the plot: Mattie Franklin, the imposter Spider-Man, assumes the role of a new Spider-Woman, while the two other Spider-Women are attacked by someone claiming that she is the new Spider-Woman.

the review: This issue read like two things. First it seemed like an obvious way to strengthen non-existent ties between Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, and it seemed like a cheap way of taking a successful character and using it as a way to sell a new one. Given Marvel's shaky financial status that seems like a good way to do business. Except even in her first full appearence Mattie Franklin comes off as a pompus know-it-all. Her bashing of the name 'Spider-Girl' (who I might add is a far better character) is not really a good plan when you're trying to make a character likeable. The scene with Aunt May, in which Mary Jane runs by to supposed comic effect, falls short, repeating the same old babble that Stan Lee wrote forty years ago.

There's more quibbles with the story, the most important being the the fact that it was even made, but that's beyond the point.

The art isn't much better. The celebrated John Byrne delivers more of his usual splashy, background free art to which we've all grown so fond of I'm sure.

So, it's almost two years later and this book still doesn't read any better.

Amazing Spider-Man #5 gets * out of *****, losing a 1/2 for that disturbingly bizarre Calvin Klein ad on the back cover.

continued in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #5

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