The Amazing Spider-Man’s Brand New Day (Year One)

The flagship superhero of Marvel Comics, Spider-Man was the creation of that unique pairing of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. A frustrated editor-in-chief who had become tired of the comic book business and the boring routine of men in tights slapping each other in public, Lee wanted to give this thing one last try before closing up shop of Timely Comics, then on its last legs.

With the unusual superhero team of the Fantastic Four a roaring success, he followed up with something else that was brand new at the time, a hero with not only super powers but also every day problems. Rather than a square-jawed man in his vague mid-30’s as he had seen many times, Lee’s central character would be nebbish-like weirdo who was constantly spouting his complaints… likely a behavior that Lee himself was guilty of. This resulted in some of the most sophisticated dialog and plotting that Lee had ever achieved, with Parker frustrated not just by supervillains but by always being short of cash, having no luck with women and constantly paranoid about the health of his ailing Aunt who was the last connection to a family that he had.

Brilliant artist Steve Ditko drew the scrawny bookworm Peter Parker as an outcast in a high school populated with jocks like ‘Flash’ Thompson and beautiful blonde bombshells like Liz Allen. Parker was clearly more intelligent than his peers and his sudden gift of superhuman strength and agility proved more of a problem than anything else due to his social awkwardness. Any time Flash frustrated him, Parker was reminded of his ability to crush that thug with one hand… but he couldn’t. Parker strove to live up to the abilities that had been granted to him rather than abuse them as many of us probably would. This combination of character was an almost innocent fusion of ideas regarding one’s social responsibility that Ditko would explore later in the Question and Mr. A. Parker was like us, conflicted by personal problems yet he struggled to be an almost perfect human being in his moral behavior, using his powers to help anyone in trouble and never striking out in violence if he could help it.

As a result… Peter Parker the Amazing Spider-Man was miserable.

After decades of stories, Marvel Comics decided that they needed a massive rethink of their star character as he had strayed too far from where Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada felt he should be. Once an outcast, Parker was not only married, but his wife was a super-model. As a superhero Spider-Man had classically been a dud with the rest of the superhuman community as well, but in recent years he had become a member of the Avengers and associate of Tony Stark (Iron Man).

Things needed to change. The lengths to which Marvel went to achieve that change proved to be… diabolical.

Year One – Issues 546-582

Leading into the Brand New Day story line was JM Straczynski’s much attacked and seldom lauded ‘One Last Day’ story in which Peter Parker found himself a hunted vigilante from the law while his aunt who had taken a bullet for him lay dying in the hospital. The only solution lay in a deal with Mephisto to make it all go away at the price of his marriage to Mary Jane Watson. Thew ‘undoing’ of the marriage was the first in EIC Joe Quesdada’s master plan to put Spider-Man back on track and that is unfortunate. I’m not a huge supported of the Parker-Watson marriage, but it was at least a progression in the character’s story much in the same way as his acceptance into the Avengers and working with Stark furthered the character’s development from awkward youth to adulthood. Removing some-most of these developmental steps comes across as heavy handed and sloppy. Despite the abilities of the creators, One Last Day remains a very clumsy step toward greatness.

I say ‘greatness’ because the proceeding Brand New Day storyline is absolute genius. Cancelling the other two Spider-Man series and employing several writers to act as a ‘braintrust’ of Amazing Spider-Man is a masterstroke as it allows several plot threads to play out in each issue while the flagship title became what it was always meant to be… the best Spider-Man comic ever. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko should be flattered that it took a deal with ‘the devil’ and an army of creators to accomplish what they had done themselves back in 1964. In any case, a ‘return to basics’ approach may seem like massive leap backwards it was also exactly what was needed to make Spider-Man a success again. The remaining Amazing Spider-Man was announced as a three times a month affair with rotating creative teams. Fans scowled that it was doomed for failure but sales skyrocketed.

In Brand New Day, Peter Parker is single, broke and swinging through New York City by way of his web shooters containing the very limited web fluid. In the opening story, Daily Bugle editor J Jonah Jameson has a heart attack and the paper is sold to a new owner by JJ’s ex-wife to Dexter Bennett (DB) who transforms the paper into a sensationalist rag. Additionally, Parker must deal with the threat of Mister Negative while being hunted by the police for questioning in the ‘Spider tracer killings’ case in which bodies turned up with a rather incriminating spidey tracer attached to their corpses. Parker’s deal with Mephisto added several variables to the rather tired Spider-Man mythology, included the revival of Harry Osborn. Whereas Harry was a convoluted and complicated character in the past, in the Brand New Day world he is just Parker’s old roommate who has struggled to succeed in his life without his father Norman Osborn’s help.

