Amazing Spider-Girl #3

December 9, 2006

Quick Rating: Fair
Title: A Bitter Frost (Whatever Happened to the Daughter of Spider-Man? Part Three)
Rating: A

Caitlan Lieber’s worst failure is back to haunt her – and chill Spider-Girl to the bone.

Writer: Tom DeFalco
Pencils: Ron Frenz
Inks: Sal Buscema
Colors: Gotham
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Molly Lazer
Cover Art: Ron Frenz
Publisher: Marvel Comics

As May still tries to grapple with her status as Spider-Girl, a killer is chilling her way through Manhattan. The young woman is freezing people she believes let her down in her “mortal” life. May and her mother, meanwhile, can’t seem to reconcile May’s admitted responsibility to help people in need with the fact that Mary Jane simply doesn’t want any more costumed heroes in the family.

The overwritten “jailbreak” from last issue aside, the May/Mary Jane angle is probably the most interesting thing about this title at the moment. Both characters are very clearly torn, and over the same thing. On the one hand, MJ doesn’t want her daughter risking her life and May doesn’t want to betray a promise to her mother. On the other, neither of them are willing to just sit by when there’s someone in danger that Spider-Girl can help. The moral quandary here is a good one, and it’s something that we’ve never really seen in the core Spider-Man books, since Peter never really had a parent in on his secret in these formative years.

The villain is a little derivative of Firestorm’s old enemy Killer Frost – a woman who has been wronged by the world and wants to freeze it to death – but let’s face it, there are only so many ideas to go around. That’s forgivable. She’s got a strong motivation – going after people who she feels failed her before her transformation, and so far that works well. Less satisfying, though, is the portrayal of Caitlan. Okay, she’s a social worker, okay, she cares about people, but when you have a character that’s in the process of being murdered by a icicle-wielding psychopath and she begins begging the hero not to resort to violence and screams, “You’ve got to break the cycle!” she’s become less of a character and more of a caricature.

The artwork is what it is. I’ve never really been fond of Sal Buscema’s inking style, but this is as good as the book usually looks and there’s nothing really wrong with it. He and Frenz do compliment each other.

Overall, it’s an okay issue, but Spider-Girl has definitely been better.

Rating: 6/10