Spider-Woman has never been one of the major characters in comic books, but Marvel hopes that she will make a splash with her new look.
The original Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew — who, oddly enough, was created purely so Marvel would have the rights to the name in 1977 — has kept the same red and yellow costume for decades (a new Spider-Woman wore a black costume, matching Spider-Man’s briefly in the 1980s).
Now Marvel is ready to update the character with a more modern looking outfit that includes a red and black jacket with yellow accents and tight black pants.
It follows on the heels of DC Comics’ fashionable new take on Batgirl earlier this year (like CNN, DC Comics is a Time Warner company). That costume also included a jacket.
Artist Kris Anka says that the idea for the design has been in the works since July. We’ll get our first look at the new Spider-Woman in the fifth issue come March.
Editor Nick Lowe told USA Today, “Spider-Man isn’t really a detective — he swings around looking for trouble, whereas Jess needs to go and figure stuff out and dig things up, and you can’t really do that head to toe in spandex very well.”
Spider-Woman quickly trended worldwide on Twitter Thursday morning after the new look was released, and fan reaction was mixed.
“Check out the functionality of #SpiderWoman’s new duds!! So cool! Now to figure out how to make that happen IRL,” said Moviepilot.com’s Catrina Dennis.
“I just think Spider-Woman looked iconic,” @Twyst tweeted.
“This costume isnt bad, at all – it reminds me of the Wonder Woman redesign tho.”
“I like the new Spider-Woman costume a lot BUT not the glasses. I hate super hero costumes with glasses,” @feemcbee said.
Matthew Sturges had a very good question: “New Spider-Woman costume is good, but she still has no pockets. Where are heroes supposed to keep their stuff?”