Spider-Man: The Other by Peter David

Spider-Man: The Other Reviews

• 
  Tina ➹ lives in Fandoms

  4.5 Golden Stars
  
  Different
  that's the only word comes to mind to describe it. never even think about this view was possible, but... why not? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  
  I really liked the plot. plus, the fun & the (frightening) excitement.
  & it was emotional (probably the first comic I actually cried. it really hit hard & fast! & unexpected!)
  a little creepy sometimes (that was why I was doubtful to give it 5), but the unexpected, exciting plot made up for it. & my other comic 5 stars had a weaker plot than this.
  I also liked the vague mysterious narrative in between.
  
  so it had my 3 important factors; Feels, Fun & Excitement
  (also shiiiiiiiiiiiiip! I always loved Peter & MJ's relationship since I was a kid (even though the movie MJ then (back in 2000) was mehhhhh), & comic MJ is just awesome! & supportive! & the romance is so tender & lovely)
  
  return of a dangerous villain. and a deadly battle between the two.
  then I was like, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!? Hooooooow!?
  & the mysterious parts began.
• 
  James DeSantis

  This is a very long event lol.
  
  I remember it more fondly in my day of reading as a teenager than reading it now. HOnestly this could have been half as long as just as effective. It's basically a 12 issue evolution storyline of Peter becoming more spider like. It probably was a bit of JMS idea but also they wanted Peter to shoot webs out of his arms like the movie I'm sure. The idea of him having stingers is also weird...but maybe a easter egg for Spider-Man 2099. The biggest gripe I have with it is the different art styles are SO different it makes the brutal fights turn silly the next issue in terms of design. Also the writing feels very different too.
  
  This felt like a stretched out storyline on purpose but it was still decent enough with some great MJ and Peter moments and brutal fights. Just wish it felt more completed and not like 4 different artist going back and forth making it feel off.
  
  A 3 out of 5.
• 
  Mike

  Weird, weird tale - this many crossovers and guest-stars are jarring, even though I’ve read more “event” minis than I can count. It’s like every walk-on part comes outta nowhere and I don’t know whether to yawn or gasp.
  
  As always, with this man artists with such diverse styles on hand, the “feel” of the storyline gets shredded on a frequent basis too.
  
  Gotta say, Reginald Hudlin tries for the humour but does *not* land the jokes. Poor guy, his style just doesn’t work for adult books.
  
  JMS? My god was I naive when I thought he was the shit. What an overstuffed blowhard. JMS didn’t meet a six-panel page he couldn’t fill with words - and not just any old dialogue, it’s all the “Peter, let me tell you all about the motivations you’ll have for the next phase of your life because...I’m going to blather on about your amazing qualities, your life’s fears, my deep-rooted anxieties...and while I’m at it, let me tell you all about a post-hoc reinterpretation of an early event in your life that for years you’ve always thought about one way, but now conveniently when I need to explain some dumbass plot point, I’m going to retroactively reinterpret to suit this otherwise-retarded development.”
• 
  Subham

  This was one of the longest and most epic spidey stories ever, Peter is becoming more Spider than man and has been fading in and out and when he learns what the truth is and when Morlun comes in and there is epic fight between the two and the art is just magnificent and he dies?! But the reasons of his rebirth are revealed and they are shocking, what happens when the spider takes control? More Spider than man and the reaction of the Avengers and Aunt May and MJ...this volume had so much it was firing on all cylinders and had one of the best fights in Morlun and even challenges the origin of Spidey, teams him up with not only Marvel heroes but also others to find the cure as to whats happening and more. Their initial reaction when he died was so emotional. Also great moments with MJ and the art in the full crossover was good. Overall a good read and had some interesting questions of origin and teases but expecting a big resolution by the end of the run!
• 
  Alberto Palomino

  Que decir de esta historia… es rara… es extraña… es multifacética… es una montaña rusa, y no en el buen sentido. No sé si es porque la historia la escriben entre tres manos, y cada uno tiene un estilo muy diferente al resto que ha ocasionado esa disrupción de tonos y calidades. Pero esta historia tiene momentos bastante buenos y momentos… hum… bueno digamos que si no los hubiera leído mejor para mí.
  
  Esta historia es un crossover entre las tres series arácnidas de ese momento como son, El Asombroso Spiderman (la cabecera principal) Amistoso Vecino Spiderman y Marvel Knights Spider-Man. Partiendo de la base que no entiendo porque un personaje debería tener tres cabeceras para sí mismo, por mucho que sea Spiderman, uno de los héroes Marvel mas importantes y famosos, en esta historia los tres autores de sus respectivas cabeceras comparten trabajo escribiendo tres de cada, me explico.
  El hecho de que sus tres autores se hayan repartido el trabajo de la manera que lo han hecho es un importante dato a seguir, tenemos que las primeras tres historias las escribe Peter David (el que se encarga de Amistoso Vecino), las otras tres las escribe Reginald Hudlin (el de Marvel Knights) y las otras tres siguientes J. Michael Straczynski (Asombroso Spiderman) para luego acabar con que cada uno escriba su respectivo número final en su propia cabecera. No sé si me habéis entendido, pero en mi cabeza ha sonado espectacular así que confió en que sí.
  
  Esto provoca que haya una calidad muy bipolar, algunos números son la ostia (como el de la pelea entre Morlun y Spiderman) y otros tan pésimos que ojala me hagan una operación cerebral para quitármelos (el episodio de Latveria con Tia May y MJ acompañando a Peter con armaduras prototipo de Iron man… ¡SEÑOR PERDONALOS, NO SABEN LO QUE HACEN!). Ahora también digo que la historia en si en general es mu rara, tan rara que poco tiempo después llego el famoso Mefistazo y todo esto se reinició así que esta historia no sirve de nada, mola eh.
  
