Spider-Man 101 Part 6:

I am a continuity fanboy whore. At least when it suits me. And I’m not when it doesn’t. Make sense? No? Well, read on…

Welcome to the sixth and final part of my Spider-Man 101 series, a thorough look at the web slinger aimed at the fan who has discovered Spidey through the motion pictures or other media translations and wants to know more about the comic world from which he sprang. If I have accomplished anything with this series, I hope that I have demonstrated that even though Spidey has been around for more than 45 years, he still remains a remarkably accessible character, and it isn’t all that hard to come up to speed on him and the events of his world, regardless of the anti-continuity propaganda and comic fan bashing that Marvel senior management unfortunately seems compelled to engage in from time to time. For years, two of the biggest scapegoats used by the company for sales problems on Spider-Man are the fact that he has aged over time (most notably by his marriage to Mary Jane Watson) and his “complicated continuity.” Those excuses are merely bogeymen for the real problems, including poor writing, poor editing, poor marketing (well, just piss poor management period) and a fundamental shift in how younger Americans entertain themselves these days. To Marvel’s credit, in the last few years, particularly relative to Spider-Man, they moved (belatedly, but they did move) to correct the writing problems. There are good writers on all of the main titles, as well as choices for those who like their Spider-Man older and wiser, or younger and volatile. The jury is still out on the editing and marketing, and the last problem is simply beyond Marvel’s control – some of the historic audience for comics will never come back.

I must confess I wrote this particular article with a certain amount of fear and trepidation, particularly in reference to the continuity question due to its complexity and my perfectionism. Although I’ll cite what I consider to be some of the more notorious examples of problems or flat out errors, I know for a fact that Spidey’s thriving fan base is capable of inundating me with things I missed, or mistakes of my own. But then, I’d be in good company. After all, there aren’t too many people who know Spidey better than Jonathan Couper-Smartt and his cronies at Spider-Fan – yet some really sharp-eyed fans caught errors even in their ultimate reference source – The Spider-Man Encyclopedia. Of course, considering the sheer volume of data they sifted through and presented (and no telling how much they tossed aside due to lack of time and space), their cumulative errors are probably a microscopic number compared to the monstrous amount of Spidey-lore included in those pages.

Aging

How Old is Spider-Man?

30 years old.

All right, all right. I suppose a little more detail is warranted. After all, this is a frequently recurring question that pops up on message boards all the time, as people try to navigate through the twists and turns of Marvel continuity.

The first question we need answered is how old Peter was when bitten by that radioactive spider. In what could be considered the definitive answer, at the end of the highly controversial Civil War #2, where Spider-Man unmasks to the world – Peter states that he has been Spider-Man since he was 15 years old. However, Mark Millar, the author of the piece (and J. Michael Straczynski, who then continued the story in Amazing Spider-Man #533 (August 2006) have been known to place a little loose with continuity before – so can we be sure that they are right? Well, yes.

Peter was in high school when he was bitten by the radioactive spider, but what grade? Well, he was graduated in Amazing Spider-Man #28 (September 1965), but Stan Lee never specifically stated or implied Peter’s age or grade except on one occasion – in issue #16 (September 1964) – doubly interesting as it represents the first meeting between Spider-Man and Matt Murdock aka Daredevil. Spidey “rescues” Murdock from being accosted by muggers (obviously not aware that he would have needed no help) and as he swings away, Matt’s radar sense estimates that Spidey is 17.

Peter’s grade level at the time of the spider bite is not revealed until Amazing Spider-Man #240 (May 1983), written by Roger Stern. When swinging around his old stomping grounds, Spidey reflects that if he hadn’t been bitten by that radioactive spider, he would have remained a “normal Midtown High sophomore,” when the spider bit him. This makes him either 15 or 16, as that’s how old most high school sophomores are.

Writer Gerry Conway finally pins this down in the trade Parallel Lives (1989) which starts out with concurrent narration by both Peter and Mary Jane. In it, Peter specifically says “I was 15 years old.” This was validated many years later by J. Michael Straczynski in Amazing Spider-Man #473 (August 2001). When berated by the enigmatic Ezekiel for his choice of name and costume, Peter replies – “I was 15 years old, cut me a little slack.” What’s funny is that later in issue #500 (December 2003) – JMS has Peter referring to himself as being 17! Oops – continuity error – or simple mistake? Also, in Ultimate Spider-Man, after being bitten by the spider, Peter refers to himself as 15. Two different continuities obviously, but in this case they seem to validate each other. Going back to Matt Murdock’s assertion that Peter was 17 – during those early issues, Stan Lee often referred to the previous issue’s story as happening “last month,” (which obviously changed as the series wore on) – so in issue #16, we can assume that Spidey encountered Murdock almost eighteen months after being bitten by the spider, which is consistent if Peter was bitten in the latter half of 15 going on 16. Seldom are things so simple, however, particularly since after that the aging process began to slow significantly.

While it took only 28 issues for Spidey to age a little over two years, moving from high school sophomore to senior, his college years shifted the agining process into low gear – and he was not graduated from college until issue #185 (October 1978 – o.k. he was still a gym credit short – I know that). There had been considerable debate for several years up to that time over whether or not Peter should really graduate, as Marvel deduced correctly at that time (stating as such in one of the letter columns) that readers preferred a college age Spidey. Inevitably, however, most of the storylines that could be milked from that environment, i.e. “Peter’s grades are in bad shape because he’s always playing Spider-Man” wore incredibly thin, and Marv Wolfman correctly moved him out of college and towards new storylines and challenges.

As there was no indication that Peter was taking the circuitous route to graduation like it seems many people are doing these days – four years was the normal time – making him 21 at the end of issue #185.

With no specific lynchpin dating Peter after he graduated college – time really became convoluted. When the Clone Saga got underway close to Amazing Spider-Man #394 (October 1994) – it was repeatedly stated that the events of the final, original confrontation between Spider-Man and the Jackal took place “five years ago,” and it was repeated incessantly that five years had passed – which takes us back to #149 (October 1975). Now during the original clone story in issues #147-149, the Jackal, aka Professor Miles Warren, who was obsessed with Gwen Stacy, refers to her death “two years ago,” which is odd because in that case Marvel time actually paralleled real time. Why? The only explanation I can think of is that with the current pseudo science that existed at the time vis a vis what we understood about cloning – Gerry Conway figured that he needed the time for the clones of Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker to be sufficiently aged from the time their cell samples were originally taken. Anyway, the capstone of the Clone Saga, Glenn Greenberg’s Osborn Journals (February 1997), has Norman Osborn, on the eve of his battle with Spider-Man at the Daily Bugle (which took place in Peter Parker #75 (December 1996)), referring to the death of Gwen and his own assumed death as taking place “seven years ago,” which seems to validate the above exercise. It should also be noted as well, that Gerry Conway has admitted that during the 1970’s that when he was writing Spider-Man, that he (and many others) did not think that the comic book industry was going to survive the decade, and that he could write without serious repurcussions for the future, because there wasn’t going to be one.

To extrapolate Peter’s age at the time of Gwen Stacy’s death we have a couple of reference points. In Amazing Spider-Man #70 (March 1969), Peter refers to himself as “boy sophomore.” In issue #136 (September 1974), he tells Mary Jane that “I’m a college junior majoring in physics.” If Peter was 19 as a sophomore and 20 as a junior, and issue #122 is a lot closer to #136 than #70, I’m assuming that Peter was 20 years old when Gwen was killed. Thus, he is 27 at the close of the Clone Saga in Peter Parker #75. (Hey – but I just said earlier that he was 20 when Gwen was killed – and if two years passed from then to the first clone story – then he’d be 22 during that story – and I also just said that he was 21 when he was graduated from college – and that means – aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh! No wait – maybe he was really 19 when Gwen died, but turned 20 the next day – and maybe two years was really, like 22 months and – no – forget it – it’s not worth it. I’ll go on as planned.)

In Amazing Spider-Man #470 (May 2001), Mary Jane’s kidnapper, who has made the world believe that she is dead, refers to the battle between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin at the Bugle which ended the Clone Saga happening “a year ago.” In issue #506 (June 2004) Ezekiel tells Peter “You’ve probably noticed for the past year” that more of his battles have come from the supernatural side, and that year would date back to JMS’ tour of duty on Amazing which began with #471 (June 2001). So – that’s around two years passing between the end of the Clone Saga and issue #506. So Peter is at least 29.

