Spider Woman, Agent of S.W.O.R.D.

Spider Woman was always a super hero I liked that I thought was very under used. Not really associated at all with Spiderman, she had an interesting range of powers. Super strength, speed, and durability. The ability to stick to walls, glide, and fire energy bolts from her hands, and finally the ability to release pheremones to cause feelings of either love or fear. Originally something of a private detective, she had a couple of years of her own book and cartoon. One problem was her villains were never too interesting, about the best was Gypsy Moth who liked to telekinetically control "Soft" things like clothing and flesh. The other was that she was basically created to secure for Marvel the trademark to the name "Spiderwoman," and with that being done they didn't seem to have too much interest in her.

Well, decades later they picked her up again, dusted her off and preceeded to totally screw with her life. The person doing this is a fellow named "Bendis" who writes for the Avengers and seems to have quite the anti fan following. As far as I understand it, the basic complaint is that Bendis screws with characters left and right and he thinks he's a big hot writer when he's not. Oh well, we now have "Spider Woman Agent of S.W.O.R.D." and it wasn't too bad at all.

Called a "Motion Comic Book," it really lacks um motion. It's basically a series of still art manipulated before the camera with a sound track. For all that, it's actually pretty good. The art work is dark and moody and would have been a bear to really animate. The story picks up after some big alien invasion. Apparently Spider Woman got really screwed up because of it and she's at loose ends. A shadowy organization called "S.W.O.R.D," hires her and sends her to an exotic location to kill or capture the few renegade aliens left on Earth. Nothing is ever that simple though, and she has to deal with her wicked "stepmother" who happens to run a huge terrorist organization, and posse of second string heroes who are bringing her in.. um just cause. Done in ten minute episodes it really does work.