J Michael Straczynski's run on Amazing Spider-Man is more often than not maligned, and unfairly so. People tend to remember when it all went off the rails at the end, with the revelation that the tragic Gwen Stacy had fathered twins with Norman Osborn before he went all Green Goblin and tossed her off a bridge to her death (one of those retcons that very nearly broke Spider-Man as a character) and the rightfully scorned One More Day (one of those retcons that very much broke Spider-Man by having him sell his marriage to Mary Jane to the devil, in order to keep Aunt May alive and thus messing up years of stories, because Marvel editor Joe Quesada said so). Before all that, however, the Babylon 5 creator managed to breath new life into a character who was still reeling from the one-two punch of Marvel's recent bankruptcy and the arguably even more devastating, creatively if not financially Clone Saga. Anyway, Straczynski knew he had to dispel all memories of that debacle, and he did so by telling some fairly decent, solid Spidey stories. Things got really interesting, however, when he decided to take the character in a new and radically different direction, helped by the stellar artwork of John Romita Jr. In The Book Of Ezekiel, which collected Amazing Spider-Man issues 506-508, the mysterious titular white-haired stranger who had shown up, exhibited a lot of similar powers to Spidey, and generally been a bit of a nuisance, revealed the true origin of Peter Parker's amazing abilities. The radioactive spider bite wasn't chance: he's part of a dynasty of people who inherit the totemic power of the mystical spider gods. Which, when we put it like that, sounds like embarrassing spiritual mumbo-jumbo, but Straczynski pulls it off and it adds an extra dimension to Peter's mission and place in the world.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