As far as Peter being 30 – well the cheat is to refer to issue #22 of Brian Michael Bendis’ series Alias (no relation to the TV show starring Jennifer Garner). The heroine of that series (and also one of the stars of Bendis’ new series The Pulse) Jessica Jones also attended the infamous Midtown High School – and she had a crush on Peter Parker! Her recollections occur on the very same day that the spider bit Peter supplemented by the caption “15 years ago.” Do the math – and Peter is 30 years old. Mary Jane was established by Gerry Conway in Parallel Lives as being a year younger than Peter, so that makes her 29.

So, you can take the lazy way out and use Bendis’ assumption, or you can go the long way around and come pretty close to it. So, you could say that Peter is either 29 or 30 and you’d probably be right. Which means that he’s aged around 14 or 15 years, and the Marvel Universe is 15-16 years old based on when the Fantastic Four first took that fateful flight into space and encountered those infamous “cosmic rays.”

Of course, does it really matter how old Peter is anymore? Frankly, I don’t think so. Some time ago, in response to the issue of aging characters, writer/artist John Byrne made one of his hateful little comments questioning whether or not the folks who are in favor of Spider-Man growing older (of which I consider myself to be one) want him to be 50 years old someday. Of course, and not surprisingly, that completely misses the point of the fan argument. It isn’t that fans want Spidey to age to the point that by Amazing Spider-Man #1,200 he’s a grandfather who complains about his arthritis or clutches his heart when he hears that Norman Osborn is terrorizing the city in his flying Goblin Wheelchair, and yells upward “You here that Gwen? I’m coming to join you honey – with an explosive pumpkin rammed up my butt!” No – fans want Peter Parker to be a character who is the sum of his experiences. He has had a long and eventful career as Spider-Man, and fans want to see that reflected in the character and the stories that are told about him. They don’t want to be repeatedly insulted as they were during the first year after the 1999 reboot, when Peter and Mary Jane were complaining about all of the troubles they were having because they were just too gosh darn young! I’m sorry, but you’ve faced supervillains, clones, alien invaders, the belief that you were a clone and your whole life was a fraud, and the alleged death of your own child (and honestly, I think that would be the worst, bar none) – I don’t think you’re going to blame your marital problems on the fact that you’re “young.” Maturity is not always a factor of chronological age anyway. Face it, you live a life like Peter Parker has, you mature pretty quickly, regardless of how old you are. So, he’s simply not a kid anymore, that is, if he ever really was. But that’s another article I wrote.

A perfect example of how Marvel mishandled the whole age question was the premise of the Clone Saga itself – that of replacing married Peter Parker with single, hipper Ben Reilly – the theory being that being married “aged” Peter (the reality is – being Spider-Man “aged” Peter more than marriage. You grow up pretty quickly doing a job like that!), and we needed a single Spider-Man. However, Marvel’s new Spider-Man, Ben Reilly had spent the last five years as a wanderer on a motorbike drifting from town to town and situation to situation, living from day to day, eking out a living best he could. This wouldn’t age a person just as much, or more than bashing supervillains and bunking down with Mary Jane? Of course it would.

And now that Peter has passed the threshold of 30 – he can literally look the same way forever. He’s aged 15 years in over 45 years of titles. By the time he would age another ten and reach 40 – well, before then Spidey Kicks Butt will be on the forgotten slag heap of internet history. But the point is, now that Peter has gone through high school, college and graduate school, all of those factors that pinned him down to certain reference points (i.e. “geez! Pete’s been in college 13 years!”) are gone. And it’s a fair bet to say that the same radioactive spider bite that allows him to heal rapidly probably has also retarded the aging process somewhat. Therefore, Peter would look the same at 40 as he would 30, maybe as he would even at 25 (he didn’t get old, lazy and fat like me). Which is why I don’t buy Peter Parker being a decrepit old man during the Spider-Man: Reign miniseries in 2007, which was supposedly 35 years in the future (putting Peter in his 60’s). His powers, which gave him an amazing recuperative ability, as well as the fact that during the events of “The Other” his body was completely regenerated, should keep him looking young for much longer than his human contemporaries. In fact, that would be an interesting alternative universe story – decades in the future – Mary Jane is a frail old woman, and virtually everyone else that Peter has known is dead, but he still looks like a robust man in early middle age.

So, the fans don’t have to have a “young! young!” Spider-Man as Marvel seems to think – and those of us who like to see him age don’t really ever have to worry about him becoming an old man. He’s the perfect age now – and forever more.

Not everyone one ages!
Of course, in a stab of irony, those of us who prefer to see Peter and his contemporaries (such as MJ, Flash, etc.) age apparently don’t hold his other supporting cast members to the same criteria! Take Aunt May for example – the old girl actually looks like she’s getting younger when you compare her first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 to the more recent stories. She certainly doesn’t look any older than when she first appeared. In Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2 (July 2004), our hero refers to his aunt being in her early 70’s, but that would make her in her late 50’s when Peter became Spidey, and there’s no way she was in her 50’s during the Ditko or Romita Sr. years! She would have looked more like Mark Bagley’s Aunt May in Ultimate. And then compare J. Jonah Jameson in Amazing Spider-Man #1 and more recently. Jonah’s looking pretty spry for someone who should be at the old newspaperman’s retirement home (not to mention how his moustache changes around from Hitler to conventional). Joe Robertson looks pretty good too. And some of the women, such as Dr. Ashley Kafka (the director of Ravencroft, the Marvel version of Arkham Asylum) and Dr. Marla Madison (Jonah’s second and current wife), who were clearly middle aged when they first appeared, must have been getting lots of botox shots and tummy tucks over the years! And none of Spidey’s villains have aged either. Neither Norman Osborn nor Doc Ock, for example look a day older than when they first appeared. So much for us being strict continuity freaks, eh? After all – what’s more inconsistent than having your lead character age and almost everyone around him look the same? Soap operas pull that stunt all the time with the infamous “Kid Trick.” One year a kid is born – next year he’s 5 – then 15 – then a full-blown adult – and it certainly doesn’t seem to faze their legions of zombified fans.

Then there’s the mysterious case of Billy Connors, son of Dr. Curt Connors – the Lethal Lizard! In the recent story arc in Spectacular Spider-Man, Billy’s age was given as 10 – yet he actually first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #6 back in 1963! But if that took place 14-15 years ago Spider-Time, and Billy is only 10 now – WTF? He was also clearly a teenager when he appeared back in Amazing Spider-Man #166 (March 1977)! And this is more than just Paul Jenkins’ story arc – Billy’s last two appearances prior to that (the Quality of Life and Lifeline miniseries) also showed him as a young boy, not a teenager or a young man. From a story perspective, I suppose that it makes Curt Connors a more tragic villain if he has a small child rather than a grown one – but it’s still annoying – and it defies all attempts at rationalizing. But then again, Billy Connors is an infrequently occurring prop with which to tell a much larger story – of the tragedy that is the life of Dr. Curt Connors – so troubling as his inconsistent age is – he really isn’t that significant a character to exhaust a whole lot of thought about.

Baby May Parker
As most of my long time readers know – this subject has been a very sore spot with me for a long time (then “get a life!” as William Shatner would say, eh?) – partly because I simply don’t understand the thinking behind it. For those who follow the various Spider-Man message boards, the subject of Peter and Mary Jane’s baby pops up quite frequently. Yes, if you didn’t know, Peter and Mary Jane have a baby daughter – however, they just don’t happen to know that she’s alive.

It started, of course, like most other messes, during that damn Clone Saga, when Marvel decided in its infinite wisdom to make the Peter Parker that fans had been reading about for 20 years a clone, while the “real” Spider-Man, Ben Reilly, had been walking the earth like David Carradine’s character in that old 1970’s show Kung Fu. Of course, there couldn’t be two Spider-Mans (or Spider-Men?), so one had to go. But, there had to be a reason for Peter Parker, the alleged clone he believed himself to be, who was as obsessed with his sense of responsibility as the alleged original whom he believed Ben Reilly to believe, to walk away from the webs. And so it was decided that Mary Jane would give birth, and Peter would realize that he couldn’t be Spider-Man any more with a baby depending upon him, and thus retire, move away and live happily ever after. An ultrasound had indicted that the baby was a girl, and Peter and MJ decided to name her May. The blessed event was supposed to have occurred at the conclusion of the mini-series called One More Screw Job to Get Your Money, oops, I mean The Final Adventure (November 1995).

