The Stop Button

I’ve heard two things about Spider-Woman. Bendis’s dialogue is laughable and Maleev’s art makes up for it. I generally agree. I mean, sure, Bendis’s writing leaves a lot to be desired, but Jessica’s dialogue is nowhere near as bad as Abigail Brand’s. Bendis writes Brand like she’s Christopher Walken or something. It’s terrible.

Jessica (Spider-Woman barely shows up in this issue) narrates and it’s a definite problem. Superhero narration is hard enough to begin with (look at Jeph Loeb’s atrocious narrations), but Bendis is crossing genders too. He doesn’t do too bad–he’s no worse than Greg Rucka–but not for one moment do I believe Spider-Woman making a Goodfellas reference. Wouldn’t she have been a Skrull captive at that point anyway?

The issue further fails because it doesn’t really establish anything. Is this comic just going to be Spider-Woman hunting aliens? That’ll be damned boring.