  Tenemos que Peter Parker se muere, no sabe porque, pero algo que tiene que ver con la radiación que le convirtió en Spiderman esta provocando en el cambios irreversibles. Y la muerte le acecha sin remedio (spoiler, no muere, que esto es Marvel cojones). Añádele que Morlun, uno de los villanos creados poco antes por Straczynski y que desea devorar a Peter porque si, le está rondando porque también huele su muerte.
  Esto lo que concierne a la sinopsis en sí, porque la historia que dura 12 números se extiende de tal manera y añadiéndole tal paja que resulta cómica en ciertos momentos. Como a Spiderman yendo a Wakanda porque sí, porque mola, a ver Reginald Hudlin querido, sé que te mola Pantera Negra y básicamente que yo sepa has escrito en Marvel las cabeceras de Pantera Negra y Spiderman, pero quillo, que no hacía falta meter Wakanda aquí, que es paja maldito, PAJA. ¿Y quién demonios acepto el número de Latveria porque el reino del Dr. Muerte es el único que tiene una máquina del tiempo funcional…? ¿pero porque? ¿Por qué señor mío esta esto aquí metido? ¿Para qué sirve? ¿En serio hay una puta máquina del tiempo en Latveria y a nadie le importa? PERO QUE COÑ…
  
  Bueno ¿por dónde iba? Ah sí, eso que la historia es una rallada curiosa solo para darle más poderes a Spiderman (que luego se ignoraran seguro) con la excusa de que las arañas mudan de piel una vez en su vida y es como si murieran, de ahí lo del capullo. Pero… pero… ¿hacía falta contar una historia así de Spiderman? No sé, pregunto. Porque si total, si la intención es que parezca mas araña ¿Por qué no saca telarañas del culo? Total, para hacerle más araña pues incluyamos todo ¿no? Parece coña, pero la bromita del culo también la añadió Peter David en la historia, normal, es de lo poco salvable de esta historia, las partes de Peter David. Y la parte de Morlun, aunque mola muchísimo y es lo único que se salva de aquí, no pega mucho con el resto del arco, está muy como metido con calzador, como muchas otras cosas. Parece que esta historia incluso pedía más tiempo y tal y como vieron que llegaba la Civil War dijeron, OSTIAS pues… cerramos en el número 12, añadimos tal y pascual y arreglao… dios mío.
  
  Sobre el dibujo, lo mismo, muy discordante. Por un lado tenemos a Michael Weiringo que bueno, ni bien ni mal, pasable, del montón (-¿del montón bueno? -Calla Emilio). El otro es… es … es Pat Lee, prefiero decir que antes me leería el guion tal cual que tener que disfrutar una vez más su dibujo, por dios… es que todos tienen las mismas caras… ¡TODOS! Y ya por fin tenemos a un artista de verdad, de los que cuentan, el siempre confiable Mike Deodato, que por esta época tenía un dibujo más “clásico”, luego evolucionaria a uno más “digital”, al menos para mí. Pero de los tres es el mejor y sus partes dibujadas casualmente son las que merecen la pena ser leídas, como la susodicha ya comentada pelea entre Morlun y Spiderman, y la historia onirica esa que tiene Peter dentro del capullo.
  
  Resumiendo que es gerundio, una historia rara y decepcionante cuanto menos. Solo recomendable a los muy fans con mucha curiosidad por el arácnido. Spiderman es de mis héroes favoritos de Marvel, y aunque siempre había sido fan gracias a Bendis y su imprescindible Ultimate Spiderman y sus apariciones en su también Nuevos Vengadores. Nunca me había dado por leer una de sus historias en su cabecera principal de la época actual, y empecé por esta, error, seguir leyendo. Estoy seguro que Spiderman tiene grandes historias, esta no es una de ellas.
• 
  Matthew

  Well...Spider-Man: The Other was a story line that ran through three different Spider-Man monthly comics and as such, has three different author/illustrator teams. However, JMS who is credited as "Story Architect" essentially came up with the premise, story and plot. That being said, The Other seems to take both JMS's strengths and weaknesses to their fullest extremes.
  
  I hated...HATED...the first half of this book. First we get yet another in a long line of lame duck (and usually cheap) JMS original villains. This time it's the Tracer. Out dated looking costume, stock powers and terribly lame name. Why do all of JMS's original Spider-Villains have such lame names? His power is to control machines. There must be a stock villain on hand at Marvel with that power, come on, there's got to be. JMS, up to this point at least, has never used an existing Spider-Villain in his run on Amazing Spider-Man except in cameos or to make a temporary alliance with peter against a lamer JMS original. Tracer is made out to be a more formidable foe than he should be, and departs the story rather abruptly. Good riddance.
  Simultaneously, we get the return of Morlun (See JMS's Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1: Coming Home) and he's cheap as ever.
  May inner monologues incessantly and summons Ben's force-ghost (I know it's her imagination, but still...) There's a scene where she pours her heart out to someone she doesn't realize is a villain, despite that, aside from having never seen this costumed person before, he's been absurdly rude to her in the five minutes since they met. High tech bullets travel slow enough to have conversations about them before they hit their target. An unlikely trio travel to Latveria and effortlessly infiltrate Doom's palace in just about one of the dumbest sequences I've seen in a while, and all for a pretty stupid reason. Peter's illness leads to a grab bag of Marvel super-heroes making guest appearances to little ends. The worst of these being Bruce Banner/The Hulk, who at this time is on the lamb and successfully eluding detection, yet Tony Stark locates him with little effort at all, and the confrontation with Mean Green that follows is equally frustrating.
  I feel there's no reason for spoiler tags when I say, this is all leading up to Spider-Man's "death." Right from the start, the book couldn't make it clearer that the character is going to (appear to) die if the title was "The Death of Spider-Man," and if you have any familiarity with super-hero comics, you should know he won't stay that way.
  I'm a bit torn on how I feel about the fight against Morlun in chapter six. It is really one of the best "choreographed" action sequences I've ever seen in comics, truly a spectacle to behold, yet Morlun is so cheap and Peter actually says "Never been hit that hard - and I've gone toe to toe with The Hulk." Yeah, right. Morlun hits harder than The Hulk folks.
  Here's the good part. Once the inevitable is gotten out of the way, there is a very satisfying twist and the book partially redeems itself from there on out. As it turns out, JMS's Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7: The Book of Ezekiel was actually not the end of the totemic spider arc as I had thought, in fact it's in The Other that all that set up truly pays off.
  Sadly, it's not all smooth sailing from that point on. I highly liked a lot of the second half of The Other, but there were plenty of cringe-worthy moments and this includes Peter's worst pun ever when he spots Stark Tower cocooned in spider webs.
  
