Spider-Girl (Vol. 1) #10

Background

Spider-Girl first appeared in What If (Vol. 2) #105 in February 1998 and the alternate reality she lived in was eventually spun into a whole universe called MC2. She is May Parker, the daughter of Peter Parker (the original Spider-Man) and Mary Jane Watson-Parker. After hitting puberty, she inherited her dad's spider-powers and decided to follow in his heroic footsteps. These stories occur very early in her crime-fighting career...

Story 'Father's Day!'

We open with Spider-Girl interrupting a carjacking while her dad, Peter Parker (otherwise known as the original Spider-Man), watches from the rooftop. Afterwards, he razzes about her poor performance. She goes to school still fuming about it. At school, Jimmy Yama and Moose are still feuding, even after the events of the last few issues. Courtney Duran, May's nerdy friend, does some interrupting of her own, however, and Moose backs off (he thinks she is actually Spider-Girl, remember).

Meanwhile, during lunch hour, the real Spider-Girl goes webswinging. May sees Franklin Richards (of the Fantastic Five) flying by in the old tub-like version of the Fantasti-Car. They talk a bit and she finds out that her old foe, Spyral (see Spider-Girl #3), is on the loose again. She offers to help capture him, but gets no respect from Franklin either, who says the F5 didn't really want to get her involved.

She leaves in a huff and decides to search for the criminal on her own. Luckily, she just happens to pick up a special police broadcast about a possible sighting downtown and heads out. Then, we switch to a nondescript warehouse where Spyral is just activating a warp field. Before he can step through and escape, however, Spider-Girl busts in and tries to grab him. Instead, they both tumble into the gateway. Uh oh!

There's a big explosion and we see that the entire warehouse is suddenly on fire. Spider-Girl makes it out okay, but there's no sign of Spyral. She decides to call it a wash and heads back to school. When she gets there, however, she sees a teen-aged Peter Parker being bullied by Flash Thompson! Yep, it seems she's gone back in time to Midtown High circa 1965!

She freaks out a little, but manages to introduce herself to Peter as a new transfer student. He takes her on a short tour of the school and leaves her one her own after meeting up with Liz Allen. Besides some comments about her hair and her clothes, she seems to fit right in. (Where did she get a change of clothes when she was only wearing her spider-costume when she went through the time portal? She was carrying them in her backpack which she had on, natch. This is a nice bit of artistic continuity I wanted to call out.) Instead of going to class, however, she spends some time in the library to catch up on “current” events. That's when she realizes that Spyral screwed up and sent them both into the past.

After school, she puts on her costume and heads for the rooftops. And, of course, she meets Spider-Man almost immediately! They banter back and forth. Peter is both upset that Spider-Girl is copying his costume and incredulous that she has all the same powers as he does (but he still doesn't have an inkling that they may be related). Before their confrontation can get nasty, however, he has to stop a purse snatching. May uses that opportunity to run away. She heads back to Midtown High and ends up sleeping in the gym.

The next day, with nothing better to do, she decides to visit her namesake – Aunt May! She just missed Peter, however, because he is visiting the Daily Bugle. Which is where we switch to next – and we see Jameson is harassing Peter over his photos when who should walk in but Dr. Spencer Smythe with his Spider-Slayer! Yes, it seems May has been deposited right in the middle of Amazing Spider-Man #25! (I'm not going to do a side-by-side comparison, but if anyone wants to follow along panel by panel, feel free!)

We then cut back to May and Aunt May talking over some tea. Aunt May lets slip that she is thinking of giving up trying to set Peter up with Mary Jane. Holy Back to the Future, Batman! May implores her (are the names making you just as confused as me?) to keep trying, “You have to do what you think is right no matter how many obstacles get in your way.” After May leaves, she reflects that she should listen to her own advice instead of despairing over her situation. So, she decides to suit up and track down Spyral. Unfortunately, the Spider-Slayer finder her first!

General Comments

So, you wanted to see Spider-Girl and Spider-Man team-up? Well, here you go!

Overall Rating

I liked this issue. It continues with the great characterization and interesting dilemmas that I've come to expect from this title. And it doesn't get too far into the weeds about the mechanics of time travel or other sci-fi tropes like that.