Just what the doctor ordered
I saw an ad for this book coming out about two weeks ago. It said something like, "what you've been waiting for is finally here." And I realized I hadn't been waiting for Avenging Spider-Man because this ad was the first I had ever heard of the title's existence, proof positive that I mostly ignore pretty much every non-story-panel page in any book I read. But I saw two things in that advertisement, the name Spider-Man and the name Zeb Wells and I said, "ok, ad. now I am waiting for this and I'm happy it's finally here."
I read this book second this week (after X-Force, of course, because that book would make Jesus himself put off a second coming before interrupting it's current Dark Angel saga). And this new Spidey book looks exactly like what I want in a Spidey book: humor, adventure, playful yet exciting art. And the interesting twist of one of Marvel's newest heroes teaming up with Spider-Man to face one of its oldest villains is clever and fun and it made me say, "right on." I say that when I'm excited, see? We all just came off of Spider Island, and it was a pretty great arc. But the previous year or so of ASM has been slow and clunky, making me wonder when Pete was going to return to the top of my pile. This issue, I believe, is the thing I needed most to remember why Spider-Man is one worth reading, one of my favorites. One of the best.
Now it's dilemma time. This promises to be an on-going series, and I will be keeping up. It was worth the four bucks and it will continue to be worth the four bucks every month while Zeb Wells is at the helm. He's fantastic and he writes Spidey better than most (in my opinion, even better than Dan Slott). But who gets kicked out of the file to make room? I just spent all this time whittling down my pull-list to make it more cost-effective, and I can't just go adding in new stuff. But here's the thing. That's somebody else's problem. This book looks like the one to add and the one to keep an eye on as 2012 is on the way. Right on.
