It's been a challenge trying to keep up with the Amazing Spider-Man since his comic is published thrice monthly, but I just finished reading the four-part "Grim Hunt" storyline that ran in issues 634-637. (Side note: at this rate, ASM is going to bypass Superman's and Batman's monumental 700th issues which, to me, is kind of cheating.)
"Grim Hunt" featured the return of Kraven the Hunter (whom I didn't realize -- or remember -- was dead). Thankfully, Marvel Comics published a free companion comic that came out for Free Comic Book Day that gave a detailed history of Kraven. This proved immensely helpful before I read "Grim Hunt." It gave me the background of his suicidal death, as well as insight into his family members, including his half-brother the Chameleon, the many women he's bedded, numerous kids, pets, etc.
Over the past year or so, the Kravinoff family has been secretly running Spider-Man through a "gauntlet," bringing back his most dangerous villains in order to weaken our Friendly Neighborhood hero before they brought Kraven back to life. The stories haven't had much depth to me, and that's probably because of how many times a month the series is published. You can't have quality and consistency when you have to have a variety of writers and artists to keep up with the hectic publishing schedule. They're not all going to write or draw the same. In fact, some of the writing and art has been horrendous and jarring. Still, I held on to the series.
In the process of this "gauntlet," Marvel also updated all of the "old" villains, making them more dangerous than ever before. For example, the Vulture is now somebody else who wears a red costume (instead of green) and has new deadly powers. Oh, and he eats people. The Sandman and Rhino storylines in "The Gauntlet" had the potential to be very good because of their emotional impact...but in the end, they both fell apart. The only well-written story I read was kind of a "filler" issue featuring the vampire Morbius. It was a self-contained single-issue story that was cleverly written.
Anyway, back to "Grim Hunt." The Kravinoff family is after the entire Spider family: Spider-Man, Madame Web, Spider-Girl, Arache, Spider-Woman, Arana, Spider-Man clones, etc. Basically, anyone with a spider emblem on their chest, a spider-theme to their name, or Peter Parker's DNA in their body. It's all kind of silly, really. Clones? Seriously?
The Kravinoff family resurrects Kraven from the dead by sacrificing Spider-Man over his grave. (I won't spoil it for you.) Fights ensue, unimportant people die, and Spider-Man saves the day. (What? You really thought he was dead? His name is on the cover. How could he be dead? Again, I won't spoil it for you with the whos, hows, and whys.) In the process, Spider-Man almost kills Sasha, the mother of Kraven's daughter, Ana, by doing something painful to her face, but I couldn't quite tell what. I had to go back and re-read it several times because it was so out of character for Spidey. He also tries to kill Kraven, also out of character.
So, this is what "The Gauntlet" was all leading up to? It was a pretty disappointing finale from a disappointing lead-in, although I did gain some respect for Kraven that I didn't have before, now that I know him a little better. Gone are the days when Kraven wore his leopard pants, fur jacket, and ballet slippers. Thankfully, now the only place that you'll find someone sporting that combination is at your local Walmart.
Besides the "Grim Hunt" storyline, Marvel Comics justified jacking up the price of each issue to $3.99 by running a second storyline which featured an "untold" tale of Kraven and Kaine, the long-haired Jesus-looking Spider-Man clone. It sort of ties into "Grim Hunt," but really it's just filler. Even the artist couldn't even be bothered to do a great job. He made Kraven look like Gru from the animated movie Despicable Me.
Lastly, there was a third storyline going on in the issues of ASM. These were two-page "stories" written by Stan Lee that were a combination of the original 1960s Spider-Man stories...and Pinky and the Brain. Yeah, you heard me.
What do I think of Spider-Man? Meh. I wish Marvel Comics would get Spider-Man back on track with some good storylines, good writers, and good artists. Not one, but two, Spider-Man clones? Spider-Man loses a portion of his life, so he's single again and no longer married to Mary Jane? Aunt May acting all rude and freaky with a storyline that's going nowhere? Whatever happened to Spidey's heyday with the black costume saga and Todd McFarlane's art? Can't somebody come up with something equally entertaining but not silly? For $3.99 a pop three times a month, we readers deserve better. And, frankly, so does Spider-Man.
