Unlike most of the letter-writers in this issue, I'm not ready to string up Marc Guggenheim for his efforts on this book. That goes for Bob Gale and Dan Slott also. It appears that there's a whole lot of fans out there that are upset about the story-telling in this book. Everybody loves the art, but they feel there's nothing about the stories that have helped to elevate Spider-man as an icon. To me, that kind of sounds like the complaints about the Image line when it first came out. To be honest with you though, I'm gonna side-step all of that controversy. As for this particular issue, I thought it was a pretty good introduction to the new Kraven character. This time . . it's a teen-age girl. It seems that she's been studying Spider-man for a couple of weeks. She's been watching his behavior, studying his moves, and is trying to narrow down who he is. Unfortunately, Spidey is a creature of habit, so it doesn't take a whole lot of effort on Kraven's part to narrow down his identity. Now that she has, she's decided to take everything away from him. She's going to destroy his life, his friends and family. Which is what she begins to systematically do this issue. However, by the end of this issue we find out that, really, she's still guessing. The issue starts out with the image of Spider-man strung up, and Kraven going on about what she's going to do to him. Then we go back 2 weeks and find out how we got to that point. However, in the final page, when we get back to where we started, we find out that as smart as she is she can still make mistakes. The guy she dressed up in the Spidey outfit and captured is Vin not Peter. Which, I'm sure, next issue is going to lead to a rescue by Spider-man and Daredevil, who made an appearance in this issue. This issue was beautifully drawn by Phil Jimenez. I look forward to any work that he does, and it appears that he's in the rotation now for the art of this book. Personally I think that's great. That means every couple of months we'll get another 2 or 3 issues from him. I thought this was a pretty good issue. Yes it feels like we've been speed-dating, with all these characters that we've been introduced to the last couple of months, but I think, in the long run, it's gonna pay of with some good stories. Right now they're introducing all the substance, the ingredients in the pie . . if you will . . now we just have to wait to see what kind of pie it is they're baking. The question is, I guess . . are you willing to wait?
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