  Two of the three illustrators are Mike Deadoto and Mike Wieringo (RIP) both of whom I always love and admire. The rest of the art is competent as well.
• 
  Wing Kee

  Flawed premise but wonderful emotions.
  
  World: The art is alright, this are three books so the art varies, but overall it is enjoyable. The world building here I like, I've always liked the totem aspect that Straczynski introduced to Peter and it continues here. I'll get into the story below but if you just look at the world building for this arc, it's pretty fantastic and full of intimate character building pieces and also larger MU pieces, it's good.
  
  Story: The premise of the story is wonky and contrived, the ideas of it are cliche and expected. That being said, the pacing was good and the emotions were wonderful. I know not a lot of people like this arc, but I did quite a bit, the building upon the totem stuff I absolutely love and as I said above the interactions and the emotions of the story, the discovery of it, made for a fun read for me. I also liked the idea that it furthers Peter's story and also changes the status quo.
  
  Characters: MJ is not herself at the beginning of the series and I was a bit irked by that, the sudden insecurity and the emotions did not make sense with what has happened in recent arcs. That being said, once I was able to buy into the premise of the arc her and all the rest of the characters panned out well. I liked what happened to Peter, sure we don't get quite teacher moments with him anymore and small everyday stuff, but what happens here is good and the emotions involved and the implications and changes are great. The rest of the cast do a marvelous job making this story larger and fit into the MU.
  
  I liked this arc quite a bit, it was good, why the hate?
  
  Onward to the next book!
• 
  emily_oriley

  Oh my God, this whole time all I wanted to do was give Spidey a big hug!! >_< ...also, uncool with all the giant spider drawings! Some of us are HUGELY arachnophobic! ....yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand the irony T.T
• 
  Anthony Flores

  Creo que hablar de The Other, es hablar de calidad en una historia del trepamuros.
  
  Esta historia nos muestra como Peter está perdiendo todos sus poderes e incluso, está teniendo una enfermedad de la cual no puede escapar.
  
  Junto a este problema tambien encontramos a Morlun. Al parecer, es traido de la muerte solo para llevarse a un Peter que se está muriendo.
  
  Está historia puede que sea una de las mejores de Spiderman, con este climax de incertidumbre por lo que le este pasando al trepamuros.
  
  Creo que la magia de este comic es lo que puede pasar. Nos muestran a un Peter que puede morir y que sufre el padecimiento de estar muerto.
  
  Una historia que súper recomiendo porque en esta se encuentra la escencia de un comic de miedo casi.
• 
  Rolando Marono

  Había escuchado muchos comentarios sobre esta historia. Cuando yo comencé a leer cómics hace casi 14 años, estaba el evento de Civil War, pude ver a Peter utilizando el Iron Spider y con sus nuevas habilidades recién descubiertas, pero no sabía que eso tenía que ver con este evento llamado The Other. Lamentablemente, a los editores tal vez, no les gustó que Peter tuviera tantos poderes y habilidades nuevas y sucedió el inafame "mefistazo" reiniciando la vida de Parker.
  Este evento, de 12 números, nos lleva principalmente por los "últimos días" de Peter Parker. Hace unos días también leí la historia Spider-Man: Life Story, la cuál es reciente y nos lleva por los 80 años de Parker. Aquí de nuevo me toca ver morir a este personaje. No se podría considerar spoiler porque es en realidad la premisa principal, Peter está muriendo y parece que todo esto se debe a la radiación que recibió con la picadura de la araña. Parece que esto era inevitable. Entoncer Peter se prepara para despedirse de sus seres queridos. Los primeros números son emotivos. Un poco aburridos porque tenemos a Peter buscando a cada genio y místico del universo Marvel que pueda ayudarlo, pero todos tienen la misma respuesta para él.
  Creo que David desperdició un poco lo que nos estaba contando. Tiene un momento donde los personajes se cuelan en Latveria para utilizar una máquina de desplazamiento temporal. La tía May, Mary Jane y Peter viajan al pasado. Eso podía ser muy interesante y podía derivar en una interesante reinterpretación de la muerte del tío Ben. O algo emotivo. Pero el momento que escogen aunque es bonito, sólo se ve por un par de viñetas, vemos el dolor de Peter muy rápido y luego de vuelta a la normalidad. Yo le hubiera dedicado un poco más de páginas a esto.
  Mary Jane tiene una discusión interesante sobre Spidey y el síndrome del superviviente. Esta es una perspectiva interesante al fenómeno del héroe. Uno vería bien tomar la responsabilidad y salir a salvar el mundo, pero lo cierto es que viene de un profundo pensamiento de no merecer ser felices porque gente cercana a él ya no están aquí, por su culpa. Esta perspectiva, que psicológicamente aplica a Peter, me pareció interesante que fuera discutida aquí.
  El arte es variable, como este evento transcurrió en las tres series que había de Spiderman en ese momento, algunos números tienen mejor que arte que otros, pero en general está bueno.
  El villano del tomo, podría decirse que es Morlun, pero tampoco sería correcto. Lo que proponen en The Other es que Peter tiene que aceptar su identidad de Araña. Así que el conflicto real es más bien interno. Las habilidades que Peter comienza a descubrir son muy interesantes y es triste que hayan reiniciado todo esto unos cuántos números después. Me hubiera gustado ver más de este nuevo status del personaje y cómo iba explorando esta faceta nueva.
  También entiendo que ésta podría ser una historia polarizante entre los seguidores del personaje. No a todos les va a gustar pero creo que si Spiderman es de tus favoritos, te mantendrá entretenido.
• 
  Fugo Feedback

  Zafa, sobre todo los capítulos de Peter David, pero es una mentira absoluta que "cambia la vida de Peter Parker para siempre", ya que los cambios que se introdujeron en esta saga duraron unos meses y después hicieron "borrón y cuenta nueva #64354". Leído de la baratísima edición de Clarín en tres tomos.
• 
  Andrey Pletinka

  I’m not big fan of comics. But I like popular comics stories in film’s. I liked the animation movies I watched in the childhood. The story of spider-man is one of the most interesting for me. Besides, I’m fan of Marvel, think this Universe is more classical in comics. I gave 1 additional star for comics because spider-man is my favourite hero.
• 
  Judah Radd

  I liked it a lot. It’s an odd one. Morlun is a bizarre villain, and the metamorphosis spiderman goes through is just... weird. It’s cool, I like weird.
  