But then things changed as Marvel realized that making Peter a clone was a friggin’ disaster (duh!), so he had to come back, but sans baby. The powers that be reasoned that there’s no way Peter could justify continuing to be Spider-Man if he had a child at home – which surely they can’t say with a straight face – or else that would preclude firemen, policemen, and military personnel from ever having families. Well, maybe they don’t in that parallel universe Marvel management sometimes lives in.

Anyway, Marvel wanted to give Mary Jane a miscarriage, but the spider-editor at the time, Tom Brevoort, refused, as I mentioned in my last article, because he did not want to be known as the man who killed Spider-Man’s baby. As it turned out, a perfect backup plan became available when it was decided that the original Green Goblin, Norman Osborn, would come back to provide the sufficiently evil bad guy that closure to the Clone Saga demanded. Norman’s henchwoman, the creepy Allison Mongrain, thus insidiously drugged Mary Jane at a restaurant to induce labor – and a crooked doctor (under the watchful eye of Osborn) – delivered the baby, but Mongrain was on hand to quickly spirit the child out of the room – and Mary Jane was told that the baby had died.

But had she?

The mystery of Baby May is wrapped up in how you interpret this final page of Amazing Spider-Man #418 (December 1996). What exactly are Norman Osborn and Allison Mongrain talking about? If it’s a baby – is Osborn telling Mongrain to dispose of its body (which, if the baby had died in childbirth – what was the point of the whole scam anyway?) – or simply to spirit it away for the time being? Osborn’s cryptic comments in Peter Parker #75 “that which I took from you today made up for the loss of my son,” clearly indicate that he had something to do with May’s disappearance. Did he kill her? Probably not. Even if you assume that Norman Osborn is sufficiently warped enough to kill a newborn baby (He’s definitely a psychopath – but I don’t think even he would stoop that low) – it would have been ridiculous for him to do so because it would deprive him of a card that he could play in the future against Peter Parker. Marvel remained quite cryptic about the subject of Baby May immediately after the Clone Saga, and the writers, especially Tom DeFalco, began to drop hints that the baby was indeed alive and well and would return.

Then Editor in Chief Bob Harras decided that the titles had to be rebooted – all of the evolving storylines were shit-canned in favor of the god-awful “Gathering of Five,” and “The Final Chapter,” and virtually all mention of Baby May has been purged from the series, as not even Peter and MJ discuss her even in the most oblique of references. That either makes them seriously cold-hearted scumbags, or in seriously harmful denial – because as bad as it is, miscarrying is tragic enough – but I don’t think losing a full term child at birth would be something that you would ever, ever forget.

That said, children do present a problem in a continuing storyline because their aging automatically ages everyone else. For example, the lead characters can be in a nebulous age range forever and no one will notice or care. But a child’s aging, or lack thereof, would be far more obvious. Years ago, after Stan Lee decided to give Reed and Susan Richards a child, Franklin, this gave later writers fits, and while they correctly judged they couldn’t kill Franklin off, they came up with the brilliant idea of having Reed put Franklin in a coma, which really pissed off the fans as much as killing him would have done – and this was quickly and thankfully reversed. Still, as we’ve seen in the example of other supporting characters – they seem to age (or not) independently of the leads, and there’s no reason that a certain “suspension of disbelief” couldn’t happen with regards to a child as well. But the problem is, there is a large contingent of writers (and fans also) who think it is anathema for Spider-Man to be a parent – period. Current Editor in Chief Joe Quesada has explicitly stated that if he had been a kid reading a Spider-Man comic and Spidey changed a diaper, he would never have read the title again. I don’t know if he fears that he would actually smell the diaper while he was reading the story, or if a comic book featuring a baby would be soaked in urine, but in my opinion this thinking is just utterly – bizarre. He also made the comment wondering why people don’t seem to expect Bart Simpson or Charlie Brown to age, but want Spider-Man to. But in that argument, he’s comparing two incongruous concepts. First of all, Charlie Brown already is an adult – he’s a neurotic adult in the body of an eight-year-old boy, which is why he has appealed to both young and old for more than 50 years. The Peanuts characters are as much allegory for childhood and adult fears and other behavior patterns as they are children. The Simpsons are flat-out satire, which doesn’t play by the same rules as drama. None of us would expect Homer Simpson to learn from any of his mistakes, nor would we even want him to. The central concept of many a Simpsons show is not so much them, as it is the issue that they are being used to parody.

Frankly, I’ll be willing to confess to a certain amount of personal bias toward Spider-Man being a parent because I am a parent, and as I flat out stated once to a letter writer, I sometimes selfishly want him to age with me – although I know that such a thing literally cannot happen. I want Spider-Man to be there for my son and even my grandchildren, which means that he cannot move along the entire spectrum of life as I eventually must. I’m not that selfish and shortsighted that I want this character to die with me and not entertain and inspire future generations. But I also don’t want other short-sighted forces dictating that there are only certain experiences he can have, or certain stories he can be a part of, or only certain situations that he can encounter based upon questionable data or narrow minded opinions. Frankly, I simply feel that parenthood is one of the greatest (but certainly not the easiest) adventures a person can embark on – and it seems like it’s tailor-made for one of the greatest of characters to face.

A Final Thought on Aging
I leave this particular topic by referencing two icons of young girls’ literature – Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton. You’ve probably heard of Nancy but not Judy. Both were fictional teenage detectives who got their respective starts long before the aged MadGoblin (yes, that is true). Nancy Drew, who first appeared in the early 1920’s, was a pretty blond who was forever 16 years old, lived in a completely fictional town, had a rich lawyer daddy who placed no curfews or restrictions on her behavior whatsoever, and gave her a nice car to tool around in to solve mysteries. Several different writers in the series recrafted the older books to reflect modern times, and the newer editions clearly have Nancy as a hip, funky girl of the 21st Century, though no less spoiled or improbable as she was decades before. Judy Bolton, on the other hand, lived within limited economic circumstances in an area that was clearly based on a real town (Coudersport, PA if you need to know), aged, married, and was even (gasp!)pregnant with twins as the series was unceremoniously brought to an end in the 1960’s as the publishers of the aforementioned Ms. Drew ruthlessly moved to eliminate all of Nancy’s competition for young girls’ readership. Even though many readers of and experts on children’s fiction believe that the Judy books were superior to the Nancys, Ms. Bolton is largely forgotten, living on only in the hearts of her die-hard fans. The ageless, improbable Nancy Drew lives on and continues to make money for her publishers, however – more than 80 years after her debut.

What does that have to do with Spider-Man? Maybe not a damn thing – or maybe its a sobering reality check on what has to be done to keep a character viable from generation to generation, regardless of what us old duffers think. To be able to look into the future and see Amazing Spider-Man #1000 (August 2045)…

Continuity
This has been a growing controversy in comics, particularly for Marvel fans, for whom continuity has historically been held as nothing short of sacred. However, the editorial focus at Marvel has been steadily moving toward the direction of “continuity doesn’t matter.” Now does Spidey’s continuity mean that you have to read every single Spider-Man title to understand what is going on? The answer is a resounding NO! I think I made that point fairly well back in Part 3 The Indispensable Spider-Man. Sometimes when Marvel wants to get a dig in on continuity, typically in promoting some new title (“jumping point for new readers” or “title can be enjoyed without understanding complicated continuity,”), it implies that there isn’t any way that a new reader can possibly latch on to an older character and series, which is, of course, utter bullshit.

Before I go on, let me establish how I define “continuity,” and what isn’t continuity, particularly as it pertains to Spider-Man.

