READING BETWEEN THE PANELS

Still in the early stages of its run, Spider-Man by Mark Millar and Terry and Rachel Dodson is shaping up to be one of the best Spider-Man stories of the past few years. Someone has kidnapped Aunt May, and Spider-Man has to find out why. And who. And where.
Millar seems to be able to breathe life into about any old, tired property he touches, finding the core of what made the character cool to begin with, and then expanding on it with kick-ass action sequences, witty dialogue, and plot twists out the yin-yang. Of course, this book is no exception.
I’ve been collecting Spider-Man books (from here on out referred to only as \"SM\" to save me the trouble of reaching for the hyphen key) for 14 years now (Christ, I’m fucking pathetic), and I honestly believe that this will be the most interesting story to come out of that entire time. Actually, it\'s probably the only interesting story, which is kind of sad to me that I’ve wasted a good portion of my life on this.
The Dodsons\' artwork is, of course, phenomenal. I wish I could have discovered these two earlier. They’re two of the premiere artists in the field right now.
So, if SM has never been your cup of tea, you probably won’t like this book, either. However, if you have ever liked SM, I feel that this story will be one for the ages. Pick it up now! Or wait for it to be collected in trade format. Whatever. I don’t care.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Okay, so, in hindsight there were, like, two other stories in all the years I’ve been reading SM books that I thought were interesting. The one where Peter told Aunt May about him being Spidey from 2002, and the one where Harry Osborn has these wicked hallucinations of his father and becomes the Green Goblin again. Someone please end this pathetic existence I live.