Spider-Woman in the Late 90s Early 2000s
Other than a limited series in 1993 about Julia Carpenter the second Spider-Woman, Marvel did not put out another Spider-Woman title until the year 1999. Before then, you’d only find Spider-Woman in two places: Julia Carpenter became a regular character in Avengers: West Coast. The original Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, was no longer operating in costume and was a supporting character in Wolverine (vol. 2) in the late 80s and early 90s. There wasn’t a whole lot going on in terms of female spider-people.
That all changed when following Spider-Man’s disastrous Clone Saga. Attempts to put that blight on the Spider-Man books was a painful birth resulting in a reboot of the Spider-Man books in 1999. This resulted in the cancellation of every Spider-Man title and the start of the second volume of Amazing Spider-Man as well as Peter Parker: Spider-Man. Also joining the Spider-Man was a new Spider-Woman series. The series lasted for 18 issues, and I’ll get into that in more detail in a minute. The entire run was written by John Byrne with Bart Sears and Graham Noland sharing penciling on the book. There’s an Erik Larsen issue in the middle of it all. The title followed the adventures of Mattie Franklin a new Spider-Woman who was introduced during the Gathering of Five story arc although she didn’t actually become a Spider-person until Amazing Spider-Man (vol.2) #1-2 when she briefly posed as Spider-Man while Peter Parker had retired from the role. This was used to springboard Mattie Franklin into being the next Spider-Woman and giving her a series of her own.
The character and the comic were the brainchild of John Byrne who, at the time, was a bit of a big deal over at Marvel in the late 90s and early 2000s. A lot of this had to do with the tons of great work he did in the 70s and 80s for Marvel and DC. When Marvel got him back after he wrote Wonder Woman from 1995 to 1998, Bryne was pretty much given a blank cheque to do whatever he wanted. He attempted to retcon Spider-Man’s origins with Spider-Man; Chapter One, as well as his attempts to bring both Spider-Man and the Hulk back to a status quo. Unfortunately, a lot of Byrne’s ideas in the late 90’s and early 2000s were real stinkers and the third volume of Spider-Woman is personally at the top of my list of some of Byrne’s worst work.
Why didn’t it work? Well, there are a lot of reasons I suppose. One big one in my opinion was 50-year-old John Byrne writing stories about a 15-year-old girl. Bryne for all of his abilities as a writer, I don’t think that he can write a convincing fifteen-year-old. Most of Mattie Franklin’s dialogue sounds like what an out of touch grown-up thinks teenagers sound like. What makes this worse is the march of time making all the 90’s slang and lingo make Mattie sound even worse.
The series was also used to expand upon plot elements that were started in the Gathering of Five story arc from the Spider-Man books. Other than explaining each of the gifts given to the participants of the ceremony got it didn’t really go anywhere. Another thing that doesn’t work is that the previous Spider-Woman end up being Mattie Franklin’s powers after their powers were stolen by yet another Spider-Woman, this one is evil. Only Bryne ends up walking this back when the other Spider-Women start getting their powers back for no reason. Also, Madame Web appears in this series as yet another mentor for Mattie and doesn’t really do much other than repeat that Mattie is destined for big things
Another element that doesn’t make any sense is the fact that Mattie Franklin is a Spider-Woman why can fucking fly, because we all know that spiders are known for their ability to fly. Other stupid additions to Spider-Woman’s skill base was giving her giant spider legs that she could grow out of her back. I get that they don’t just want to have a female character with the exact same powers as Peter Parker, but I don’t think anyone has come close to creating another Spider-Character with different powers without them being kind of stupid. Mattie Franklin’s “spider powers” certainly fit that bill as well. What’s worse, Spider-Woman is constantly changing her costume and the design choices are almost all terrible. If you want a character to have staying power you need to give them a recognizable look.
There also weren’t a lot of interesting villains created for this series. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that they were trying to imitate the bizarre and often macabre villains from the first volume of Spider-Woman. It’s like the writers forgot that most of the original Spider-Woman’s villains were forgettable. I mean, how often had Marvel used the Needle, Ticktock, or Daddy Longlegs? So I’m questioning the logic of creating more characters in this vein because I can tell you that all of the villains that were featured in the third volume of Spider-Woman have hardly been seen since.
So let’s add up: A grandiose story arc that is never realized, a main character that was said to be destined for great things and doesn’t, mentors who don’t really do anything, forgettable foes, and a non-existent supporting staff. It’s no wonder this series was cancelled after 18 issues.
Unfortunately, Mattie Franklin didn’t get much traction after Marvel deep-sixed her book. She wouldn’t be seen again until Brian Michael Bendis had her appear in Alias as the victim of people getting high off Mutant Grown Hormone and she had to be saved by Jessica Jones and the original Spider-Woman. Franklin was later overshadowed when Bendis restored Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman in New Avengers and Marvel focused on other female spider-types, namely Tom DeFalco’s Spider-Girl series and Arana who appeared in the second volume of Amazing Fantasy in the early 2000s. Franklin later appeared in the series called The Loners about young failed 90s era superheroes, that series didn’t last. She was later killed off during 2010’s Amazing Spider-Man #637 during the Grim Hunt event. She was briefly resurrected during the Clone Conspiracy story arc in more recent times before being killed off yet again, both of those stories were written by Joe Kelly and Dan Slott respectively. At the very least, those writers could stick with Mattie having a consistent costume.
Still, nobody really seems to have an interest in doing anything with the character which is evident by the fact that there are so many other female Spider-People who have come out of the woodwork such as Spider-Gwen and Arana becoming the new Spider-Girl. The third volume of Spider-Woman should be a cautionary tale on how not to write a series.
If you want some decent John Byrne stories from the era stay away from his Spider-Man work and stick with X-Men: The Hidden Years and Marvel: The Lost Generation. They aren’t as stellar as some of his earlier work, but they are decent.
I hope whoever ends up reading this really appreciates the work I have done as this, as far as I can tell, is the only place on the internet that has summaries for every issue for this volume of Spider-Woman. Doing this work was really fucking painful because Spider-Woman (vol. 3) is awful.
