Random Back Issues #57 - Spider-Woman #14

Shower crying: When you want to mask your tears, but can't be bothered to go stand outside in the rain.

Jess is feeling down because she saw her assistant Roger (aka the not-terribly-super-villain Porcupine) get blown up by a pumpkin bomb last issue, courtesy of the Hobgoblin. She's feeling lost, but Carol Danvers shows up, despite their having a big fight over Civil War II. What with Jess having recently dated Hawkeye, and him having recently killed Bruce Banner because Carol was so convinced he was a threat by Future Vision Kid. Goddamnit Bendis, your shit's exhausting. Anyway, she offers to babysit so Jessica can work on the case. 

 

First stop is a little town populated entirely by women who were married to super-villains and decided to get the hell away. I'm unclear on if they allow the husbands of super-villains. Roger's ex, Olivia, is not happy to see Jessica, who she blames for getting Roger killed, and for taking Roger away from his actual daughter. Jess tries to plead innocence, but Ben Urich (her other partner) wisely drags her out of there and explains a few things. Like how she was the only one unaware of Roger being in love with her, and that from his ex-wife's perspective, it's kind of shitty he couldn't bother to do domestic stuff for her and his child, but he's all too happy to fold laundry and babysit for Spider-Woman.

In news certain to give her something to think about other than being a homewrecker, Ben shows her some photos of Roger going to visit a villain bar the night he was killed. A property owned by Roderick Kingsley, the original Hobgoblin. So she goes to the bar, and beats the crap out of a bunch of villains. I call foul on her managing to down the Beetle with one venom blast. Actually, what the hell is the Beetle doing there? It's not Janice, the one that's Tombstone's daughter, and I thought Abe Jenkins was persona non grata with the villain set because he embraced the Mach Whatever-version-he's-up-to-now identity.

Maybe Secret Wars undid that. Who knows?

Jess gets distracted by a call from Carol long enough for the Bruin (the other bear-themed super-villain) to throw her out, but it's OK, because some high-tech, no doubt questionably legal monitoring system Danvers has access to picked up the Porcupine robbing a bank. Spider-Woman hightails it over there, and while the Porcupine won't speak and confirm his identity, he does shoot her with a crapload of quills. Only instead of sedatives, they're explosive.

 

[10th longbox, 143rd comic. Spider-Woman (vol. 6) #14, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Veronica Fish (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Travis Landham (letterer)]