The only thing keeping Jessica Drew alive is making her very strong and very irritable. The good news is that she’s got a friend who is helping her through everything. The bad news...well, there certainly is a lot of THAT as writer Karla Pacheco guides Jessica into the sixth issue of Spider-Woman. Artist Pere Pérez hauls Jess through hell in style, visiting ancient alien civilization, sleazy dives, and sinister caves alongside one of Marvel’s most-loved superheroines. There’s action and intrigue, but the best part of the issue has to be Pacheco’s wit, which keeps the action slick and enjoyable from cover to cover. 

Captain Marvel is upset. She knew that Jessica was going through something. Didn’t know what it was, though. Jessica knew that she wasn’t exactly in a position to take help from anyone...even if that person happened to be one of the single strongest members of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Now Jessica needs to get off-planet to track down a guy named The High Evolutionary in hopes of finding a cure for her life-threatening condition. It’s a journey that will take Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman off-planet and into deep space to discover the fate of a man the Avengers put away a long time ago. 

Pacheco writes a solid straight-ahead buddy action story between two really powerful superheroes. Captain Marvel is the level-headed one trying to help her friend. Jessica is trying to be responsible about keeping her distance from everyone, but she’s prone to powerful moments of sheer rage. It’s good cop/bad cop on a pulpy galactic scale with some sparklingly funny dialogue. If Pacheco could write it, a Spider-Woman/Captain Marvel series would be a tremendous amount of fun. It’s really disappointing to see this issue come to an end. It’s a deeply enjoyable action-comedy. 

Pérez gives the space-born adventure plenty of energy to shoot around the page. Action scenes ricochet through the panels, occasionally throwing the whole page off-kilter in odd angles. Jess’ temperament is uneven, occasionally exploding. The layout amplifies with Captain Marvel’s cool beauty contrasting against the gritty intensity of Jess’ occasional explosion of aggression. It’s a very appealing contrast that’s immersed in a world of weird-looking aliens and the occasionally gorgeous background of establishing shots in exotic locations. Above all, a powerful sense of action is maintained that makes this one of the most enjoyable issues of the series thus far. 

This crossover does the sort of thing that crossovers might have been intended to do when the Marvel Universe was created back in the 1960s. The sudden appearance of Carol Danvers not only adds to the appeal of Jessica, but it also makes Danvers seem that much more interesting to anyone who might not be reading Captain Marvel right now. It would be fun to see Pacheco and Pérez work together on a Spider-Woman/Captain Marvel series, but it would be just as fun to see what the two of them could do with a run on Captain Marvel. 

Grade: A+