Amazing Spider-Man #1 Delivers What Fans Waited a Decade For

In the lead up to San Diego Comic Con next week, the weekly comic releases are traditionally a little light, but this week delivered a huge #1 for Marvel and it’s something fans have waited nearly a decade for.

Following the departure of Dan Slott from his vice-like grip on Spider-Man, Marvel gave the flagship title to Nick Spencer. His first issue does what Rian Johnson did to everything JJ Abrams setup in The Force Awakens, and cleaned house from the Dan Slott era. Just about everything big that Slott setup during his time controlling Peter Parker’s fate was thrown out in the trash in this issue, bringing Peter Parker “Back to Basics”.

I admit I enjoyed some of Slott’s run, Superior Spider-Man and Spider-Verse were a lot of fun, but a lot of it took Peter too far away from “Peter Parker” and too close to just being another Tony Stark. Zdarsky’s great Spectacular Spider-Man has been much closer to the Peter Parker you’d expect in comics, and Spencer is doing the same thing with his Amazing Spider-Man.

But the biggest thing he does in this issue is something every Spider-Man reader has waited a decade for. Ever since Marvel alienated millions of fans with retconning the Spider-Marriage…Peter and Mary Jane are back together.

The issue’s main storyline doesn’t do much to setup a future villain or threat (there’s a backup story for that), instead it’s Peter losing everything and his life going into the toilet, but the light at the end of the tunnel is that he’s back with MJ.

It’s going to take a lot of clever maneuvering in the writing to get past what is probably the most hated comic retcon in the last couple of decades, but Nick Spencer appears to be up to the task and this first issue of Amazing Spider-Man is a good start. It’s definitely recommended if you haven’t yet picked up the issue.