3. Superior Spider-Man by Dan Slott et al. (Marvel)
Dan Slott took a lot of heat for his controversial decision to kill off Peter Parker and replace him with Otto Octavius, but it turned out to be the right one as Superior Spider-Man has proven to be one of the best Spider-Man stories in the character's remarkable history. A dying Doc Ock manages to switch his mind with Peter's, giving him Peter's body while Peter inherits Ock's diseased soon-to-be-corpse, eventually killing him. Except it doesn't entirely, as remnants of Peter's mind exist within his real body, unbeknownst to Otto, along with fragments of his moral code, holding Otto back from going full-on supervillain. With Otto as Peter Parker, he resolves to continue being Spider-Man albeit a better version of the flawed superhero - a Superior Spider-Man! It's been quite a journey seeing Otto adjust to his new worldview. The way Slott's handled it has been superb, like showing Otto adapting his knowledge of robotics to suit Spider-Man's mission. In order to help him police New York, Otto has hundreds of mini-spider-bots scuttling about the city, alerting him of any crimes in that region. He's also had spider-arms grafted onto his back, and hired a group of minions for his new headquarters, Spider Island, from where he launched an attack on the Kingpin's Shadowland, single-handedly taking it down in one issue! Fans worried that, because nobody in Peter's life knows Peter is dead and replaced by Otto, that there would potentially be a deeply unsettling rape scene between Otto and Mary Jane, but Slott dealt with it wonderfully and tactfully, even leading Otto away from MJ to a new love interest, Anna Maria, whom Otto falls for for her intelligence. There have been more controversial moments as Spider-Man has killed one of his long-standing (albeit minor) villains and some readers have bewailed the treatment of their beloved superhero, though the risks Slott and his team have taken show in the freshness of the series - literally every aspect of Spider-Man gets remade in this series, rejuvenating the character for a whole new audience. There's no way I could do the series justice by talking about every detail I've loved because there's just too many, but suffice it to say that Superior Spider-Man is a triumph in every way. Marvel's flagship character is reborn as one of its most exciting and edgiest in this thoroughly entertaining and imaginative series.