The entire O'Hara family (and Tyler, lmao) is interesting and messed up in their own ways. That's great! At least for a story and me, the reader. Not so much for Miguel. Quite a few superheroes had abusive upbringings, but I feel like it's more developed here when you have Conchata taking out her own anger and disappointment (at herself, at Tyler, at George) on Miguel, thus giving us layers of trauma and abuse. As ever, Peter David reliably writes a unique character with pathos and humanity. For most of 44 issues, Miguel O'Hara's trials and tribulations are in his hands and remain engaging and interesting: and notably un-Peter Parker-like.

There is a 5 part cross over around the first third of the book that does go on way too long and drag down the overall enjoyment for me. It's basically "Thor" rebirth or so they say and Spidy, X-Men, Dr. Doom and more have to team up to stop the mighty Thor. It's kind of silly, dumb, and the issues outside of Spidy and Doom are pretty horrible if I'm being honest. This one was a little rough to get through. Peter David is one of the industry’s most prolific and versatile writers whose record-breaking stint on Incredible Hulk remains a fan-favorite to this day. His similarly long-running — and critically acclaimed — association with X-Factor began in the early 1990s and continued in 2005. His other Marvel work includes Captain Marvel, two lengthy stints on Spider-Man 2099, Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider and the smash-hit Symbiote Spider-Man limited series with artist Greg Land. David is also a novelist and screenwriter. Among his credits are some forty Star Trek tie-ins; original novels such as Sir Apropos of Nothing, Howling Mad and Knight Life; movies Trancers 4 and Trancers 5; and episodes of Babylon 5 and Crusade. He also co-created the TV show Space Cases with actor-writer Bill Mumy. But he didn't. Instead he morphed into a man with razor sharp nails and teeth, almost vampire like. Far scarier than most Spider-Man characters. Miguel had no interest being a hero but thanks to the company he worked for, he couldn't let them do all their shady shit. So he decided to break them down from the outside, while at the same time dealing with villains, and try to help the downtown levels of New York where the poor and broken lived.

I’ve been a fan of Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 since the Shattered Dimensions video game. Years later I read his original series from the 90s and loved it. Even now on a reread in 2023, David’s writing holds up very well. This omnibus collects all 46 issues of the original run of Spider-Man 2099 plus a few extra stories from the wider world of the Marvel 2099-verse. I'd say the first 25 issues are the most solid. Afterwards it's a bit of a mixed bag, though not terrible. Just not as interesting. I understand there was plenty of drama behind the scenes (as per usual with comic books) so it makes sense why earlier plot points were super randomly brought up again at the very end, without any warning.

He drops threads throughout the series to keep things interesting: a convoluted love...uh, hexagon, I guess? Villains that recall but largely don't even mirror Peter's (from a casually cannibalistic Vulture to a differently-deranged Venom) or simply don't at all like Venture and Risque.Miguel is not drawn to heroism in response to tragic consequences from self-centered action, but he's definitely drawn to self-centeredness. It's refreshing and stable as a book, though most other writers clearly haven't got a handle on the character or world from the issues written by others, and the last two issues, post-firing of editor Joey Cavalieri (that also led to Peter's resignation in solidarity) are abysmal, losing the character and even the plot of the preceding issues. I suspect that's in part due to limited notes (they seem like they had a high-level view of PAD's last issue, but through a pretty bad game of telephone) but they're a pretty sour note to end on, with the closing events of #44 lost and completely replaced. Prior to this reading I'll be honest, my Miguel knowledge was very limited. I knew him from basically the video game edge of time, and then here or there has guest appearance in other comics. This was the first time I got to sit down and invest in the character and I'm very glad I did.