MC2: The End...For Now! Part 5

As promised, I'm closing out the week with a look my 10 favorite moments in all of MC2.

#10 Spider-Girl#89: Sandra Healy Put in the Hospital In one of the series best moments in addressing real world issues, May dealt with her classmate Sandra, whose boyfriend was clearly abusing her. May tried to intervene and help, but Sandra wasn't look for aid and brushed her off. A few issues later, things get dark as May's best friend Courtney gets beaten up by Sandra's boyfriend for defending her; but that's nothing compared to the beating poor Sandra endures.

The good news: Sandra does ultimately get out of her destructive relationship and becomes decently-adjusted in later appearances.

#9 Last Hero Standing#5: Captain America is the Last Hero Standing The titular Last Hero Standing of this event mini-series turned out to be Captain America himself. Tom DeFalco understood Cap's fighting spirit and he was the obvious hero to give it all for his world; Cap stands up against Loki and a brainwashed Hulk to save the Earth, then passes on, assured that his allies will carry on the good fight.

#8 Spider-Girl#81: Spider-Man Visits the Avengers When Electro asks the Avengers to bring Spider-Man to him for his help, Spider-Girl delivers the message. Visiting Avengers Mansion with her father, May is shocked to see the way the Avengers fawn over him. From her friends' reaction, May finally begins to see the impact Spider-Man had on the world; she couldn't see it because to her, Peter Parker isn't Spider-Man, the legendary heroic crimefighter; he's her stodgy old goofy dad.

#7 Spider-Girl#53: Meagyn Brady Disappears Using a plot similar to a well-known episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Meagyn is an unexceptional classmate of May's who turns invisible when people ignore her. It begins after her father's death when her mother's grief causes her to slight Meagyn. Meagyn finally gets to make something of herself when, by chance, she helps Spider-Girl against one of her enemies. But back home with her mother, she finds the story of her exploits runs up against the same blank wall.

#6 Spider-Girl#27: May talks down Normie Osborn I already mentioned this on Tuesday, but it bears repeating. Using compassion, May reaches Normie through his manic behaviour, convincing him to give up being the Green Goblin. She only resorts to this because she lacks the power to fight back, but it turns out to be the right move; losing her super powers brings May closer to the normal people around her, making her better able to see Normie's real issues.

#5 Spider-Girl#17: Peter Parker Returns to the Webs This made Tuesday's discussion too; in what was definitely the series' most awesome moment, Peter Parker takes up his costume to try and save a man's life, in spite of his missing leg. Peter would make brief returns to his costume throughout the series (as seen above), but this was the first time and it had a real impact; Peter was so against May's costumed career that he seemed to be against super heroes altogether. This moment was the reminder that at his core, Peter Parker was still a hero.

#4 Also in Spider-Girl#17: Darkdevil is Mysterious As mentioned on Wednesday, Darkdevil's backstory isn't that great. But this moment with the first real hint of who he is was electrifying when it first came out; all he did was call Spider-Man by name, and immediately the rumour mill started running.

#3 A-Next#11: Thunderstrike Meets Stormtrooper Battling Nazi counterparts of the Avengers on an alternate Earth, A-Next's Thunderstrike faces Stormtrooper, a twisted version of his father, the original Thunderstrike. Young Kevin defeats Stormtrooper, but it's too much for him; no matter what this man might have done, it's still the father that he lost as a child restored to him.

#2 A-Next#7: The Last Days of the Avengers In a dramatic flashback scene, Jarvis describes how the Avengers were disbanded. He relates how all of the Avengers journeyed to an alternate Earth, but only six returned. Quietly, Iron Man offers this recompense: they won.

#1 A-Next#3: J2 Runs From Battle After seeing his ally Mainframe torn in half by the Hulk and Sub-Mariner, J2 is in no mood to stick around! Despite having the power of the Juggernaut rendering him invulnerable, beneath it all Zane Yama is a scared kid. He's just seen his teammate killed by the Hulk! It's too much for him and he bolts from the fight, abandoning his teammates. This was a great moment, giving J2 a normal human reaction, albeit one you seldom see from heroes.

Mainframe turns out to be okay, for reasons explained when his origin finally gets out; J2 does eventually return to the fight and holds his own against the Hulk.

* * *

Finally, some final kudos to the MC2 creators: Tom DeFalco, Larry Hama, Sean McKeever, Ron Frenz, Pat Olliffe, Ron Lim, Chris Batista, Casey Jones, Al Williamson, Sal Buscema, Todd Nauck, Colleen Coover, Paul Ryan and all of the rest; together, for 12 years, you've entertained me with quality super hero stories. Thank you all!

