Things are getting interesting in the world of Spider-man. Spidy was recently asked by Tony Stark to join the New Avengers (although I thought that was in the Ultimates universe, so shouldn’t this story arch be in Ultimate Spider-man?) Anyway, tragedy has befallen the Parkers and Aunt May’s house has been burned down because of Peter. Enter Tony Stark with an offer to let all three Parkers (Aunt May, Peter, and Mary Jane) stay in the Avengers Tower. What follows is a fun romp through the introduction of the other New Avengers and some romance between Peter and Mary Jane, which is expected. But there are more important matters at hand than who is sleeping with whom in the Avengers Tower. It seems that the jerks who took over after Hydra was “destroyed” are being exterminated and Hydra is back in action. Only this time they have created a team of super copies to combat the heroes that defeated them the last go-round.

J. Michael Straczynski (writer) is making Spider-man history by making a somewhat interesting story that has some parts that are actually funny without every other line out of Peter’s mouth being a sarcastic pun. I know, it’s scary. The artwork is somewhat mainstream, but with more lines and shadowing. It’s pretty good stuff done by Mike Deodato (pencils) and Joe Pimentel (inks), and is consistent and well planned as well.

The return of Hydra is definitely something to take note of. This issue was pretty slow-paced, but something tells me things are about to pick up. It seems like this may be more in the New Avengers realm than just Spider-Man, but we’ll see. This story has some potential, but I am afraid that a campy bizarro team story is going to prevent it from being great. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

-Fumanchu