'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' takes the character into darker territory, as Peter Parker struggles without his friends in the face of evolving Spidey powers and a mysterious new threat.
Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.