Amazing Spider-Man #700, Superior Spider-Man, & Recent Pick-ups

I had a sudden reawakening in my nostalgia for Spider-Man this week when at The Fantasy Shop picking up some of the new Marvel Now! and DC New 52  titles I'd been keeping up on. While talking to the manager I noticed a postcard advertising the heavily hyped final issue #700 of Amazing Spider-Man,  and casually suggested they must be all sold out. "No, I believe there's one more," said Dan, walking to the racks to show me. As he put it in my hand I realized the times I'd passed on it in my recent comic excursions, and bought the hefty issue on impulse. It added another eight bucks to my bill, but I was drawn to, no compelled to take it home. Friends, this was a fateful moment- I was hooked! Spider-Man is definitely a favorite, but as Dan said, like Super-Man, Spider-Man isn't one of those that comes to mind now when asked to name your top ten. Yes, everyone loves Spidey, but he's so big that he's kinda in a class of his own. He's accessible to us because he is the "every man", and as writer Rob Williams said at the end of the December Avenging Spider-Man Annual #1, his inherent goodness. "Spidey does this more than any super hero I can think of, usually to the cost of his own personal life. And that's why he's so beloved, I think. He does this when he's any ordinary guy." 

I had such a fun time reading issue 700 that I picked up #699 and Superior Spider-Man #1, book-ending this tale of Peter Parker's mind swap with Otto Octavius, and his subsequent death that touched Dr. Octopus so profoundly that he vows to carry on Peter's legacy smarter and stronger than before. I know this sounds crazy, but it totally sucked me in. I was so absorbed that I picked up several odd issues of Avenging Spider-Man as the weekend progressed, including a TPB of the first five issues and the December Annual, hungry for more adventures with the webbed wall-crawler. Avenging Spider-Man is a great title- I didn't know what I was missing! Lots of team-up action with other Marvel heavy hitters like Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Deadpool, and Red Hulk. Greatness!

While picking up Amazing Spider-Man #700, I grabbed more Marvel Now! and DC New 52 titles I'm enjoying: Cable and X-Force, Fantastic Four, and Thunderbolts #3, Thor: God of Thunder #4, and Earth 2 & World's Finest: Huntress & Power Girl #8.  Cable and X-Force and Thunderbolts have been intriguing, and I can't say enough good things about Thor: God of Thunder- wow!  Earth 2 has been a lot of fun, and Wonder Woman's child, Fury, who was raised by Steppenwolf  makes an appearance with the warlord of Apokolips-exciting! World's Finest perked up during #6 and 7, but I mostly hang in for it's ties with Earth 2. I continue to pick up Fantastic Four for similar reasons, it's ties with my favored title FF, drawn by the great Mike Allred. The last month has been filled with a lot of really exciting reading!  

 More Later- Make It FUN!