Amazing Spider-Man #49: Stranger Bedfellows

I have read a lot of Spider-Man comics, and I gotta be honest with you, this issue is the just about the most “Spidery” if you get my drift. It doesn’t matter if you’re reading this as Amazing Spider-Man #850 or Amazing #49, this issue is special, everything about it special. The story by Nick Spencer is really just steeped in Spider-Man lore. It couldn’t be told with any other hero, this is 100% a celebration of Spider-Man and his legacy. Spencer reaches back into the past and brings some classic friends and foes into the present, put a different spin on them, but not too different that we can’t recognize them. All this and Spencer holds Spidey’s feet to the fire by making him team-up with one of his most dangerous enemies ever.

The Sin-Eater storyline gets taken to another level, one that surprised me, honestly. There is just so much about this story that works, even though it’s an oversized issue, I wish there was more to it. Needless to say, this issue is 100% worth the wait, the months of build-up that Spencer has been working towards, this is one of the times that months and months of build actually pays off. I honestly think you’d enjoy it more if you’d have read each issue as it was released and not trade-waited or if you gathered the last year’s worth of back issues and read the last twelve issues in a row. For this story, the waiting gives you time to digest each issue and not just burn through them, forgetting stuff along the way. Take your time with this book, you’re going to enjoy it a lot more than if you read it in one sitting.

If you made a top five list of the best Spider-Man artists of this era, three names you’d find on it are Ryan Ottley, Humberto Ramos, and Mark Bagley. It just so happens, they’re all artists on this story. It’s incredible how you can look at issues they’ve each done and say “It’s amazing how they’re all different, yet each brings a special touch to the character,” but when you’re reading the story, you’re four or five pages into their art before you realize that the art has changed. It’s things like that are what makes this issue so magical.