Spider-Girl (Vol. 1) #12

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 'Duel With Darkdevil'

We start this story in the middle of one of May's early morning practice sessions with her dad. After that, she walks to school and meets the new kid in town – Jack Jameson (Jonah's grandson). Jimmy Yama is still acting weird by claiming that May is “his girl” now. And Moose still wants a date with Courtney. May has her own dilemma to deal with, however – now that her dad is on board with her training, should she quit her lunchtime meetings with Uncle Phil? Holy high school drama club, Spider-Man!

At lunch, she takes to the webs and runs into Darkdevil roughing up a random hood. She asks what's up with the bad cop routine and he replies that he's hunting “a living monster, a killer.” She plays the Good Samaritan and rushes the hood to a hospital while he keeps mumbling one name - “Kaine” - over and over again.

Meanwhile, J. Jonah Jameson shows up at the Daily Bugle (he has to be, what, pushing 100 years old by now?) and demands to know what's up with this new Spider-Girl. Before he gets an answer, we switch scenes to May as she is visiting with her dad “between classes”. She asks if the name “Cane” means anything to him and he freaks out on her. We switch scenes once again and look in on the man everyone is searching for, Kaine himself, as he hangs out at a dingy bar called The Church Key. When someone asks him what he's doing in town again after all these years he says he is checking on “a family matter”. Uh oh.

At school (is this a never-ending day or what?) Jack doesn't waste any time and starts hitting on May while Brad (who is secretly crushing on her) looks on in dismay. The end of the school day finally arrives and May webslings down to the aforementioned underworld hangout. She sees Darkdevil is still on a rampage – he is in the middle of taking out an entire bar full of goons. She intervenes once again, and we have an old fashioned Marvel superhero vs. superhero brawl on our hands! In the midst of their battle Darkdevil reveals he knows all about May's powers, especially her spider-sense and hints at more of her history. They have a running battle, as Darkdevil (who I thought could just teleport anyway) makes a beeline for the docks, where Kaine is supposedly boarding a ship that is leaving town.

But then comes an interesting twist – May finds out she has a new super ability, one her father never had – the power to repel things from her instead of just sticking to her! She discovers this when she pushes a handful of rubble into her opponent's face. Darkdevil is understandably surprised and blurts out, “How did you manage that... neither your father or I ever-” Then he leaps away, arriving at the dock too late to catch Kaine. After yelling some more at our heroine, he pulls his disappearing act and leaves her alone. All the sudden her spider-sense starts up, but she says she is too tired from the battle to follow-up on it. Meanwhile, we see Kaine watching her from the rooftops. Apparently, he missed his boat and is gonna be hanging around for a little bit longer.

General Comments

There are a lot of interesting developments this issue and a whole lot of mysteries being set up. What is Darkdevil's true identity and what's his connection to Spider-Man? What is Kaine's plan and what does it have to do with May?

Overall Rating

And what about those Jamesons? Is Jack Jameson a bad boy or a good guy? Is J. Jonah Jameson gonna start up his old spider hating campaign? Only time (and future issues) will tell.