‘Space Ghost’ #3 Review: Temptation And The Feminine Makes This The Best Issue Yet

This is the best issue of Space Ghost yet. After establishing a (questionable) darker tone in issue #1, and setting up the traditional Space Ghost status quo/storytelling engine in issue #2, Space Ghost #3 is the first issue that reads like a “normal” issue.

There’s a colorful antagonist, character development, an immediate plot that gets resolved in the course of the issue but still ties into the larger arc, etc. Nothing groundbreaking or revelatory, for sure, just basic comic book storytelling. But after a couple setup issues, it’s nice to see the series just showing what it can do with that setup.

If we continue the “Space Ghost as Batman” analogy from last issue’s review, Space Ghost #3 is basically a Catwoman team-up story. In the Widow (née Black Widow), we have a femme fatale with questionable motives who knows our hero a bit too well.

She offers to help the hero in a manner that seems too good to be true. The hero ultimately agrees to the team-up while still being wary of a double cross. And it’s hardly a spoiler to say that, in the end, the villain does double-cross the hero, but not in the way the hero expected.

What makes this chapter work despite its somewhat borrowed plotting is the way writer David Pepose uses it as a showcase for Jan. Even though the first two issues were largely about establishing the title character, it would be easy for Pepose to use this issue to do more of the same, to use the Space Ghost/Widow tension as a vehicle for further exploration of Space Ghost’s characterization. Instead, he takes the opportunity to further develop one of the book’s “Robins.”

Jan is shown to be smart, observant, resourceful, and determined. She zeros in on the Widow’s weakness right off the bat. When it becomes necessary, she uses it against her. Notably, she also catches on to the Widow’s ruse faster than Space Ghost and Jace. 

In fact, in a delightful turn, both Space Ghost and Jace kind of look like boobs through most of the issue. They basically try to brute-force or blast their way through obstacles while Jan does most of the thinking and (effective) fighting.

Not only does this give Jan room to shine, it also helps “normalize” Space Ghost’s characterization a bit; by showing him not at the top of his game, not in full command of the situation, for a change, he starts to sound more like a person and less like some combination of a grimdark caricature and 60s Batman-lite.

Space Ghost #3 is a success, then, because of the way Pepose zags away from the obvious setup of a Space Ghost/Widow confrontation. Instead of building the issue around the sort of twisted star-crossed lovers, hero/femme fatale energy common to these kinds of stories, he instead builds around the shared feminine energy of the Widow and Jan.

It is still a story of temptation, of an alluring antagonist trying to bring the hero to their side. But Jan turns out to be the target, not Space Ghost, and it falls to her to resist Widow’s temptations and save the day. Widow sees in Jan a younger version of herself, and offers her the power to create a life of safety and security for herself. That tension, of the Widow as a vision of Jan’s future instead of an allure to Space Ghost, ultimately elevates both Jan and Space Ghost as characters. Which results in setting a new bar for the series.