4. Brand New Day
After the sheer mind-numbing awfulness of One More Day, Marvel dropped Straczynski and picked up a new team of writers, among them the brilliant Dan Slott, to restore Spider-Man to his former glory in a brand new storyline. Brand New Day goes some way to undoing the damage of One More Day and the less damaging but still not great Civil War storyline, as Spider-Man's secret identity is restored - though his relationship with MJ is distant at best. Peter is living with Aunt May trying to get some money together for his own place; Robbie Robertson hires Peter to get new photos of Spidey for the Daily Bugle to raise sales; and even the Green Goblin, Harry Osborn, is alive and living in Europe. The storyline introduced some interesting new villains in Overdrive and Mister Negative, while also hinting MJ herself is a secret superhero, Jackpot. It turned out MJ wasn't Jackpot, but maybe the movie could go a different way and make her a superhero - give MJ more to do than just be the squealing damson in distress? There are a ton of awesome storylines in Brand New Day, with the tone being a lot merrier and entertaining - more in common with classic Spider-Man - than a lot of other recent Spidey comics. That tone would be a welcome change to the angsty-Spider-Man we've seen in the last couple movies.