Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day #1: A Brighter Yesterday

t’s been nearly twenty years since One More Day rocked the world of Spider-Man, launching us into a brand-new vision of the character created under the Brand New Day initiative. For all of the controversy and criticism it has garnered since, there is still something unique about that era of the character that hasn’t quite been recaptured. With some minor changes, there could have been something magical behind the initiative that may have allowed it to shine brighter than the story that created it, and that’s exactly what Dan Slott and Marcus To have done with Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day #1.

Set ambiguously during the early days of the era, Peter finds himself in possession of Wilson Fisk’s black book, detailing the names at the head of every major crime operation in New York. Alongside Yuri Watanabe, he races to dismantle as many of them as he can, eventually putting himself in the crosshairs of both Mr. Negative and Frank Castle. From the plot summary alone, you can see Slott adding depth and course-correcting some of the decisions made by editorial during the launch of Brand New Day.

A huge part of that initiative was leaving classic villains untouched for as long as possible, giving the writing team room to create new antagonists for the character that would help clearly define the era as something fresh. That alone is a great idea, but there was never an explanation for why Peter never crossed paths with his repeat offenders. Sure, you don’t have to have Doc Ock or Venom showing up every other issue, but the lower-tier recurring villains are an important part of grounding the character’s “friendly neighborhood” persona.

They aren’t around during that time because Peter, taking the bull by the horns, put them away before they could stir up any trouble. This inadvertently paves the road for Mr. Negative to climb the New York crime ranks, making his sudden ascension more sensible. You can also see Slott taking some inspiration from Insomniac’s Spider-Man game, which borrowed a lot of its DNA from his work. The connective thread between Peter and Yuri is established earlier now as a result of their partnership in this story, helping this era finally earn iconography that later adaptations associated with it.

There’s a soft redux of One More Day and One Moment in Time that cuts the confusing, continuity-breaking details of those stories into a quick textbox that will be easily understood by anyone who has seen Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s clean, simple, and doesn’t allow any bad taste from those stories to infect the timeless fun of this issue. Punisher feels essential to the story, and the potential of him coming to blows with Mr. Negative is a tense, potentially explosive event that carries far more merit than I expected it to, given how clear a tie-in this title is to the MCU’s next shiny Spider-Man film.

All of this allows the issue to capture the spirit of Brand New Day better than the initial initiative did. This is a fresh start that any reader can jump into, one that returns the character to a classic status quo but isn’t scared of blending the old and new together. The iconography of Spider-Man and his world is still the beating heart of this post-reset story, blending what many different people love about the character into one distinct vision. Whether you love or hate a married Spider-Man, or only think he’s cool when he’s a clone, this is a Spider-Man story that everyone can enjoy.

Now, no matter how crazy The Amazing Spider-Man gets, or how cyclical it may seem, there’s finally a satellite title that lets readers jump into Spider-Man without baggage. Slott’s approach is classic, utilizing the characters and connections we’ve all loved for so long and pushing them in new directions. Marvel has needed a book like this on the stands for some time now. Not unlike the legends that inspired him, Slott’s return to Spider-Man on a title like Spectacular has the potential to carry the same impact that Gerry Conway had when he himself returned to the webslinger in the nineties through the satellite titles of the time.

Both Marcus To and Marcus Martin drive this home. Martin has two beautiful pages that catch new readers right up to speed on where in Peter’s continuity we are and what matters to this specific story. To’s work throughout this issue is nothing short of great, grounding the book with a sense of realism that never feels sterile. The composition is strong, and the layouts are a nice mix of classical grids and more dynamic decisions when the story calls for them. It’s nothing stylistically loud, but it carries the burden of consistency needed to help establish a new book as something with the strength to become an ongoing.

On that note, in this day and age, folks, you need to prove to Marvel that we want not just more books like this, but for them to last longer than ice cream in the Nevada desert. If you’re interested in this title, if you want more ongoing Spider-Man books to diversify your options, then get out there and pre-order future issues, subscribe to the title, and never shut up about the books that you love.