At this point, any semblance of a “rotating” creative team structure for Amazing Spider-Man appears to have collapsed entirely, leading “whoever’s available” to take over, but actually it’s working out quite well in terms of getting top talent on the book, however briefly. In this issue, Slott wraps up his Mysterio arc with a single-issue coda featuring the Black Cat – but far more interesting than that is the presence of Michael Lark on pencils.

Lark has recently been seen pencilling Daredevil with Ed Brubaker, so it’s little suprise, given that title’s noir-ish and gritty tone, that this story is about Spidey and Felicia stealing something from Mr. Negative. What is surprising is that Lark’s pencils are considerably more polished, perhaps representing a more mainstream approach. Despite the textual connection to the previous issues, there’s absolutely no attempt to emulate Marcos Martin’s style (nor would you expect one) but as a version of itself, Lark’s work looks fantastic.

Writing-wise, Slott has never quite lived up to the boundless energy and humour he displayed in his first few arcs on the title, but it’s still well-plotted, well-paced and well-structured. Under Slott’s direction, Spidey is startlingly competent as a super-hero, and yet retains as put-upon by the world as ever. Sadly, the one area where the issue falters is in Aunt May’s “negatived” subplot, which has already stretched beyond believability after only a few weeks. If it doesn’t get wrapped up soon, it could get tedious fast – so far all we’ve seen is the same scene over and over, in which May chews out a member of the cast, who stand by the wayside looking stunned.

On the plus side, Carlie Cooper finally gets to do something other than hang around looking a bit glum. It’s good to see a prominent new member of the cast come into her own, and her scenes with Peter finally suggest some chemistry between them that’s actually interested to read about. If this trend rapidly develops, she might actually start to stand alongside the former favourites – probably not Gwen or MJ, but it’s possible she could be at least a Brant. Let’s just hope no-one’s out there thinking “right, the readers are finally interested, let’s kill her off entirely.”

All in all, Amazing Spider-Man remains consistently good. If every issue was this brilliant, the series would be considered unmissable – as it is, it’s merely a reliably decent diversion from week to week.

You know, I’m not sure if this “Gauntlet” branding on the current issues of Amazing is as necessary as Marvel seem to reckon it is. While there’s clearly going to be an eventual storyline in which assorted classic Spidey villains are gathered together to beat the stuffing out of him en masse, it’s not really a story at all at the moment – rather, we’ve got a series of relatively standalone (although the standard continuity plot threads – Carlie, the DB, Harry, Aunt May and so on – that have been running since Brand New Day continue to do so; indeed, Spider-Man hasn’t been so entertainingly “soap”y for a while) stories that just happen to feature classic villains, at the end of which they each seem to be recruited by the Kravenette (as I’m now insisting on calling her, and seeing if it sticks). The thing is, those scenes add little to nothing to the story that’s gone before – and all they do is falsely inflate anticipation of the upcoming climax that it’s going to have to be pretty special to live up to it. If the presence of all of these villains – thought “off the board” after their respective defeats – turned out to be a surprise a few months down the line, then that’d probably have more impact.

Basically, the Spider-team need to have more faith in the quality of their current set of stories without feeling the need to attract attention by constantly branding them under an “event” header. Because at the moment, those stories are generally very good – and this one, in particular, has been excellent. The plotting has perhaps proven a little unnecessarily convoluted – as it often tends to, in just about any story or medium, whenever opposing gangsters are involved – but that’s actually kind of appropriate here, considering the primary villain is the wilfully-obfuscating Mysterio. Regular readers of this site will know already of my affection for Ol’ Fish-Bowl Head, and he’s absolutely the perfect villain for Slott to write – relying as he does on that mixture of humour and seriousness, of gravitas of ambition (his plans do involve murderous mobsters and faking of deaths, after all) and inherent lameness.

The whole thing is helped, too, by the presence of Marcos Martin. I didn’t go wild for Martin the first time he showed up on this book, but he’s gradually worked his way up my important opinion rankings (which are, of course, all important) and gives us a truly stellar turn, here. I think it’s partly that, like Slott, he just works so well with Mysterio – because he mixes that beautifully retro and often slightly simplistic style of his with a quite cool and understated “modernising” design of the classic outfit. And does the bowl-head haircut and nose properly when we see Beck out of costume later, too. While he may not be a bravura storyteller of the same level, he’s still one of a few artists who’ve ever enabled you to squint at the page and think that Ditko might be drawing Spidey again – and that’s no mean feat.

It all adds up to a book that (three) week(s) in, week out, is on the whole pretty consistently delivering a strong mixture of the old-school Spider-Man tone and aesthetic, with pleasingly modern twists here and there. It’d be nice if some of the stories themselves were truly gripping, “Can’t wait for next issue” masterpieces, but that aside, it’s basically giving me a Spidey book that’s almost exactly how I’d want it. The current writers are (generally) people who just get the character – and how he should interact with his surrounding cast, and vice versa – and long may they continue to do so.

