I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while now. Since about a week after this post about “The Other”, the big 12-part Spider-Man crossover. The last part came out, IIRC, on January 25th. I’ve had loads of free time to write about it, especially while I was waiting for a World of Warcraft update a couple of weeks ago. So, why didn’t I?

Mostly, I didn’t write because I’d already said what needed to be said. The final part of The Other was underwhelming. If it’d been billed as an epilogue (and the final “teaser” about The Other had been at the end of this book instead of the last one), I’d've been happier. As it is, we get a pretty standard Spider-Man story in which he saves a kid from a burning building, this time with the benefit of his new powers. It ends with the revelation that Tony still had doubts about this really being Peter, but he seems confident that it is, now, and he’s working on what seems to be a new costume for Peter (unfortunately confirming the rumors going around, and possibly making the scene of Peter at the Tailor’s meaningless).

Honestly, I’m looking forward to getting back to the regular titles. I like the work that both JMS and Peter David do on Spider-Man, but this storyline just didn’t do it for me. In television terms, I was expecting a season-finale style climax and resolution to all of JMS’s buildup, but it felt like one of those mid-season “storyline” episodes that usually aren’t that interesting except when considered as part of the bigger picture.

I don’t know if the problem was that the styles of the various writers didn’t mesh, or if the story simply didn’t justify a 12-part crossover, but this Spider-Man fan, for one, was unimpressed.