Okay, I am an old fart. 46 to be exact. My Spidey reading started in 1972, i have seen a lot of good and bad.

ASM #648 was IMO did a great job of keeping elements that work from recent continuity. It would have been nice to see a reboot that was clean but not realistic. Slott was writing Peter Parker in this issue very well, I was very pleased. The book was nicely compressed and offered a lot, no wasted pages. The changes in the status quo of our players was handled subtle enough to not jar a reader into a sense of  “too much too quick”. It reads like a jump on issue of Spidey.

The art. I am too biased here. Humberto Ramos is a great artist for Amazing Spider-Man. His style is his own and his Spider-Man to me is a natural evolution of Ditko, Romita, McFarlane to now.

If you read Shadowland: Spider-Man you know Mr. Negative is sticking around. I am sure “Grim Hunt” continuity will as well with the Spider-Girl book. Osborn looms as a threat. Slott has a great well to draw from, this book was enough of a great start to have me add it to my sub list.

Is it $125 good to warrant grabbing the Campbell variant? Marvel can bite me for that one.
But I am quite happy with my regular cover.

To close, if you like Spidey and have been sad lately over BND, buy it. Better yet buy the Shadowland book as well. IMO you’ll wish you had later.

Dan Slott DO NOT DROP THE BALL! Joe Q LEAVE THIS MAN ALONE!