This is the finale of the Spider-Women crossover between Silk, Spider-Woman, and Radioactive Spider-Gwen. The reviews for the first seven parts are here: Spider-Women Alpha #1, Spider-Gwen #7, Silk #7, Spider-Women #6, Spider-Gwen #8, Silk #8, Spider-Woman #7.

Spider-Women Finale (Spider-Women Omega #1)

Writer: Dennis Hopeless (assistance from Jason Latour and Robbie Thompson)

Artist: Nico Leon

Colourist: Rachelle Rosenberg

Letterer: Travis Lanham

Production: Idette Winecoor

Cover Artists: Yasmine Putri & Jared Fletcher

Editors: Kathleen Wisneski & Devin Lewis

Executive Editor: Nick Lowe

Editor-In-Chief: Axel Alonso

From My Bunker To Yours: The finale of Spider-Women kicks off on Earth 65, where their Cindy Moon destroys the home of her best agent, Jesse Drew, after he goes rouge. After she leaves, Jesse emerges from his neighbour’s garage and informs Jessica Drew that her plan has been set into motion.

Cindy-65 enters her secret bunker, where Jessica and Gwen Stacy are waiting for her. Gwen is still powerless, since the device she got from Jesse doesn’t seem to be responding to her biology. Jessica fights Cindy-65 alone, and while she gets a few good licks in, she is no match for Cindy’s Adaptoid Gauntlet. The gauntlet gives her the power of every Earth Prime hero, one at a time. She defeats Jessica, but Gwen stops her from killing Jessica with a variety of weapons she finds around Cindy’s base. Cindy Moon Prime arrives in a Adaptoid suit, but Cindy-65 neutralizes both the Adaptoid Gauntlet and Suit with an EMP. The final fight is between a depowered Gwen Stacy and Cindy-65, the latter of which beats the hell out of the former until Jesse’s device finally gives Gwen her powers back. Gwen defeats Cindy-65 by sheer luck, something she is quite bothered by despite Jessica’s  encouraging pep talk.

Three weeks later, the Spider-Women are back on Earth-65 with Jessica’s baby, while Cindy-65 is incarcerated in an underground prison. She discovers a care package of junk food and a letter from Cindy Prime that infuriates her. Cindy-65 swears vengeance on the Spider-Women, while they laugh about it over brunch.

Nobody Cared About Her Enough To Lock Her In A Bunker, So She Made Her Own: Lets just get this out of the way up front. This story falls apart when you look at it too closely. How does Cindy-65 know what Earth Prime heroes have what powers for her gauntlet? What is the timeline of this story? Because it seems like a day or two has passed since last issue. How does Cindy Prime know where to find Cindy-65’s secret bunker? Why did Cindy’s EMP not disable Jesse’s spider-power giving device? The list goes on and on. 

But honestly, who cares? This is comics and this is a super fun finale to a kind of mindless fun crossover. Nico Leon’s art and the general mood of this comic makes it feel a lot like Pixar’s Incredibles and that is pretty high praise. This issue is jammed pack with awesome moments, that makes up for any story logic, much like the rest of the crossover.

The opening with Jesse starts the issue off on a fun beat, establishing the kind of wacky fun that is to follow. Later in the issue, we learn that Cindy-65’s secret bunker is under a mall owned by Earth-65’s Ezekiel, so I am kind of sad that Jesse’s neighbour isn’t another fun cameo, just some dude named Drake. But the opening establishes the power-set Cindy-65 is packing and where the players are on the board, just in time for some crazy fights.

The multiple fights in Cindy’s bunker are layers of fun piled on top of each other. It all kicks off with Jessica Drew tearing apart Cindy-65 verbally and Dennis Hopeless’s writing is as strong as it’s ever been for Jessica; she is definitely holding on to some resentment for all the things Cindy Prime has put her through. Jessica gets quite a few good licks in on Cindy-65, including a new use of her venom blast where she uses it to propel herself forward off a wall. I doubt we will see this power again, since Javier Rodriguez draws Cindy’s venom blast in a very different way than Nico Leon, but it is cool to see it this one time. And then Gwen emerges in full battle armour, straight out of 90s comics, which Gwen comments on. I laughed at her Urban Assault attack on Cindy and Nico Leon nails that sequence. Next up is the Adaptoid Cindy fight, which is a beautiful bit of super heroics fun that draws from decades of battles. And then the final unpowered battle between Earth 65’s finest is a brutal brawl, that looks mighty painful for Gwen. Nico Leon nails every aspect of these fights, each with their different feels but all very fun.

Which makes the final brunch sequence disappointing. Leon’s art feel very rushed and unfinished in those final few pages, with a lot of awkward faces; which is par the course for any book featuring Cindy Moon it seems. Speaking of Cindy Moon, she feels very much like an afterthought in this issue. Once again, it becomes the Gwen Stacy show, but Hopeless nails her cynical commentary, so I am not docking the issue for putting Gwen front and center. I just wish it was not at the expense of Cindy Prime, who should have had much more to do with her evil doppelganger, considering how close to breaking bad she is. She might have already broken bad, but this issue makes it seem like the crime spree she went on with Black Cat after the last Silk issue, was simply to assemble her own Adaptoid suit.

Thankfully, Hopeless brings his Spider-Women colourist, Rachelle Rosenberg, with him. Rosenberg has provided colours for a good third of the event with this issue, most of which in the latter half. It gives the second half of this event a strong colour continuity, while Ian Herring and Rico Renzi remain with their on-going series (Silk and Spider-Gwen respectively) to provide flavours of the individual series to the event as well. And Rosenberg’s colours are quite similar to Spider-Woman’s regular artist, Javier Rordriguez, but with a dose of Renzi’s zany colours as well. I honestly think the colours on this event is the most cohesive element of this crossover.

Verdict: I have some problems with this issue, but I think it more than makes up for it. It is basically one extended fight scene, but there are different flavours to each fight scene and there is great commentary running throughout them, thanks to Gwen Stacy and Jessica Drew. Spider-Women was not all I had hoped for, but I am also not disappointed by what we got (which I will go into more detail in during my joint-review of the event with Javi Trujillo.) Dennis Hopeless has written the best issues of this crossover, in my opinion, and Nico Leon is a treasure that I am glad this issue got to shine a light on.

Pros:

• Nico Leon
• Rachelle Rosenberg
• Jessica Drew
• Incredibles feel/tone
• Gwen Stacy

Cons:

• Cindy Moon overshadowed
• Final pages seemed rush

A-