Parallel worlds are confusing enough for Gwen Stacy of Earth-65. They get that much more confusing for her thanks to a run-in with a couple of members of the Fantastic Four who aren’t members of the Fantastic Four. She investigates the confusion under the mask in issue #8 of Ghost-Spider. Writer Seanan McGuire craftily renders a mystery for Gwen in an issue drawn by Ig Guara. Intrigue can be a difficult thing to bring dynamically to the comics page, but McGuire and Guara do a solidly good job of making it interesting.

Gwen Stacy 0f Earth-65 has quite a bit of experience with parallel worlds. Being a foreign exchange student on a parallel earth, she regularly commutes between different dimensions. She’s understandably confused when the Johnny Storm of her world (who never got the powers associated with his counterpart in the mainstream Marvel Universe) appears to shoot fireballs. Naturally, she’s going to consult with the smartest person she knows on such matters: Reed Richards of Earth-65. He’s a young guy who plays chess in the park. He knows quite a bit about other worlds as well, but what does he know about what Gwen is going through? And what will Professor Peter Parker have to say to her later-on on campus after class? 

McGuire is playing with the interconnectedness of the multiverse in interesting ways. Stacy knows things that she might not otherwise be aware of due to her exposure to other worlds. This puts her in a rather unique position to be able to investigate matters that might not otherwise see all that peculiar to her. It’s smart new ground for a web-slinger in the Marvel Universe that pulls her just a bit away from those school/super-villain vendetta stories that seem fated for Marvel Spider-beings. As always, the dialogue has crisp, smart humor to it that carries the issue through some of the slower moments. In places, it might feel like the narrative dives a bit too deeply into murky territory involving the particulars of the multiverse. Still, she maintains more than enough action to keep the issue moving.

Guara finds interesting ways to present simple conversation that keep it all visually appealing when it could easily hit the page with the dull thump of a series of talking headboxes. There’s a cleverness to Guara’s art that also pulls back from being so adventurous with the framing that it’s difficult to follow the story. It’s a well-balanced approach that also works quite well in the straightforward action of the book. Ghost-Spider’s grace and poise in combat feel suitably heroic when danger approaches.

McGuire has built-up quite a run with Ghost-Spider over the better part of the past year. She’s a fun character to hang out with for 20 pages or so a month. Guara fits the distinctive momentum of McGuire’s scripts quite well. The challenge moving forward lies in keeping Gwen’s adventures distinct from all the other Marvel Spider titles. There are decades of history with Peter Parker. It’s going to be difficult to maintain the right balance, but for now, McGuire and Guara definitely have everything in order.  

Grade: A