  The art was varied, but mostly very good. The writing had some iffy and awkward moments, but overall, I really enjoyed it. The first few issues didn’t really seem to “mesh” well into a single narrative, but once the arc started to flow, it was a pretty consistently interesting tale.
  
  I love Spidey as a New Avenger. I especially love seeing aunt May and MJ interacting with people like Cap, Tony and Wolverine.
  
  I’m not as well versed in Spidey as I am with say... The X-Men... but this book definitely made me want to read more about the web slinger.
• 
  Mitchell Friedman

  A tear jerker and that's even though I know Marvel has no idea how to kill a character and leave them dead even if it was now rather than years ago. The epilogue definitely took some away from the power of the rest of the book. But this book understands who Peter Parker is. And didn't do all that badly with a host of other character. Sure it was weird and confusing. And the big reveal was unbelievable. But still basically a wow. 4.5 of 5.
• 
  Gad

  Este ha sido uno de los mejores cómics que he leído en toda mi vida. Tiene de todo, tanto acción como momentos emotivos y conversaciones llenas de sabiduría. Es una historia en la que se profundiza en la psicología del personaje, y en lo que significa ser Spiderman. En cuanto al dibujo, son varios artistas los que trabajan aquí, y no me han decepcionado. Tengo muchas ganas de leer qué es lo que le está por venir a Spidey en esta cronogía de Marvel Deluxe.
• 
  Ondra Král

  The Other jsem nikdy úplně nepochopil. Komiks sám o sobě není špatný, ale PROČ? Parker si na 12 sešitech prochází razantní proměnou, ale nemám pocit, že by s ní kdy další komiksy výrazněji pracovaly.
• 
  musarboijatra

  The most f-ed up Spiderman I've ever read.
• 
  Alejandro Montero

  I loved this comic "event" when I first read it almost 20 years ago, but today it does read a bit weird. I still have fond memories of it, and I honestly just love seeing MJ and Peter together (it's been way too long) but the rest of the story does feel a bit overblown and just a silly excuse to give Peter organic webs and stingers, all for this to be retconned later.
• 
  Blindzider

  3.5 Stars
  
  A couple things to note first: If you haven't read the rest of JMS' run there are some details which you may want to learn about up front. Without them you won't be completely lost but you will be a little. You need to know who the villain Morlun is and you also need to understand the idea that JMS has created this story about Spider-Man being a totem for some Spider god, or some such.
  
  The main gist here is that Peter undergoes a change, why he goes through it, how he and his family and friends deal with it, and what happens on the other side of it, are all part of the story (let's get real, we all know he doesn't die.)
  
  With JMS' usual flair, he does some good psychoanalysis on Peter which I liked, and there are some good moments, strong marriage moments between Peter and MJ. There are a few melodramatic moments, some horror moments, and some immature jokes as well. The art is average with the best being supplied by Deodato Jr and Wieringo. The tone of the whole thing is fairly "heavy", dealing with death and loss, so while there are the usual Spider-Man jokes it isn't as lighthearted as most Spidey stories. Lastly, the status quo does change, although not having read anything in this run after this story, I'm not sure if any of it lasts.
• 
  Javier Lárraga

  Una historia interesante. Spider Man The Other es un arco en las historias del arácnido que plantea una de las primicias más extrañas en las aventuras de este héroe.
  
  Todo comienza con un extraño malestar de Peter que no lo deja en paz. Esta casado con Mary Jane, su esposa y su tia May saben que es Spider Man y además el dinero ya no es problema pues ahora viven en la torre de Los Vengadores y esto no solo es benéfico para la familia Parker, tambien ayuda a la reputación de Spider Man y aún asi Peter piensa que algo va mal y que por alguna razón va a morir y pues tras una broma cruel del destino esto parece ser que así será pues algo en su cuerpo esta mal y esta relacionado en la manera en la que obtuvo sus poderes y por si no fuera ya suficiente Morlun (el villano que intentó matarlo para comerselo y absorber su fuerza vital) ha regresado de entre los muertos. ¿Podrá Spider Man evolucionar para sobreponerse a su fatal destino o morirá en el intento?
  
  Pues miren, como este es un cómic que se presta bastante para ser spoileado solo dire que el guion esta OK, la trama genuinamente es intrigante y logra entretenerte de principio a fin, aunque eran 12 números la verdad es que no se sintieron y los elementos místicos y hasta filosóficos que contiene la trama son bastante frescos. Eso sí, aunque la dinámica de tener a Spidey como Vengador y que sus conocidos conozcan su identidad fue interesante lo cierto es que por todo lo demás sentí que otra vez estaban repitiendo los problemas de MJ con Peter, uno creería que después de tanto por fin los escritores habrían encontrado una manera diferente de agregarle drama a su vida pero no, sigue igual. Por otro lado nunca se explica como es que Morlun regresó ni tampoco porque ahora parece ser "indetectable" para todos los que no sean Spider Man y al final termina apareciendo poco siendo sus apariciones reemplazadas por las de un nuevo villano de cuarta llamado Tracer.
  
  El arte tambien me parece que esta bien sin destacar realmente dentro de las tramas del arácnido, hasta cierto punto es simplista decantandose por un estilo más toon aunque sin llegar a ser poco realista, hay momentos donde se ve muy bien aunque la verdad me pareció que eran pocos.
  
