Amazing Spider-Man by JMS Ultimate Collection - Book 5 [Paperback]

I have read all of the trades of this book which are Road to Civil War, Spider-Man: Civil War, Back in Black (I think its own the main trade of Black in Back though) and One More Day. But before I review each of the stories I will talk about the quality of the book itself. The collection of J. Michael Strazynski's run in this binding is just as good as the other collections and it's good to see Marvel didn't skip out on the quality of the paper.

The story opens with Spider-Man wearing Tony Stark's new costume designed for him and fighting crime in it. The stories here aren't bad or anything but they don't leave much of a impression. Having Spider-Man fighting crime is okay but a whole story shouldn't be based around that.

The second story is the interesting Spider-Man: Civil War tie in that has great art but also shows the conflict that Peter has to go through. Doing what he knows is right, or letting down Tony Stark who he looks up too as a father (I know that Peter was thankful to Stark but I'm hoping his relationship with him was developed more in previous volumes) Not to mention it's ending makes you want to pick up the next trade.

After that we have Back in Black which is a very dark story line showing how angry, dark and brutal Peter can get. The Kingpin is drawn to be incredibly smug and sinister and the reader knows that it's building up to a great fight. While it is a solid story, it's somewhat pointless thanks to the next story and plenty of darker and better stories have been told (The best one being Born Again)

The volume ends sadly on the awful note of One More Day. (Although it can be debated how much of this story was J. Michael Straczynski as much as it is Joe Quasada's) the story line is a joke and the art is godawful. It destory's Spider-Man's character and it made me completely drop the book. Heck it made me want to not read Marvel at all.

If your going to collect anything here I really only recommend the Civil War tie in and maybe Back in Black for a very dark story.

I enjoyed JMS' run on Spider-Man for the most part, but One More Day is embarrassing. If anything, only buy this book to complete your collection.

I had been disappointed with the odd copies of JMS Amazing Spiderman (ASM) which I had picked up from the library. The stories and artwork were not great. This comic sort of collects multiple issues of ASM into a partial coherence thus revealing that even the part plot itself is not great.

Peter is tormented by his association with Tony Stark who now leads the movement to register all Superheros. The whole comic is about his dilemma with plenty of dialogue between him and Tony, MJ and Mrs Watson. Reading all this text is like reading a book, not that the drawings are that great to provide any relief. Then of course there are his new costume changes, to provide some distraction. His new "armour" can replicate the old Spidey outfit, comes in a black version as well as shoot 3 metallic tentacles from his back. This has to be the ugliest costume design ever, next to that of the Rhino.

Its amazing that Spiderman stories could deteriorate to such a level.