Plot
Thirty years into Spider-Man's future, New York City has become a safe, albeit authoritarian territory under the complete control of Mayor Waters and his advisor, Edward Saks. Both superheroes and supervillains are both outlawed as "Super-Terrorists", while security is enforced by the authoritarian city police force, "The Reign".
One of three kids fleeing from Reign agents after spray painting is caught while an elderly Peter Parker works as a florist, but he is fired for ruining a couple's wedding by sending the wrong flowers. On his way home another kid crashes into him, Reign agents accidentally injure Peter in their arrest of the youth. The last kid, a very young girl, escapes.
Parker returns home and is haunted by memories and hallucinations of his deceased wife Mary Jane Watson, who acts as a moral guide for his actions in the present day. Meanwhile, Mayor Waters announces the WEBB system that will operate from the Mayor's tower, that will protect the city by emitting an energy barrier that will prevent anyone from entering or exiting the city without permission. Behind the scenes, he keeps a vegetative Kingpin prisoner, mocking him.
That night at Peter's apartment, he is awoken by knocking, he answers it in his underwear to see J. Jonah Jameson there to talk and give him a package. Jameson apologizes for his years of abuse, explaining he sold the Daily Bugle when he realized he was ran it off lies, the biggest being about Spider-Man's character. Peter does not respond and shuts the door. Jameson leaves and starts vandalising, which leads him fighting two Reign officers. Meanwhile, Parker opens the package revealing a camera and his old black-suit mask. He defeats the officers wearing only the mask in underwear, imagining himself in his prime. Jameson asks if Spider-Man is back, Peter punches him and walks away.
The next day, Peter regrets what he did and pleads with his hallucination of MJ to pack so they can flee before WEBB is activated and is pleading while she stares out the window not responding. Jameson announces Spider-Man's return in the streets with young followers, while the Reign-backed Daily Bugle News network reports him as crazed. Mayor Waters is dismayed at the return of Spider-Man and Saks calms him by releasing Electro, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, the Sandman, the Scorpion and Hydro-Man from prison, while also advancing WEBB to activate tonight. The Saks then tells the mayor that the newly christened "Sinner Six" understand that if they defeat their old foe, they will be released from prison and New York, and WEBB will prevent them from ever returning. Water's doubts their loyalty but Saks says that they have remote explosives implanted inside them incase they betray Reign.
The graffiti girl is led by a kid named Kasey to a dilapidated church where a large group of kids are listening to Jameson. At his behest, Kasey hacks all electronics in the city to display Jameson's speech and Spider-Man's home address. A crowd gathers outside Peter's apartment including the girl, Jameson, his followers and Reign Agents ordering all to disperse. An elderly Hypno-Hustler is there too and comes out of retirement wishing to aid his former foe. However, the boombox he uses to force Reign to dance soon runs out of battery power due to its age, allowing the Reign to kill him.
MJ continues to look out the window despite Peters pleas leading him to see situation outside. Reign agents see him and shoot a missile at his apartment as MJ suddenly smiles. Peter's apartment is destroyed but after the smoke clears, Spider-Man leaps out cheerfully, wearing his full black costume and using his old tactics of taunting his foes. A Reign agent tries to arrest Jameson but is attacked by the crowd of youth and adults. The girl believes they are inspired by seeing Spider-Man fight. However, the rioters morale crumbles seeing Kraven impaling Kasey on his large knife with the rest of the Sinner Six behind him.
Spider-Man is cornered by the Sinner Six but does not fight back. Kraven rips his mask off, further disheartening the crowd when they realize their hero is an old, defeated man. He is saved at the last moment by a deceased Doctor Octopus, whose final command to his still active tentacles cause them to bring Peter to three grave-markers: those of Mary Jane, Aunt May, and Uncle Ben forcing him to confront his despair.
In the Mayor's tower, a detained Jameson attacks him and Saks only for Saks to reveal himself as Venom. Venom activates WEBB system to project his suit, converting the New Yorkers into symbiotes that obey him while WEBB prevents anyone from escaping the city. He says that he is doing this so he will never be alone again like he was after Eddie Brock's death. He tells the Sinner Six to guard the tower before Spider-Man begins his assault, Sandman is on the ground floor commanding Reign Agents.
