Snake Woman #1

Written by Zeb Wells

Art by Michael Gaydos

Cover by Mukesh Singh and Suresh Seetharaman

 

The second book hot off (new company) Virgin Comics' presses is Snake Woman, and, like the first (Devi), it's created by film director Shekhar Kapur. And, also like the first, it's not exactly clear what Kapur did to "create" the character, as he doesn't write or draw this issue at all.

 

Unlike Devi, however, this series is off to a pretty strong start. The creators should be familiar to anyone who has read much Marvel over the past few years. Zeb Wells (Spider-Man, New Warriors) handles the script and, in classic first-issue form, we get the climax first, and then jump back a few days to build our way back to it.

 

The art is by Michael Gaydos, a favorite collaborator of Marvel's omnipresent creator Brian Michael Bendis. He collaborated with Bendis on the excellent but short-lived series Alias, and brings a very similar sketchy, shadow-filled realism to Snake Woman. In fact, in certain panels the heroine resembles Jessica Jones with a dye job.

 

That heroine is, oddly enough, also named Jessica. She's a barmaid in downtown L.A., sharing an apartment with her co-worker Jin.

 

Jessica, we learn, is a very careful, even shy young woman (if that's her body beneath the peeling snake skin on the cover, she probably wouldn't be happy to have you ogling it). After her shyness causes her to miss an opportunity to hook up with a cute new neighbor that Jin quickly pounces on, Jessica decides to be a bit more spontaneous, and picks up a regular customer. A customer who thinks she's an evil monster that will kill everyone, and tries to kill her first.

 

While her would-be-killer is certainly an evil scumbag, he seems to be on to something, based on the fact that when cornered, Jess apparently bites out his throat and starts hissing.

 

What the hell's going on, exactly? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say Jessica is some sort of, I don't know, snake woman.  Guess we'll have to wait for issue #2 to find out, and that's the mark of a good first issue—that it leaves you guessing enough to want to check out #2.

 

Virgin's first offering, which also featured a heroine with mythological origins, had some beautiful art, but seemed rather lacking in the story department. That's not the case here at all. Going on first issues alone, Kapur's 1 for 2 so far; not bad for a guy brand new to the field of comics.

 

Rating - 8