MC2: The End...For Now! Part 4

Amongst the three founding MC2 titles - A-Next, J2 & Spider-Girl - there were several interesting factors which linked them together during the first twelve months of publication. At the outset, it's very interesting to note that each title employed a different type of narrative; J2 was a first-person narrative.

Spider-Girl was a second-person narrative.

A-Next was a third-person narrative.

In the launch month for MC2, each title contained a preview for the next book to be released. Spider-Girl#0 previewed the first issues of all three titles, while Spider-Girl#1 featured a preview of A-Next#1, A-Next#1 had a preview of J2#1 and J2#1 previewed Spider-Girl#2. The first issues of the three launch titles also featured common design elements on their covers, with the other two books' covers featured in the background designs:

In the third month, the theme was guest stars; in A-Next, they fought the Defenders; for a tie-in over in J2, he clashed with the Hulk; Spider-Girl brought in the Fantastic Five.

During the sixth month, each title introduced a new hero to the MC2 universe and the following month included a "Majority Rules" page devoted to a write-in contest to determine which MC2 heroes would be the next to receive a series. Spider-Girl#6 gave us Ladyhawk:

A-Next#6 introduced Argo, son of Hercules:

J2#6 ushered in Magneta, MC2's would-be Magneto:

In the seventh month, each title revealed the backstory of how the heroes' predecessors gave up their costumed identities; Spider-Girl#7 told how Peter Parker gave up being Spider-Man, A-Next#7 related the Avengers' dissolution and J2#7 depicted how the Juggernaut was lost.

The eighth month, there was a theme of the MC2 heroes working with their parents, as A-Next's Stinger team-ups with her father Ant-Man, Spider-Girl#8 teams her with her dad and in J2#8 he meets his dad's former partner Black Tom Cassidy (and Wild Thing teams up with her dad, Wolverine).

Finally, the twelfth month, each hero achieved some sort of grand moment; Spider-Girl discovered a new power, J2 met his father and in A-Next, the Avengers prove themselves before their surviving predecessors.

Tomorrow: My favorite moments from MC2!

MC2: The End...For Now! Part 3

On Monday I briefly listed the MC2 titles which supplemented Spider-Girl; here are some additional details.

Joining Spider-Girl at launch was J2 by Tom DeFalco & Ron Lim; it ran 12 issues. J2 was the son of the Juggernaut, a long-time super villain who had reformed but mysteriously disappeared. When Juggernaut's half-Asian teenage son Zane Yama discovers he's inherited his father's power he decides to become a super hero, but is frequently mistaken for a villain because of his father's lingering reputation. J2 was primarily played for laughs, such as in the issue where Howard the Duck teaches J2 the martial arts. It also featured the debut of Wild Thing, of whom more will be said below.

The third launch title was A-Next, the next generation of the Avengers! Written for all 12 issues by DeFalco and drawn by Ron Frenz, it featured J2, Stinger (Ant-Man's daughter), Thunderstrike (son of the original Thunderstrike) and Mainframe (with a secret connection to Iron Man) reviving the Avengers name years after the original team disbanded. They're hampered somewhat by the fact that the traditional headquarters Avengers Mansion has become a tour-guided museum! By issue #4, four new members joined, reflecting the "Cap's Kooky Quartet" era of the original team: American Dream (inspired by Captain America), Freebooter (inspired by Hawkeye), Crimson Curse (somehow connected to Scarlet Witch) and Bluestreak (same powers as Quicksilver). A-Next was one of the highlights of MC2 (more about that on Friday).

For the 2nd year's launch titles, J2 was replaced by Wild Thing, written by Larry Hama and drawn by Ron Lim; J2 made appearances in back-up stories written by DeFalco, much as Wild Thing had a few back-up tales in J2. Wild Thing's high concept was that she was the daughter of Wolverine and Elektra, possessing psychic claws which manifested in the shape of sais. Although Larry Hama is best known for creating GI Joe: A Real American Hero, he was also the writer of Wolverine for most of the 1990s. It's actually a little strange that Wild Thing didn't catch on, considering that the high-concept "Wolverine with breasts" character X-23 has done well, but for whatever reason, Wild Thing did not catch on as either a series or as a star in the MC2 line; when a surrogate Wolverine was selected for the Avengers Next mini-series later on, her ex-con brother Sabreclaw was used instead of her.

