**** (four of five stars)
Favorite Quote: “It’s like you left your camera on a ledge and walked away or something." -- fashion magazine guy to Peter, after flipping through his portfolio
Summary
In the first "Brand New Day" arc, Peter is now living with Aunt May, since, due to the Superhuman Registration Act, he can no longer appear as Spider-Man and, therefore, Peter Parker can't make a living taking photos of Spider-Man. Peter is mugged outside a club by the "Spider-Mugger," a guy who's been mugging people while wearing a Spider-Man mask. The mugger takes not only Peter's wallet but one of his Web-Shooters (they're back!), mistaking it for a watch; Peter tags the mugger with a Spider-Tracer to find him eventually. Later, desperate for cash to pay back money he owes Aunt May and Harry, Peter screams at JJJ for money he owes him; JJJ proceeds to have a heart attack while screaming, "Parker!" Marla Jameson sells JJJ's shares of the "Daily Bugle" to Dexter Bennett. Meanwhile, Spidey mistakes the mugger for a guy leaving a bar at the same time; the guy winds up being the (dim) scion of two mafia families. A new villain, Mr. Negative, is using the scion's blood to create a genetically-specific poison, which he releases at a meeting of the two families in an attempt to take control of the underworld in the resulting power vacuum. Spidey can't save the mafiosi but he does save their children. Mr. Negative makes Spidey give him his blood as insurance, pledging to make a poison to kill Spidey's blood relatives (not realizing Peter doesn't have any) if he causes problems for him in the future. In the end, Mr. Negative's revealed to be the operator of the homeless shelter where Aunt May volunteers. (Dum-dum-dum!)
The Review
Favorite Quote: “It’s like you left your camera on a ledge and walked away or something." -- fashion magazine guy to Peter, after flipping through his portfolio
Summary
In the first "Brand New Day" arc, Peter is now living with Aunt May, since, due to the Superhuman Registration Act, he can no longer appear as Spider-Man and, therefore, Peter Parker can't make a living taking photos of Spider-Man. Peter is mugged outside a club by the "Spider-Mugger," a guy who's been mugging people while wearing a Spider-Man mask. The mugger takes not only Peter's wallet but one of his Web-Shooters (they're back!), mistaking it for a watch; Peter tags the mugger with a Spider-Tracer to find him eventually. Later, desperate for cash to pay back money he owes Aunt May and Harry, Peter screams at JJJ for money he owes him; JJJ proceeds to have a heart attack while screaming, "Parker!" Marla Jameson sells JJJ's shares of the "Daily Bugle" to Dexter Bennett. Meanwhile, Spidey mistakes the mugger for a guy leaving a bar at the same time; the guy winds up being the (dim) scion of two mafia families. A new villain, Mr. Negative, is using the scion's blood to create a genetically-specific poison, which he releases at a meeting of the two families in an attempt to take control of the underworld in the resulting power vacuum. Spidey can't save the mafiosi but he does save their children. Mr. Negative makes Spidey give him his blood as insurance, pledging to make a poison to kill Spidey's blood relatives (not realizing Peter doesn't have any) if he causes problems for him in the future. In the end, Mr. Negative's revealed to be the operator of the homeless shelter where Aunt May volunteers. (Dum-dum-dum!)
The Review
I’ll preface this section with the following statement: this arc was the most fun I’ve had reading a Spider-Man comic in a long time. Based on the letters in subsequent issues, I wasn’t the only one to feel that way.
The Really Good
The Really Good
I really, really liked the Peter voiceover typeface. Steve Wacker notes in the letter page that the editors and the letterers went back and forth about the right font and size for Peter’s voice-overs and the amount of attention they paid to that detail really shows. It’s intimate and fun at the same time. It really conveys the sense of excitement I used to feel back in the day when a editor's note would say "See ish #xxx for the deets!" and I'd think "I know! I read that one!" It goes a long way to re-establishing a connection with the comic, something the editors are also doing by re-instating a letters page. So, well done, letterers, you unsung heroes of comic books!
The Good
The Good
1) OK, so, a lot of the questions I mentioned having after reading “One More Day” are addressed here, by both the story and the “Spider-Man: The New Status Quo!” two-page spread. Peter is living with Aunt May not because he never left home but because he’s broke. Harry has been “in rehab” “in Europe” for a while, though it’s unclear how long. (I’m assuming that the events of "Spectacular Spider-Man" #200 still happened, based on the “Spider-Man: The New Status Quo!” spread. I hope they did, because that story was really well done and I’d hate to see it obliterated.) I’m hoping this means that revealing how Mephisto’s actions affected the Spidey universe will be ongoing interesting sub-plots, rather than overly complicated distractions.
2) I’m excited to see Spidey back-to-basics in terms of his powers and abilities. I missed the whole Queen/Spider-Totem/etc. storylines, but, from what I’ve read, it seemed to me that Spidey was almost invincible by the time all the extra powers and abilities were added. But, part of Spider-Man’s charm has always been his limitations, both as Peter Parker and as Spider-Man. I’m glad to see we’ll be getting more of the original Spidey here. Plus, the Web-Shooters are back! I've always loved them, because they remind us that Pete's a smart guy not just a strong one. Having them stolen by the mugger was a great way of highlighting that it's a...um...brand new day.
