Edge of Spider-Verse #2

By Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, Rico Renzi

The Edge of Spider-Verse issues serve as little one-shot stories that delve into the world of some of the different Spider-Verse Spider-Men (or Spider-Women). The first issue featured Spider-Man Noir. Any book that even mentions Spidey Noir is automatically awesome by default. Issue 2 introduces the world to Spider-Gwen and let me tell you that this is the character that you have always needed but never knew it.

In this universe, Gwen Stacy is the one that received the spider powers, with a desperate Peter Parker playing the part of an unintentional villain. There are plenty of typical first issue tropes and clichés, all of which are told well enough. Truth be told, everything from the bland dialogue to the lame action is nothing to write home about. Does this mean that this issue sucks? No.

Thanks to some of the best characterization since Miles Morales, this issue is absolutely fantastic. Spider-Gwen is the hero that every young girl deserves. In the feminist sense of the word, there’s nothing even particularly empowering about her and that’s what makes her empowered. She’s not a progressive statement; she’s just cool as hell. She plays drums in a rock band and she’s full of the best kind of college angst. Basically, she’s a female Scott Pilgrim that wears a badass Spider-Man hoodie. If that isn’t enough to get you on board, you can’t be helped.

Speaking of the hoodie, Spider-Gwen has one of the better costumes in superhero comics. Seriously, just look at this thing:

How cool is that? Rodriguez really goes out of his way to make the costume both efficient and totally rad. If there was a kid in real life that got spider powers, this is probably the superhero costume that they would use. Not only that, but she wears Chucks! Everybody knows that Chucks are the best! If it wasn’t for some of the goofy-looking faces, this would be near-perfect artwork. Luckily, Renzi’s colors help in distracting from that. Every page has a lot of vibrant colors that probably won’t stand the test of time, but look really great here in the present.

If there is one book that you pick up this week, it should probably be this one. Spider-Gwen only has one appearance under her belt, but she’s already taking the internet and comics world by storm. It’s praise that’s well-placed.