The other 2nd year title was Fantastic Five by DeFalco and Paul Ryan, who together had been the Fantastic Four creative team for much of the 1990s. The Fantastic Five are: the Thing (who now has a bionic arm), the Human Torch (now the team leader), Big Brain (Mr. Fantastic's brain in a HERBIE robot...or so it seems), Psi-Lord (grown-up Franklin Richards) and Ms. Fantastic (the Torch's Skrull wife Lyja from the DeFalco-Ryan years). Like any good Fantastic Four series it emphasized family, even though it wasn't quite the same family as before. By the end of the series, the true fates of the Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic were revealed.

The first of the two Spider-Girl Presents three issue mini-series starred the Buzz who was something of an original character, unlike the other MC2 heroes, who were reimagined versions of classic Marvel heroes. Jack Jameson, grandson of J. Jonah Jameson, winds up with access to a powerful battlesuit and is compelled to use it to fight crime, only to find his own grandfather convinced he's a criminal. As done by DeFalco and Frenz, the Buzz was very much in the Spider-Man mold.

DeFalco and Frenz also collaborated on the second and final Presents mini-series, Darkdevil. Darkdevil had been a recurring character since the earliest issues of Spider-Girl, a mysterious vigilante patterned after Daredevil with seeming supernatural powers. Fan interest ran wild when hints dropped in the series made it seem as though he could be Ben Reilly, the infamous Spider-Man clone, brought back to life. By the time Darkdevil origin was completed in this mini-series...well...we all quietly wished we hadn't asked for his origin. They can't all be winners.

Some time later, Last Hero Standing was a five issue mini-event by DeFalco and Pat Olliffe which shipped weekly and brought together all the heroes of MC2 for a good ol' fashioned brawl. Loki places some of Earth's heroes under his control, pitting them against each other. In order to end the violence, one hero must make the ultimate sacrifice - the titular Last Hero Standing.

The follow-up mini-series Last Planet Standing again reunited DeFalco & Olliffe, this time featuring Galactus preparing to feast on the Earth, forcing the planet's heroes and villains to put aside their differences for mutual defense.

This led to Avengers Next by DeFalco & Lim, where the Avengers cope with the fallout from the event, then wind up facing Loki's daughter. It brought in several new heroes, notably Thor's daughter Thena, and added Spider-Girl and Sabreclaw to the team's ranks, evidently in imitation of Brian Michael Bendis' New Avengers from the regular Marvel Universe, where Spider-Man and Wolverine were key players.

This in turn led to Fantastic Five by DeFalco & Lim, although as you can see, the team was something more than five people by now, with the original four joined by Lyja making five "grown-ups," and Franklin (Reed & Sue's son), Torus (Johnny & Lyja's son), Alyce & Jake (Ben's kids) and Kristoff Vernard (Dr. Doom's ward) making five "junior" heroes. And it does take all ten of them, since Dr. Doom himself is the villain in these five issues.

The last of the MC2 mini-series was American Dream, which ran 5 issues by DeFalco and Todd Nauck. This series finally spells out the entirety of American Dream's origin and sees her trying to put together a normal life, something her predecessor also grappled with.

Tomorrow: the themes of MC2's first year.

MC2: The End...For Now! Part 2

As I outlined yesterday, Spider-Girl's 12 year publishing career took on many incarnations, with several near-cancellations along the way. The (almost) constant amidst this was creator/writer Tom DeFalco, architect of the MC2 line. DeFalco, formerly Marvel's editor-in-chief, wrote What If#105, which was reprinted as Spider-Girl#0 to launch her series.

Spider-Girl first penciler was Patrick Olliffe, who drew most of the first 56 issues. Olliffe was already known to Spider-Man fans as the artist of Kurt Busiek's Untold Tales of Spider-Man, which related "unrevealed" stories from the 1960s era of Stan Lee's Spider-Man. Olliffe was therefore perfectly suited for the adventures of Spider-Man's daughter May, whose stories were told in the spirit of Stan Lee.

As well as drawing May's first appearance in What If#105, Ron Frenz has been one of DeFalco's most frequent artistic collaborators, working together on Amazing Spider-Man in the 80s, plus Thor and Thunderstrike. Frenz provided fill-ins for Olliffe during his tenure, then succeeded him as primary artist, seeing the series through all of its incarnations until the very end. Frenz is a skilled imitator of both Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, even drawing many of his earlier Spider-Man stories in a Ditko-esque fashion; however, for Spider-Girl he used a less traditional style, looser and more energetic.

