written by Dan Slott
drawn by Jim Cheung (pencils) John Dell (inks)
colored by Justin Ponsor
In the course of investigating the disappearance of one of his missing employees, Peter looks into the headquarters of the mysterious New U, which provided the drug used to treat the missing employee. There, he finds himself facing a host of his deadliest foes, including the Rhino, Electro and Doctor Octopus, all of whom are led by no less than the Jackal. Things, however, take a strange twist. Meanwhile, Kaine, one of the original Spider-Man clones, is in a race against time to find a cure for a deadly disease that could destroy humanity.
While I felt the first issue kicked things off well enough, here the pace picks up consdirably, with Slott dropping a couple of well-timed narrative bombshells. He clearly picks up where he left off with "Spider-Verse," with Kaine and another key player from that game-changing storyline making appearances. As compact as the issue is, Slott makes the most out of the available pages to take the story in a very interesting direction, and sets up the next issue quite nicely.
More than just Spider-Verse, though, Slott revisits a much earlier storyline from six years ago, in which Peter declared emphatically that "no one dies." It's central to this story, and after all that Slott has put Peter through over the last few years I am genuinely curious as to what he has in store for him now.
Artist Jim Cheung continues to shine here, and fortunately Justin Ponsor works with a slightly brighter color palette. I'm happy that Cheung is drawing this series all the way through unlike the bookend issues he did for the Infinity event miniseries a few years back. I hope he's able to do every single issue without a fill-in artist taking over. I wouldn't even mind a delay.
8.5/10
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