Spider-Gwen (Vol. 2) #27 Review

“Wait…What? What time did you start drinking, Castle? A TEAM-UP? You want a @$%# TEAM-UP?”

As Venom closes in on those who hurt and betrayed her father, The Punisher makes an offer. Will Gwen accept it, or turn to an unlikely source instead?

WRITER: Jason Latour

ARTISTS: Veronica Fish & Olivia Margraf

COLOR ARTIST: Rico Renzi

LETTERER: VC’s Clayton Cowles

COVER: Robbi Rodriguez

PHOENIX VARIANT COVER: Yasmine Putri

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Carlos Lao

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kathleen Wisneski

EDITORS: Nick Lowe/Devin Lewis

STORY: Foggy confesses to a comatose George. Richie Rogers, the cop who betrayed George, strikes out at the casino and is stalked home by Venom. Her interrogation is interrupted by The Punisher, who wants to join forces to take down The Kingpin. Venom gives Richie the option to turn himself in or to run, but under the threat that if he runs she will track him down. Richie takes option C, turning to Foggy and Matt for protection. The Kingpin has Richie executed by The Hand immediately. Ben Parker is having no luck passing out missing person flyers, until Venom approaches him…and reveals that she is Gwen!

THOUGHTS: Rodriguez’ sole contribution this issue is its cover. Reminiscent of The New 52’s Action Comics #1, but from a street level, Rodriguez gives the art a great sense of speed as Venom is pursued by New York’s Finest. The coloring really makes the city come to life and helps make Venom pop off of the cover.

Once we get past the opening in the hospital and start to follow crooked cop Richie Rogers I had to check and make sure I wasn’t reading Daredevil or some weird colorized version of Sin City. Each panel reeks of his desperation and I love how he loomed over the two men playing dice in the alley, then drawing his gun to take their cash as his features remained in shadow. Guest co-artist Fish has a simplistic style, but is very effective at setting the mood, be it noir…or horror.

I loved the way the spiders were depicted slowly infesting Rogers’ house and the “skritch, skritch, skritch” sound they made as they skittered over his home until they finally overtook him. Fish really sold his desperation as he sprayed himself with insecticide. Equally as good was the POV shot of the spiders bordering the panel, enveloping Rogers as Venom threatened him. The scene had a great sense of tension.

As Venom moves her interrogation outdoors, the art baton gets passed over to Margraf. Now, I felt Margraf has a different style than Fish, but one that would complement Rodriguez’ own if they were ever paired on an issue. As a fan of Rodriguez’s unique style, I liked the consistency Margraf brought to the look of the universe.

Latour effectively gets you inside Gwen’s head as he juxtaposes flashbacks as Venom encounters The Punisher. It serves Gwen as a subconscious reminder of how she should be dealing with this as the Venom symbiote unleashes her anger at her opponent. It’s also a good recap if you missed last issue!

Something I picked up on was Venom’s usage of “we” and “our”, indicating that they are becoming more bonded. However, there was also some struggle in her dialogue where she wasn’t using those terms. Combined with her going all “Hulk smash” on the rooftop and not on Castle, it shows that Gwen is still there and not fully merged yet. We see a little more evidence of this at the end of the book.

Venom gives Rogers the option to confess or go on the lam. He takes option “c”- pleading for help from Foggy to get The Kingpin’s aid. Turns out Margraf is every bit as good at selling Rogers’ desperation and fear as Fish is. He looks positively frantic in the phone booth with the spider crawling outside the glass! The scene turns positively sinister as he gets murdered with swords by The Hand. The loud “crunch” as Murdock takes of his apple back at the office just reeks of his evil, especially considering how the Devil was fabled to have tempted Eve with the same fruit. Foggy, for his part, just sits helplessly, his head hung in shame. It really left an impression on me and will undoubtedly be a hallmark scene for Matt “The Kingpin” Murdock.

The final scene brings Fish back to art chores as we focus on Ben Parker. I have to say I was surprised to see any Ben Parker punch a brick wall! It also looks like we are getting closer to seeing that scene I wanted that I mentioned in my review of #25 as Gwenom reveals her identity to an angry and dejected Ben! Something about her face reminded me of Mike Allred art, which isn’t a bad thing, but I had to wonder if the artist was trying to channel that vibe.

This was a really enjoyable comic. We see Gwen’s inner turmoil and it feels like we are moving towards a big confrontation between Gwen, Castle, and Murdock. I’m curious if we’ll see this story end with the introduction of an Eddie Brock or if the symbiote will bond with the Brock that helped create it to parallel the original story. While different in style, the two artists turned in excellent work and Latour had several dramatic moments leaving me eager to see where Gwen goes next.

MY GRADE: A-

JAVI’S HUH?: How is Venom controlling the spiders? Did she witness Rogers’ murder through their eyes?