Both of Spider-Girl's main inkers were legends in their time; Olliffe was usually inked by Al Williamson, one of the all-time greatest inkers in comics, best known for his EC Comics work of the 50s and his intense love for Flash Gordon. Williamson, who passed away earlier this year, lived long enough to see his early work favourably reevaluated; Spider-Girl was something of a finale to his lengthy career. Frenz's inker was primarily Sal Buscema, an able penciler in his own right (just like Williamson) best known for his 1980s Incredible Hulk work; Buscema had also been a frequent Spectacular Spider-Man artist in the 90s. Buscema helped keep a more traditional emphasis to Frenz's lines. Other occasional artists on Spider-Girl included John Livesay, Chris Batista, Casey Jones, Rodney Ramos and Scott Koblish; also worth mentioning is the legendary Bill Sienkiewicz, who inked What If#105.

At the time Spider-Girl launched in 1998, the main line Spider-Man titles were experiencing a rough change in direction. During the 90s, the infamous "Clone Saga" story led to Peter Parker's clone Ben Reilly assuming the Spider-Man identity while Peter retired with his wife Mary Jane, who was pregnant. Only 2 years before Spider-Girl began, Reilly had been suddenly killed off and Peter returned to the costume, while Peter and Mary Jane's baby was lost and presumed dead; there was pressure to kill Mary Jane too in order to restore a single Peter Parker to fandom, but it was felt that this would be going too far.

But in 1998, the relaunched Spider-Man titles began traveling to that very direction. While the main Spider-Man titles were dividing Peter and Mary Jane's relationship and doing their best to pretend the Clone Saga, Ben Reilly and baby May never existed, Spider-Girl reveled in this material.

What If#105 establishes that Peter lost one of his legs in a final battle with the Green Goblin, but discovered baby May was still alive and rescued her. By the time the book opens, "Mayday" is now a teenager while Peter has become a forensic scientist for the police, using his scientific skills to keep fighting crime. May is something of a Peter/Mary Jane gestalt; she's intellectual enough that she consorts with unpopular "nerds" like Courtney Duran and Jimmy Yama, but as a member of the Midtown basketball team she's also accepted by the "jocks," traveling in circles with Moose Mansfield and David Kirby. May also has an immense crush on Brad Miller; like most of her crushes, it's not heading anywhere pretty.

Suddenly, a new Green Goblin appears. This is Normie Osborn, grandson of Norman Osborn (Spider-Man comics of the 90s established Normie as a potential psychopath while he was still a child). In Normie's twisted psyche, his father and grandfather were ruined by Spider-Man so he wants revenge; at the same time Peter tries to decide how to answer Normie's threats, May has begun exhibiting powers exactly like her father's; Mary Jane admits to her that Peter used to be Spider-Man and shows her the costume worn by Ben Reilly; in a nice touch, May refers to him as her "Uncle Ben."

Peter refuses to face Normie as Spider-Man, instead bringing a gun to the fight, hoping to somehow spare his family from the Goblin. However, May arrives dressed in her Uncle Ben's costume; as Spider-Girl she defeats Normie.

Peter can't bear the idea of May becoming a super hero. He has seemingly all of the costumes and web-shooters destroyed, unaware that May hid a pair of web-shooters.

Beginning in Spider-Girl#1, May begins her career as a super hero in earnest, first fighting crime in a lycra bodysuit before sewing a replacement costume. While Peter was motivated to become a hero by personal tragedy - the death of his Uncle Ben - his daughter is seemingly a purer hero, one whose conscience is fully developed and knows she must help others; you could see this as the result of being brought up by Peter and absorbing his values over time. However, Peter becomes increasingly livid at May for continuing to play Spider-Girl against his wishes; he finally decides to "ground" her - taking away her web-shooters to at least make being a hero more difficult.

This is the lead-in to Spider-Girl#17, a pivotal moment in the series. Kaine, a recurring villain from the Clone Saga era, is preparing to assassinate the Kingpin on the day the one-time crime lord is to be brought to court. Realizing that in spite of who he is he can't let the Kingpin die, Peter makes a fateful choice:

However, his artificial leg proves a major hindrance in battle. Ultimately, May arrives and retrieves the web-shooters then completes the mission, defeating Kaine. Seeing May in battle, Peter realizes he was wrong to hold her back.

