The “Dissembled” books were designed to set up the big re-set for the Avengers. This meant ending the solo books for Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor and, apparently, making some unwelcome changes for Spider-Man.
I’m going to blow through these because, although they’re not terrible, they certainly are not great.
Spider-Man takes on the Spider-Queen, a new villain. She can control people who have an “insect gene,” which of course means she force-kissed Spidey.
This all leads to Cap knocking her off a building.
But she’s not dead. And as a result of her kiss, Peter turns into the spider-creature featured on the cover to issue #18 (above).
Turns out, Spider-Queen is the result of a government experiment, blah blah.
Nick Fury gets involved and Peter ends up back to being human only now he can communicate with bugs and has organic webs and doesn’t need shooters.
I guess this is all fine and is a logical progression from the controversial work JMS was doing in the Amazing Spider-Man, with Ezekiel and the spider gods and such. The new powers are not my cup of tea, though. And it most certainly does not need the “Dissembled” tie-in banner.