  Recomiendo bastante Spider Man The Other a pesar de lo dicho, si bien no creo que sea de las historias más memorables de Spider Man es genial como manejaron este concepto de la "Evolución" del personaje y al mismo tiempo hacer que tenga poderes más relacionados a las arañas. De igual manera el cómic funciona como prólogo para Spider Verse y Civil War asi que si quieres saber que onda con el aumento de fuerza de Spider Man, porque es un personaje importante y sobre todo conocer a Morlun pues adelante, lee Spider Man The Other: Evoluciona o Muere.
• 
  Dani Wladdimiro

  Este tipo de historias son las que divide al público, porque definitivamente Peter David comenzó un viaje sin retorno, y eso es de admirar, independiente del resultado. Lo que quiere darnos a entender la saga es sobre conocerse a si mismo, ante la posibilidad real de morir, ¿qué sucede en ese momento? ¿Cuáles son nuestras prioridades? ¿Qué deseamos hacer en un futuro? Entiendo el malestar de muchas gentes por el dibujo, el dividirlo en tres autores distintos, pero sinceramente siento que es una apuesta arriesgada e interesante. Podrá gustar mas o menos, pero tiene el valor de atreverse de renacer al personaje. Sin dudas, existen distintas cosas que serían muy interesantes de analizar con mayor detalle, dado que los poderes de Spidey cambian completamente, los más conversadores, estarán disgustados, los más vanguardistas, quizá asombrados, los que simplemente gustan leer, siento que aceptan el mensaje. Como digo, es una historia muy personal, por lo tanto termina siendo (lamentablemente) blanco o negro, porque así son este tipo de historias tan de autor, pero siempre he preferido esto que una historia genérica planteada por la editorial.
• 
  Greg Davies

  I hadn't followed the Spiderman series since the Clone Saga of the 1990's, but every so often Marvel publishes an event that comic book fans just shouldn't miss out on. Such is the way with The Other.
  
  Older fans who are unfamiliar with more recent Spidey tales may feel a little lost in this story and disoriented at first. Aunt May is alive, and Parker is a member of the New Avengers.
  
  It's a darker story, which makes it all the more interesting, though I feel they could have delved into even darker depths of Parker's psyche as the story progressed. At the same time, the ending of the collected works seems to be "cut off". There's really no clear resolution.
  
  Overall, not a bad read, and the artwork is superb.
  
  Not a bad "prequel" to the Civil War saga as well.
  
  
• 
  J.M. Giovine

  Being familiarized with late 90s-early 2000s Spidey, there’s plenty of lore to be learned in regards of the brand new symbolism of his powers; after the events of Coming Home and Revelations (created, as well, by Straczynski), we learn that there’s a potential cosmic meaning behind Spider-man’s existence, since Peter apparently was “destined” to become Spidey, which is a brand new concept toward his character, nonetheless, it’s still interesting and a breath of fresh air, considering the whole “clone” galore exposed throughout the whole 90s run on his comic-book series. The Other is a story that basically works as a non-direct sequel to those events, so I’ll pretty much recommend to anyone interested to check those volumes first; they aren’t hard to acquire and they’re worth the while. For the plot, Peter is having weirdly disturbing dreams, accompanied by a powerful sense of dread and danger. Morlun, apparently, is back and decided to finish off Peter and eat him, once and for all, after failing on his first attempt. At this point, Peter already joined the Avengers, and MJ along Aunt May are living all together at the Stark Tower, so life’s pretty good for starters, but after a first-encounter with the new villain, Tracer, Peter is being forced to visit a Doctor that’ll give him the worst news: apparently, he’s dying.
  This is a story that basically starts all over the place; too much stuff going around, and just in the first two issues. Usually I’ll be having a hard time with that, since I do enjoy my comic-books all focused and consisting but, strangely enough, here it’s the other way around. Maybe it’s due to the re-exploring of this ‘Spider’ significance, but the more it happens, the more attention and engage I offer to the story. I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone shall find this strange, odd and down-right weird, but it’s just unique in regards of the sort of stories displayed for Spider-man, and I have to give it to Straczynski; the guy really knows how to write and deliver this character, I pretty much believe he’s highly underappreciated in the whole Spidey library. Also, he created Morlun, and that villain has already earned an important and most intimidating spot in the lines of the Spidey’s rogue gallery.
  Granting Spider-man a cosmic and mystic point of view it’s a double barrel gun, especially for people who are deeply in love with this character (as I am), and a are already used to the simplistic “normal guy obtains super-powers”, but I feel it offers plenty of opportunities, considering the upcoming “Spider-verse” struggle and concept that’ll be approached a decade after this events. If people don’t have a problem with this “multi-verse-spider-universe” then this shouldn’t be a problem, and, in many respects, the oddity is considerably compensated by great character chemistry and clever ideas displayed all over this collection of issues. The combat against Morlun is pretty brutal, without giving anything away, and there’s an important character-transformation that’ll redefine our entire knowledge towards a certain character, providing a strong sense of B-movie material, that’s even addressed at a certain point in the story, which is something that combines perfectly to the character, but also, to the story in general. All in all, this is Spidey at his most complex and twisted, up to this point, obviously.
  If I have to pick some issues, which I do have, I’ll go first with some plot-elements. Not to give anything away, again, but there’s a point in which three characters’ kind of… travel back in time, for no reason rather than to offer a touchingly emotional moment, and Tracer kind of goes away after a pretty lame twist towards his identity, again, out of nowhere. Also, there’s a villain that is introduced half-way through the climax, and it leaves on a cliffhanger which, I’ll admit, got me a little off, since it promised a uniquely deep showdown between Spidey and it, and I guess it was later addressed after the events of Civil War and Back to Black, but I just haven’t read it, and in here, it’s just a tease, and a cruel one, since that introduction pretty much validates the title of this tale. In regards of the art department, the best issues are penciled by the great Mike Deodato Jr. and he delivers the most gruesome and horror-like elements of the story, which I understand why Pat Lee delivers the less-dynamic issues of Marvel Knights, although, his human-design are too ‘anime-like’ for my taste, and they really don’t go along to the rest of the material presented; his art it’s too thin and pointy for my taste, at least, in regards of comics, and its better suited in the Manga format. Mike Wieringo’s, on the other hand, is way too cartoonish and simplistic, and it really distract from the aggressiveness and rough pencils of Deodato’s so, it’s kind of a mixbag in regards of the art department. Other than that, The Other, while extravagant at times, delivers and intriguing and unsettling plot, build previously by Straczynski, and molded by Peter David and Reginald Hudlin; is a story that’ll help people understand plenty about Spider-man himself, and his interaction and relationships towards MJ and his aunt, but also, on the human aspect of his persona, and the duality between him and his powers, which seems to be on the verge of a considerably amazing transformation. This is Spider-man on a brand new moment in his life.
  
• 
  Kris Morris

  fun read, although the art of the marvel knights issues was awful. but the story was pretty well told and hey for marvel it felt strange they didn't use time travel.
• 
  C.A. MacLean

  The Other reads at times like a surreal, gruesome fever dream. Though compelling in a strange way, the story’s numerous disjointed plot points and flat-out bizarre narrative tics make it a less satisfying read than it could have been, offering up far more questions than answers.
  
