Spider-Mannotations: Spider-Island: Spider-Girl #1, Venom #6

Welcome to the third installment of Spider-Island Spider-Mannotations!  Light week this week, with only two books, but that's giving me time to finish up the Gwen Stacy clone article promised in our last installment!

Spider-Island: Spider-Girl #1

Not to be confused with Horrors of Spider-Island: Spider-Girl.
(art by Patrick Zircher)

Creative Team: Paul Tobin (writer), Pepe Larraz (art)

Capsulized Review: Spider-Girl's ongoing ended a little abruptly, so it's nice to see Tobin get a chance to write a little more.  I like the Kingpin and the new Hobgoblin, and while the Sisterhood of the Wasp were pretty boring villains, they've already taken a step up in my estimation by virtue of being horrific wasp-monsters.  That said, there are a few weird continuity flubs in here, but given that the original Arana series wasn't actually very good, I can't complain too much.

Page 2: This is apparently the Sisterhood of the Wasp, here going by the Society of the Wasp; as is explained in the book, they're the ancient enemies of the Spider Society, the ancient cult that originally gave Spider-Girl her powers.  Them being crazy wasp people instead of just guys in business suits is new, though.

Page 4: Slight error here - Anya's mystical tattoo was on her arm, not her back.  And it didn't look anything like it's depicted in this issue.

Answer: two bottles of Southern Comfort.
(Amazing Fantasy #2, written by Fiona Avery, art by Mark Brooks)

Page 5: The Spider Society did still exist, although Anya herself left, at the end of the Spider-Man/Arana Special that capped her first solo series.  Maybe something's happened to it since then.

Page 6: This is the Hand, the ubiquitous cannon fodder ninjas that mostly fight Daredevil.  In Shadowland #5, the Kingpin took over the Hand from their previous leader, Daredevil (long story).

Venom #6

This wasn't what Flash had in mind when he agreed to cross over with Spider-Man.
(art by Tony Moore)

Creative Team: Rick Remender (writer), Tom Fowler (art)

Capsulized Review: This continues to be a great book.  Rememnder writes the hell out of this, and while I'll miss Tony Moore on art, Fowler's off to a great start.  And hey - even though this isn't an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, we still get a big Spider-Island revelation!

Page 1: As revealed in the last issue of Venom, Flash Thompson's father, Harrison, is dying of liver failure.  As we learned in 1997's Spectacular Spider-Man #-1, he was a miserable, abusive alcoholic.  He turned up in Amazing Spider-Man #622, having joined AA, but was revealed to have fallen off the wagon last issue.

And while we're here, we might as well introduce Flash's supporting cast - Captain Katherine Glover is Flash's supervisor (and if he goes rogue, it's her job to kill him); Dr. Aaron McKenzie is the tech-guy; and General Dodge is the man in charge of it all.  He took a special interest in Flash and his disability because the General is blind, which also explains the seeing-eye dog, Samson.

Page 15: This isn't the first time a symbiote's bonded with an animal - in the last eponymous Venom series, a clone of the Venom symbiote possessed both a dog and a swarm of cockroaches.

Dogs can't tell it's not brains.
(Venom #5, written by Daniel Way, art by Francisco Herrera and  Carlos Cuevas)

Page 17: The Spider-King is Steve Rogers (or a clone thereof)?  Well, that's unexpected.  It does make sense, given what the Jackal said in ASM #666 - "He's perfect.  Down to the last cell.  For all my years obsessing over Parker's DNA...I have to admit, I've always dreamed of studying this prime specimen".  Furthermore, he also calls him "the real firstborn of this era", and who's the first superhuman if not Captain America?

(Okay, Apocalypse, or Wolverine, or whatever.  Bear with me here.)

So hey, not too much to cover this week.  And there's nothing next week.  But join us in two weeks for Amazing Spider-Man #668 and Spider-Island: Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1!