This begins the historic run by J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita, Jr. We know it’s historic because it adopts the legacy numbering.
Spider-Man wasn’t terrible before JMS got there, but he was pretty stale. Recently, Mary Jane was “dead” (but nobody really thought she was) and Spider-Man saved her from a kidnapper who committed suicide.
A few days later storywise, Mary Jane has decided to leave because of Peter Parker’s lies about having given up being Spider-Man. We learn that on page one.
PAGE ONE
This first issue is fairly simple–it is setting the tone for the new creative team. Peter goes around the city doing a few good deeds, and then he comes across a man named Ezekiel who seems to have the same power set as Peter, knows his identity, and asks this question:
And then on the last page we meet Morlun, who appears to have some kind of “power vampirism,” and is keeping a super-powered German kid named Dex in his basement. He kills him (off panel).
And then he needs another victim.
The stories of Morlun and Ezekiel will go across many issues. JMS’s run is very unusual, highly controversial, and…One of my favorites.