  The tenure of J. Michael Strazynski on the Spider-Man books took a daring step and questioned the half-century-old mythology of the character: what if Spider-Man’s origins had been supernatural rather than scientific? What if the spider that bit him had meant to pass on its abilities as an arachnid before it died of radiation poisoning, as opposed to being given the powers by the radiation? What if Spider-Man was merely one in a long line of ‘totemistic’ heroes, to whom villains with similar origins (animal imposters, like Doc Ock, the Lizard…) are drawn?
  
  A controversial turn to be sure, but when asked by Peter which one is true, an African shaman in The Book Of Ezekiel provides an astute quote on the subject: “Tomorrow the sun will come up. You can tell me all the reasons of science that it does come up, the orbital mechanics, all the laws of thermodynamics. And I will say that it will come up because it is meant to come up. I see no contradiction. Do you?”
  
  Very nice, JMS. Basically, it means, ‘believe what you want’ in the context of Spidey’s mythology. I’ve learned that there’s a certain divide between people who prefer their narratives to have a materialistic, scientific bent, and those who prefer the fantastic: it’s the difference between the “so advanced that it mimics magic” Element Zero in Mass Effect, and the actual magic that Daniel Radcliffe is wielding on the big screen. But Marvel comics exist in this funny little wibbly-wobbly zone that picks and chooses from either side of the table as it sees fit: genius physicists work hand in hand with Sorcerer Supremes, and it’s been like that for a good while, so JMS’s decision isn’t quite as far-flung as it might seem, no matter how ingrained the usual narrative of Peter Parker’s superhero origins has been in our society.
  
  But The Other shows the scales tipping decidedly in the totemistic direction. This arc intends to show the end result of the fusion of man with spider, but a lot’s going to happen on the way. I normally try to avoid these play-by-play summaries, but with this strange arc, it would be very difficult to lay out what works, what doesn't, and why, without taking you through the story.
  
  Over this arc and the previous one in which Spidey and the rest of the Avengers took on Hydra (whom today’s audience will recognize from the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Spidey began to be prone to strange black-outs and nightmares. When being treated for bullet-wounds from a Villain Of The Week called Tracer, the doctor makes the startling revelation that Peter is terminally ill. This becomes the focus of the arc at this point, with Peter having to break it to his family and try to find ways to cope when even the uber-powerful Doctor Strange tells him, “You’re a good man who’s led a good life. Prepare to die.”
  
  Around this time, Morlun resurfaces, claiming that he’s returned from the dead to kill Spider-Man. For those not familiar with JMS’s run, Morlun was a new villain introduced in Coming Home, the very first arc JMS penned for the wall-crawler. Morlun’s whole ‘thing’ is that he fed on the life-essence of superheroes, lending credence to the whole totemistic notion, and also that he was really, really strong and unstoppable. Think the T-1000 mixed with a much faster Pyramid Head. In fact, JMS actually came under fire for “over-selling” the villain by having Spidey claim that he’s never been hit that hard before (Hulk? Juggernaut?), and that Morlun is the first villain to ever tick him off (Norman?). But writer overzealousness aside, Morlun is one bad cookie.
  
  Sorry, but I need to digress from the summary at this point to make clear one of those niggling issues I have with The Other. Look, I know people coming back from the dead in comic books is less of “Oh wow, wonder how that happened!” and more “oh, okay”, but there’s still typically some kind of explanation for it, no matter how…comic book-y it may be.
  
  At the end of Coming Home, Spidey figured out how to hurt Morlun by shooting himself up with more of the same radiation that turned him into Spider-Man to begin with, and when Morlun tried to feed on him, Spidey forced him to essentially OD and become weak. After he had beaten Morlun to an inch of his life, the guy lost control and shifted into his reptilian true form, at which point his mistreated assistant Dex shot him. At which point he shriveled up and turned to dust. There’s zero ambiguity, no “they didn’t find the body” hijinks. That’s the kind of death you give to a final boss in a video game to make clear that yes, that was his final form and the game is now finished and you need to run out of his collapsing castle and see the credits.
  
  So it begs the question of why there isn’t a single word brokered as an explanation for how Morlun survived. I’m not looking for something big, just a single sentence would satisfy me. “Did you really think a being such as I would be simply bound to flesh and bone?” Boom, there, done. But the fact that we’re not even given that is just…weird. I’d call it inattentive writing, but in the context of everything else that’s going on here, it just adds to the surreal-ness. It’s distracting. And I honestly find it disappointing, because Morlun was one of the main reasons I was itching to read The Other: his presence in Coming Home brought a level of desperate intensity to the story that I thought worked really well. (I’m aware that I’ve a minority opinion on Morlun, and I’m fully willing to admit that it might just be because Coming Home came to me during a really crucial part of my formative years as a fan of this stuff and a to-be writer, so nostalgia goggles could well play a part) But here, he’s just a cipher. A means to an end.
  
  Now that Spider-Verse is a thing, we retroactively have an official explanation of how Morlun came back: his whole family, the Inheritors, have a cloning facility located in an alternate dimension, from which they procure a fresh cloned body when the previous one dies. This doesn't really excuse The Other's complete lack of at-the-time explanation, though.
  
  So Peter does some touching stuff with his family, including stealing away on a space probe with Mary Jane to see the Earth from orbit thanks to some string-pulling by Tony Stark.
  
  The very next issue, Spidey is swinging around NYC commenting on how the fact of impending death is making him feel so free, at which point Morlun decides it’s time to feed. They fight, and Spidey dies. That’s it. That’s the whole issue. (Or “chapter” would be a better term in graphic novel format, I suppose)
  
  To elaborate, this is one of the most brutal and graphic moments of the entire Spider-Man saga, culminating in Morlun ripping Spidey’s eye right out of its socket (“SQUITCH!”) and eating it in front of him. He then beats Spidey so brutally that the close-up of Peter’s face in the next issue is frankly cringe-worthy. That’s another level of surreal in The Other: while I don’t personally have an aversion to it, this arc (mostly this part) exposes the reader to a greater degree of brutal violence than one would expect from a Spider-Man book.
  