A few months ago, Adam Kubert drew half an issue of Wolverine in which the titular character teamed up with Spider-Man. At the time, even as I was raving about how great it was to see Kubert drawing Wolvey again, I couldn’t help but notice that he did a brilliant Spider-Man as well. “If anyone at Marvel has any sense,” I said, “They’ll get Kubert to draw a Spider-Man issue as soon as possible.”

Well, evidently they do have sense. Here, Kubert teams up with Dan Slott, the man who was born to write Spider-Man, and the results are nothing short of fantastically entertaining. The thing that pleases me most is that for the first time since the Avengers “List” special, the plot actually deals, directly, with the Dark Reign meta-arc rather than the ongoing plot of the star’s book. We know Osborn can’t stay where he is forever – and this issue actually sows a fairly convincing seed towards his downfall.

Better yet, editorial seem to have remembered that despite the suit Osborn is wearing, he’s not actually Iron Man’s arch-enemy- he’s Spider-Man’s. Here, the two square off physically and mentally, offering the most satisfying Spider-Man/Osborn meeting in months after the overwrought, Bond-villain theatrics of American Son. As ever, Slott’s dialogue is immediately at home with Spider-Man’s wisecracks, but the rest of the issue is cleverly constructed too, from the brilliantly executed twist as to who actually scores the point against Osborn at the end, to the perfectly constructed plot mechanics, all of which prove that just because a comic is about superheroes, it doesn’t have to be dumb as well.

To round the issue out, there’s a reprint The Pulse #5, where comic where Osborn was finally outed as the Green Goblin and arrested. With Bendis writing and Bagley pencilling, it’s a fun issue in its own right, though its presentation here undoubtedly suffers from being part 5 of a multi-part arc without the previous 4 issues included. Yet another annoying side-effect of trade-focussed decompression. Even so, it’s nigh-impossible not to enjoy a Bendis & Bagley comic, and the Osborn-focussed story makes an enjoyable companion piece to the lead tale. It’s just a pity that I come away from it thinking not about how good that issue was, but about how much potential was wasted when The Pulse got canned 14 issues in, before the concepts had truly taken root. Still – its inclusion makes this a remarkably high-quality comic that’s astonishing value for the cover price – and it’s increasingly rare you can say that about a comic these days.

Amazing Spider-Man #600 might just be one of the best value books Marvel has released in a decade. In a time when everyone connected to the industry is justifiably wringing its hands at the prospect of individual issues costing $3.99 a pop, 104 pages of entirely new content for $5 makes this issue worth buying just because it’s such amazing value. With a lead story as long as some arcs, and backup strips by an array of talent, it’s definitely an anniversary package that Marvel can be proud of.

Whether it works as a story in its own right, however, is something I’m still not sure about.

Cramming something like 4 issue’s worth of story into one book makes it a long read – but it’s not a story that makes particular use of that space. The lead story feels rather plodding at times, and although peripheral characters make the odd appearance, so much of the pagecount is given to conventional superheroics that their presence seems almost token. Even Romita’s artwork feels a bit rushed. And, let’s be honest, this isn’t the first time most of us have read about a dying villain enacting his final, greatest scheme, and it’s not even the first time we’ve read such a story about Doc Ock. And, call me a curmudgeon if you will, but if we’re going to do a Doc Ock story at all, why take the character so far from his roots such that he’s basically someone else entirely?

There are a few moments of brilliance – the opening sequence featuring Octavius speaking to a physician highlights an oft-ignored but intriguing part of the character – namely, that he’s not really a superhuman – and the final page can’t fail to elicit a smile – but on the whole, it’s not very eventful, which is a problem for what is ostensibly an event book.

The backup stories are a great idea, but in practise most of them feel a bit flat – with the notable exception of Marcos Martin and Stan Lee’s, featuring fantastic art and some classic “his mind is no longer in mint condition” moments from Lee. The bonus “Spider-Man Covers You’ll Never See” pin-ups are mostly poor, again, with the notable exception of the last one, which is a joke so laugh-out-loud funny that I won’t spoil it.

Overall, it’s hard to know what to make of Amazing #600. I want to like it. At times, I actually do. But more often than not, I feel like the reality has fallen short of the promise. Perhaps that’s a failure of my expectation more than the book itself, but as a regular reader of the series, I was hoping for something a bit more exciting than usual – and this, if anything, went in the other direction.

If Marvel are looking to ditch the thrice-monthly, rotating-writers setup of Amazing Spider-Man any time soon, then it should be pretty clear to them that Dan Slott has given by far the most convincing audition to get the job full-time. While other writers have impressed in flashes – or, in some cases, not at all – Slott has proven pretty consistently that he has an absolute handle on the tone, style and wit of a good Spidey book, as well as a knack for getting the character. And while the first part of this two-part story featuring the Fantastic Four felt a little by-the-numbers, the second part manages to make itself one of the most important issues of the “Brand New Day” (are we still calling it that?) continuity so far.

