Dan-Slott

Spider-Man is without a doubt the most popular and enduring character at Marvel Comics. Each month his title whether it is Amazing or Superior is the top selling title from the publisher. The creation of Peter Parker in 1962 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko was a revolutionary moment in comic history ushering in the era of everyman heroes and opening the superhero genre up to teenagers who were more than just sidekicks. In 2012 Spider-Man celebrated his fiftieth anniversary and that year also saw the 700th issue of Amazing Spider-Man. Both were major mile stones and Marvel celebrated them by having Otto Octavius (Doctor Octupus or Doc Ock for short), one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes, switch minds with him and then promptly killed off the body that Peter Parker was in. They ended the publication of Amazing Spider-Man and started a new title as a part of the Marvel Now initiative called Superior Spider-Man which followed Otto’s attempts to prove himself a better hero and a superior version of Spider-Man than Peter had been. Fans were understandably upset.

While I’m currently mostly focused on collecting the X-Men trades (because of the very complex storylines over all the involved characters), I decided to pick up the first two volumes of Brand New Day because they were in my local shop’s Buy Two, Get One Free hardcover section. Since it may be a while before I get Volume 3, 1 thought I’d take a look at how well these two volumes fit together within the larger arc of Brand New Day — especially since they were rotating writers at the time. It’s the first attempt at something I’ve been wanting to do here on CP! between POW! entries —go back and look at entire arcs and see how that changes how I view the individual issues. Well, let’s get started! ...