Welcome to the zero episode of the Make Mine Mayday Podcast, Hosted by Kelly McDaniel and Zach Joiner. This show’s mission is to not just review the books of the MC-2 universe, but tell the stories of the fandom from across the internet, new and old. It’s story is one of grit, strength, perseverance and determination, by not only what was on the page, but the fandom itself. The story that was published had humble beginnings.
In 1997, What If?! 105 (Cover date, February 1998) birthed a entire new universe. 8 months later, it was repurposed as one of three new books that would be launched as a new imprint known as MC2, the others being A-Next & J2. The What If? issue was remade as Spider-Girl 0 and just one week later, on 08/12/1998, the first issue of the ongoing was born, Spider-Girl, was released to the public. The first volume would be published on a monthly basis through July 12, 2006 (# 100, Cover dated for September) where it would be relaunched as Amazing Spider-Girl. However prior to that relaunch, the first volume was the longest continuous running Marvel character female-led title. It had strength in it’s fan-base as along the way, the character had appearances in in-universe books like A-Next, Avengers Next, Last Hero Standing, Last Planet Standing, along with the universe creating spin offs on-goings like J2, Fantastic Five, Wild Thing, The Buzz and Darkdevil.
It was the first Digital-First book in Marvel’s history. Spectacular Spider-Girl was the first original comic on the Marvel Unlimited App. It was given a ‘proper ending’ in the form of Spider-Girl: The End in August of 2010.
While many thought of this to be the end, years later the universe was seen in the Spider-Verse story-line in Amazing Spider-Man‘s 3rd volume, with her further adventures being seen in places like the mini-series such as Spider-Girls , Spider-Man: Spider-Island and Spider-Geddon, along with the short-lived ongoing comic Web Warriors. The character and her fans are a testament to the campaigns to save her numerous times. The title was cancelled nearly a dozen times, but was the little-title-that-could for many years. Now, many fans are meeting her for the first time.
Kelly McDaniel is a well-known cosplayer of the character, an advocate for the character, Podcast host in her own right as a panelist on the Spider-Man Crawl Space Podcast, & Two Geek Girls and has made appearances here on the Spideydude Radio Network on episodes of The Spideydude Experience, and will be launching another show with Sarah Branham called Marvelous Women. She’s been a collector of the books since the beginning and has nearly every issue printed that’s ever been made, as well as the various action figures and other merchandise that has been produced.
Zach Joiner’s affair with comics started with the infamous Spider-Man Clone Saga, where the concept of a child named May Parker was first proposed as a plot in the series. He would starting reading from the age of 6 until present day and has hosted or co-hosted a number of podcasts over the years, like Clone Saga Chronicles, Spectacular Radio, Spider-Man Crawl Space, The Spideydude Experience, and more.
Together they talk about their stories. We hope that you’ll enjoy this episode! Thanks for listening!
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