Sometimes recap pages can be more helpful than you know. I jumped on to Amazing Spider-man back at issue 600, and for almost that entire time I couldn’t figure out – as hostile as his relationship with his roommate Michele has been all along – why were they even roommates in the first place. Now that I’ve had that little detail explained her character makes a heck of a lot more sense to me. Thank you recap page.

Now, as for the issue itself, we find this week the same thing we seem to find every week. Amazing Spider-man is one of the best books going. The fact that you could have as gut wrenching an issue as we got last week, and manage to so seamlessly follow it up with this funny little one-shot that mostly focuses on Peter and his roommate Michele, while still progressing with the frightening re-imagining of Peter’s rogues gallery is a testament to the great collection of talent Marvel has assembled for their arguably flagship book.