**** (four of five stars)
Summary
Peter opens the arc debating whether to move to other locales in the wake of JJJ, Jr.'s election. Instead, he decides to offer Jonah a truce. When Jonah (shockingly) refuses said truce (and sics a SWAT team on Spidey), Peter decides to be Spidey 24/7, performing heroic acts just to annoy JJJ, Jr. However, Jonah deploys his special Anti-Spider Squad, a group of well-armed cops with a mission to stop Spidey. (Bet Vin regrets he's in jail for doing the same thing, but, you know, illegally.) Spidey's popularity builds, and the public even helps him escape the Anti-Spider Squad. Spidey also encounters a new version of the Vulture, who has been eating (yup, eating) criminals and appears to be touched by the Devil. (Just like Peter!) After (narrowly) escaping the Vulture, Pete discovers that Vin's sister has moved into the apartment (she's the one who paid the bills while Peter was in the Macroverse) and, well, let's just say the meeting doesn't go well. (But, we do get to see a naked Peter for four pages, so it wasn't all bad.) Peter eventually has a rematch with the Vulture, ruining a Mets game and finding himself the subject of the public's scorn yet again. Also in this issue: JJJ, Sr. proposes to Aunt May. That's it. Nothing else to mention really. Peter didn't walk into Aunt May's bedroom while she was getting busy with JJJ, Sr. Nope, he didn't.
Review
We take a break here from the ongoing sub-plots -- such as "What do you mean Spider-Man remembers people no longer remember his identity?" and "What the hell happened with Mary Jane?" -- for a walk down memory lane. Peter decides to take on JJJ, Jr. (heh) by being in costume all the time, showing New Yorkers what a hero he is. The result is the epitome of a happy-go-lucky, Friendly-Neighborhood Spider-Man story.
The Good
1) This arc is fun. The reason I rate this issue so highly, actually, is because it's just a good time.
2) However, despite being fun, the last scene -- where Spidey realizes that his anxiety over the last few weeks has been based on his unresolved relationship with Norman Osborn -- did a great job in returning us to reality. Peter did seem kind of unhinged in the FF arc (I thought he was being irrational over his refusal to unmask) and the need to show up Jameson by being Spidey all the time definitely wasn't coming from a good place. I totally buy that Norman Osborn's ascent to becoming America's top cop would push Peter over the edge, and I liked how Waid drew that connection. I don't know if it had actually been planned or if it was on a whim, but it does indeed give some clarity to Peter's behavior of late so I'll take it. Plus, Peter on a vendetta against Osborn is a fight I want to see.
The Meh
The new Vulture kind of falls in the same category of Menace and Mr. Negative for me: meh. I mean, we're not really given much here, so, like Menace and Mr. Negative in the beginning, I'll try to reserve judgment. But, my knee-jerk reaction is: meh.
The Unsure
I don't know what to think about the Aunt May/JJJ, Sr. situation. On one hand, Waid seems to be letting us know that it's not going to be the usual "Aunt May in love" story when Peter comments that JJJ, Sr. doesn't set off his Spider-Sense. It says to me that JJJ, Sr. isn't going to turn into some swindler or super-villain, like pretty much everyone else May has dated. On the other hand, why rush it? They've only apparently been dating a month in comic time, so why propose to her? Since Aunt May has been de-aged to be roughly in her 60s (rather than her 70s, which she always seemed to be), it's not like they're afraid one of them is going to die next week or something. I think (hope?) it's just the Spidey Brain Trust trying to move along the plot and not part of some diabolical plan. We shall see.
The Bad
I didn't really get why Vin's sister was so irate. Her reaction to seeing Peter was totally over the top in a pretty unbelievable way. I mean, people walk around their apartment naked when they think no one is home. It happens. I get that she was taken aback by Peter's sudden appearance in the apartment after his long absence, but, Jesus, it's not like he's just some guy off the street. He does actually live there. It was all just weird.
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