Continuity is not reality
No, I’m not being flippant. There are simply a lot of things in the Spider-Verse and the Marvel Universe that make absolutely no sense when laid parallel with common sense and we simply have to suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy the stories, which is a handy trick when dealing with continuity as well. For example:

• That the Marvel Universe would even remotely resemble today’s society. In a world where you have Reed Richards’ and Tony Starks and Victor Von Dooms with their incredibly brainpower and high tech knowledge, and where you have mutants who were born genetically different and others who were genetically altered by accident (aka the FF, Spidey, the Hulk, etc), life would be something out of a Phillip K. Dick novel. Our culture, political systems, religions, all would be almost unrecognizable from what we know today. That is – if the planet even existed at all after a few of what Nick Fury once referred to as “super powered slobber knockers.”
• Not only that, but even in a city as big as New York – the costumed types would constantly be bumping into each other. Every time the Green Goblin started hurtling pumpkin bombs he’d be besieged by heroes looking to take him down and villains spoiling for a fight. I especially like it when supervillains take over the Times Square JumboTron for some ludicrous announcement and the only hero or team who shows up is the one who happens to star in the book. It’s like – “oh geez Doc Ock has got a nuclear bomb and is threatening to unleash Armageddon for what – the 18th time now? Well, that’s Spidey’s problem – not mine! I’m going for a latte at Starbucks.” Half of New York can be destroyed in one Marvel title – but it seems to pass by unnoticed in another Marvel title.
• And if you’re a supervillain – why do you stay in New York with all the superheroes? Why don’t you go wreck havoc in Akron, Ohio or something? Maybe it’s not as instantly lucrative – but the cost of living is lower and there are a lot fewer hassles.
• Spider-Man even having a secret identity. Modern forensics and technology would have outed him ages ago. And least you’d think all of his friends and acquaintances would have figured it out – but in comics everyone suffers from “Lois Lane Syndrome.” In a way, I think this is what Brian Bendis is pointing out in Ultimate Spider-Man. It seems that everyone and his brother is figuring out Spidey’s i.d. – sometimes because he’s being so bloody careless – just like your average 16 year old who had super powers probably would be.

Frankly – I haven’t even scratched the surface. Sometimes I wonder if Marvel would be better off by having Galactus or somebody split the Marvel Universe into about a dozen different realities and reduce the superhero population per universe drastically. But that’s something DC would do – and then years later they’d have to have a “Crisis on Infinite Earths” to blow them all up and merge them back. And Marvel couldn’t have those convenient marketing ploys by having a certain hot hero who’s starring in a movie cross-pollinate with all of the other titles.

Also, while the Ultimate Universe is a lot more realistic than the regular Marvel one, I think that it’s a lot less fun. There’s something about the hokiness of the whole basic superhero myth that appeals to me so I simply accept it. However, sometimes it is done so badly, so blatantly, and the story is so poor, that even a healthy suspension of disbelief still doesn’t make it work (aka Maximum Carnage (1993)).

Anyway, so what IS continuity? To me, continuity means every single story featuring Spider-Man, for the most part, including:

• The core titles (Amazing,Spectacular, et al)
• Those goofball Marvel Team-Up titles – may they rest in peace – finally and forever.
• Most miniseries – with the exception of these recent revisionist series which seem to be none other than exercises in creator indulgence, such as 2003’s Kingpin mini, as well as Chapter One which we’ll discuss in detail later; and
• Guest appearances in other Marvel character’s titles

And among those I don’t consider continuity include:

• Promotional issues aimed primarily at children, like the Aim toothpaste comic where the Green Goblin steals dental equipment. I don’t know why – maybe he was getting revenge for a bad root canal or something.
• The infamous Spidey Super Stories cooperative effort with PBS. But then again, as simplified as those adventures and the dialogue was – I think there was more dialogue and story in an issue of Spidey Super Stories than your average issue of Ultimate Spider-Man.
• Crossovers with other publishing companies’ characters (starting with the famous oversized team-up with Superman that was published in the 1970’s – although there is a fun Spider-Man/Wonder Woman moment out there in a 90’s limited series that it’s a shame doesn’t count)
• Obvious alternative universe stories (i.e. both volumes of What If, Earth/Universe/Paradise/Existentialist Mumbo Jumbo X, even the beloved Spider-Girl)
• The Ultimate line and other variations from that theme, such as the new “Mary Jane” series, which is not targeted at aging fanboys like me in the first place.

I consider the first group to all be part of Spider-Man’s historical timeline. In other words, they all “happened.” Now, notice the emphasis I placed earlier on the word “story.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that every single statement, or line of dialogue, in every single story has to count, or to qualify as a reference in a future story. After all, particularly in the older comics, there are a significant amount of dated references, or just sheer silliness that are indigenous to the times and the method of storytelling in those days. Also notice that I left some wiggle room stating “for the most part,” because sadly, even for a rabid completionist and continuity freak like myself – there are just some things that are best left forgotten as either they are so awful that no amount of rationalization can explain them away, or they simply are so insignificant that referencing, or even failing to reference them, would have no impact on Spidey’s overall history.

In my opinion, for what it’s worth, continuity in comics is largely a creation of Stan Lee. DC Comics, which had been the juggernaut of superhero comics prior to the Marvel Age which began in 1961 with the arrival of The Fantastic Four, for the most part paid no attention to it and the reasons why are subject to debate and beyond the scope of this article. Over at Marvel, Stan thought it would be “neat” (not to mention serve as a promotional tool) to have heroes routinely guest star in each other’s mags, and even occasionally bump into each other on the street – since after all – they usually lived in New York City or the surrounding area (another Marvel idea – the stories would take place in real cities with recognizable landmarks). And, in a stroke of marketing genius from which Marvel reaped benefits long after Lee left New York to schmooze with the babes in L.A., he created the concept of, or should I say the illusion of, the “Marvel Bullpen,” where all of the creators were one big happy family under the same roof and looooooooved making comic books. They were made accessible to the fans through the use of loopy nicknames like “Smilin’ Stan,” “Jolly Jack” and “Jazzy Johnny.” The same philosophy was applied to Marvel’s “family” of superheroes – that they were all part of one universe. And as a corollary, all of the stories counted in a character’s history, with frequent references to past issues and asterisks referring to captions stating things to the effect of “Spidey’s last bout of gastrointestinal difficulties occurred in Spider-Man #27 – Nuff Said! Natch!” These gimmicks all helped create a near slavish devotion to Marvel Comics by its fans. And, with almost everyone working together under the same roof and the histories of the characters still relatively short and confined to one monthly title – continuity really didn’t require a whole lot of heavy lifting.

But then things began to change as the old guard at Marvel retired, moved on, or simply died off. Improvements in communication and technology meant that artists and writers didn’t even have to be on the same side of the country in order to collaborate on a comic, which fractured the whole “Marvel Bullpen” concept. Marvel later hit bottom due to several poor business decisions, among those trying to totally crush any and all competition by flooding the market with titles to suck up as many retailers dollars as possible (Secret Wars was probably the most glaring example of this), trying to control the distribution of its titles from stem to stern by buying a distributor (which subsequently failed), and feeding a speculator frenzy that any intelligent person had to realize was going to bite them in the ass (but – they certainly weren’t the only ones to blow this last one – DC Comics with its over hyped and overprinted Death of Superman created a brilliant example of nearly sacrificing the future of the entire industry in order to look like a king at the next quarter’s analyst call). When the music stopped, Marvel was bankrupt, and the loyal non-speculator comics’ buyer who was the true backbone of the industry had become disenchanted with Marvel because the company had stopped paying attention to story quality in its zeal to push more and more product out the door. Again, this wasn’t just a Marvel problem, but being the biggest player, its problems become the industry’s problems. And let’s be honest, while their tour of duty has been fraught with some controversy, Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada, overseen by Avi Arad, realized some things had to change at Marvel in order for it and the industry to survive – and one of those things that had to change was that the company had to import some fresh new talent that was truly that – talent – folks who could write and write well, and who also had a fan base outside of Marvel comics that could bring those fans with them (i.e. Bendis, JMS, and others). And they did that – and Marvel is better off in the long run for them having made the changes they did (my problem with them stems from some very unnecessary public comments – but that’s another matter). Some of that talent, while aware of continuity, and perhaps even respectful of it, simply isn’t slavishly devoted to it as a lot of their predecessors were and many fans still are.

That – and the sheer volume of product, which seems to multiply exponentially every year – virtually makes the supposedly seamless continuity of Stan Lee’s day impossible.

