AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #525-528; FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #1-4; MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #19-22 (2005-2006)

This is a busy crossover across three of the Spider-Man books, with three writers and three artists. It attempts to make some sense of the Morlun/Spider-Totem stuff introduced by JMS.

The story is told in three Acts. In the first act, Peter gets sick and learns he is dying. While receiving this news, a new villain named Tracer kidnaps Aunt May and Spider-Man strangles him to death.

Turns out, though, that he’s a robot so Spider-Man didn’t kill. But he was WILLING to.

Peter tries to get help from scientists to cure his condition (which is an unknown blood illness), but all the smarties can’t help him: Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, Doctor Strange, etc.

Believing he is dying, Peter takes his wife and Aunt to Latveria and uses Doom’s Time Machine to review his own past. Y’know, because that’s a responsible thing for a hero to do. He does a bunch of other things that dying people might do, like tries to make some money for May and MJ, and finally Morlun attacks.

He’s also changing and becoming more spidery.

Wolverine says it makes him have bad body odor.

And EAT’S HIS EYEBALL.

Gross.

We’re up to the third act, where Morlun leaves Spider-Man beaten nearly to death on the street. An EMT unmasks him to provide life-saving aid. His partner warns him that this will reveal his secret identity but…

He’s beaten so bad he’s unrecognizable.

A second confrontation with a completely bandaged Morlun leaves Morlun dead and Peter dying. He says goodbye to Mary Jane…

And then things get stupid. Jessica Drew says her powers are derived from a spider, too, so she can use her blood to save Peter (who is barely holding on to life through his mystical connection to spiders). Peter sheds his skin, talks with Spider Gods, and is reborn.

He returns to MJ, still living at Avengers Tower, and Tony Stark eavesdrops on him and starts building him ARMOR. Yuck. I hate armored Spider-Man. I also hated armored Daredevil. I’m fine with changing characters around, like having them get married or even having them switch bodies, but when you give Spidey armor the whole “every man” part of his character is removed. He’s a different guy. And I WANNA READ ABOUT SPIDER-MAN!

Tantrum over.

Anyway, Logan keeps hitting on MJ and apparently it earns him a kiss when this is all over.

We finally see the armor in Amazing Spider-Man #529, which is kind of a coda for The Other (even though it has a “Road to Civil War” banner on it).

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When I first read JMS’ Spider-Man issues I loved them.  On my first re-read I still loved them.  Now….Not so much.  I liked the early ones but these last few arcs aren’t so hot.

The last page of #529 has Spidey receiving a subpoena to testify about superheroes–marking the beginning of Civil War.

1 thought on “AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #525-528; FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #1-4; MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #19-22 (2005-2006)”

  1. Yeah its just a remake of the first Morlun story but longer and worse. It also redos the end of that Spider-Man Disassembled story where he transforms and gets new powers because I guess no one read that. It even recycles the plot point of Peter being unmasked but too messed up for anyone to recognize from Millar Spider-Man.

    JMS should have left with Romita Jr. He’d have had a near perfect tenure.

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