“Spider-Woman” is a classic Marvel show that can be found on Disney Plus. The show aired in 1979 and only has one season. I know the show varies from the comics a good amount, most likely to be more light-hearted for the viewers because Spider-Woman’s story in the comics is fairly dark for Marvel at the time. It’ll be fun to watch an old animated show as I’ve never really watched any before.
I’ve never really watched anything this old, so the classic animation style was something I had to get used to. Because of the show’s age it had a lot of humor in it for today’s time, most of which I assume to be unintentional. I like that the intro gave the viewer a quick backstory about her rather than focusing on it for an entire episode. The show has a lot of spider-humor to lighten the mood, not that any situation ever felt too serious or stressful. The only somewhat frustrating thing was the light sexism throughout. Even as Spider-Woman, the men didn’t believe she could do much without their help and still believed her to be a somewhat weak individual.
Jessica Drew is the character of Spider-Woman and she is definitely a woman stuck in a man’s world. Whenever her spider-sense goes off there is an extreme zoom in of her face for some reason. And her spider-sense seems to be visions because she can see things going on elsewhere rather than just sensing danger. She can also magically transform into her spider-suit rather than having to change or wearing it under her clothing. Her webs come from her pointer finger, she has a spider-shriek, and she has spider-venom too! And she can fly??? And communicate with spiders? Her abilities seem to be limitless! Though I believe they’re not all comic accurate. Everything is “spider-something,” which is hilarious because I remember the old Batman movies did the same. I did like her outfit though, it’d be a cool costume to replicate.
Jeff and Billy seem to be living oblivious lives. Spider-Woman magically appears whenever they’re in danger and Jessica disappears, but they never question it! It’s so funny to watch them be completely oblivious to her. Jeff also hits on her a lot but makes comments about how her womanhood makes her weak and clueless. She plays along to keep her secret identity safe, but I honestly would’ve punched Jeff in the face by now.
The show included a few Spider-Man cameos as well, and at first he didn’t seem to respect her until she proved herself. She fought a variety of villains, some familiar, some not, and some who are famously the enemies of other superheroes in the comics. I’m not sure if she has any enemies of her own, and some of the villains in the episodes seemed like they were made up for the show. They have a “jet-copter,” which is some sort of combination helicopter-jet that I can’t take very seriously. It reminds me of Thanos’s helicopter.
The scenes don’t last very long, probably due to the short attention span of the audience at the time, and they have funny little transitional spider-clips between each scene. Each episode goes by fairly quickly as well and are enjoyable to watch. However, you don’t need to dedicate your full attention to the show because it’s easy to figure out what’s going on. It would be a good show to put on while doing chores or hobbies. They narrate everything as it’s happening, like when a villain spends time explaining their evil plan.
I think the biggest plot issue I saw with this show was the lack of other superheroes. It’d be one thing if she was dealing with threats in her city, but she’s traveling all over the world to save it from huge threats. Where’s Spider-Man half the time then? Or the Avengers? Aside from this huge plot hole, the show was fairly entertaining to watch. The character of Spider-Woman is really cool honestly and I’d like to see her in a live-action movie or show.
Overall, I would recommend this show for something casual to watch or have on in the background. It doesn’t really work as an entire story but rather just as a display of her adventures. I don’t think older comic shows like this wrap things up in the end, but the final episode did end with her saying “Goodnight Spider-Woman,” so I imagine at this point they knew there wasn’t going to be a second season.
Photos of my reactions while watching the show:
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