They're now being written as fanfic (fan fiction). There's a long tradition for that sort of thing, where fans write stories that really shouldn't be incorporated into comics mainstream, for the simple reason that the story takes the character too far away from what makes the character special.
These stories eventually have to be walked back or somehow corrected - a good recent example would be when Spider-Man revealed his secret identity to the world.
This issue presents another such story, and eventually Marvel will have to "fix" it - but they're apparently so desperate to generate sales or buzz around the company's most famous character that they take things to the ridiculous extreme we see here.
(And no, I'm not going to tell you what happens - just that I really, really don't like the direction the story takes.)
This seems to be par for the course with the modern Spider-Man - certainly it was my reaction to the "magical" ending to Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane Watson.
I'm convinced Marvel is hoping for a big pile of controversy, hoping it will drive readers to flock back to Spider-Man - and then they'll "correct" the effects of this story. I'm not convinced that this plan will work.
My advice would be to focus more on telling good stories and less on controversy - oh, and to make the title a monthly, and focus on quality, not quantity - but if they were going to listen to me, they'd have been doing that all along.
It's good that this is the last issue of "Amazing Spider-Man" - there's not much left about the character that's amazing any more. It's just sad, really.
Grade: D
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