  But Peter is not dead. He is rushed to ICU, where Morlun intends to finish the job. However – and in sight of Mary Jane – the mortally-wounded Peter…changes. It’s as though the more spider-like aspects of his personality take over in full: his face actually transforms to that of a feral creature (Red eye, sharp teeth) and he kills Morlun. Then, his last wind exhausted, he expires.
  
  I should lay out the philosophy that’s espoused here while Peter is on the ‘other side’. Basically, ever since getting bitten by the radioactive spider, Peter had embraced the elements that were favourable to him, that helped him fight crime: the wall-crawling, super-strength, proportionate agility of a spider, the good stuff. But in case you haven’t noticed, people hate spiders: they’re often considered creepy and nasty in popular culture. And there’s a reason for that: to many people, myself included, they’re gross and in some cases dangerous. What, pray tell, did you expect to happen when you fused a man with a spider? There are elements of the fusion that Peter has never embraced, those feral elements that he simply chose to bury deep within, but now it’s time…time to embrace The Other. The Spider part of the Man.
  
  It’s really an interesting concept. Long story short, Peter re-awakens in a web cocoon, and we find that he has some new skills. Firstly, his webbing is organic now, much like in the Raimi film trilogy. Strangely, this is not even alluded to in The Other; the first (and last) it’s mentioned is in One More Day at the end of JMS’s tenure, but more on that later.
  
  The other thing is that Pete now has massive bone-stingers that erupt from his wrists. He even questions this, saying that spiders don’t have stingers, and the only explanation he gets is “Spiders evolve. You evolve.” So Spidey is, in essence, the combined evolution of the Spider and the Man…? It’s not really explained too well.
  
  Speaking of explanations, there’s a pretty major hiccup at the end that I tried my hardest to ignore, but I just can’t do it. Okay, so after Spidey returns from the dead, a new villain pops up: this vaguely feminine monster made entirely of a mass of spiders. She’s not given a name. Some noise is made about how Spidey returning has upset some amorphous cosmic forces, and this creature was sent as a “corrective response”, Spidey’s equal-and-opposite, meant to kill him. They fight, and…she vanishes.
  
  Straight-up. Vanishes.
  
  Because this villain – who managed to web up the entire top floors of Avengers Tower, consume Spidey’s old body and prove perfectly adequate in a head-on fight, just doesn’t appear afterwards. She isn’t defeated (in fact, she proves to be more than a match for Spidey), she just escapes the battle. Then there’s some stuff about Spidey rescuing people from a collapsed building, and then…it pretty much ends there.
  
  That’s so weird. Like, that’s the kind of creature you’d think they’d put a super-APB out on. As for what it does for The Other, it makes the climax bizarrely dull for such a twisted, strange story arc. It’s not a point of high action, it’s not an emotional climax, it’s just…disjointed. I actually checked to make sure that nobody had ripped an issue’s worth of pages out of my paperback; it’s that jarring in terms of story structure. Sorry about my poor summary, by the by: there are a lot of little details in The Other and I tried to just include the essential ones.
  
  Something’s been nagging at me as I write this. It’s another narrative tic about the story that makes it feel strange and disjointed: Peter’s terminal illness. Okay, for The Other’s concept to work, let’s say that Peter has to die and come into direct contact with the “Other” that he must then embrace. So his death and resurrection are a given. So in hindsight, it’s very strange that they build up this terminal illness…and then BOOM! Morlun crashes in and beats him to death so brutally that you can almost imagine someone in the background shrieking MORTAL KOMBAT, eliminating that subplot from existence.
  
  Or, more accurately, one subplot eliminates the need for another. If Spidey is dying, let’s say because his totemistic powers are decaying and he needs to embrace the Other in the spaces after life (I don’t know, it’s not explained too well), then there’s no need for Morlun in the story at all, especially with such an odd non-explanation for his return. If we’re having Morlun in the story to beat Spidey into a quivering bag of guts and bruises, then there’s no need for the terminal illness subplot. It’s double redundancy.
  
  So that’s one villain who is given no adequate explanation as to his return, and another villain who is not given an adequate explanation as to her exit, and a major part of the story which is hammered at by two different points at once, each one eliminating the need for the other. The whole story is like a genetic mutation: it’s disjointed and you’re never sure if it’s going to hold itself together, or fall right apart. It’s really uncomfortable, like a quivering narrative trying desperately to hold itself together and failing, like that scene in the first X-Men movie where Senator Kelly disintegrates.
  
  The Other could have been vindicated by history if things had gone differently in the months that immediately followed. But ultimately, the arc was overshadowed, shoved out of the limelight and denied proper time for its repercussions to develop and be made clear. You’d think it would be difficult to so quickly overshadow an arc that kills Peter Parker, brings him back and has him undergo a strange metamorphosis that shines an unsettling and potentially game-changing light on his spider-powers; you’d underestimate Marvel circa 2007. Immediately after The Other, events are set in motion that lead to the Crisis Crossover event, Civil War, which dominates the Spidey arcs Mr. Parker Goes To Washington and The War At Home. Spidey mavens know exactly how the rest plays out: The War At Home leads directly and swiftly into Back In Black, which led directly into One More Day…
  
  Let me explain it for people who haven’t read any of this. One More Day is widely considered to be one of the worst story arcs not just in Spider-Man history, not just in comics history, but in the history of Western narrative. It is considered contrived, insulting and poorly written, and I can honestly say I haven’t met a single person who doesn’t think it’s crap. To wit: Spidey has his marriage to MJ retconned by Mephisto to save Aunt May’s life, who’s dying from a bullet wound that none of the abundant scientists, doctors or Sorcerer Supremes in the Marvel universe can fix for some reason.
  
  Because editor-in-chief Quesada wanted a ‘swingin’ single’ Peter Parker, Mephisto retcons a bunch of things, like Harry Osborn’s death, the marriage itself, May’s house being burned down (which happened two arcs before The Other, which is why they were staying in Avengers Tower to begin with)…point is, much of The Other got simply forgotten or left by the wayside after One More Day. OMD is the first and only time in which Spidey’s organic webbing is given a moment to shine (when he webs up Iron Man, it’s a sight to behold), but it’s one of the things that got retconned out of existence after OMD. The stingers are gone too. Great job picking a direction and sticking with it, Marvel.
  
