Spider-Woman: Shifting Gears Vol. 1 - Baby Talk

This one of several from the all new all different marvel line that I've read, and so far I've liked all of them. Including this one. Heck, especially this one. I didn't like the art style at first but it grew on me as I read through. As much as this is Jessica Drew's story, I really loved Captain Marvel in this. Their relationship was presented strongly and it made for a good read. Definitely buying more from this series.

Great Start to a fantastic book

After the hiatus following Secret Wars the new Jessica Drew Spider-Woman comes back with the old creative team of Dennis Hopeless and Javier Rodriguez. And she comes back – this is no spoiler, because you see it on the cover – pregnant. The investigative team of Ben Urich and former Porcupine Roger Gocking are still with her and Jessica prepares for maternity leave.Well, if you want to make your prenatal medical checks in the intergalactic hospital recommended by buddy Captain Marvel, be sure that problems are on their way. I do not want to spoil anything, but believe me that how those complications come up and are solved is a lot of fun. There is a firework of odd ideas paired with a solid suspense story. If you liked Dan Slott’s She-Hulk run, you will not be disappointed if you try out Hopeless’ Spider-Woman. Dialogues are witty, especially in the Jessica – Carol scenes, Rodriguez’ pencils are striking again, especially in the scenes about motherhood. You can start reading right here, but you would have still more fun, if you read the “Spider-Woman: New Duds” volume first.The only problem I have with this book is that the “Avengers Don’t Kill” policy evidently does not include intelligent space aliens any more. In times when xenophobia rises its ugly head everywhere I think this is not a good development at Marvel. Anyway excellent read, verily recommended.This volume includes Spider-Woman vol. 6 #1-5 and the Spider-Woman story from Amazing Spider-Man vol. 4 #1.

Spider-Woman – Baby Talk collects issues #1-5 of Marvel’s latest (post-Secret Wars) Spider-Woman (2015) series, which picks up the story approximately nine months after the end of the previous volume. No spoilers here about Secret Wars!Minor characters always give their writers more freedom, as Stan Lee discovered back in year two of Marvel Comics, when he sacked the entire Avengers team and replaced them with reformed evil mutants and ex-criminals. This is because one a character becomes established, there is too much money riding on the status quo for the publisher to let the writers change anything significant. We knew that the Superior Spider-Man, Ms Thor and Captain America would/will eventually resolve themselves - Disney is not investing billions on a whim.However, with minor characters, you have more room to play, until they become too successful and become established. The current Hawkeye series is absolutely superb, and his “new” character has even carried over into the Avengers, but it is still “only” about him on his days off from the superhero business.Here in this title the writer appears to have absolute freedom - though he still operates within the bounds of decency, as Tony Stark discovers. The previous volume -  Spider-Woman 02 New Duds  - saw Jessica Drew get tired of being a superhero and take a career break and go back to being a private detective, which resulted in her still doing superheroics, but for different reasons.This volume picks up the story eight months or so later, with a very pregnant Jessica Drew on nominal maternity leave from Drew/Urich Investigations, having trained up Roger the Porcupine to fill-in for her on the strong-arm side of thing. Carol Danvers is almost a full-time cast-member here, despite running the all-new Alpha Flight, thanks to modern telephonic technology, as Jessica deals with the practicalities of pregnancy and then early motherhood, which include three issues trapped in an alien hospital that has been hijacked by Skrulls and cut off from outside help.Then there’s the mystery of the baby’s father, which we won’t go into here. We have had female superheroes with children before, and still do, but this is the first time I can remember the story going into the practicalities of pregnancy and early motherhood, though there is a crowd of supporting characters to help out and keep the story moving - including Hawkeye on one of his days off.The writer, despite being male, manages to make a good point about it being the men who have imposed limits on what women can or can’t do during pregnancy - a problem that has only risen in the affluent west in fairly recent times; other cultures just get on with their lives. This is a superb superhero comic-book, whose main character just happens to be extremely pregnant for most of the story, and just gets on with it. It is an entertaining feel-good sort of story, with extreme violence - but only if you happen to be Skrulls.