July 4, 1978…

THE SPIDER-WOMAN — Issue no. 7, July 1978

Book: The Spider-Woman

Issue No.: 7

Published: July 4, 1978

Title: “July 4, 1978…”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Original paper copy

Unlike a lot of Marvel’s comic books that had already been around for years at the start of 1978, The Spider-Woman debuted in January of that year. So it’s one of the few books that I started with issue no. 1 for Marvel Time Warp.

If you have read any of my posts about Spider-Woman, you’ll know that I am generally disappointed with the book. Spider-Woman is a cool, weird character, but the stories in her book generally haven’t been that cool or weird. The second issue, that had Spider-Woman fighting Morgan Le Fay (yes, Morgan is King Arthur’s legendary nemesis), is my hands-down favorite so far.

This issue isn’t very weird, but it does tie up a few loose ends in a somewhat satisfying manner, so I’m gonna call that a win.

One of Spider-Woman’s main goals has been finding out who killed her father, Jonathan Drew. Turns out a corrupt politician killed Jonathan. This politician was basically working on a coup that involved destroying all of the United States’ military bases with nuclear weapons. And Jonathan had developed a serum that would protect the coup guys from radiation poisoning. (This serum was also involved in Spider-Woman’s origin.) I gotta admin, as coup plans go, this one is pretty dang twisted and evil. Anyway, after Jonathan Drew had perfected the anti-radiation serum, the corrupt politician didn’t need him anymore, so he murdered him.

Fortunately for the citizens of North America, Spider-Woman’s new boyfriend is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and he calls in some S.H.I.E.L.D. troops to help shut down the coup before it goes nuclear. Well, one of the nuclear bombs goes off. But at least U.S. democracy survived!

Another big loose end that is sort of tied up in this issue — Spider-Woman finds out that her wizard-ish pal Magnus is not the legendary magician Merlin (that’s who I guessed he was!). Magnus is instead a former student of Morgan Le Fay, and he turned on her after he found out she was evil.

So, like I said, this issue isn’t very weird. The whole super-science nuclear coup thing kind of gives it a Mission: Impossible vibe. But perhaps some weirdness is on the horizon — an editor’s note at the end of this story promises “Next issue: A bold new direction for Marvel’s dark angel…” So I am cautiously optimistic.

Next time — I’ll be back Tuesday with another July 1978 Marvel book!