Spider-Girl #22
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSpider-Girl #22 marks the first appearance of Funny Face, a clown-masked villain who would become one of the most recurring antagonists in the MC2 Universe and whose family connections — brother Crazy Eight, mother Angel Face — seeded years of ongoing storylines in the series. The issue also functions as a deliberate crossover bridge: its three-way clash between Spider-Girl, Darkdevil, and the Buzz was engineered to feed directly into the launch of the Spider-Girl Presents: The Buzz spin-off miniseries, demonstrating the MC2 imprint's strategy of growing its universe outward from the flagship title. Within the broader context of the series, Spider-Girl held the distinction of being the longest-running Marvel superhero book headlined by a female character, and issues like this one — juggling high-school social life with superhero action — exemplify the tonal identity that sustained that remarkable run.
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The issue was produced by the series' core creative team of writer Tom DeFalco, penciler Pat Olliffe, and inker Al Williamson, with colors by Christie Scheele and editing by Mike Marts — the same tight-knit group whose continuity across the title was frequently cited as a key factor in the book's sustained appeal. The MC2 imprint was conceived by DeFalco as an alternate-future sandbox designed to be more accessible than Marvel's continuity-heavy main line, and Spider-Girl was its anchor title; by issue #22, the editorial strategy of using the series to incubate spin-offs was already in motion, with this issue structured explicitly as a lead-in to The Buzz #1.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Funny Face (Earth-982), a clown-costumed villain described as a chaos-driven psychopath; he would go on to make approximately 19 subsequent appearances in the MC2 line.
- Story title: 'Dance Fever!' — the action is set partly at a Midtown High School dance attended by May Parker, J.J. Jameson, and Brad Miller, interweaving the series' signature dual civilian/hero narrative.
- The issue serves as a direct narrative bridge into Spider-Girl Presents: The Buzz #1, spotlighting the Buzz alongside Darkdevil and Spider-Girl in a three-way confrontation that introduces readers to the spin-off's premise.
- Creative team: Written by Tom DeFalco; penciled by Pat Olliffe; inked by Al Williamson; colored by Christie Scheele; edited by Mike Marts; cover by Olliffe and Williamson.
- Darkdevil (Reilly Tyne) — Ben Reilly's son, who shares his body with the soul of Matt Murdock and demonic remnants of Zarathos — appears as a supporting hero; he had first debuted in Spider-Girl #2 (November 1998) and is May Parker's cousin, though neither character was yet aware of that relationship.
- Funny Face's later storyline reveals he is the brother of earlier antagonist Crazy Eight and the son of the villain Angel Face, a long-planted piece of foreshadowing that was set in motion beginning with this first appearance.
- The issue was reprinted in Spider-Girl Vol. 5: Endgame (Marvel Comics, January 2006; ISBN 0-7851-2034-3), which collected Spider-Girl #22–27 as part of Marvel's digest-format trade paperback push to stabilize the title's readership.
- Published on Earth-982 continuity (the MC2 Universe), the series of which this issue is a part was later recognized as the longest-running Marvel superhero title headlined by a female character before its eventual relaunch as The Amazing Spider-Girl.
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Reprinted in Spider-Girl #5 (2006), Spider-Girl: The Complete Collection #2 (2019)
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