Review by Frank Plowright

Gwen Stacy’s life is complicated. She’s been the superhero Spider-Woman on her world, but when that went wrong she served a jail sentence, and now her identity is common knowledge. After finishing off the threat of Spider-Geddon, Seanan McGuire has Gwen attempting to juggle elements in her life. She’s in a band with a demanding leader, she wants to do good in costume, and wants to start a college course, which is difficult when everyone knows what you’ve done as a superhero.

There’s an immediate improvement between this collection and the last for Takeshi Miyazawa’s arrival as artist. He brings a loose style that’s great for defining movement when Gwen’s in or out of costume, and draws attractive people in full backgrounds.

Gwen’s homeworld is one largely without super-villains, and while that becomes a problem moving forward, there’s a great sequence of her being called in to deal with a situation beyond the capabilities of the police. It’s nicely handled, while reinforcing both why Gwen is a superhero and what a superhero can do in a world where there aren’t any others. There is one super villain, though, the Man-Wolf, who sees Gwen as a threat to his building a criminal empire, and his henchmen occupy a fair amount of her time before he takes a direct hand.

The final chapter sees Gwen interacting with the primary Spider-Man, the one from Earth 616 if you need the identification. It’s a dialogue-heavy encounter with a dumb villain acting as a staging post into Ghost-Spider: Dog Days Are Over, and far from McGuire’s finest hour, taking 22 pages, which is double what was needed. Plus original artist Rosi Kämpe is back for much of the time, good, but not as good as Miyazawa.

Despite that, though, this is the best of the four graphic novels McGuire writes starring Gwen. McGuire’s not yet settled into repetition, Miyazawa’s art is great, and there’s a proficient juggling of Gwen’s assorted lives. It’s collected with the remainder in the Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider Omnibus.