“A Sword in Hand!”
SPIDER-WOMAN — Issue no. 2, February 1978
Book: Spider-Woman
Issue No.: 2
Published: February 2, 1978
Title: “A Sword in Hand!”
I mainly know Spider-Woman from her late ’70s Saturday morning cartoon (now available on Disney+). As for her comic book, looks like I’m jumping in very early in the book’s run, and Spider-Woman (AKA Jessica Drew) is apparently struggling with some sort of amnesia. And she’s in England, though by the end of the issue she is headed to America. The bad guy in this story is called Excalibur, and he is a modern-day criminal who gets a hold of an ancient sword and is compelled to do the bidding of the spirit of Morgan Le Fay, evil sister of King Arthur (of Knights of the Round Table fame). If I read it right, Morgan created a fake Excalibur back in the day and swapped it for the real Excalibur to thwart Authur. Because she’s evil. And it’s this evil fake Excalibur that lets her possess the criminal guy. Also Excalibur/Morgan is after a fortune teller who calls himself Magnus, and Spider-Woman just happens to get in the way. I wonder if Magnus is actually King Arthur’s old pal Merlin?
Anyway, it’s a pretty weird issue and I kind of dig it. And the teaser at the end promises the villain of the next issue will be “Brother Grimm,” so Spider-Woman’s rogues gallery so far is shaping up to be old school (or at least old school-inspired).
Next time — Dracula (!) goes to hell (!!) to fight the devil(!!!).