Spider-Man is different now.
“Brand New Day” is the period of Spider-Man that followed “One More Day,” in which Mary Jane and Peter Parker made a deal with Mephisto that erased their marriage but allowed Aunt May to live.
It also got rid of his organic webbing (yay!), brought Harry Osborn back to life (lazy writing), restored his secret identity (whatever–this was pretty necessary to the character), and told us that Peter Parker actually DOES remember Mary Jane–except that they broke up a long time ago.
Issue #546 offers a handy “cheat sheet” to what’s going on now.
One More Day rebooted and refine the publishing line of Spider-Titles, so that Amazing Spider-Man was now published 3xMonth and became the sole source of continuity, significantly reducing confusion and “sprawl.” (Although Marvel did keep going with the Spider-Man Family anthology title.). This was a big, big deal at the time. I remember it–it’s actually what got me back into reading Spider-Man again. The character had drifted so far from his center and there were so many books with so much interlocking continuity that I found the line of books annoying and stayed away. This brought me back. For many other people, it was a huge and offensive cop-out. But I liked it.
In the first story after that fateful deal with Mephisto, Peter Parker is out of work and has given up being Spider-Man rather than register as a hero.
He goes out dancing and we meet his new love interest, Carlie Cooper. She works for NYPD’s CSU. They get mugged by a guy wearing a Spider-Man mask.
The mugger realizes he’s mugged Spider-Man when he finds we shooters in Peter’s bag, and decides to see if he can figure out who it is that he mugged (he already sold the wallet and credit cards, so he has to get them back). But the fence doesn’t give them back. Instead, he kills the mugger and frames Spider-Man by shoving a spider tracer in the dead mugger’s mouth. So, yeah, no sooner is his secret identity recovered via Mephisto’s spell than it’s compromised again.
While that’s going on, we meet a crime boss who goes by the name Mister Negative who comes across an old mystic book.
Apparently, Mister Negative first appeared in a Free Comic Book Day preview, but this is the first time he’s in an actual series.
At this point, we meet the “Inner Demons” gang, who work for Negative. As part of this scene, Mr. Negative manages to get some of Spider-Man’s blood, which will probably be important later.
Also along the way, Jonah has a heart attack and Peter saves his live with CPR. While JJJ is recovering, his wife Marlo sells the Daily Bugle to a millionaire named Dexter Bennet.
We close with a sum-it-up panel:
Nicely done. A new love interest who is a solid character. A change to the Daily Bugle paradigm that makes Jonah an employee. Spider-Man is back to using web-shooters and struggling to balance his super- and public lives.
There are back up features to #546.
Marc Guggenheim and Greg Land write a back-up story in #546 about a new character named Jackpot.
She’s a redhead and uses the nickname “Tiger,” but, no, of course it’s not Mary Jane.
Aunt May gets a few pages where she sasses a thug at the F.E.A.S.T. charity, where she’ll be working in future issues.
And Zeb Wells and Mike Deodato create a few pages about Harry Osborn.
The nice thing is that these creative teams and stories will develop into arcs for the 3xMonth publishing schedule of this series.
!["Superman" (2025) Brings Heart, High Stakes, and Surprising Twists [SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW]](https://www.supermansupersite.com/Superman_2025_Retro_Poster.jpg)
English (US) · 