Amazing Spider-Man is now being published 3xMonth with rotating creative teams to meet the publication deadline. While that sounds like overkill, it’s important to remember that for decades “Amazing” has been one of several Spider-Man monthlies, publishing alongside “Peter Parker the Spectacular,” “Web Of,” “Marvel Team-Up,” plain old “Spider-Man,” and many others. Having a single title has actually reduced the number of Spider-Man monthlies and makes it much, much easier to track continuity. This was Marvel’s goal: To centralized the Spider-stories.
That said, “Extra” is not really a Spider-Man book. In fact, he’s not even in the main story (but he does get a back-up). This seems to be an attempt to move Spider-Man into the world of branding other characters, an exercise that will occur with increasing frequency for characters that barely transcend mediocrity. This time, it’s Eddie Brock’s new identity as Anti-Venom, who fights Mister Negative’s crime syndicate. It’s meh.
The back-up story, though, has Spider-Man going drinking with Wolverine (only Logan drinks) on Wolverine’s birthday. It shows how Wolverine gets drunk for literally half-a-minute after he takes a shot and before his healing factor kicks in…
This story is a lot of fun. But for this back-up, this issue would get a “D” rating. This elevates it to a C. Average.
It’s been several months since the first “Extra” issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and there will be only one more issue after this, so I’m tagging this as a one-shot/miniseries.