In tackling the whole mindwipe fiasco properly for the first time, Slott sets himself up for something of a fall, but at least manages to come up with some form of logic for the whole thing – even if it still leaves as many questions as answers, particularly concerning how Peter knows how it all works in the first place. Nevertheless, it’s about time the issue came up, and considering Spidey’s own history, it makes sense that the Fantastic Four should be involved somehow. We don’t necessarily want him unmasking to all and sundry a la Ultimate, of course, but dealing with the story elements that could be hampered by the mindwipe one by one (see also recent issues of New Avengers) feels like a step in the right direction, and the eventual resolution is a pleasantly-played scene.

What really makes this issue stand out, however, is its – quite literal – advancement of the continuity in other areas. I’m sure there will be those who will quibble over the fact that the “Brain Trust” have seemingly come up with new positions they’d like to place various characters in and decided to simply fast-forward rather than build up to them organically – but to be honest, with the franchise having felt a little stale in recent months, and overly rooted in the aftermath of the Spider-Tracer-Killer/Menace storylines, it’s a nice way of freshening things up; and what can’t be denied is the cleverness of the way Slott rattles through the changing events of the “real world” in parallel with Spidey and the FF’s adventures in the Macroverse. He even finds time for some decent character progression (and introduction, even), and gets some decent humour (including one laugh-out-loud moment) out of J. Jonah Jameson. I can’t say it’s a storytelling device I’d like to see used all the time, but here, it’s entertaining enough to be effective in achieving its goal – although again, I can’t help but quibble with a bit of the issue’s internal logic (if time moves faster in the regular world than in the Macroverse, then why has “a lifetime” passed there since they visited two years ago? I’ve a sneaking feeling Slott completely misused the word “exponential” in his attempt to explain the contradiction).

Rarely for a present-day comic, it feels like there’s a heck of a lot of story in the pages of this – and in these financial times, it’s always nice to have a sense of value for money. It’s true that the Macroverse stuff isn’t the most compelling adventure the character’s ever had, but nevertheless, there’s essentially two issues’ worth of content in here, and that’s no bad thing – helped by the style of Barry Kitson, who’s not exactly George Perez or anything, but still has a relatively “old school” feel that allows for a decent amount of imagery, panels and dialogue to be packed onto a single page.

And it all leads up to a twist that, while guessable from advance publicity, is nevertheless an intriguing new situation for the Spider-verse (well… Spider-city, I guess) to find itself in. While the realism around it happening at this point in time is possibly dubious, it’s such an obvious idea that I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before – and it’s rich in story potential. So long as Slott is telling as many of those stories as possible, the Spidey books feel like a genuinely interesting place to spend some time.

One of the questions that arose following the continuity change-up of Brand New Day centered on exactly how Spider-Man’s secret identity got put back under wraps, and who knew it – with particular emphasis on Spidey’s friends, such as Daredevil and Johnny Storm. Readers found out about Daredevil fairly early on, but despite editorial insistance that no-one knows his identity, the degree to which Spider-Man and Torch’s friendship was altered has remained a mystery – until now. The answer isn’t quite as straightforward as it might seem.

Dan Slott has been – at least if you ask Comics Daily writers – the most consistent Spider-Man writer since the move to thrice-monthly shipping was completed, and having previously written a Spider-Man/Human Torch miniseries, it’s fitting that he handles this 2-issue story focusing on the characters. Having proven he can write a good Spidey, Slott now auditions himself for Fantastic Four, opting to pen a classic F4 tale of adventure and exploration that simply happens to have Spider-Man in.

While the character interplay and dialogue are Slott’s strong points (never more evident than in his Torch/Spidey banter) he also shows he’s not above some old-school Stan Lee-style plotting as the 5 heroes hop in Reed’s latest experimental craft and visit the “Macroverse”. Complementing Slott’s writing, Kitson’s art has a clean, classic look well-suited to both the F4 and Spider-Man, and that itself makes the flashback portions of the story (which reference a previously unseen team-up) fit just that extra little bit better.

If there’s any problem with the issue, it’s in the structure, which ends on not one, but two cliffhangers – both of which are immediately predictable. Now, in fairness, it’s difficult to end every issue on something that’ll excite jaded, grown-up fans, but it’s a brave writer indeed who ends on two cliffhangers that anyone over the age of 12 could predict the resolution for. There’s the chance Slott will throw a curveball and bring something unexpected to the next issue, but more likely he’s just going to pick up the story seamlessly, so that it reads fine without a break when it gets collected. That, at least, is forgivable, and thankfully the issue isn’t too marred overall.