the plot: Spider-Man is hot on the trail of the vanishing criminal who's been abducting homeless kids and drug users, and meets up with a police lieutenant who takes Spidey to meet an inmate at an asylum. The inmate, who has a mark on his neck identical to the one on the neck of criminal (who, I might add, according to Spidey, called himself the Shade) and they learn that the criminal got his powers from a spell involving the astral plane, which is where Shade's victims are sent when he takes them. Faced with few options to rescue the victims, and stop the Shade, Spider-Man goes to the only man alive who can help him: Dr. Strange.

the review: Call me crazy, but I felt the artwork by John Romita jr. and Scott Hanna seemed a little off with this issue. It just seemed to be missing something, though I can't just put my finger on it.

Aside from that, I thought that this was a decent issue. It was nice that this storyarc with the mystical abductor seems to be speeding along, rather than wasting a few issues with padding, and the fact that the Shade's powers are drawn from the astral plane is very interesting. I'm curious to see what role Dr. Strange will play in the next chapter.

Aside from the art, I was also irked by the fact that although the villain in the last issue didn't give a name to Spidey, for some reason Spider-Man assumed he was called the Shade, because that's the name he called himself. I'm as confused as you.

Anyway, I still thought this was a good issue, not a great one, and J. Michael Straczynski seems to be finding his groove with Spider-Man. Still, I'm not crawling the walls waiting for the next issue. But that's probably just me.

Amazing Spider-Man #41 gets **1/2 out of *****.

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