Spider Island is here, goofy name and all and “Amazing Spider-Man” #666 serves as the prelude to this much talked about storyline. In Spider Island, people of New York suddenly start gaining super powers, particularly spider powers. So far this has only been hinted at and we haven’t been given much detail. Here, writer Dan Slott sets up the event and introduces his main characters in 30 pages of well written fun.

Slott begins this issue in a much different way than I expected. Instead of jumping head first into the chaos, the first half of the book focuses on what would be a normal day in the life of Peter Parker. We get a thwarted robbery, Spidey wise-cracking, a Jonah Jameson tantrum, a look at Peter’s workplace, and more. The first half almost feels like an introduction to the character. But while there’s nothing particularly revealing in the first half, it’s a load of fun.

In the second half of the issue Slott begins expanding on the underlying premise of Spider Island. Spider powered people begin popping up all over New York and we get a look at some of the players responsible for the “infection”. There’s some cool cameos in the second half of the book but a few to many and I found myself a little lost as the issue ended. Still this was an excellent read and a nice setup issue.

Let me just say I really liked Stefano Caselli’s art. It has a slightly subdued stylized look that seems perfectly fitting for this book. More importantly, it’s not so over-the-top that it draws attention away from the greater story. The layout of the pages is pretty conservative and it really works here. It allows for more story and less wasted space. The characters look fantastic and the backgrounds have some great detail. While the art is a little stronger in the first half of the book, there’s not much I can gripe about. It looks great.

It’s hard to know what to make of Spider Island. Obviously the New Yorkers aren’t going to keep these new found powers when it’s all said and done and it’s hard to see how this can live up to the expectations.  But if every issue is as high quality as this one, I’m going to have a lot of fun with this.