Now I honestly expected this issue to be trash tier, and I wasn’t even going to buy this book TBH, but I just couldn’t resist checking it out. And man, am I glad I did. This was some great stuff. I love that Spencer brought MJ back as a major supporting character. I’m glad Spencer got rid of that stupid science editor job and put Peter back in school doing science where he belongs. Even though I didn’t like all the overly Parker Luck stuff that happened extremely abruptly, Spencer did it right by also showing how Peter was actually competent (he had a better theory than Doc Ock did anyways, he just didn’t get to show it) and I’m glad Peter is well aware of who Boomerang is. And of course, that Mysterio backup was just crazy (in a good way). For a bit, I wasn’t sure if the weird hallucination guy was supposed to be Mephisto, but it looks like it’s a continuation from FNSM which is still interesting enough. Anyways, I hope Spencer is done breaking Peter down, since it looks like Peter has a long way up from here (get his PhD and then go back to being a well respected scientist). Overall, amazing first issue, and I hope this is a sign of things to come from Spencer.
As for things I didn’t like, there were only a few bits. The heroes disliking Spider-Man in the beginning still felt disrespectful, and even though Spencer tried to explain it, he didn’t succeed. I didn’t see any connection between Peter refusing to take the key to the city from Fisk and the heroes hating Peter. The ESU anti-plagiarism demonstration also seemed very rushed; unless Spencer’s planning to reveal that lady is a super villain or has some sort of ulterior motive, it is a bit weird. I also didn’t like Peter making it seem like keeping the doctorate he got from Ock was a bad thing. He literally had no way to renounce that doctorate without revealing his secret identity, and he has already shown that he has the knowledge and intelligence worthy of any number of PhD degrees, so I don’t think it’s fair to blame him for not revealing his secret identity. Finally, I didn’t think Ottley’s art was that great - it was good for most of the issue but some panels were really bad IMO. It’s probably just me, since I prefer realistic rather than stylistic art, but I thought it detracted from the quality of the issue. But I’m glad to say that’s all I didn’t like about the issue.
I know I said I’d be dropping ASM after that horrible ASM 800, but I’m glad I couldn’t keep my vow. If Spencer can keep this quality and characterization up throughout his run, I think we have another classic Spider-Man run on our hands!