Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man #5

“Not Running”

Writer:  Tom Taylor

Artist:  Yildiray Cinar

Cover Art:  Andrew C. Robinson

Peter finally gets the lowdown on Aunt May’s cancer and his reaction is the focus of the book.

I really enjoyed this.  Peter initially pushed away from May, which felt unlike him, but he was working through his issues.  What I liked is that Peter did not become someone that he was not after getting the news.  He reacted very humanly, but understandably while still being the Peter Parker we recognize.

I thought he might go out and deliver some serious beatdowns as Spider-man after getting the news, but the issue took this deeper than that by presenting Peter with a moral dilemma instead of just giving him a super villain to pummel.

Then, the whole Dr. Strange cameo showed a different side to the whole One More Day storyline, a storyline that famously had the character of Spider-man act in a way that many believed he would never have done.  The deal with Mephisto tainted Spider-man for many years and this arc seems to be showing what Spidey really should have done during that time. At least, it has some echos of the story.

The pages of interactions with Peter and Dr. Strange were wonderful and showed a great deal of both characters.

I enjoyed this issue very much.  I never expected Peter to be anywhere but where he ended up in this story.