I don't know. But it ran for about two months (I think, please correct) in ALL the Spider-Man books you guys have.

Basicly Peter got an incurable, deadly disease... that the reader whas never informed exactly WHAT it whas. Then a lot of angsty stuff followed, and a bit of a doof where MJ and Aunt May in Iron Man armors broke into Dr Dooms fortress in Latveria to get their hands on a time machine. I'm not making that up. Then Morlun came and beat Peter around, ate one of his eyes fresh outta' the socket. When in hospital-aka-avengers home base Morlun came again and tried to eat Peter.

Then Pete turned into a REAL Spider-Man, with many eyes, hair and fangs and sprouted a STINGER in one of his arms and stabbed Morlun to death. Then he died in MJ's arms.

The next day he whas reborn... somehow. Sheded his previous skin and roosted in a cocoon.

Basicly. 0_o... Yeah, you tell me.

 

Yes, this was all part of "The Other: Evolve or Die" story arc taking place in:

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1-4 (parts 1, 4, 7, 10)
Marvel Knights #19-22 (parts 2, 5, 8, 11)
The Amazing Spider-Man #525-528 (parts 3, 6, 9, 12)

Is it any good? Parts perhaps but a lot of it I'd say is just wasted time.

 

I made the mistake of reading "The Other". I promised myself after they killed off Aunt May in Amazing #400, and then brought her back, that I would never read it again. I said it again when I found out that hack JMS turned Gwen Stacy into a slut who had sex with Norman Osborn and had kids with him. Yet for some reason I got sucked into "The Other" hype. And now I have wasted time and effore reading that crap.

*Edit* - And to top off the clusterfuck the crossover is, Pat Lee is one of the artists.

 

I disagree. By and large, JMS' stuff has been great with only a few clunkers along the way. In fact, someone here postulated, and I agree, that The Other was originally just going to be a sixish-issue arc by JMS in ASM as another chapter in the spider mythology mumbo jumbo that he introduced.
Somebody (coughQuesadacough) decided that it would be a better idea to stretch it out into an Event!!11one and the results have been decidedly less impressive than if it had just been limited to ASM.
There's a fairly solid idea in there, in the context of the rest of JMS' run, but it's been padded out to twice its intended/needed length, and it shows.

And the new costume sucks.

 

Great... now Spider Man has stepped through the obligatory "revolving door of death..."

He has been forever cheapened...

 

Most of his supporting cast has been through the "revolving door of death", so no surprise there. Aunt May, Norman (who was gone for fucking 20 years and should have stayed gone), etc.

 

I despise this arc (event, crossover, travesty, whatever).

Haven't purchased a single issue, but I've been reading it at my local shop (fear not, gentle comic fans - the guy makes enough money off of me without those books). It's been awful. Spidey gets stingers. SPIDERS DON'T HAVE STINGERS, though there's a half-assed explanation about that mumbled by some new (?) character I don't give a rat's ass about.

The art has been unimpressive on most of the titles (particularly Pat Lee's work, and my opinion isn't clouded by his Dreamwave fiasco on this). I think the worst bit is that the whole shoddy pile of monkey dung whipped by so FAST. Spiderman was dead for a grand total of, like, twelve minutes before his miraculous resurrection. I mean, c'mon. If you're gonna arbitrarily off an icon, at least keep him in the dirt for a few months before his corpse does whatever the hell it did to revive him.

It's like they're intentionally trying to top the Clone Saga as the most uninspired Mega Event Sales Push Marketing Bonanza ever. Even worse, you KNOW nothing here will have lasting ramifications, as Marvel will inevitably do away with this wackiness as the third film closes in.

 

I like this story. Is it the best thing ever? Not by a long shot. Could it be a lot worse? Hell yeah.

I don't like that Spider-Man "died," ala Superman, but I teared up reading his "death." At least they got that much right.

 

- Danger: Mild Spoilers Ahead(for peopl who haven't read the whole thing yet)-



Spiderman's death was probably the best thing about the title, seconded by Tracer, who's actually a pretty interesting villian.

