Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #500 Review

Amazing Spider-Man #500 (#59)
“Happy Birthday Part-Three”
Writers: J. Michael Straczynski
Penciler: John Romita Jr. & John Romita Sr.
Inker: Scott Hanna
PLOT: Last issue, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange accidentally get trapped inside the moments in between time.  Spider-Man leaves Dr. Strange’s side in an attempt to save MJ but now finds himself lost in the past and the future of his own life.  He witnesses his future self get shot down in a last stand.  Time shifts and then he sees himself right before being bitten by the radiated spider that made him who he is.  Spider-Man has the chance to intervene and change everything, but decides not to and let life take its course.  Dr. Strange finally finds Spider-man and throws him a lifeline to get back.  The only problem is that Spider-Man has to literally jump through all the battles of his past and catch up to the future.  After a roller coaster and tiresome sequence of events, Spider-Man is able to get back to the point in time before our heroes mistakenly brought back Dormammu to this dimension.  Spider-Man warns the heroes of what will happen, and pleads for more time until Dr. Strange can show up and finish the battle via magic.  The heroes trust Spidey, and that is exactly what happens.  Spider-Man then informs Dr. Strange of what he had just gone through, and Strange gives Spidey a present that was somehow in his pocket.  Spider-man returns home to celebrate his birthday with his loved ones.  After the festivities, Peter goes to the roof of the apartment and examines the gift given by Strange.  It turns out that this gift magically brings back Uncle Ben to speak with Peter for five minutes.  After a heart to heart, Peter realizes that even through all his trials and tribulations, he is happy with his life.  With that, Uncle Ben disappears. 
LIKES: A great book for the nostalgic Spider-Man fan.  The artwork was phenomenal.  JRjr’s pencils blew me away especially through all the fight scenes.  JRsr’s work was appropriate.  I don’t know whom else I would choose to pencil such as emotional scene with Uncle Ben than JRsr.  The story was good, but more of a flashback issue.  I was expecting something huge for issue #500, and that was just not the case.
DISLIKES: The story was good, but more of a flashback issue.  I was expecting something huge for issue #500, and that was just not the case.   There is also too much Dr. Strange and other hero involvement.  JMS uses this opportunity as a launching point to his Dr. Strange mini-series, and I fell that this is not the appropriate forum to do that.
RATING: 4 webheads out of 5.  A very nice compilation of Spider-Man’s past and possible future, but not the huge story I expected for such a milestone issue.
Reviewed by AC-WEB (Ariel Chaidez)