Spider-Man has been going through a lot of crap lately. First, he becomes Tony Stark’s personal whore and switches to a super high-tech, poorly designed (aesthetically speaking) costume. He supports the Registration Act because his daddy figure, Stark, supports it. Then he’s coaxed in to revealing his true identity by Stark on national T.V.
Then he realizes that Stark has been spying on him this whole time, and is actually quite creepy. He has a change of heart and decides Captain America will be his daddy instead. Thanks to this switch Spidey becomes a wanted criminal. Then Captain America decides to throw in the towel on a whim and Spidey is left without a daddy once again. Even worse, thanks to trying to please Stark, the entire underworld knows that his true Identity is Peter Parker… so Aunt May ends up getting plugged by a sniper’s bullet. Parker flips out and decides it’s time to abandon everything his Uncle told him… you know, that stuff about “great power” and “responsibility”? Nah… that’s out the window! Spider-Man is now Back in Black and, as he repeatedly reminds us, is ready to kill anyone responsible for his Aunt’s shooting.
Come to think of it, Spider-Man hasn’t actually killed anyone yet. He’s pretty much all talk. He claims he would have gladly killed Aunt May’s assassin, but he didn’t get that chance as another assassin popped a cap in the first one. So we really can’t be for sure about this one.

Although this story line is mildly entertaining, I’m pretty sure this is just a gimmick to make Spider-Man comic books match up a little better with Spider-Man 3 so as to sell more tickets and more comics. Some of the dialogue is also rather cheesy. Like all Spider-Man comics, Spidey has a constant inner dialogue going. In this series he keeps thinking about how he will stop at nothing to avenge May. At one point he tell M.J. “It’s a good thing I have something to do. Otherwise I think I’d just rip my own eyes out.” Talk about a little melodramatic, Peter.
The constant reminders that Parker is feeling somewhat unstable right now are wearisome. Sure there are panels of beaten up bad guys here and there, but when hasn’t Spider-Man beat up the bad guys?

Maybe I’m being a little too harsh on our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man… after all he was raised by his Aunt after indirectly getting his Uncle killed and never having a mother or father. He was also molested as a child and just went through a very wordy, almost action-less war… I’d most likely want to rip my own eyes out also.