Alternate Cover: How I learned to stop worrying and love Brand New Day

This week, with the release of issue #558, Amazing Spider-Man has overtaken Fantastic Four to become Marvel’s highest-numbered title, following a recent increase in publishing frequency. We’re only halfway through April and 12 issues – normally a year’s worth – have been released in 2008. Four stories, each three issues long, each by different creative teams, but with plot threads weaving throughout which bind them together as a cohesive run.

Since moving to a thrice-monthly shipping schedule in January, Amazing Spider-Man has been fighting a difficult battle to recover, in the eyes of fandom, from the events of “One More Day” – a much-maligned storyline which saw Spider-Man make a deal with Marvel’s Devil, Mephisto, to save the life of his Aunt. The price? That he and MJ surrendered their marriage, having it written out of reality and wiped from their memories. With the deal struck, Peter Parker awoke in his Aunt’s house with an all-new status quo and no idea of what had transpired. Single, near-penniless, and with his best friend Harry Osborn alive and kicking for the first time since the 70s, the first wave of stories in this new setting were released under the umbrella of “Brand New Day” – a statement of intent for the new creative team and direction.

It’s fair to say that not everyone liked “One More Day”. I know I didn’t. I’m fairly level-headed as fans go, but even I was genuinely, profoundly angry at the story. Despite that, I ultimately had to face facts - it wasn’t going to go away simply because I thought it was badly written and poorly conceived. The deed was done, and swearing off Marvel comics forever wasn’t going to change that. “One More Day” was ultimately a story no more damaging to the character than the infamous clone saga, or the “dark” Spider-Man period of the early 90s. The badwill from those stories went away, and I have to believe that so will the badwill from this one.

With that in mind, I decided for the first time in years to start buying Amazing Spider-Man regularly at the start of "Brand New Day". I had been kept away from the title by JMS’ tenure as writer, and my attempts to get into the peripheral books, like “Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man” and “Marvel Knights Spider-Man”, were hampered by the limited scope they were afforded – the very thing that made Marvel replace them with two more issues of “Amazing” each month. With JMS gone and the promise of more frequent releases and some top talent on the book, I took the plunge.

You see, one thing I realised as I raged impotently against “One More Day” was that even though I hadn’t bought Amazing Spider-Man regularly in almost 5 years, I actually do care about the character. I want to read a good Spider-Man comic set in the Marvel Universe. "Brand New Day" offered exactly this – to get away from the gloom and return to a more classic setup. In my mind, the only way they could justify the events of “One More Day” was by making Amazing Spider-Man a better title than it had been in the last 10 or 15 years, and I had to know if they could do it.

I’ve got to hand it to them. They’ve largely succeeded.

See, Spider-Man is Marvel’s biggest character, and to reflect that, his book should be one of the best in the industry. There’s a blueprint for what made Spider-Man the iconic character that he is, and it’s contained in the first 39 issues of Amazing Spider-Man - the legendary Lee/Ditko run. Editor Steve Wacker and the rest of the Brand New Day team have brought that formula back with a modern spin. Once again, there’s a wide supporting cast. There are new, street-level supervillains and snappy dialogue aimed squarely at them. Peter is again the down-on-his-luck superhero who can’t catch a break. Is it flawless? No. Is it better than it was? Undoubtedly, yes. The writing is good, and the art is good, and even if something’s not to your taste, you know it’ll be gone very quickly and a new story will take its place.

I can’t forgive "One More Day"’s poor writing, or Quesada’s insistence that simply being married damages the character irreparably, or the character got so mangled by missing babies, new powers and the slow dissolving of his supporting cast that it had to come to a continuity reset - but after 12 issues of the most well-written and best looking Spider-Man stories in years, I have to say, I think I’m ready to forget.

James will be back with another Alternate Cover next week; you can read last week's column here.