Back in the 80s, I read the Secret Wars limited series and freakin' loved it. It was so exciting and so many exciting things came out of it: Spider-Man got his black symbiote costume, The Thing stayed behind on Battleworld and got his own series, She-Hulk joined the Fantastic Four, etc. Not only was the series unique and interesting, but Secret Wars action figures came out of it. There were characters I had never had or seen before to play with! Yes, they were pretty cheaply made with no points of articulation, but still it felt revolutionary.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It was written by Jonathan Hickman after all, who has previously turned me away from his storytelling on Fantastic Four and the Avengers. There's no character development. No character interaction. No enjoyable/followable plot. It's just battle after battle after pointless battle, like watching Man of Steel on repeat. And while his comics always have more word balloons than most comics, they don't really say anything. The dialogue doesn't feel real or seem to come naturally to the characters speaking it. The characters are always telling what is happening, when the pages should naturally just "show" it without explanation and the extraneous wording. 
The series gave me a new appreciation for Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat. Smith created a three-dimensional version of her, something I had never seen before. He offered a lot of background to her life, showing us why she is who she is today. The background stories were as interesting, moving, and sobering as the unfortunately canceled Emma Frost series. 
The Avengers Academy takes a group of relatively unknown teenagers and allows them to interact, working out their personality differences, learning how to use their powers together, and coming to terms with why they were chosen for the group. This is great storytelling. 
aguely resemble and dress up like actual Marvel superheroes, so everyone thinks that they're the real deal, despite the obvious differences (like swearing, maiming, killing, destroying property) and the fact that the real superheroes are...actually still doing their thing. Anyway, once you suspend your disbelief at this ridiculous notion, there are some pretty decent stories going on...and some rather horrible ones.
married long ago to a Japanese woman (but not the famous Mariko from his first limited series back in the 1980s) and had a child that he thought long since dead. Daken (Dark Wolverine) is all grown up now and sports a mohawk and tattoos underneath his mask and costume. He has similar mutant powers to Wolverine, plus a unique pheromone manipulation ability, which I find very intriguing. It's something unique that I haven't seen in comic books before. He is also struggling with his own identity, and between good and evil. Lastly, Daken seems pretty comfortable in his sexuality...whatever it may be. He made a couple of joking sexual innuendos to "Sinister Spider-Man" and The Thing to f**k with their heads, using his pheromone ability. For all of these reasons, he is a very interesting character and not just the child of a superhero with the same abilities. I hope Wolverine gets his own series back and Daken goes on to new adventures in his own series. I'd definitely invest my reading time in finding out more about him.
enom symbiote costume while posing as Spider-Man. It would be like me walking into work wearing a rubber Obama mask, toting myself as our President. Deceptive, right?
In case you're unaware, Marvel Comics has this ongoing theme/story running called "Dark Reign" throughout most of their comic books: Norman Osborn (formerly the Green Goblin) has a government job running the agency called H.A.M.M.E.R., which replaced S.H.I.E.L.D. As the director of this new "law-enforcing" agency, Osborn creates his own Avengers and X-Men team, made up of villains posing as superheroes. And nobody notices.
runs through a series of one-shots and the Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-Men series. I read most of the storyline, avoiding the Dark Avengers series since I don't currently collect or read them. However, after reading the first one-shot about "Utopia," I was regretting purchasing the rest, including Uncanny X-Men, which I regularly buy. Again...WTF? There was no coherent thought process throughout and I didn't care about anyone or anything I read. To top it off, the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia #1 one-shot was drawn by Marc Silvestri, an artist who became big in the 1990s when the women of the X-Men became a lot more bustier, a lot more Asian, and the stories took second (or third) place to all of this. Is it any wonder that's when I stopped reading comics after 15 years of nonstop dedication? Ugh. 
As mentioned previously, I've been reading The Amazing Spider-Man again. I must say that I'm impressed at the updates to the Spidey Villains. First, I got a peek at the new (and much more deadly) Vulture. Now, with ASM #600, I got to see the "new" Doctor Octopus. Doc Ock has been hit one too many times in the noggin over the years, causing him brain trauma and a terminal condition (which echoes of Natasha Richardson). With nothing to lose, he strikes out at the city (and our webslinging hero) with a deadly force and little robot octo-creatures that remind me of some sci-fi (syfy?) movie I've seen. I'm looking forward to seeing what other villains are updated in the next 600 issues.
May Parker sitting beside her deceased husband's grave, asking his permission to remarry. Another, and the most emotional, was the story of Uncle Ben learning to be a father to a teenage Peter. Kudos on both of these short stories!
I used to read the Amazing Spider-Man all the time throughout the 1980s. I followed him through the Secret Wars, the black suit, Todd McFarlane's art, etc. Spidey was my favorite Marvel comic, other than the Fantastic Four and Uncanny X-Men back then. In the past couple of years, I've started reading comics again (mostly DC characters), but picked up the recent "American Son" storyline in Amazing Spider-Man. I have to admit that it was pretty cool reading about the webslinger again, and I liked that his story wasn't crossing over into other comics that I'd have to pick up.