After all, new spider writers simply cannot and will not be able to read the 1000+ and steadily increasing volume of Spidey comics in order to memorize every single character or reference. And according to Spectacular Spider-Man author Paul Jenkins, Marvel doesn’t do a very good job keeping back issues on hand as reference materials in the first place! And frankly, the older I get and the more about the business of comics I learn, I have become convinced that virtually the only reason Marvel sticks as close to continuity as it does is because of Stan Lee’s longevity and impact. Taking an objective look without the hero worship that frequently follows him, you have to admit – Lee is, no pun intended, an amazing man. The dude is over 80 years old, yet seems like he has the energy of a man 30 years younger, and looks like he could keep it up well past 100! He’s still seen and heard from constantly, making cameo appearances in virtually every Marvel related movie and granting interviews and supplying narration for every DVD derivative. Everyone at Marvel still seems obligated to pay some sort of deference to him, some as they grit their teeth. I remember that as recently as the “death” of Aunt May, back in Amazing Spider-Man #400 (April 1995), that event was run by Lee to get his blessing – not that they would have changed their minds if he didn’t like it, but since Stan created May as an integral figure in Spidey’s history, they wanted to get his input before killing her off. Lee has no authority at Marvel – basically he still gets a nice fat check for just being Stan Lee. So, it’ll be interesting to see what things change when the last spade of dirt gets shoveled on Lee’s grave.

But notice that in the paragraph before last I said the “supposedly” seamless continuity of Stan Lee’s day. That’s because it wasn’t seamless – the old Bullpen made their mistakes too – plenty of them – and that’s what the infamous “No-Prize” was for. Marvel editors bestowed certain letter writers with the No-Prize, which obviously, was exactly what it said – nothing – not for just catching errors by the creative staff, but by engineering solutions that made these mistakes not really mistakes at all. So, it wasn’t that there weren’t continuity errors “in the good old days,” because there were – but Marvel management at the time was able to laugh at its mistakes and create an environment of inclusion that let the readers believe they were in on the creative process – which consequently made fans very forgiving of subsequent mistakes. It seems that nowadays, however, creators “don’t make mistakes,” and if someone brings up a continuity error – then they’re just a deluded wanking off fanboy living in mom and dad’s basement and they need to go out and get a life. Now, I’ll be the first to concede that fans can get overly bent out of shape at times, and more than one writer has been savagely blistered by internet fan rage over “continuity” even if it’s an honest mistake, which is not appropriate behavior. But, I also wonder if some of that fan belligerence is a result of perceived increasing arrogance (or maybe just defensiveness) of the creative talent these days, which are apparently not used to being scrutinized as was the earlier Marvel staff. Or maybe they just didn’t have the forums (or it wasn’t part of the work culture at that time) to strike back. Or maybe they’ve been ambushed at too many conventions by jealous fans who want to tell them in excruciating detail all of the “sins” they’ve committed against a character or writing in general. Sigh. It happens.

But something that strikes me as odd is editors and writers who act surprised that a large part of the fan base clings to continuity. Frankly, I think it’s the nature of the beast with comic book fans, or fans of series fiction in general. For example, don’t you think that if Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta or Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski began acting out of character in one of those series novels, the authors would be besieged with mail pointing that out? In fact, in researching this article, I found an internet listing of all of the inconsistencies and glitches in Cornwell’s Scarpetta series (apparently though, she ignores any references to inconsistencies)! Not only that, but there is a strong sci-fi bent to superhero fans, and sci-fans love their continuity. Don’t try to tell me that Star Trek fans, Babylon 5 fans, Battlestar Galactica fans, X-File fans, and the like are not hung up on the continuity surrounding their favorite shows. All you have to do is check out the respective message boards. The Star Trek fans in particular are all over Enterprise for its canon violations – but then, there’s a lot to gripe about Enterprise. I’m reminded of the time when the original Dark Shadows soap opera was on in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and the show was getting so complex that while filming an episode, there was a reference that needed to be made to an event in an earlier show, but no one on the cast or crew could remember what it was! Jonathan Frid, who played Barnabas, suggested someone go outside to the group of devoted fans hanging around the studio and ask them – and they had their answer in minutes.

So for writers and editors to gripe about fans’ devotion to continuity is rather disingenuous. After all, it’s not like they don’t know what they’re getting into. Their griping is similar to a person buying tickets to a Wiggles or Barney concert, and then walking out complaining about all of the snot nosed little kids running around.

Plus, in today’s internet driven world, a lot of good research is available right at one’s fingertips. Sites such as Spider-Fan and Spider-Man Info have painstakingly devoted long hours of work and research into developing profiles on various characters in the Spider-Man Universe, including the major villains – so that there isn’t really much reason for a writer not to check these out when deciding to feature such a heavily used villain such as the Green Goblin, Doc Ock, or the Lizard. Even a devoted Spidey-phile like myself is not ashamed to say I’ve looked at these sites in order to ensure accuracy on various matters. Plus, there’s also that little old Spider-Man Encyclopedia that Marvel was more than happy to license and make a few buck from, but apparently doesn’t believe that anyone at the company should pay attention to. And, while I believe that a writer can’t possibly sit and read all of Spidey’s appearances without going blind – I still think that anyone who writes the character should become very familiar with the first 50 or so issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. That in a way is still very much the series “bible,” with virtually all of the major players that impact Spidey today introduced in that time span. The fact that Spidey’s early stories are so neatly packaged together in the “Essentials” series makes them even more accessible to the casual reader or researcher.

But, yes, I will admit to being a “continuity freak.” Part of that is probably just in my nature. I tend to be a very linear person – I like to know where everything “fits,” and I also work in an area of the financial services industry where it is important that everything adds up and balances, where everything being in its proper place and properly reported.

And I like steady character growth as well. To reference another famous “modern myth,” James Bond as a character bores me. Oh, the action can be fun at times, but there is virtually zero character development. Even if the actor ages in the role (as Roger Moore did rather noticeably in the 1970’s and 1980’s more so than the others who’ve had the role, I think) – the character doesn’t – and its a little disquieting to see a middle aged secret agent cavorting with the young ladies and committing feats of daring do without the slightest concession to the aging process (such as sore muscles and broken bones – I’m not counting the last Connery film Never Say Never Again, in which Bond is portrayed as an older man, as this is not considered one the “regular” Bond films). But even more unnerving for a person who likes good drama, the character never seems to have to deal with the consequences of previous actions. No embittered family members of previous villains come back for revenge. No unanticipated children result from his numerous dalliances, nor hard feelings over failed relationships. Every young lady seems just fine with being 4-F’d by Bond (Found, Fingered, F****d, and Forgotten). And in the one Bond film in which 007 jeopardized everything he had worked and lived for to pursue a mission of personal vengeance (Licence to Kill 1989), the events were completely forgotten as by the next film, the role was recast. Conversely, William Shatner’s Captain Kirk, who was a serial womanizer and dashing Errol Flynn type hero in the 1960’s Star Trek television series, noticeably and painfully aged along with the actor, and with the exception of the silly fifth film where it appeared that Shatner was deluding himself, the consequences of previous actions weighed heavily on Kirk and his crew, and his womanizing days were behind him.

This goes back to a statement I made earlier in the section about aging – it isn’t so much that people want to see Peter Parker grow old, but they want him to be the sum of his experiences.

An example of how DC “continuity” (that word does belong in quotes when referencing DC) differs from Marvel is in the Superman titles. For almost 50 years, part of the core mythology of Superman was that Ma and Pa Kent were long dead, after inspiring Superman to go on and do good for humanity with his super powers. However, in the mid-1980’s writer/artist John Byrne was given the job of rejuvenating the Superman franchise, starting with a six part miniseries that dramatically re-wrote the canon. Byrne changed Krypton from a gloriously tacky Silver Age, Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers inspired world to a cold, unfeeling atmosphere more suited to 80’s nihilism. He also decided that Superman needed humanizing (he was right on this point) and decreed that Ma and Pa Kent had been alive all along. His reasoning was that their deaths in the previous continuity, which were designed to propel Superman to do good, were essentially meaningless because Superman being Superman – he would have done good anyway! So, that there was no point in them being dead. Just like that. One month they’re dead – the next month they’re alive. Lex Luthor also went from evil bald mad scientist in a purple and green jumpsuit equipped with rocket boots to evil businessman in a three-piece suit with red hair (although he soon became an evil bald businessman – which is a good thing – messing with Lex’s baldness is like messing with those red Osborn cornrows). And the entire Superboy, Superdog, Superhorse, Super Monkey mythos were completely eliminated (although the Superdog did come back). Superman and Batman, closest of friends before, were at odds with each other at first, and uneasy allies later. Superman never suited up in the red and blues until adulthood. From one month to the next, they were different characters in a seemingly different universe.