The first of a series of new villains, Mister Negative is a signpost of what was to come. The over-reliance on staid and reliable super villains had softened both Spider-Man and the villains as well. While the Hobgoblin or Rhino were once exciting they had become boring. The brain trust introduced several new villains to plague Peter Parker including Menace, the glamor-hungry Internet sensation Screwball and the constantly-mutating meth-addicted Freak. While Menace is admittedly a Green Goblin knock-off, the identity of the villain proved to be an enticing idea and was strung along into the second year of the title’s new life cycle. The idea to introduce new villains was a conscious one and it held true throughout the first year of the Brand New Day experiment, in addition to the gimmick of rotating creative teams.

Teaming up with Wolverine was not as unique as it once was, so artist Chris Bachalo added a certain flair to the story, making it stand out. The cover design and story lines proved to be just unique and uncluttered by continuity to attract new readers. This still strikes me as the basic approach of Ultimate Spider-Man, to reduce the character to his core concept and remove the need to collect every issue in order to understand the latest adventure. However, in the case of Brand New Day, it worked marvelously. Whereas the previous iteration of Spider-Man had become a near-mythical creature with a past that become more convoluted with each issue, this new version was much simpler.

If I had to choose one story that stood out in the first year of the Brand New Day concept, it would have to be the Paper Doll story. Parker takes up work as a photographer for a tabloid obtaining ‘impossible’ pictures of celebs thanks to his superhuman abilities. This leads him into a confrontation with the celebrity-obsessed villain Paper Doll. The story also included the first appearance of Mary Jane post ‘One Last Day’ which had fans clamoring. The reason why readers were in a flurry was that prior to Mephisto un-doing the marriage that MJ and Peter had, she whispered something in his ear (which is still a mystery). This left readers unclear on whether MJ retained the knowledge that Peter had lost of the previous life together. Given her behavior in this story, Mary Jane remember everything, making her a very noble and brave person… and further complicating Parker’s life.

The introduction of Kraven the Hunter’s daughter was an inspired idea as it allowed the creators to allude to a classic villain while staying clear of reviving said villain. In the adventure, Kraven’s daughter hunts Spider-Man to his apartment as a hunter stalks its prey only to mistakenly identify Parker’s roommate, Vin Gonzales as her foe. Dressing Vin up in the Spider-Man uniform she discovered in the apartment, she abducts him to the sewers for a trail by combat. Without a costume of his own, Spidey calls in a favor to fellow vigilante Matt Murdock the Daredevil and enters the fray under an assumed identity of the Man Without Fear. The story itself was quite fun and continued to develop the ‘Spider-tracer killer’ plot.

Nevertheless, in time the tried and true super villains of the past resurfaced. However, the story line was so thrilling that the inclusion of classic villains is excusable. After 23 issues of mainly new villains, the appearance of Venom on the cover of a Spider-Man comic seemed novel. Norman Osborn had given Tony Stark ample room to round up the rogue vigilante Spider-Man who brazenly avoided the Superhuman Registration Act. When Stark proved incapable of bringing the criminal to justice, the Thunderbolts were mobilized.

Composed of reformed super villains operating under the threat of death via nanite-induced death, the Thunderbolts were composed of Moonstone, Radioactive Man, the Sword Master, Songbird, Venom and Bullseye. The combined might of the Thunderbolts was further complicated by the resurgence of Eddie Brock as ‘Anti-Venom’ who became a walking antibody to the human race, burning out impurities wherever they may be. Based on preliminary artwork, the battle between the two Venoms appeared to many as groan-inducing and reminiscent of the over-use of the villain in the 1990’s, but the pay off was surprisingly excellent. The ‘New Ways to Die’ story appeared at first to be a gimmick, but proved to be a major success in attracting any readers doubtful of the direction Spider-Man had taken under the new regime.

Following ‘New Ways to Die’ was a series of short stories re-introducing Hammerhead and the Molten Man to the rogue’s gallery. There also appeared a mid-comic story teaming up Spider-Man with the Punisher which may have been yawn-inducing once upon a time but given the new state of the series was positively exciting. After a single issue story focusing on Flash Thompson serving in the military(which still feels rather odd), guest writer Mark Waid introduced the character that had thrown the largest monkey wrench ever into the Spider-Man series, J. Jonah Jameson’s dad.

The rotating creative team was tasked with continuing several plot threads while developing their own adventures, something that had become a dirty word (continuity) in recent years but under the Brand New Day banner made the Spider-Man series feel more alive than it had in decades. The tone of the series felt remarkably sharp and slick, absolutely aware of the attention that Marvel’s most popular character was attracting due to numerous multimedia tie-ins and a legacy of popularity in print.

In short, the first year of the Brand New Day experiment was a major (and risky) success. The introduction of new super villains, a new status quot and the re-introduction of classic rogues made reading Spider-Man week to week a fun experience. While it is a shame that a magical reset button gimmick was seen as unavoidable to make it happen, Brand New Day made Spider-Man feel new for the first time since Lee and Ditko first collaborated. The perpetuation of this hard-earned winning streak was to prove the hardest victory… but that is for another time.