Waiting for the Trade   Amazing Spider-man: Flying Blind Written by Dan Slott & Mark Waid Illustrated by Humberto Ramos, Emma Rios, Giuseppe Camuncoli & Kano Collects Amazing Spiderman 674-677 and Daredevil 8   Why I Bought This: It features Black Cat, who is my favorite character in the Spider-verse. Interestingly it took me two years to track this thing down. Twice I went to several stores on Free Comic Book Day and none of them carried this trade. I finally bought it on Amazon a few weeks ago for about $7.   The Plot: The Black Cat story sees her accused of a crime and Spidey getting DD to defend her. There are also stories involving the Vulture running a teen gang and the Sinister Six battling the Intelligentsia.   (spoilers below)

Waiting for the Trade by Bill Miller   Peter Parker Spider-man vol. 5: Senseless Violence by Zeb Wells collects Peter Parker: Spider-man 51 - 57.   Why I Bought This: It’s a collection of off-beat stories featuring Spider-man’s B-list villains and I always enjoy a foray into funny Spidey territory. Plus it stars Shocker and he’s always been my favorite second stringer. The Plot: It’s not so much a plot as a collection of consecutive issues. We basically have a story from the villains’ perspective featuring Shocker and Hydroman, followed by a gambling ring trying to make a reality show out of superhero fights, and then a psychological piece on the Sandman. (spoilers below)

Waiting for the Trade Amazing Spider-man: Trouble on the Horizon written by Dan Slott & Chris Yost,   art by Humberto Ramos, Giuseppe Camuncoli & Matthew Clark collects Amazing Spider-man 678-681 (including 679.1)   Why I Bought This: The time travel story herein was universally acclaimed and I’ve been enjoying Slott’s Spidey run anyway so my picking this up was just a matter of waiting for the price to drop on Amazon.   The Plot: Spider-man travels one day into the future to discover NYC has been destroyed. Now he has one day to figure out how to prevent it. There are also unrelated stories involving Morbius and the Human Torch in here too.  (spoilers below)

Waiting for the Trade Spider-man & the Secret Wars by Paul Tobin & illustrated by Patrick Scherberger & Clayton Henry collects Spider-man & the Secret Wars #1-4 (& Secret Wars #1)   Why I Bought This: This miniseries was released to commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the legendary Secret Wars event. I love that story and am all for a little nostalgia.   The Plot: We revisit key events from Secret Wars from the perspective of Marvel’s flagship character. (spoilers below)

Waiting for the Trade X-Factor: Scar Tissue By Peter David, art by Valentine DeLandro and Emanuela Lupacchino Collects X-Factor 213-219   Why I Bought This: It guest stars the Black Cat who is perhaps my favorite Marvel character. It is also written by Peter David, who is one of the all-time great Spider-man writers and who wrote Felicia particularly well back in the day.   The Plot: The main arc is about an assassination attempt on J. Jonah Jameson. He hires both Black Cat and X-Factor for protection. There are also a few single issue character studies on some of the regular cast.   (spoilers below)

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller   Spider-man/Lizard: No Turning Back by Dan Slott & Giuseppe Camuncoli Collects Amazing Spider-man 688-691 plus Untold Tales of Spider-man #9   Why I bought this: The Lizard is one of my two favorite Silver Age Spidey foes so I had wanted to read this since it came out around the time of the Spidey reboot film. At Free Comic Book Day this year one of my local shops ran a buy one, get one free sale on all trades making it an ideal time to finally pick this up.   The Plot: Spider-man captures Lizard and takes him to Horizon labs in an attempt to cure him but Morbius’s presence there soon leads to events spinning out of control as the Spidey mythos takes a rare foray into the horror genre.   As always spoilers after the break.

Waiting for the Trade by Bill Miller   Superior Spider-man (1): My Own Worst Enemy By Dan Slott, Ryam Stegman and Giuseppe Camumcoli Collects Superior Spider-man 1 -5.   Why I bought this: The last trade (ASM 698-700) was epic and I needed to read the follow up. The Plot: Doc Ock switched brains with Peter Parker and then Ock’s body with Parker in it died leaving Ock as the new Spider-man. This trade is Ock’s first days in his new role.   Spoilers after the break  

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller Ultimate Spider-man: Death of Spider-man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley collects Ultimate Comics Spider-man 156-160   Why I Bought This: While the Ultimate universe isn’t really my cup of tea, this was on sale for $10 at a local bookstore and is supposed to be the biggest story in the history of the Ultimate line; so at that price why not?   The Plot: The Sinister Six escape from prison, led by the Green Goblin. Norman knows Peter’s identity and so he takes them to Aunt May’s house (Peter is still a teen in this universe) and challenges Peter to a fight on his front lawn. Spoilers follow after the break.

Waiting for the Trade by Bill Miller   Amazing Spider-man: Dying Wish By Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos and Richard Elson Collects Amazing Spider-man 698-700.   Why I bought this: I love Spidey in general and this is the biggest Spidey story in years, possibly decades so I frickin’ preordered this on Amazon to get as soon as it hit trade.   The Plot: Doc Ock manages to switch brains with Spider-man putting Pete in Ock’s body just as Ock is at death’s door.   Heavy spoilers ahead:

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller   Spider-man: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers By David Micheline & Mark Bagley Collects Amazing Spider-man 368-373   Why I Bought This: Black Cat is my favorite character in Spider-man’s corner of the Marvel Universe and she features prominently in this story. Plus it is from the Mark Bagley era, who is probably my all-time favorite Spider-man artist, so while I probably read this back in the day I didn’t recall much of it and grabbed it cheap off Amazon.   The Plot: Spider-man finds himself under attack from a variety of robots while engaging in otherwise routine crime-fighting missions against foes like Electro and Scorpion.  

