Spider-Man Volume 1 - The Complete Story

When you think of Spider-Man’s cast of characters, there are the totally obvious A-listers that come to mind—like Spider-Man himself, the Green Goblin, Venom, Mary Jane, the Black Cat and Aunt May. Each of those characters was big enough to have their own comic at one point. And yeah, before you call bullshit on Aunt May having her own comic, why don’t you check out MTU 147, a fucking gem where Aunt May gains cosmic powers and teams up with the kid from the Fantastic Four to feed Hostess fruit pies to Galactus. It’s still a mystery how to reconcile that story with the one where Spider-Man made a web dummy that scared Aunt May so badly that she almost died. Web dummy? Scary. Galactus? Meh. Maybe her crippling dementia somehow improved her constitution by eliminating her ability to experience fear. Side note: Mary Jane didn’t have her own comic book in the Spider-Man volume 1 era, but there certainly were whole issues dedicated to her, as well as at least half a graphic nove...

Few things are better than comic book pseudoscience explanations... especially when they are clearly just a lazy way to end a stupid story. No muss, no fuss. Just leave it to “science”™! Whenever a writer builds up a big story and then realizes that it's stupid but they only have 5 panels left to finish the story, what else can they do besides throw up a bunch of technical sounding words from tenth grade science class and have Spider-Man rig up some insane-looking apparatus in order to save the day at the last moment? When there's a deadline to turn in your story, there's nothing so stupid that Spider-Man can't make it out of his webbing. Now, keep in mind, a little bit of pseudoscience kicks ass. Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, which gave him spider powers instead of cancer (like you might reasonably expect). The vulture can fly because of electromagnetism? Sure. He uses the same science to turn a Walkman into a death laser , so that’s a cool...

Web of Spider-Man 107-108. I didn’t have these comics in my original collection. I bought them a lot later. It’s not that I didn’t want them, it’s just that I didn’t know that I wanted them. When I first started collecting Amazing Spider-Man, I wasn’t even really aware that other Spider-Man titles existed—let alone had interconnected storylines! It’s fun reading through these now to see what I missed all those years ago. What key details didn’t I have? What final piece of the puzzle will finally snap into place and resolve the previously inexplicable Spider-Man mysteries? What profound new realization awaits me? Not much in Web of Spider-Man, but let me tell you, while this may be “filler” material, it’s totally rad 90’s filler material. If you compare it to the Death of Tombstone storyline , which was unbearable and generic 90’s filler material, at least Project: Sandstorm’s major failure was that it was too ambitious, too busy, and too rad to the max. NOOOOO! ...

Beware the Rage of a Desperate Man! While you might think that the title of this story is a reference to the depths of despair (and ensuing rage) that Spider-Man comic book collectors endured to locate all the inter-title crossover pieces of the story, they are in fact referring to Spider-Man himself being pushed too far. Or, wait... maybe it’s both? Collect all 5 in a 4-part series! Yep, it’s another classic follow-up tale to the Maximum Carnage storyline. Couldn’t get enough Shriek and Carrion? Check out the 4-part Shrieking saga . What’s happening with Carnage? Check out Amazing Spider-Man annual 1994. Want to follow the further adventures of Demogoblin? Check out Spider-Man 46-49. Oh, how I lament my involvement in "Maximum Carnage" © coming soon to Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo!   Because let’s not forget that Maximum Carnage was a big deal . The first ad I ever saw for the video game was in the back of Spider-Man 49.  It will never e...

Death by Tombstone! I guess “Death by Boredom”, although more accurate, wouldn’t have fooled as many people into buying these. These are filler issues. No imagination, nothing interesting happens, and the overall narrative of Spider-Man doesn’t budge an inch. To be sure, not every comic book can be a landmark issue. Not every issue can involve Gwen Stacy dying (spoiler!), Spider-Man discovering his black suit is alive (spoiler!), or Peter Parker’s parents revealing themselves as shape shifting artificial silly putty robo-monsters (mega-Spoiler!). Nope, sometimes you just gotta kill some time with a generic jackass of a comic book. It’s part of the hobby we all just accept, but I must say, the fact that they made this a three-parter was kind of a slap in the face. In Death by Boredom, Tombstone tries to get a seat on the crimelord council, which he can only do by defeating Spider-Man once and for all. It could not be more generic. Somehow it fills three issues and culmin...

Everyone loves an homage to something nostalgic and genuinely terrific. In some cases, it's like a fun little easter egg for people who are really deep into the hobby. Back in the pre-internet era, I had no idea that Amazing Spider-Man 392 was an homage to anything when I first got it in the mail. For me, it was a fun thing to discover (years later) that the cover was the inverse of the famous Amazing Spider-Man 50, "Spider-Man No More!", which is considered by many spectacular spider-fans to be the greatest Spider-Man comic book cover of all time. Amazing Spider-Man 50 was drawn by John Romita Sr. (his son, JR JR would go on to become a prolific Marvel artist who also worked on the Spider-Man titles) who was famous for developing Spider-Man's aesthetic into what most people would recognize as the classic Spider-Man. Back in the day, Stan Lee used to give nicknames to everyone who worked on comic books with him in order to help establish a fun rapport with...

Nothing says “collector’s edition” like a polybag. Don’t ever open it though, unless you want to devalue your incredible 90’s comic book investment!! Mine are unopened, so I’ll still be able to retire at 55. Open at your own risk, moron! On the bright side, if you didn’t think it through and opened the polybag to read the damn book (i.e., like some sort of degenerate) at least a polybag provides you with a convenient way of asphyxiating yourself because I didn’t know about you but I’d rather be dead than have a collection with opened polybags or with missing tattoo inserts or with free Kool-Aid samples already used. Those are all real fucking things by the way, and yes, it cost me an extra $100 to buy a copy of Amazing Spider-Man 238 with the fucking tattooz still in it. And yes, it is spelled with a zed. But more on that later. Right now, let’s talk about polybags. In the 90’s it was ALL THE RAGE to have your comic book come pre-sealed inside a special collector’s edition...

We’re number 1! We’re number 1! Venom! Like I said in my Maximum Carnage post , anyone can see right away that Venom is super fucking awesome. He’s like Spider-Man, except bigger and badder and deadlier. He has sharp teeth and green drool and he’s always threatening to eat people’s brains and strangling good guys to death with his alien costume tendrils. He’s what every 90’s kid wanted to be when they grew up. I, for one, couldn’t WAIT get my own symbiote when I got older. Ah to be young and have dreams. That's over for me now, but at least Venom is still awesome. And you know what else is awesome? Issue number 1 of anything. In comic collecting, few things are as sweet as having the first issue of a series. A decent copy of the Amazing Spider-Man 1 will cost you thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars, in 2020.  Welcome to the chromium age ! In the 90’s, Marvel saw incredible success when they released the adjectiveless “Spider-Man” number...