Ock's tentacles dig out Mary Jane's body from her coffin and put Peter's arms forcing him face-to-face with his fear that MJ had told him to "go" in disgust in her last moments when he wanted to go stop a robbery, but instead learns that she meant "go get em tiger." Ock's tentacles buries themselves, Ock's body and MJ in a new grave while Peter enters MJ's old coffin to retrieve his famous red-and-blue suit, which he had secretly buried with her.
The girl is chased by a large symbiote and runs back to the ruined church where the kids returned to after the riot. The symbiote catches up and absorbs the kids there and the girl hits the church bell out of desperation and keeps hitting it when seeing the sound hurting it. She rallies the kids to use this knowledge, their youth and will to drive the symbiotes back to the Tower. A kid says that their families will be hunted if they do and the girl says that that is why they will wear masks as she makes Kasey's beanie into a balaclava.
As Spider-Man rises up the tower, he kills or incapacitates the Sinner Six except for Sandman, who is still at the ground floor. There, the girl and the rest of kids from the church arrive, having managed to force some of the symbiotes back to the tower and Sandman shouts at them to return home. Waters calls in and orders them to shoot. The girl gives a speech that anger, courage and truth are related and reveals her power to turn to solid cement. The Reign guards are alarmed by it and start shooting (causing the rest of the kids to run) despite Sandman ordering them to not shoot as he realised that she is his daughter while she holds her ground. Her limbs are broken off into chucks by the shooting and only after Sandman attacks them. He tries to console her and tell her how to regenerate but he is interrupted by symbiotes. After he drives them off he sees that she returned to human form and died.
Spider-Man confronts Venom atop the top floor of the tower where before they fight, Venom says that he blames him for bringing them to a hostile foreign planet and then leaving them to die. The fight leads out the building and to the peak of ther tower where the WEBB system is kept in place with Spider-Man losing and Venom drawing all the symbiotes to the tower to assist him. The Sandman arrives at the last minute and presumbly kills the fleeing Mayor and comes to the tower's peak to give Spider-Man the detonator to his and his team's explosives. Spider-Man activates the detonator, causing the Six, whose bodies were left all across the tower's many floors, to explode, also killing Venom and the symbiotes in the process.
After Venom and the Reign are defeated, Jameson reports that all crime levels are back to where they were years ago, but so are the superheroes. As Peter visits Mary Jane's grave, he states that he will join her in peace one day, until which he has responsibilities to attend to.
Reception
Spider-Man: Reign has been received moderately positive by critics. In 2011, Complex ranked Spider-Man: Reign 17 on a list of the 25 top Spider-Man stories of all time, adding that while it might not be the best original Spider-Man story ever (having been inspired by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns ), it is still one of the best, due to being simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting. [4] Chad Nevett mixedly reviewed the series for CBR.com and noted the series' subject matter to have been inspired by both the plot of The Dark Knight Returns and the lighter, more comedic tone of its sequel The Dark Knight Strikes Again , praising Venom's use in the story, Peter Parker's complexity and maturity and Kaare Andrews' Miller-inspired art style, stating that Spider-Man: Reign may be a horribly-flawed work, but compelling in its own way. [5] io9 ranked the series' version of an older and widowed Peter Parker on a list of the greatest Spider-Men of all time in 2017, citing that Andrews' story is the most perfect example of how miserable Parker's life is in most Spider-Man interpretations. [6]
However, the response to the series has not been completely positive. In a more negative review, Thomas Andrew from liveaboutdotcom ranked Spider-Man: Reign fourth on a list of the five most controversial Spider-Man stories, criticizing it for its lack of originality, fierceness and invention. Another criticized aspect was the revelation that Mary Jane's untimely death was due to her exposure to Peter's radioactivity every time that they had sexual intercourse without protection, citing it as slightly inappropriate for a superhero comic book. [7] When the series was released, Wired criticized Mary Jane's odd death, accusing Marvel Comics of "having finally gone porno". [8]
Nudity controversy
In issue #1, there is a panel known as the "Nude Panel". As the elderly Peter Parker sits on the edge of his bed (hands on his face), his genitals were exposed for the first time in the character's history. The issue was soon recalled and removed from the second run of Spider-Man: Reign #1 for fear of "corrupting minors". [9]