  It’s so much worse than it sounds. No. I’m not doing a review of One More Day, or at least not yet. I’ll just say that it (and one scene in particular – guess which one! It’s like a game!) may be the first-ever narrative so bad that it actually makes a rock-solid case for coma-drinking.
  
  So because a crisis crossover pulled in the webhead, which led directly into a dumbfounding flustercluck, The Other never really got a chance to become the long-haul far-reaching evolution of the character that it seems it wanted to be.
  
  That said, the Spider-Man think tank has shown that it hasn’t forgotten or discarded JMS’s totemistic ideas. When Dan Slott wrote Spider-Island, he had Kaine (Spidey’s clone) resurrected from the dead and turned into a gigantic monstrous tarantula who served the Jackal. When Kaine was cured of his, uh, monster-ness, he laments about waking up from death with all these strange new powers. Peter says that he’s been there. Throwaway gag? Well…shortly after in that arc, Kaine kills a major antagonist…with massive bone-stingers erupting from his wrists.
  
  Well, bizarrely enough, this fever dream finally came to a sort-of conclusion…over half a decade later. After Spider-Island, Kaine took off for his own adventures down in Houston in the Scarlet Spider books, and runs afoul of a pair of werewolves (don’t question it) and lingers on the brink of death. From there, a familiar scene plays out: a Totemistic presence between life and death beckons for Kaine to ‘embrace the Other’, that it has moved on from Peter and now summons this particular spider to embrace his feral other.
  
  And lookie who it is! That vaguely female spider-creature that just up and vanished from the story years ago is the one tempting Kaine. And unlike Peter, Kaine gives in to the Other. Long story short, he wakes alive, but as a monstrous creature that scarcely recognizes friend from foe, until he’s able to get it under control.
  
  I…guess that’s the end of The Other. It is nice to have an actual resolution after all these years as to what would concretely have happened if Peter had fully embraced the beckoning Other, but I can’t help but feel like it might be too little, too late, even as such a continuity maniac as myself.
  
  So at its core, The Other is a deeply flawed story with an interesting philosophy behind it, but a troubled narrative with a strange, unresolute conclusion that doesn’t make productive use of the whopping twelve issues it took to get there. As far as JMS’s run goes, it lacks the wicked intensity of Coming Home and the surprising poignancy of Happy Birthday, but avoids the squicky canon-defilement of Sins Past and the all-around offensiveness of One More Day. It sort of stands alone. This story takes us places I’ve never seen a Spidey book take us before, and while it doesn’t always satisfy, you definitely feel on the last page like you’ve been through something. It leaves an impact, for better or worse.
  
  Because the original stapled comics and the trade paperback are long out of print, your best bet for reading The Other is in Volume 4 of the JMS Ultimate Collection, which is the version I own. And for the purpose of full disclosure, this review was originally written several years ago for my website.
• 
  Sarah

  The whole mystical connections to the "spider" that play a heavy role in this time of the Spider-Man mythos... is strange, to say the least. It's interesting, but I'm glad that it's not a super-prevalent part of the overall Spider-Man character. Still, it's interesting to see Peter's powers evolve (though the spikes are just plain weird). All of that aside, I do really like how Peter is written--his voice, his sarcasm, his wit... it's all very Peter Parker. But what makes this story really interesting are his relationships--with Aunt May, MJ, the Avengers, etc. This story may have been a little jump-the-shark-y (with the dying and shedding your skin, etc.), but the relationships and the emotions managed to keep it engaging. Peter "dying" was really raw and really well done--but I'm very glad that he didn't actually die. We all know that beloved comic characters have been around for decades are still going to be around for decades (hence the whole, you know, "beloved" thing). Peter Parker is a part of our culture as much as Spider-Man is. And, more often than not, when comics kill off characters that are so rooted in nostalgia, it feels more like a ploy to up sales than it does a well-considered writing choice. So, yes, while the whole "dying-but-not-really" thing was cheap in some ways, it did also allow the character and his world to grow, and it allowed for a different perspective on his powers. (All without doing the super cheap ploy of actually killing a character we know has plot armor. Because, let's face it, very few comic book deaths actually had the guts to stay dead for long enough that it made a difference.) So what does all that rambling mean? Mostly that I liked the book, but I didn't love it. Not a bad Spidey read, but not my favorite either.
• 
  Amanda Shepard (Between-the-Shelves)

  I stayed up late last night finishing this because I couldn't sleep, and I would say that the second half of this book is much more engaging than the first half. My favorite aspect of this story arc was the emotions; Peter/Spider-Man is slowly deteriorating, though no one can figure out why. There are a lot of excellent moments between him, MJ, and Aunt May that really make this worth it.
  
  However, because this is a compilation of different Spider-Man issues, the art in some issues isn't up to par (specifically the Marvel Knights issues). The story was there, for the most part, but the art just threw me off. I do enjoy the mythological aspects that have been thrown in, with Peter being the Spider totem and all. Though I wouldn't recommend jumping into this without reading some of JMS's run on Spider-Man because there's a lot of background information you'll need to understand what's going on here.
  
  Maybe this isn't my favorite Spider-Man, but it's a great addition to Spider-Man's history.
  
  3.5/5 stars
  
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• 
  Kacper Przysiężny

  One of the first Spider Man Crossovers In the 21 century. After clogging by Clone Saga Spider Man needed a revitalization. So Babylon 5 creator and renowed scriptwriter JMS was asked to just that. After starting with introducing Morlun, outing Spidey identity and giving him a job as a teacher, JMS also did few duds. Sins Past was the first one (eventually retconned out, even as It was overcomplicated and stupid) and One More Day (which at this point It's like sad reality). But there is also this story. Even as it's worse than the rest of the run, I don't think It's bad. Content, this story deals with Morlun return, plus revelations that Spidey is dying. That's pretty much the first half, and It's best part. We have a story about a family that discovers a member of it is dying and coming part to it. Execution isn't flawless, Peter David and JMS part pull the weight, but Reginald Hudlin issues are subpar. Artwork is also not the best. Wieringo and Deodato are good artist, but their style clashes, and we also have Pat ,,Scammer" Lee on board, he's artwork is the most amateurish, plus not fitting. Second part of the story deals with the fallout and It's definitely the worst, but more surrealistic tone helps a little, and the ending does help with it, but it's far from Perfect.