Spider-Man Free Comic Book Day 2007, ASM 546-557, Spider-Man Family 2, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four 1-4, Spider-Man/Red Sonja 1-5, Marvel Comics Presents, Vol. 2 – 1, Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men 1. Well, with the dissolution of Spider-Man’s marriage finally out of the way, the new creative teams can finally prove why the last 20 years of Spider-Man comics were holding the property back. They do this by introducing Jackpot, a character who looks like Mary Jane, is named for Mary Jane’s most famous catchphrase, and calls Spider-Man “Tiger,” but isn’t Mary Jane. A swerve so stupid it really defies explanation. They also do this by introducing a bunch of “great” new villains, like Overdrive, whose power is he has a car, and the Freak, a meth addict who turns into an otter monster by smoking random chemicals (Really!). Or Menace, a new goblin so lame it makes you pine for Demogoblin. And who could forget Wayeb, a Mayan god whose name isn’t even spelled correctly, clearly the perfect foil for Spider-Man, and the random human guy who’s trying to merge with him to become a god? Of the new crop, Mr. Negative is the only villain who isn’t outright terrible, and he’s just kind of a generic mob boss guy. How any of this required Peter Parker to be single, I don’t know. Peter also gets a supporting cast full of characters new and familiar. A return to the Daily Bugle cast just in time for the paper to be bought out by Dexter Bennett and renamed The DB!. Suddenly not dead Harry Osborn, his girlfriend Lilly Hollister, and their friend and potential new love interest for Peter, Carlie Cooper. And Aunt May, alive and well, volunteering for the FEAST homeless shelter, unaware her philanthropist boss is secretly Mr. Negative. This book had been sorely lacking a supporting cast for many years under Straczynski, so that’s nice, at least. Along the way, Wolverine, Dr. Strange and Wong pitch in with the Wayeb story. Elsewhere, Spider-Man, the FF (and very briefly Dr. Doom) team-up with the Impossible Man to stop an alien invasion. Also, Spider-Man once again teams with the time-displaced spirit of Red Sonja to defeat her ancient foe, Kulan Gath, in a “requel” of Marvel Team-Up 79 that proves that story didn’t need to be 5 issues long. Venom is in that, and also in Spider-Man Family 2 in a flashback to his early days. And in Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men, Spider-Man has a surprisingly big role in a whole buncha heroes trying to help the X-Men save the world from being hit by a giant bullet. Comics! Spider-Man is copied from a Steve McNiven drawing with a head from a 2nd McNiven drawing. The rest is all me. I enjoyed drawing Mr. Negative in deep shadow and then reversing the image to get the negative effect. In keeping with trying to make the art reflect the times, I also traced a picture of a car and simply pasted a DB from a comic into my drawing like the pros would 2007. Much like my Civil War drawing, this one came out really well despite my general disdain for the material.