The Queen? Really? If that's who I think it is, that's a pretty obscure character who only appeared in like 6 issues of the old Spectacular Spider-Man series. Then again, I guess if you use a character with like NO prior appearances, you can do just about anything you want with them without having to worry about fan backlash. Looking past the Queen thing, this was a pretty enjoyable comic, as usual. Now, it wasn't great, but it did set up three pretty important plot points, the first is the Queen reveal, the second is Carlie becoming increasingly suspicious of Peter and the third is Jameson finding out that he had the spider-plague. So for me this felt more or less like a set-up issue. As the next few issues delve deeper into these plot points, I'm sure my score for this series will continue to climb. Read Full Review

Despite the joining of numerous plot points, the dynamic between Peter and Carlie makes it a fun read. Carlie is a confident and determined police officer, so scenes where she and Peter banter about spider-fu, the Jackal, and Spider-Man's secret identity have a witty edge to them and prove to be the highlight of the issue. Combined with Ramos's stellar art, this chapter overcomes its jumbled story to deliver an entertaining tale. Read Full Review

And thats why this entire story was painful to read for me because the same type of pulling without a pause that characterizes Ramos work is also present in the script. Things move fast then stretch, then compress into a mess that makes it difficult to care for the characters. Still Slott understand Peter Parkers voice and throughout the story, there are flashes of the eternal inner demons that affect the character. Here, hes worrying about whether or not to tell his girlfriend Carlie about his secret identity. It was actually quite fun to see him stress over that again. Read Full Review

This issue seems to fit this "middle child" position in Spider-Island where the big bad is revealed and the rest of the time will be spent solving the problems set up in the first act. I've been following this event really loosely, but I can definitely say I want to see what happens - especially when a secondary mutation in the Spider Virus is involved. Read Full Review