After Jarvis, Tony Stark/Iron Man’s beloved butler, gets Spider-Man’s dying Aunt May out of the hospital charity ward, Peter Parker/Spider-Man is still faced with a dilemma.  How can he save the woman who has been the only mother he has ever known when every indication is that she can’t be saved?  Spider-Man asks the man who can seemingly do the impossible – Doctor Strange – to save Aunt May.  But if he Spider-Man doesn’t like the answer, how far will he go and what darkness will he perpetrate to save Aunt May?

[This issue contains a partial reprint of The Amazing Spider-Man #259.  It also includes a text history of Mary Jane Watson-Parker.]

THE LOWDOWN:  Summoning the imaginative spirit of classic Doctor Strange Strange artist Frank Brunner, Joe Quesada creates a suite of pages with fancy panel and border designs.  The lavishly illustrated pencils with their interplay of shadows-as-drapery, creepy phantasms, and haunted souls are reminiscent of Kelley Jones’ art for Sandman with Neil Gaiman.  Visually, this is as close to Sandman as we will get outside or reprints.

Quesada’s art manages to change writer J. Michael Straczynski’s dour tale into on edge-of-your-pants action/fantasy/drama with heart.  Spider-Man, in his quest to save Aunt May, is heroic in his desperation, more sympathetic than pathetic this time around.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Directed at the people who have been reading Spider-Man in recent years, this issue may also be a treat for fans of Doctor Strange.

B+