3) Similarly, I like the way they’re also presenting a back-to-basics Peter. The sequence in #546 where he realizes he has terrible job recommendations (since he was constantly missing work) and no applicable job skills was really well done. It harkens to the good old days, when Peter was a broke student but had a fun life. It’s great to see and maybe, just maybe, I’m seeing Quesada’s point that the character had gotten weighed down by the constant threats to his family that became the major trope of the last 15 years or so of Spider-Man stories. (Though, I see that Aunt May is YET again somehow living/working in the vicinity of a villain. Le sigh.) I also give the Spidey Brain Trust credit for focusing on the fact that Spider-Man’s identity is secret again as the focus of the first post-“One More Day” arc. The emotions from the other major change -- the dissolution of Peter and MJ’s marriage -- were too raw; it would’ve been a dark beginning. Clearly the Brain Trust wants us to return to happier times and it's accomplished that here. It’s clear we’ll discover more about the MJ side of the story eventually, but, in terms of bringing back the old Spidey, the editors and writers have accomplished what they wanted to do.
4) It wasn’t until I saw the full-page spread of Spidey in #547 that I realized we actually didn’t see Peter in costume (except in flashback) in #546. I cheered a little. It’s nice to have him back. I gave up reading him during all these ridiculous plot twists that turned the various Spider-Man books into dark, Dostoyevskian dramas. I’m digging the return of a happy-go-lucky Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. So, I cheered a little. Sue me.
The Meh
2) I’m excited to see Spidey back-to-basics in terms of his powers and abilities. I missed the whole Queen/Spider-Totem/etc. storylines, but, from what I’ve read, it seemed to me that Spidey was almost invincible by the time all the extra powers and abilities were added. But, part of Spider-Man’s charm has always been his limitations, both as Peter Parker and as Spider-Man. I’m glad to see we’ll be getting more of the original Spidey here. Plus, the Web-Shooters are back! I've always loved them, because they remind us that Pete's a smart guy not just a strong one. Having them stolen by the mugger was a great way of highlighting that it's a...um...brand new day.
3) Similarly, I like the way they’re also presenting a back-to-basics Peter. The sequence in #546 where he realizes he has terrible job recommendations (since he was constantly missing work) and no applicable job skills was really well done. It harkens to the good old days, when Peter was a broke student but had a fun life. It’s great to see and maybe, just maybe, I’m seeing Quesada’s point that the character had gotten weighed down by the constant threats to his family that became the major trope of the last 15 years or so of Spider-Man stories. (Though, I see that Aunt May is YET again somehow living/working in the vicinity of a villain. Le sigh.) I also give the Spidey Brain Trust credit for focusing on the fact that Spider-Man’s identity is secret again as the focus of the first post-“One More Day” arc. The emotions from the other major change -- the dissolution of Peter and MJ’s marriage -- were too raw; it would’ve been a dark beginning. Clearly the Brain Trust wants us to return to happier times and it's accomplished that here. It’s clear we’ll discover more about the MJ side of the story eventually, but, in terms of bringing back the old Spidey, the editors and writers have accomplished what they wanted to do.
4) It wasn’t until I saw the full-page spread of Spidey in #547 that I realized we actually didn’t see Peter in costume (except in flashback) in #546. I cheered a little. It’s nice to have him back. I gave up reading him during all these ridiculous plot twists that turned the various Spider-Man books into dark, Dostoyevskian dramas. I’m digging the return of a happy-go-lucky Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. So, I cheered a little. Sue me.
The Meh
I’m reserving judgment on the back-up stories. We’re clearly supposed to believe that Jackpot is Mary Jane, though it seems a little too easy to be true (and I think I remember reading somewhere it’s not). The story was a little too brief -- as were Aunt May’s and Harry’s -- to draw any real conclusions. But, if done well, they could be an interesting insight into new old characters. However, other than "Captain America’s" Nomad side feature, Marvel doesn’t do secondary features as well as DC does, so, we’ll see if they continue.
The Bad
The Bad
As we all know, time is a fluid concept in comics. I get that. But, despite Mephisto’s actions not undoing time, everyone (even -- if not particularly -- Aunt May) looks and acts much, much younger. It’s pretty clear that the writers are approaching the characters as recent college graduates, giving everything a “Real World” (yes, I’m dating myself there; "Jersey Shore?") feel, despite the fact that, in the earlier timeline, they were probably in their late 20s to early 30s. Peter even refers to himself as being “too young to be married,” which, I guess is subjective, but is there definitely to imply that he’s a young man. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, in terms of plot (Petey macking on the ladies!), but it’s a little intellectually dishonest. It also raises the nagging questions about what exactly the Mephisto deal changed. For example, we’re supposed to buy Harry as a swinging man-on-town, but, um, doesn’t he have a kid? I mean, presumably Liz left Harry, but was Normie ret-conned from existence? I can handle the questions inherent in this exercise, but, by more or less de-aging the characters, it could make some of the reveals seem a little odd.
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