Radioactive Spider-Gwen #10 Review

Writer: Jason Latour / Artist: Robbi Rodriguez / Marvel Comics When we left Gwen in issue #6 she was running away into the night, having reinjected herself with temporary spider powers and kicking The Punisher through a glass window (Earth-65’s Punisher. If you’re reading the regular-universe The Punisher by Becky Cloonan you can find those reviews here, it’s a great comic). In front of her friends. In front of everyone. Gwen Stacy is working through the struggle of choosing to have powers and what that dependency – one she never realized until given the choice – means for who she is as a person. And as it is in real life and fiction, self-exploration is a hard, emotional journey.

While the premise leans us towards that journey of emotional self-discovery, issue #10 falls short in moving very much forward on the promise of that premise. Instead, this issue feels more like a filler outside of an early conversation Gwen Stacy has with her father – a conversation that was a great set-up for somewhat deflating payoff when Frank Castle brings in a contractor, Kraven, to hunt Spider-Gwen. Kraven controls jungle animals, which, along with a de-powered spider hero, makes for some relatively uninteresting action, although it would lend itself well to some funny Jungle Book jokes. I found them funny anyway, as several other Spider-Gwen quips that were the silver lining of this round of Radioactive Spider-Gwen. Spider-Gwen is known for its amazing artwork, and compared against other co…