Now, in the Marvel Universe, particularly Spider-Man, with characters who have returned (or apparently returned) from the dead – such as Norman Osborn, Aunt May, and Doctor Octopus (even though various people have different opinions over the validity and the circumstances surrounding their resurrections), you can actually go back to the specific issue and find out exactly how they came back and why. However, you don’t have to know that the Green Goblin faked Aunt May’s death or that Doctor Octopus was resurrected by a group of mystical ninjas to enjoy the current crop of stories. Maybe you’re better off not knowing about that last one. Still, I much prefer this method, however the bounds of credibility are stretched, than the DC method of simply changing what doesn’t suit them anytime, anywhere, and in any title.

So, every story you read in a core Spider-Man title is likely to mean something. Maybe it won’t be referenced repeatedly (or ever), but it still likely happened. For years, every event was presented in a linear fashion – happening in the order the stories were originally published. If it wasn’t told in those original stories, it never happened. However, as with the recent crop of Doc Ock Minis – including one that supposedly took place back in Peter’s college years, Marvel has thoroughly fuzzed up the frames of reference, so that it’s not nearly as easy to say – “oh yes, this tale took place between Amazing Spider-Man X and Amazing Spider-Man Y. This is particularly true with the two stories, the Spectacular Spider-Man #6-10 story written by Jenkins and the Doc Ock mini Out of Reach – which appear to be set in the present time – but which happened when relative to each other? No clue. Frankly, I hate when that happens, but if a story is good, I’ll overlook it. However, the mini wasn’t very good at all, so it’s not likely to be remembered or referenced in the future.

But still, perfect continuity is not only impossible, but probably undesirable as well. Without the ability to tweak continuity a little bit, some good stories might never be told. An example of a story that just doesn’t make sense in light of what we know about the character is Ron Zimmerman’s Tangled Web #13 story where Norman Osborn goes to a supervillain bar and hangs out with the Vulture and one of Kraven the Hunter’s sons. At the very end, Osborn shows his face (he had been wearing a hat most of the time) and leaves a pumpkin on the table where he has been drinking. Now, I cannot believe for one second that Osborn, a public figure in the Marvel Universe, and one who had recently spent a considerable amount of effort in trying to break any notion of him being linked to the Green Goblin (this was before recent events in The Pulse and Marvel Knights Spider-Man), would reveal himself to anyone, let alone a bunch of lowlife criminals in a bar. Yet, in the context of that particular story, it made perfect sense and provided a strong and satisfying ending to that particular tale. However, the same writer later wrote a follow-up story (“You can call me Al”) and a mini-series (Get Kraven) that were both so awful that they should probably be simply forgotten and never referred to again. Zimmerman turned Aloysha Kraven, whose last significant appearances were as a leopard skin clad psychopath who had just murdered his and his father’s common lover (eeeewwwww), into a harmless playboy who could sit at the same table as J. Jonah Jameson and movie stars and no one would bat an eye – not even Jameson – who hates most super powered folks. The Chameleon, who had a dramatic “death” in Paul Jenkins’ chilling Webspinners 10-11 by hurtling himself off a bridge after faking MJ’s kidnapping, inexplicably shows up physically sound, but cackling madly in a lunatic asylum and Spidey doesn’t bat an eye. Admittedly, villains “die” and reappear all the time, yet the Chameleon didn’t “die” in just one of those unoriginal explosions where no body was recovered in a run of the mill tale – but suffered a dramatic death in a particularly strong story that shouldn’t have been ignored. Also, even though Get Kraven was intended more as a satire on the movie industry than a Spider-Man story, the use of the Vulture, one of Spidey’s oldest and clearly unrehabilatable villains as a heroic, though violent vigilante, at the end, with Spidey just accepting that turn of events in a good natured “isn’t that old bald guy cute and funny,” sort of way is just flat out ridiculous.

Then there’s current spider-writer Paul Jenkins, who, although he doesn’t ignore continuity, freely admits that it isn’t his strongest point, and as we talk about later, sometimes, well, he flat out creates some serious conundrums and you wonder if he could have just done a leeetle more research. But, in the last four years, he has brought us some terrific Spider-Man stories, and although I’ll call ’em as I see ’em, I’m not going to jump all over the guy’s ass because of “The Lizard’s Tale,” and ignore the stuff he’s done well (Of the four “Year In Review” articles I’ve written since the reboot – Jenkins has had the “Story of the Year” three times.) Sometimes, with some extra spit and polish, we can actually make perceived errors work in the context of a certain character and actually create an interesting story or background! For example, take two completely disparate looks at Norman Osborn in the Revenge of the Green Goblin mini, written by Roger Stern and Jenkins’ own Death in the Family and what seems like continuity errors can actually be woven together to give us a better look at Norman Osborn’s complex and deeply troubled psyche.

Some people want to ascribe the term “continuity error” to every mistake or incongruity that occurs within the titles, which really isn’t right. There is also a big difference between a writer making a “continuity” mistake because the issue at hand was too obscure, or he was rushed, and one making a mistake because he simply didn’t care or couldn’t be bothered to take a couple of seconds to find out. And fans know the difference, or we should. There are the incongruities created when a perfectly logical reference in the particular time period that a story is written becomes woefully outdated as time moves on. And then there’s the infamous term “retcon” or “retroactive continuity.” This is usually a tricky one – because continuity has definitely been changed – but it’s been changed within the context of the saga. Everyone, including the creators and company, assumed one set of circumstances existed, but really something else was going on – which now has to be reflected in stories from then on. And then there’s the “re-imaginings” which flat-out alters continuity, slipping it in and saying “oh by the way this is the way it’s always been.” This is the type of continuity changes DC typically practices. Today Jason Todd is the child of circus performers murdered by Killer Croc, tomorrow he’s a street punk who steals the tires off the Batmobile (and now he’s dead – but that’s another story).

Anyway, let’s take a look at the different kinds of continuity issues.

Dated References
Comics, like very everything else, are largely products of the time in which they are produced and typically reflect the social and cultural environment of that time. And although most comic book science is not really science, but pseudo-science, it does reflect what is known about various applications at the time. There are two primary events that create big “oops” factors decades later: (1) the origin of Spider-Man and (2) Flash Thompson’s service during the Vietnam War.

