of the stories) makes this again at least for ages 10 and up, but even more 12 and up due to some concepts. |
