Spider-Man: Spider-Island / Spider-Man: Spider-Island Companion

I have thoroughly enjoyed pretty much every Spider-Man book I have picked up since Happy Birthday by J. Michael Straczynski.  For a while I was reading several trades a day just to catch up.  Spider-Island felt a lot like World War Hulks & World of New Krypton; more in the vein of World of New Krypton than World War Hulks.  It’s the type of storyline that makes the hero feel obsolete in the face of adversity.  The hero has to resort to his secret identity to do what no one else is able to do.  Spider-Man doesn’t shine in this as much as Peter Parker does.  The companion is also quite good you have a Spider-Girl story that’s OK but the Cloak & Dagger story is excellent although it leaves you wanting more this would have been a great jumping on point for an ongoing series or mini-series at least about these to second stringers .  The Shang-Chi story was great frankly I had never heard of him until this series came out glad to see he’s getting a push in Hickman’s Avengers run.  One of my favorite parts in this story is spider powered M.J. because it cements her understanding of how important Spider-Man is to New York.  Even the moments of Parker swinging with his current girl Carly Cooper were awesome but it was when he shared the frame with M.J. that shows me that Slott’s got something in store for these two, he always focuses on the little things with long scaffolding story arcs & I look forward to what comes next.  This was a great story that brought b rated & even c rated characters to the forefront while giving depth to the main characters.