• The origin of Spider-Man
  This is usually the first event that revisionists feel like they need to tinker with because we know that as improbable as it sounded in 1962, it’s REALLY improbable now. In an open air, not even contained, radiation experiment, the infamous spider gets blasted and bites Peter Parker, thus giving him spider powers. Back in 1962, we didn’t realize just what a silent and insidious killer radiation could be – and that you didn’t have to be blasted by an atomic bomb to be eaten away by radiation. Two of the more notorious examples are what happened to the cast of the John Wayne film “The Conqueror” which was filmed near a nuclear testing facility, and the entire cast eventually died of cancer related illnesses. And then there’s Chernobyl, which didn’t blow up or melt down – but essentially – for lack of a better term – released such a massive radiation “fart” that generations of people will suffer from cancer and leukemia related illnesses. So that aspect of Spider-Man kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. However, the first time the origin was revised was in John Byrne’s Chapter One (discussed below), which was even more ridiculous than Stan’s original idea. Most notably, in Ultimate Spider-Man and even the Spider-Man films, the spider is the result of a genetic experiment, that passes along some of its genetic code to Peter Parker when biting him. Frankly, when you boil that one down to the raw science, that doesn’t make a rat’s ass worth of sense either. It’s just 21st Century pseudo science replacing 1962 pseudo science. No matter WHAT, unless we make some sort of weird quantum leap we can’t even dream of (which – when you think about it – our lifestyles now would be utterly incomprehensible to anyone from Biblical times, for example), nothing will let you crawl on walls, stretch like silly putty, become a big green monster, turn invisible – at least not while retaining your essential humanity. And in another 40 years, science is likely to have progressed to the point that someone else will feel the need to alter Spidey’s origin again to reflect current scientific knowledge.So bottom line – what does it matter that Spidey got his powers from the bite of a radioactive spider? And this is what finally made me realize that although I don’t like a lot of aspects of JMS’ current Ezekial-Morlun-Shathra-Totem-Mystic-Spider-Stuff, no matter how Peter Parker got his spider powers, it doesn’t alter the essence of who he is or what he has done with them. And like I’ve said before, it’s no more outlandish than the concept of an alien from the planet Krypton. This is part of the core mythology that we simply accept with these characters, and then move on to the stories themselves – so I see no reason to EVER deviate from the “radioactive spider-bite” in the comics. It’s dated, sure, but no so much that we can’t brush past it.
• Flash’s Vietnam service
  Long-time supporting character and friend of Peter Parker (unless Howard Mackie is writing him) Flash Thompson was inducted into the service in the 1960’s and served in the Vietnam War. In fact, when he got back, there was a story (Amazing Spider-Man #108-109 May-June 1972) devoted to his experiences during that war, and introduced a long running character Sha Shan, that was Flash’s girlfriend for several years. However, the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Now, there is simply no way to make any reasonable references to the Vietnam War as part of Flash’s personal experiences. I suppose that it could be argued that Stan Lee should have known better than to present that potential headache into the storyline, since he had to know that it would date the comics. However, for Stan to have completely ignored the Vietnam War as he was writing his comics during the 1960’s – particularly in Spider-Man since all of the core characters were of college age, would have been irresponsible and insulting. A large part of Spidey’s audience at the time was college age – and each reader more than likely knew someone their age who either served, or even died, in Vietnam. It was the most divisive issue of the 1960’s, maybe even in all of American history. The issue could perhaps have been avoided in titles that featured primarily older characters, but not Spider-Man. However, Stan wisely avoided having any of his characters take any polarizing political stands vis a vis Vietnam, or even centering any storylines around it – save for the aforementioned “Flash Returns,” story.Perhaps the easiest thing now would to be to simply ignore it – but that would not only be a disservice to Flash’s character, but also the rest of the cast. First of all, Flash’s war time experiences shaped him, and part of what makes him what he is presently is the lesson that success as a football hero, then a war hero, does not translate into success later in life – which has been difficult for him to deal with and has directly contributed to his struggles with alcoholism. It also provides him a background that distinguishes him from the other characters. Loeb and sale in their 2002 mini-series Spider-Man: Blue, which transpires during Peter’s early college career, gets around this by simply having Flash volunteer for military service without specifying any particular campaign. In future references, it is just more honest, and simple, to accept that Flash “served overseas.” After all, human nature being what it is – American soldiers are sadly going to be in conflict somewhere at any given time.Another current event that has been dealt with is 9-11, which was the subject of the controversial Amazing Spider-Man volume 2 #36 (December 2001). Addressing 9-11 creates a host of problems, from the fact that it will become dated in several years, to the ugly and incongruous meshing of real life and the Marvel Universe, to guaranteeing to piss some people off no matter how it was presented. But, considering that the primary site of devastation was in New York City, where most of the Marvel heroes reside – the event simply could not be ignored. But is the issue truly in continuity – because if it was – then there are a whole host of problems, such as the page where notorious villains Dr. Doom, Kingpin, and Juggernaut stand in awe and sadness at the devastation. Considering that the Juggernaut actually knocked over one of the towers in Marvel continuity and laughed about it – well you see the problem. Or the case of the little boy who was literally at the scene of the devastation waiting for his fireman father to come out, only to see his body carried away (what would a kid have been doing that close anyway?). Or was the issue an allegorical exercise – as John Romita, Jr., the artist of that issue, suggested? If it was allegory – then shouldn’t it have been a stand-alone issue – rather than in the regular series run of Marvel’s most popular character? Looking back, I’ve modified some of my original venomous position toward that issue – but I’m still appalled by the fact that the narration was implied to be Spider-Man’s – but wasn’t – it was the author’s – and included certain political observations I didn’t think was appropriate, such as the implication that America was in part to blame for the disaster because of its insensitivity to other world issues. Again, that’s a topic for another article.
• Various other dated celebrity, geopolitical, and technological references
  As a example of a glaringly silly and dated reference that was actually used to good effect later was Spider-Man referring to the Chameleon as a “commie,” as he did way back in Amazing Spider-Man #1. Flash forward from 1962 to 2004, “commie” has almost completely dropped out of the American lexicon after the demise of the Soviet Union (and thereby losing that great last resort insult when you’ve run out of logical ideas to counter your liberal friends with by calling them “stinko-pinko commies.”) Assuming Peter has aged 15 years, then his first adventure took place in 1988 or 1989, after the collapse of the “Evil Empire.” However, Paul Jenkins actually uses it to a chilling effect in Webspinners #10 when the Chameleon calls Peter Parker on the phone and says “you called me a commie, remember?” It is still possible that Peter could have used the term upon their first meeting because he was a kid whose slang would have been heavily influenced by the fact that he was raised by two older people who were alive in the thick of the “Cold War,” especially when it came damn near close to being the real thing. However, as more time passes, not even that rationalization will work. But it was a cool moment in Webspinners, though.There’s also Spidey’s infamous meeting in Marvel Team-Up #74 with Saturday Night Live’s original Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time-Players, which is really dated, particularly since the story revolves around John Belushi, who has been dead for two decades. It is probably best to regulate this, along with Marvel Team-Up #137, where Aunt May is transformed into a herald for Galactus called “Golden Oldie,” to stories that are simply told to have a little fun and we’d be doing ourselves a disservice by either taking them too seriously, or making tortuous efforts to make them “fit.”But references to current US Presidents, New York City mayors, hot celebrities or TV shows – in the long term all of these just have to be excused because one of the concessions of the storytelling process is that the world these people exist in has to be somewhat recognizable to us in order for us to relate effectively with the characters – and one of the best ways to do that is by cultural and political references.