The problem with the arc was involving 3 guys when JMS could have told the same story in half the length.

Peter David is a really good writer from what I've seen, and his first 3 issues were great.

Hudlin shouldn't be allowed near a pen and paper. He's got some of the worst dialogue i've ever read, his stories suck, and the guy has absolutely no idea how to write Spiderman. Starting with Hudlin's 3 parts of the story all the momentum just died out completely and it turned into an awkward, whiney angstfest. The fight with Morlun was at least pretty good.

JMS came on after him and sadly what should have been done issues ago had to be done now a third of the way through the story because Hudlin was too busy writing absolute crap.

The last 3 issues(cycling through each writer/artist once) have been ok. David's issue was really good but destroyed any momentum that JMS had build up. A story about Spiderman and MJ having fun and being releived could have, and should have waited until the story was over.

Hudling returned in the next issue and quickly got rid of the new villian so he could have more touchy feely crap with May and lots more talking in general. The issue ends how it should have began. It was meant to be a decent cliffhanger, but I can't see how they're going to fit everything in at a good pace in JMS' last issue of the arc.

Add onto all this that Pat Lee was one of the artists, and can't draw himself out of a hole(Interesting and humorous footnote: look at the last issue drawn by Lee, Part 11. He can't even draw Dr. Strange's moustache the same way for more than a panel. you heard me. He changes moustache every. freakin. panel.).

I think that's pretty much the best rundown on the series I can give.

 

So what happend to Spider-man? Did he get new powers?

 

I guess I should point out this'll contain spoilers....





Yes, Spider-Man got new powers. He kept those "Stingers" that he first used on Morlun and he's now got night vision so he can see even when it's pitch black. He seems be better in tune with his surroundings (such as feeling air currents with the hair on his arms or feeling vibrations on his web through the walls). He also found he could stick things to his back like he would while wall crawling.

Another note on the art... Morlun had broken MJ's arm in FNSM #3. Well it seems that they all forgot all about it because her arm wasn't shown to be broken in any of the issues after that.

 

Considering we still haven't gotten a definite answer whether or not the stingers are hardened web fluid, he may or may not have any genuinely "new" powers at all. Everything so far seems more like he's just been given "upgrades" to his old powers than getting new powers.

 

Hardened web fluid? Where did you get that idea from? It looks like the stingers work more like the way Wolverine's claws work. They pop out and can go back into his arms. Plus, he'd be using his web shooters if they were made of web fluid. We don't see that happening. His web shooters are in his wrists, but they show the stingers come out in a point a little higher up on his arms. Also, if they were made of webbing they wouldn't be attached to his arms like that. The stingers is something new, as is the night vision.

 

The web stingers clearly came out of his wrists the first time, later it was shown coming out a little above his wrist, but if there's one thing this series definitely did not have a strong point in, it's consistancy between artists. I'm just saying the verdict is still out on that one. Besides, if they were actual retractable spikes that lodge in his arms, I'm sure Tony would have come across it in his examination and mentioned something about it, he didn't. The night vision is probably an extension of his spider sense like feeling wind on his hair and vibrations in the web. It goes along more smoothly with what they were implying about how he got to a certain point with his powers and never pushed them farther... we're seeing the next level of the powers he already had, so to speak.

 

I wouldn't say the stingers clearly came from his wrists the first time. Close perhaps but not quite. I will admit that I find it odd they didn't detect the stingers while they put Peter through all those tests but I still don't think the stingers are related to his webbing.

His spider sense hasn't ever had anything to do with his eyesight before. However, Peter stopped wearing his glasses shortly after he got his powers. I suppose his eyesight could have been 'upgraded' to include the night vision. Kind of a side note but Spider-Man 2099 got night vision eyes after he got his powers.

 

Yes... but Peter himself had been pure... untainted by the dreaded curse. No longer....

 

So any other pics of what Pat Lee drew Man I can't believe They let him near one of my Favorite 2 characters in Comics