Spider-Man is a big player in the Civil War main series. He also has his own Friendly and Sensational titles and appears in New Avengers, and all three of those monthlies have Civil War tie-ins. So what I’m saying is, it’s a big of overkill.

But here we are.

Spider-Man unmasks.

Which of course impacts his personal life.

And leads MJ to suggest ways to keep people from remembering his face.

Someone needs to explain to her that that is not how a man’s boobs work. As always with a JMS book, the moments between Peter and Mary Jane are the best parts.

In “Amazing,” the focus is on his Civil War superheroics.

So we just see more detail of his showdown with Captain America, for example, where he realizes that Cap is a symbol of superhero purity, switches sides, and trades in his Tony Stark armor upgrade for his old blue-and-red spandex.

The switch is of course symbolic of his departure from the ways of Tony Stark, but it also represents (for the readers) a vindication of the “humbler” version of Spider-Man–the everyman character that we fell in love with back in the ’60s.

Of course, that costume, too, has its downsides.

Amazing also has a bit of aftermath full of wounded heroes, J. Jonah Jameson trying to figure out what it was all for, and Kingpin deciding he can capitalize on all of this.

The Amazing arc ends with a sniper shooting Aunt May.

The “Amazing” issues have the half-cover “Civil War” branding (see above), but the Friendly and Sensational instead have a smaller “Unmasked” banner.

Both series have some of your favorite Spider-villains (Vulture, Doc Ock, etc.), some of whom are actually paid by the government to hunt Spidey down after he flips to the Captain America side. Each has their own particular take on the world of an unmasked Spider-Man, but none are essential reading. In fact, they just feel like filler before the big “Back in Black” event where the attack on Aunt May makes Peter get all mad and into his black costume again. Which we’ve seen before, but whatever.

Some nice touches along the way including the return of Deb Whitman, a woman who had an obsessive crush on Peter Parker and went crazy as she began to believe he was really Spider-Man. In her big story, Peter revealed his identity to her and she laughed at the admission, recognizing how far-fetched it was. Now that he’s unmasked, she writes a book.

Peter David’s Friendly Neighborhood books also do a nice job of showing how Peter’s compromised identity also impacts the safety of his students.

In all, there’s just too much Spider-Man across all these titles. The stories feel thin, but are not without their charm.