Spider-Gwen #8

Previously in Spider-Gwen #7

Writer: Jason Latour | Artist: Bengal | Cover Artist: Yasmine Putri

This Spider-Women crossover is ramping up now that they’re back on Earth-616, and after Jessica left Cindy and Gwen to go check on her baby, it’s up to the two of them to track down Cindy-65.

Since this is the first Gwen-centric issue in a while, we’re getting her inner monologue again. When they were on Earth-65, Cindy and Jessica were in awe of all the differences, but Gwen has been to Earth-616 so for her, it’s more about experiencing Cindy’s life. It’s intriguing to see Gwen kind of wax poetic about Cindy. Often she’s short-tempered and annoyed by the superhero, but watching Cindy-65 destroy Silk’s reputation strikes a chord with Gwen.

Gwen’s biggest challenge as a superhero has been being miscast as a villain. She was hunted by her father and the police and even as she tries to help, she’s still a vigilante. Cindy is one of her city’s beloved superheroes and Gwen softens towards her in this moment.

Unfortunately, both girls are not very good at taking the time to strategize and they end up confronting Cindy-65 and giving her the entire upper hand. We also get Cindy-65’s origin story. Essentially, Cindy-65 is your standard megalomaniac turned supervillain. She always felt destined for bigger things and she worked at S.H.I.E.L.D. to create the spiders that gave Jesse Drew and Gwen their powers. After watching Gwen travel through dimensions, she came to Earth-616 looking for their technology to continue her plans for world domination.

It was a bit of an exposition dump, but it laid the framework for the rest of this arc. Cindy-65 is a sharp contrast to our Cindy. She was basically handed everything Cindy wants, but she wanted more, while our Cindy never wanted to be burdened by these powers. And Gwen is confronted with her “maker” and the fact that Cindy-65 views her as a lab rat - and it seems like she might possibly be done with the experiment of Spider-Gwen. Going forward, this connection to Cindy-65 should make both Gwen and Cindy’s motivations very personal and hopefully draw the two women together. Although I’ll miss Gwen’s snarky comments, I can’t wait to see a true friendship develop between the two of them. Next up is Silk #8.