Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #6

Autumn leaves drift down around two teenage girls — a dark-haired young woman holding a pen and a red-haired Mary Jane — sitting back-to-back against a tree, schoolbooks scattered on the grass around them, while classmates mill about on the sidewalk behind them. This quietly charming cover by Takeshi Miyazawa (pencils) and Norman Lee (inks), with colors by Christina Strain, perfectly captures the series' high-school heart: friendship, tension, and the everyday drama of teenage life. Sean McKeever's "The Origin Thing, Part 1" promises the kind of emotionally grounded storytelling that made Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane one of Marvel's most refreshingly human series of 2006.