Mr. Mackie- This articles describes the story in some detail, pretty well. a bit long, but pretty accurate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_The_Other

Todd, George Perez inked Ron Frenz on that mini-series.

Howard, basically, in "The Other"...

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...Peter discovers he is ill and going to die. His foe, Morlun, is seeking to help him along in dying. At one point, Peter is so badly beaten that when he is unmasked by some New York police and paramedics, they are disgusted at the sight of his "face." 'Cuz, y'know, New York police and paramedics have never had to deal with such a thing. Er...

Anyway, Peter is taken to the hospital, where Morlun appears and attacks Mary Jane. Peter becomes concious long enough to attack Morlun, killing him, by shooting some kind of large retractable claw out of his arm(!). Peter then collapses and dies, supposedly.

Peter's body is taken to the Avengers new skyscraper. Peter comes back to life, sheds his old skin and creates a coccoon under a bridge, where he heals and regenerates a new body. Meanwhile, before emerging from the cocoon, he confronts some Spider-spirit, or some such nonsense, in his mind.

Peter is reborn and Mary Jane and Aunt May are so happy. Iron Man designs Spider-Man a new armored outfit. And that's where it stands currently.

Aren't you sorry you asked? ;-)

People dog the Clone Saga, but, to me, this storyline is much, much worse than that.

Edited: Ah... Rob beat me to the punch while I was typing.

I forgot to mention the part where Aunt May and Mary Jane are wearing Iron Man armor. That happened during the first several parts, where each issue ended confirming once again that, yep, Spider-Man's dying.

FYI-there are still 2 or 3 issues remaining in the story.

You are welcome though!

So in a nut shell... aside from a total change in who and what Spider-Man is or has ever been... the "Other" is Peter/Spider-Man and all those covers were strictly red herrings?

Howard

The Other is the "spider" side of Spider-man. JMS has been hinting or statring from the beginning that Spider-man is more than just a guy in a spider costume with "spider" powers. 

Peter had to embrace his "other" the Spider side, to survive. *

He healed when he shed his skin, is faster, and has spider-pincers. As of now anyway. The story isn't over, so the implication of all this is not clear.

Those covers were all different versions of the Spider-costume throughout the years (only on second printings) and he is getting a new costume after this.

Rumors abound the new costume is only for 3 issues according to Wikipedia anyway, but Quesada has said that JMS knows when the new costume will be leaving.

RUmors also abound that Spider-man will have a falling out tih Tony Stark/and or the Avengers and that the marriage is ending by the end of the year.

*In fact, as his human side lay "dying" he briefly mutated unthinkingly into a spider creature to save MJ, though he didn't consciously do so

Retailers love variant covers.

No, not all retailers, Jason.

In fact, it's the fans that ask us to order them, and the publishers make us order a specific number to get them.

I despise variant covers. It can throw off my ordering. And I can never get enough copies of the variants to fill all the orders for those customers that want one.