For more than five decades, Spider-Man has remained one of the most popular and enduring comic book heroes. Created by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, Peter Parker was the ultimate power fantasy to millions of readers young and old: an ordinary, shy kid who was suddenly blessed with spectacular powers. But since swinging into our lives in 1962, Spider-Man’s stories have evolved, as Peter met fellow heroes, lost friends and family, fought a bunch of his clones, struggled with his own mortality, and even lived through the heat death of the Marvel Universe. Once an incredibly down-to-earth look at superheroes, Spider-Man began to outgrow his everyman roots, with each larger-than-life threat increasing the fantastical elements of Peter’s life. To many, this trend reached its peak during Dan Slott’s 10-year run on the title, with Spider-Man founding his own billion-dollar company, gaining an arsenal of high-tech equipment, leaping into a multiversal epic alongside other spider-people, and, yes, fighting even more clones somehow (Don’t know why people keep coming back to that.) While Slott’s run still had plenty of great moments, it became clear to readers that the creators involved with Spider-Man weren’t as interested in the man behind the mask. That is, until Tom Taylor, along with artist Juann Cabal began their own run in 2019, fittingly titled Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THIS RECENT LIMITED SERIES*
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, with the aim of restoring Tony Stark to his former glory as a shining vision of tomorrow. But to shape this new chapter for the character, Fraction had to confront Iron Man’s troubled past, and tear down his complicated legacy to forge something better in its place.
, Hickman reforged the “Mutant Metaphor” at the heart of the X-Men’ stories into a call to action: after suffering years of bigotry and infighting, the mutant species banded together into a single state, and finally declared themselves a sovereign power in the Marvel Universe. House and Powers didn’t just return the X-Men to form, it reintroduced them as a dominant political, cultural, and economic force. But this was just the beginning.