Spider-Woman #2

Spider-Woman #2 (1978)
by Marv Wolfman & Carmine Infantino
cover by Dave Cockrum

This series included the creation of several minor supervillains that lurk around the Marvel Universe, but none of them has the impact of Morgan Le Fay.

Well that’s not 100% correct. Technically speaking, Morgan Le Fay first appeared in 1955 on the pages of Black Knight. However I can’t cover her appearances there because:
A) I only have the first issue
B) This is the extent of her role in that story:

So let’s jump to 1978 and see what the heck is an evil witch from the Middle Ages is doing on Spider-Woman’s title.

Speaking of our main character, her personal history is a complete mess that has been retconned almost as many times as Donna Troy’s, so let’s just consider that she’s investigating a museum in London for personal reasons.

Spider-Woman has to leave before she’s arrested by cops (so at least there’s ONE connection with Spider-Man). Too bad she didn’t notice the actual thief, who gets possessed by Morgan Le Fay when he pulls out the sword.

She uses her magic to give the thief incredible powers…

…including the power to believe that this is a good look.

He takes the name “Excaliber” (ugh) and ends up fighting Spider-Woman.

Excaliber manages to escape, leaving Spider-Woman to deal with personal problems that are way too convoluted to cover here.

That’s when she runs into who will become one of her supporting characters: Magnus, also known as “Not Merlin” and “Not Magneto’s Grandpa”.

Good thing she’s consulting a psychic, because Excaliber is soooo hard to find now that he’s fighting a train thinking it’s a dragon.

My bad, “Excaliber” is the sword itself? I think?

Excaliber ends up attacking Magnus because he wants his magic book, and Spider-Woman is caught in the middle of this nonsense.

Fortunately Magnus never shuts up, so he distracts Excaliber long enough…

…to let Spider-Woman disarm him by THROWING A SPEAR AT HIM.

WHICH WORKS.

Without the sword, the thief can’t maintain this form without Morgan’s help… and apparently she’s wisely decided he’s an idiot.

Well this wraps up everything so neatly I clearly don’t need further explanations.

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Historical significance: 3/10
Morgan Le Fay ends up being important, but you can easily skip this one.

Silver Age-ness: 5/10
On the Marvel scale, ALMOST as random as the actual Silver Age.

Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
This series is frustrating. It has interesting concepts and tons of great villains, but its search for an identity goes on for so long that even when it eventually ends on issue 50 I’m not entirely sure that it DID find an identity.
While the series will become quite interesting later on, the first Wolfman run is incredibly rough. And this issue is a good representation of that: WTF is Spider-Woman doing fighting a time-traveling evil witch!?

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How close is this to the modern character? 4/10
Morgan Le Fay doesn’t even take her classic look until her second appearance, in issue #5.
(well this is actually the last page of #4)

Morgan’s appearances on Spider-Woman are complicated, as everything related to Spider-Woman.
In her case, because Morgan is not actually in the present day: she’s stuck in the past, and interacts with the 20th century with her magic.

After her defeat, Morgan Le Fay won’t show up in this title again until #41, in 1981. By which point the series is written by Chris Claremont and penciled by Steve Leialoha.

Leialoha’s artwork in this period is a treat (unfortunately these issues are not on Marvel Unlimited so I can’t properly show how gorgeous they are)… but I still don’t understand how the heck Spider-Woman ended up mixed with all this Arthurian stuff.

This is PROBABLY because of Spider-Woman’s many confusing origins, one of which apparently connected her to the uber-demon/god Chton.

There’s clearly an effort to make Morgan Le Fay her nemesis, but she outmatches Spider-Woman to such a ridiculous degree that it just doesn’t work.

The first Spider-Woman series had one of the weirdest conclusions ever, and one of the ugliest covers ever as well.
(Spider-Woman is apparently played by Marvel secretary Lynn Luckman here)

By this point the writer is Ann Nocenti. Despite this being only the fourth time Morgan meets Spider-Woman, she’s definitely in full nemesis mode here.

In the story, Spider-Woman travels back in time with Magnus and defeats Morgan Le Fay by throwing her out of the castle, because the spell that keeps her in the 6th century prevents her from ever leaving it.

Even by Ann Nocenti standards, this story is WEIRD. It includes Spider-Woman dying…

…and Magnus casting a spell that erases from the entire world the knowledge that Spider-Woman ever existed!!!

That was one of the most unnecessarily sad ending to a series ever.

That doesn’t stick: Spider-Woman dies in 1983, but in the following year she’s resurrected (without powers) on Avengers #240/241.
Although the Avengers would probably have been screwed without Doctor Strange.

Also we get the full backstory of Magnus. Who would’ve thought that Morgan wasn’t interested in him except to get her hands on the Darkhold? He’s such a catch!

Her encounter with Doctor Doom in Iron Man #150 happened in 1981, between the publishing dates of her death and her return.
The significance of that encounter dwarfs everything she’s done so far.

She was the big bad behind the massively confusing event “Atlantis Rising” from 1995…

…and the FAR superior first arc of Avengers vol3, with amazing George Perez artwork, where she used Scarlet Witch to re-make reality into her own image.
Maybe because this is an AMAZING story, but this is the first time she really worked as the main threat.

If it wasn’t for her involvement with Doctor Doom in 2008, I suspect Morgan Le Fay would’ve slowly faded into obscurity as a very occasional villain for Scarlet Witch or maybe Doctor Strange.