This is a feature called "Nothing is Better." I have a feature called "Reason to Get Excited," where I spotlight aspects of current comic books that have particularly impressed me. I had started to expand it to older comics, but it just didn't feel right. I really think "Reason to Get Excited" should be reserved for current comic books. Therefore, this is the equivalent column for older comic books, "Nothing is Better," where I spotlight aspects of classic comic books that have particularly impressed me.

I continue a month of "Nothing is Better" with a spotlight on Greg Rucka and Eduardo Risso's "Severance Package" from Spider-Man's Tangled Web #4 in 2001.

It's hard to read a comic like "Severance Package" now and appreciate just how distinct it was at the time of its release in 2001. Nowadays, Marvel is releasing one-shots that are similar to Severance Package pretty much every other week, but at the time of its release as the fourth issue of Marvel's brand-new Tangled Web series (after an initial story arc by Garth Ennis and John McRea - Garth Ennis doing Spider-Man? Yeah, it was about as weird as you would think it would be), "Severance Package" by Greg Rucka and Eduardo Risso stood out in a big way. SUCH a big way that Marvel reprinted the story like, right after it came out, in one of those Must Haves reprint collections that they used to do a lot.

Essentially, Rucka and Risso established a mold for great one-off stories set in the Marvel Universe and because so many other writers have followed their lead in the years since, it now makes their original story seem less distinctive when you read it and, as a result, the comic has lost a little bit of its luster, which is a shame, since it's a fine comic book.

The idea of the issue is seeing the OTHER side of what happens when Spider-Man foils a plot of a supervillain. What are the aftershocks?

In this issue, Spider-Man foils a plot of the Kingpin to steal something, and later that night, Tom Cochrane is watching the news with his wife when he learns of Spider-Man's victory.

Tom knows that Spidey's win means death for him, as he was in charge of that mission, and even though he was not actually there, it is his responsibility, so he's effectively a dead man walking. His wife tries to get him to run, but he won't - he made a deal with the Kingpin, and he must live up to his end.

The set-up of his departure is beautiful....

He is brought to the Kingpin by a driver named Ritchie, and the two discuss things for awhile, before Tom changes the play and steals Ritchie's gun and kills him. Tom's now armed and approaching the Kingpin, but even this has been all to plan and the question had never been whether Tom will survive the night, but rather whether his wife and children survive the night, as well

Well, I shouldn't spoil that here.

Suffice it to say that Rucka handles it very well, and boy, is Risso's art amazing or what?

While nowadays this story would still be treated as a good story (because it is), at the time, this really stood out as the sort of comic book that Marvel wanted to do MORE of and they did, but BECAUSE they have done it so many times in the 19 years since, this comic unfairly has lost a little of its shine. That shouldn't be the case, so let's give it some props here today!