Waiting for the Trade by Bill Miller   Spider-man: Return of the Goblin by Paul Jenkins & Humberto Ramos collects Peter Parker: Spider-man (vol. 2) 44-47.   Why I Bought This: Over a year ago I bought the trade for a Spidey vs. Venom story called “The Hunger” by Paul Jenkins and it was astonishingly good: like by far the best Venom story to be told outside of the character’s first few appearances. Paul Jenkins in general seems fairly well-regarded for his work on Spidey and after the reading that Venom story I wanted to sample some more of his run. It seemed like stories tackling Spidey’s other major foes would be the best pick-ups in that regard so I grabbed both this Green Goblin story and a Doc Ock trade off Amazon.   The Plot: Norman once again makes a run at Peter through his friends and family. The story features a lot of psychological back and forth so there’s no way to recap without heavy spoilers.

Waiting for the Trade   by Bill Miller   Spider-man: Venom Returns by David Micheline & Erik Larsen collects material from Amazing Spider-man 330-333, 345-347 and Annual 25   Why I Bought This: When I first got into buying trades five years ago this was among the first few books I picked up (the first one incidentally was Spider-man: Birth of Venom ) as I love the classic early Venom stories and this one in particular includes my all time single favorite issue of Spider-man when he and Venom battle on the island. With me now reviewing Venom’s monthly series, I thought it would be a good time to revisit this. The Plot: Venom hates Spider-man a lot, knows Peter’s secret identity, doesn’t trigger his spider sense and will stop at nothing to kill him.

Waiting for the Trade by Bill Miller   Fantastic Four vol. 5: Forever by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting and Barry Kitson collects Fantastic Four 600-604.   Why I Bought This: It promises the return of the Annihilation Wave and I loved Annihilation . It also features the resurrection of the Human Torch, and Hickman’s run in general has been getting rave reviews: although the only other volume of his I’ve read was the Death of the Torch trade, which was indeed excellent. The Plot:   The Kree send an armada to destroy the Earth while Annihilus makes plans to use the FF’s Negative Zone portal to relaunch the Annihilation Wave and an even larger cosmic threat gathers on the horizon. Plus the Human Torch returns from the dead.

Waiting for the Trade by Bill Miller   Heroes for Hire: Fear Itself By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning collects Heroes for Hire 6-12   Why I Bought This: As I said in a few reviews now, a few months ago I decided to break my no event story policy for Fear Itself because it was allegedly Cap-centric. Of all the crossover trades this was the one I was most interested in just because it’s by DnA and their work on Guardians of the Galaxy a few years back earned them a ton of goodwill.   The Plot: Basically two separate stories. First, Spider-man team up with Paladin and Misty Knight to stop a smuggling ring. Then, the HforH heroes attempt deal with collateral damage from Fear Itself .

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller   Spider-man Family: Untold Team-ups by Jeff Parker, Chris Giarrusso, Kevin Grevious and Chris Eliopoilas collects Spider-man Family 4-6 Why Bought This: It features a team-up with Spider-man and Throg (aka Frog Thor). Who doesn’t want to read that?   The Plot: A collection of Spider-man team-up stories with the Agents of Atlas, Dr. Strange, Throg and Ka-Zar.

Waiting for the Trade   by Bill Miller   Marvel Adventures Avengers: Vol. 2 – Mischief. by Tom Bedard and Shannon Gallant. collects Marvel Adventures the Avengers #5-8.   Why I Bought This: This was a cheap pick-up (under $5) as part of my post- Avengers movie feeding frenzy. Specifically Juggernaut is on the cover, and I figured: even if it is a simplified story, at this price, he’s always good for a fun fight scene. The Plot: Loki discovers the existence of the Avengers and decides to test them by creating new super villains for them to face. For this universe the Avengers are Captain America , Storm, Hulk, Spider-man, Giant-Girl (Wasp, only with growth powers instead of her normal shrinking/flying/laser stings), Iron Man and Wolverine.  

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller Amazing Spiderman: The Return of Anti-Venom by Dan Slott and three different artists. Collects Amazing Spider-man 663 – 665 and Free Comic Book Day 2011: Spider-man. Why I Bought This: Anti-Venom for those who don’t know is actually the true Venom Eddie Brock and if that character appears in a story it will almost certainly get my money. Also it deals with a mystery involving the Ghost of Jean DeWolff, which it means it has a connections to one of the greatest Spider-man stories ever published. The Plot: Eddie Brock, now back in his Lethal Protector vigilante role, is after Mr. Negative—a superpowered crime boss, who in his civilian identity runs a soup kitchen that employs Aunt May thus catching Spidey in the middle. In addition a new hard-edged crimefighter called the Wraith, who may or may not be the long dead Jean DeWolff, is also gunning for Mr. Negative. As always spoilers to follow:

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller Marvel Adventures: Spiderman vol. 6 – The Black Costume by Fred Van Lente and Cory Hamscher Collects Marvel Adventures Spider-man 21 – 24. Why I Bought This: You can get most of the Marvel Adventures Digests for $4 off Amazon (including shipping) so I’m occasionally willing to sample them. This one has Venom in it and as I’m firmly in the Venom is the coolest villain ever created in comics’ history camp, so for that price it got my money. My thoughts on the new movie follow the comic review.

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller Sensation Spider-man: Feral by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Angel Medina and Clayton Crain Collects Sensational Spider-man 23 – 27. Why I bought this: It is exactly the kind of timeless high concept super hero story that appeals to me; in this case a meteor affects several characters with animal-based powers causing them to run amok in New York . Also among those characters are both Black Cat and Lizard, who are two of my favorites.