Believe it or not, things are finally changing.
Dan Slott's run on Spider-Man as of late has been no less than thrilling, fantastic, and game-changing for everyone's favourite wall-crawler. But it's not until this issue where things finally do change and wow, do things ever take a turn for the worse.
Starting off on a positive note, Dan Slott begins his prelude to the biggest even in Spider-Man history with quite some flair. Peter's life has never been a consistant one. He's always been stuck with money problems, girl problems, landing an apartment and all the while, juggling this with being Spider-Man and protecting the city of Manhattan. He's arguably experienced more throughout his life than almost any other hero in the Marvel Universe and beginning with "Big Time", Slott decided to finally give Peter a break. This issue reflects on that, on the most important parts of Peter's life. His life as Spider-Man, his job, his love life and his family. All are beautifully illustrated by newcomer Richard Elson, whose art is unfamiliar in the series, but a welcomed treat as he fluidly crafts any scene. Without spoiling too much, Slott puts an apparent focus on Peter and MJ's "on and off" relationship and it seems as if he tries to rectify the situation, which Aunt May takes a liking to.
But with Slott, things never appear to be what they seem and the ending speaks volumes in regards to this. It might leave you frustrated, disappointed, sad, but it will most assuredly leave you speechless and thinking what is to come following this revelation.
While I commented on how Elson's art was brilliant for the most part, it wasn't perfect. While he drew actions scenes quite well and a fantastic Spidey. Some of his faces seemed off and it lacked consistency. Probably the only other negative comment I can leave here regarding this issue is that we have to wait another week to get Amazing Spider-Man #699.
All in all, this was a fantastic issue and a brilliant prelude to Spidey's "final" story.
Final Score: 9 out of 10.
ComicVine Score: 4.5 stars out of 5.