Written by: Tom Taylor
Art by: Yildiray Cinar, Nolan Woodward, and VC’s Travis Lannham
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 10, 2019

I jumped on this book, not because I was a Spider-Man fan, but because I am a Tom Taylor fan. He is one of my favorite writers out there and I will always give everything he is attached to a try. I am so glad I did and this has quickly become my Spidey book. Does that continue being the case after this issue? Let’s find out…

The story opens with what we knew was coming, Aunt May telling Peter she indeed has cancer. The thing is…the Big C isn’t the only awful thing in this scene…the other awful thing is Peter! He tells Aunt May that he won’t be around to go to chemo with her and I wanted to reach into the comic and slap him silly!

He does go off to blow off some steam and that’s where we get the forward progression. Peter ends up stopping a young kid he recognizes from the neighborhood from stealing a car, but it ends up being deeper than that. It also ends up being some fast and the furious fun with Peter taking the wheel and eventually taking it all to the sky. Yildiray Cinar is on art this month and does a really good job with the fast-paced scenes in the middle of the issue and Nolan Woodward’s colors are pretty awesome too.

Tom Taylor then does a pretty clever thing. In a comic world (and one where Peter has had issues like this before) where sickness and death can be wiped away with a gem and a whisper, Peter is told by Doctor Strange that some things just have to be left the way they are. While this may be a little wink at the past or even the future, I can see it just being Taylor taking that route off the board right away so we can move on with the story no matter how heartbreaking it will be.

Speaking of heartbreaking, the cliffhanger does a total 180 and got me in the feels the way that Tom Taylor always seems to be able to do. I’m not sure if that is his superpower, but it certainly is my weakness.

While you can look at this issue and say that not much happened, you won’t hear that from me. With Taylor, it’s not always the sum of the parts, but the little things that make up each and every scene. He builds his characters a little at a time and then throws something at you and you’re surprised with how attached you are to each and every one of them. Five issues in and I am already there! To wrap up the introduction above, this still is my Spidey book and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Final Thoughts:

While the overall story going on here is breaking my heart, I love this book and everything that Tom Taylor is doing with it. Sure, it’s the “street level” Spider-Man book, but it’s also the Spidey book with character and emotion and that’s what I’ve come to expect from Taylor.

9.0/10