By the time of this story in the regular Marvel Universe, Mary Jane had been seemingly killed off in order to make Spider-Man single again. This only proved to make fandom spectactularly upset. To the advantage of Spider-Girl, fans began encouraging upset Spider-Man readers to start following her series instead, observing that in at least one title, Peter and Mary Jane were still together. Elements from the Clone Saga were also popular with fans who had been unwilling to dismiss the entire enterprise as a flop. Spill-over from the main Spider-Man titles may not have had a large impact on Spider-Girl's sales, but it brought the book notice at a time when it's future seemed less than certain.

Although Peter's acceptance of May's Spider-Girl career would wax and wane as the series progressed, he and Mary Jane remained supportive of her throughout. In her personal life, May became attracted to Jack Jameson, grandson of the infamous J. Jonah; however, Jack turned out to be a super hero himself, the cocky braggart Buzz; this actually proves to be a turn-off and May breaks up with him without Jack even realizing she was Spider-Girl.

Normie eventually returned and made an attempt on May's life. Unfortunately for May, she had temporarily lost her super powers, placing her entirely at his mercy. To her surprise, Normie, in spite of having her dead to rights and determined to end the Spider/Goblin conflict, refused to kill her. Realizing Normie actually hoped she'd fight back and kill him, she reached out to Normie as a friend and convinced him to make peace with the Parkers, putting an end to the Spider/Goblin conflict.

Normie soon became May's closest ally, supplying her with his weaponry to compensate for her power loss and continuing to donate a secret base and other monetary resources as time went on. May even found herself falling for Normie, but he wound up in a relationship with Raptor, a super villain whom May had helped reform. To her chagrin, Raptor considered May her best friend, making it all but impossible to compete for Normie's affections against her. May finally won her dream date with Brad, but he turned out to be a mutant-hating bigot, quickly killing her interest in him.

In the big issue #50, Peter and Mary Jane gave birth to a son, Ben (or "Benjy"). Immediately following this, issue #51 presented a story written by Sean McKeever...the only issue in the 100 issue run of Spider-Girl not involving Tom DeFalco. At the time, this upset Spider-Girl's fanbase, who considered themselves as much fans of DeFalco as the character. But in the long run, the issue certainly did no harm; Spider-Girl barely appears in #51, which is instead a story about a classmate who has a crush on her writing a letter of confession just before his family leaves town. At the time Sean McKeever was a fresh talent, (barely) known for his independent work the Waiting Place. By breaking in through books like Spider-Girl#51, he was eventually able to make a decent career in comics, including work such as Sentinel, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and Teen Titans. McKeever did introduce a daughter of Electro character in issue #51 whom DeFalco would later bring back as Aftershock in #81; more recently, McKeever reintroduced Aftershock as a character in the regular Marvel Universe.

Spider-Girl soldiered on through 100 issues (and an annual), then into the Amazing Spider-Girl run. The series opens with May temporarily retired as a hero, running for student council and dating football star Gene Thompson (son of Flash Thompson), but the call of heroism quickly forces her back into the webs, giving up her personal goals and relationships once more. During this series, a storyline dubbed "Brand New May" (after the main line's "Brand New Day" branding) introduced a clone of May. This clone - usually called April - claimed to be the "real" May in something of a revisit to the original Clone Saga. By the time Amazing Spider-Girl ended with issue #30, May had accepted April into her family.

The saga continued through Amazing Spider-Man Family#1-8, Web of Spider-Man#1-7 and Spectacular Spider-Girl#1-4, finally ending with Spider-Girl: The End#1 (of course). These stories continued May and April's uneasy relationship as May becomes increasingly unhinged and willing to use lethal force, until the two "sisters" are forced to a final confrontation in The End. I won't spoil The End for you, except to say that it's a happy ending.

One of the landmarks Spider-Girl achieved was to become the longest-running super hero series with a female protagonist ever published by Marvel Comics. Spider-Girl made it by running past #61 (previously, She-Hulk was the record holder with 60 issues of Sensational She-Hulk) and with 100 issues total may yet hold that achievement for some time to come.

The landscape of Marvel Comics has changed considerably in the 12 years since Spider-Girl began her adventures. Part of why I've been pleased to see Spider-Girl endure is that in the midst of so many super hero comics where language, violence and sexuality have become explicit, heroes have questionable ethics and art strives for realism rather than imagination, I enjoyed reading one - just one - super hero comic book where the hero endures triumph and tragedy but ultimately beats the odds.

Tomorrow: A closer look at the other MC2 titles.