the plot: As Peter settles into his new apartment, a villain calling himself Fusion attacks a bank and impersonates Spider-Man and mimics the powers of other Marvel heroes and villains. Meanwhile Spidey has to deal with a weird dog owned by his next door neighbour, and when he finally arrives and confronts Fusion, the villain reveals that his son impersonated Spider-Man and jumped off a roof to his death, and now Fusion wants revenge. Throwing a bomb off the roof of the bank, Spidey tries to stop it, but the bomb goes off and kills over three hundred people. How will Spidey get out of this one?

the review: What a difference an inker makes. The introduction of inker Wayne Faucher over Mark Buckingham's pencils makes a world of difference. It is true, I was not a terrible fan of Dan Green's inks, finding them to be a little on the sloppy side and Faucher's clean line work enhance Buckingham's pencils beyond belief. Not only that but the new colorist does wonders as well. So on the art side, everything is now gangbusters. So on to the talented Mr. Jenkins...

While gratuitous death in comics never really sits well with me (Re: Maximum Carnage), it can be used to frightening and good effect (Re: Avengers - Ultron Unlimited). Here though I'm undecided about the massive loss of life shown. In this issue alone, it seems an unnecessary act and right now it kind of annoys me, but I'll reserve judgment until I read the second part. I have faith that a writer as talented Paul Jenkins will be able to write a story that justifies the deaths of three hundred people, fictional or not.

So, with and interesting set-up by an excellent creative team, and an interesting new villain with definate potential and a real reason to hate Spider-Man (Hear that Venom!) I'm eagerly looking forward to the second part. Though, it'd be interesting to get some mention of the first Fusion, you know the Twin Terror...

Peter Parker: Spider-Man #30 gets **** out of *****, for an interesting set-up with a great new villain and excellent artwork.

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