Blunders

• Probably my personal favorite blunder happened in the very first issue of Amazing Spider-Man, in which the one and only Stan Lee forgot the name of his hero – calling him Peter Palmer, not once, but twice. Completely irreconcilable and inexplicable and fun to remember. Sharp eyed Spidey fans will see the name pop up every now and then as an in-joke, most notably in the What If issue that had Spidey marrying the Black Cat – and as a way of keeping their identities obscured – he is married as “Peter Palmer.”
• Dr. Strange going from knowing Spidey’s id in Marvel Team-up Annual #5 (1982), to claiming not to know it in Amazing #487 (December 2002) – to knowing in a recent Daredevil story arc. Ultimately, folks like Doc Strange and Professor X know everything, so just assume going in that any reference to them not knowing is either a mistake, or can be rationalized by saying the character is trying not to make Spidey uncomfortable by flaunting their knowledge about his personal life in front of him. Still, the fact that there is over 20 years difference between my first two examples, and that the first was a Marvel Team-Up annual, leads me to not worry about this too much.
• Amazing Spider-Man #181 (June 1978) ended on a strong, but sad note, with Spider-Man leaving a microscope on Uncle Ben’s grave, the same one that was given to him as a present in Amazing Fantasy #15. After Spidey leaves, the microscope is claimed by the cemetery caretaker, who, short of funds, is bemoaning the fact that he can’t afford to get a nice present for his smart, but shy and sensitive son – and viola! However, in Amazing Spider-Man #290 (July 1987), Aunt May tells Peter that she donated his old microscope to a charity auction and the subsequent story revolves around Peter’s attempt to get it back! Ooops! In fact, the microscope actually showed up again in Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1 in which Peter’s old room in the Forrest Hills home is loaded with little references to Spidey’s past. So what story counts? They’re both rather interesting stories and neither can be just routinely ignored – although the first is largely a flashback. The second is significant because Peter’s focusing on his past prompts him to take stock of his future – and leads him to ask Mary Jane to marry him again. I enjoy them both and connect the dots with a fuzzy, rather than a bold line on that one.
• In Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2000, there was a reference to Peter Parker and Harry Osborn having been friends in high school. Of course, as virtually any Spider-Man fan knows, Harry and Peter did not meet until college. This is a flat out faux pas that really was inexcusable at the time – although most other re-imaginings of Spider-Man these days (such as Ultimate and the motion pictures) has Harry and Peter’s friendship going back to high school. Now, it does make the resulting end of that relationship with the death of Harry Osborn a little sadder and more tragic. Still, Peter not becoming friends with Harry, or virtually anyone, until he reached college – was a factor of his being Spider-Man making him bolder and more confident, and therefore more likely to be respected by others and make him less insecure about reaching out. In Amazing Spider-Man #39, it is actually Peter reaching out to Harry, after the latter’s heart is broken by another rejection from you know who (Norman!), and who has up to this time given Peter nothing but grief. This actually represents the turning point in three of his most significant relationships – (1) Harry, obviously (2) Flash Thompson takes note of this as well and realizes that Peter Parker is probably more of a man than he ever gave him credit for in reaching out to a troubled Harry and (3) Gwen realizes that Harry’s acceptance of Peter is more likely to precipitate Peter’s acceptance into her social group – which will thus make him a more acceptable dating partner for her. So clearly, we see which reference is simply the most important one, and which one should be ignored. And that’s one reason why continuity has such a strong hold on fans sometimes. It isn’t that the occasional tinkering is such a blasphemy, it’s that such re-working very seldom ever improves on the original story, usually becoming change for change’s sake. It’s like re-making a classic song. It’s one thing if you do it as well or better than the original artist (Billy Idol remaking “Money, Money”), but entirely another if what you end up doing is a pale imitation (like anyone who remakes one of Elvis’ songs).
• Another example of what I just discussed revolves around whether or not Aunt May was present when Uncle Ben was shot. Did he die in her arms, or did she discover him already dead? Exactly where was he shot? Inside? Outside? This seems to be slightly different upon each re-telling – however, it does make a difference. Amazing Spider-Man #200 (January 1980) firmly establishes Ben as being shot in May’s presence and dying in her arms. When JMS has Aunt May re-tell that famous event in issue #479 (February 2002), it seems a lot more abstract, with Ben simply walking out of the house after an argument and never coming back, implying that he was shot and killed outside of the house, and certainly not in May’s presence. This is a lousy re-telling because it is much weaker than Marv Wolfman’s version. Having May present when Ben is shot, and him dying in her arms, illustrates just what a horrible thing it was to happen to May as well, and is one reason that rationalizes why Peter never simply did the adult thing and fess up being Spider-Man to May. His inaction that night didn’t just take Ben away from her, it literally put her through a night of hell. So, when in doubt, refer to the dramatically stronger version.
• One of the best and most recent examples is in Spectacular Spider-Man 11-13 (May-July 2004), where Dr. Curt Connors is fully aware that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. When did this revelation happen? Well, as far as we know – it never did! Jenkins apparently took an oblique reference in 2002’s mini-series Quality of Life which featured the Lizard, and extrapolated that to mean that Connors knew the connection between Peter and Spider-Man. And it’s pretty blatant – no getting around it. Jenkins also stated that Connors was from Louisiana, but from the earliest days of the character, he has always been based in Florida. Also in a folly worthy of the Mackie-Harras young, young, young era, Connors is mentioned as a “young” widower, essentially a contemporary of Peter Parker, which has never been the case. Connors has always been significantly older than Peter. And I won’t even address the inconsistencies about Billy Connors again. This is a big time screw-up. Although considering that Curt Connors is a close acquaintance of both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, it shouldn’t be any stretch of the imagination if he figured it out, but of course, what about the entire staff of the Daily Bugle? Still, there should have been a moment of revelation, or at least reference in the story to Curt finding out. So the next time the Lizard shows up – should he know – or should the story be forgotten? Well, it’s almost too damn blatant to ignore. If I were the writer of the next Lizard story, I’d probably include a recap of the revelatory event. And then there’s the whole “Connors really could have controlled the Lizard at any time” incongruity which will take a lot of esplainin’ to do.
• In 2003’s Spider-Man/Wolverine miniseries , Spidey and Wolverine share names as if they never knew each other before. However, Wolverine has known Spidey’s secret identity for a long time, beginning with the very famous one-shot team up back in 1987, and he’s used Peter’s name rather explicitly since then.

Retroactive Continuity
As we’ve stated before retcons are really not mistakes or continuity changes as they are a “re-interpretation” of the facts as we thought we knew them. And in Spidey’s history, some retcons have been retconned!

Mary Jane always knew
In one of the more dramatic moments of the 1980’s – Mary Jane Watson told Peter Parker at the end of Amazing Spider-Man #257 (October 1984) that she knew that he was Spider-Man. However, for several years it was left to the imagination just exactly when she made this deduction. In 1989 in the trade paperback Parallel Lives, writer Gerry Conway revealed that she knew from the very beginning – that she saw Spider-Man crawl out of Peter Parker’s bedroom window on the night that Ben Parker was killed! This was a major, major retcon – but unlike some others, it hadn’t been too seriously contradicted by previous stories – although if you read them it’s pretty obvious that none of the writers, including Stan Lee himself (or even Gerry Conway – when he wrote Amazing Spider-Man back in the 1970’s!), even remotely considered that Mary Jane already knew. If she had, then clearly she would have said something much earlier in their relationship. Still, with 20/20 hindsight, it actually fits in Spider-Man’s tortured continuity because it explains why this dynamic red headed bombshell, who could have had any man she wanted, seem fascinated beyond all logic by Peter Parker. Face it – girls who look like Mary Jane aren’t historically interested in guys who looked like Peter Parker did, particularly during his younger days. And even now, although Peter has certainly outgrown his four-eyed geek look – he’s still essentially a socially awkward nerd who can’t make ends meet and seems directionless in his life and career, while MJ is hot and successful. It would seem that Peter Parker is the last person any upwardly mobile young woman who wants to be one of life’s “special people” would hang out with. Unless of course, there’s something very special about that nerdy and directionless young man – which of course, there is. And for all of her griping and agonizing about Peter’s lifestyle choice, and all of the other things she does love about Peter, like his sense of responsibility, it definitely is a turn on for MJ to be making the mattress springs squeak with a superhero. Don’t let her fool you. Looking back, the surprise isn’t that Mary Jane knew, but that no one else (with the possible exception of Joe Robertson and Ben Urich) close to Peter has figured it out!

Gwen Stacy II was a clone. Then she wasn’t. Then she was again. The Jackal was dead. Then he wasn’t. Now he is again. The clone of Spider-Man was dead. Then he wasn’t. Then he was the real Spider-Man. Then he wasn’t. Now he’s dead again.
The Clone Saga of the mid-1990’s really messed with a lot of things, mostly for no good reason at all. Back in the 1970’s, Gerry Conway devised the original clone story in which Professor Miles Warren, driven to insanity as a result of his unhealthy obsession with Gwen Stacy, cloned both her and Peter Parker. At the end of this particular story, both Warren and the Spider-Clone appeared to die, and the Gwen clone, realizing that she really had no place in Peter’s life anymore, left for parts unknown. It was one of the better Spidey stories of the time, and came to a logical and final conclusion, although the fact that a Gwen Stacy clone was out there was still a loose end…

Well, things were fine for several years, and the clone seemed to be forgotten. Then, Conway changed his mind about what Gwen really was. Although I’ve never seen him speak on this directly – I’m assuming the various changes in what we knew about cloning technology and genetic manipulation prompted him to revise his original story (in addition to perhaps wanting to tie up that aforementioned loose end). Back in the 70’s, when clone stories were the rage in TV and movies, it was a given in sci-fi circles that you could just grow a full-bodied clone by taking a cell from a living human being and pumping it full of Miracle-Gro. A decade later, it was pretty clear that if you could clone a human being (certainly never a given, even now), it would have to be implanted as a cell in a human female’s womb, be born the normal way and grow to adulthood just like the rest of us. That meant no growing human clones in big long test tubes. So, in Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8, (1988) the Gwen clone returned, with the High Evolutionary (Marvel’s version of the genetic tinkerer Dr. Moreau) on her heels – and it was ultimately revealed that she wasn’t a true clone – that Warren had simply kidnapped a young girl about Gwen’s age, injected her with Gwen’s genetic material, and essentially mutated her into Gwen Stacy. This woman was changed back to normal and it seemed that Gwen’s fate was finally resolved. However, that also required Conway to retcon Bill Mantlo’s original Carrion storyline from Spectacular Spider-Man 28-31 (March-June 1979) – and we found out that the Carrion we thought we knew wasn’t really a clone of Miles Warren after all, but was the victim of another one of Warren’s creations – the “Carrion virus.” Well – O.K. I guess.

But then this was all turned on its head when former writer Terry Kavanuagh infected Marvel with his “hey, let’s say that Peter is really the clone from that old story and let’s bring the “clone” back and say he’s the real Spidey. Won’t that be a blast? Har har har.” Now, everything was as we originally believed it to be – everyone really was a clone – but the High Evolutionary, because he didn’t want a select group of genetically altered beings to realize that the cloning process had been perfected – altered all of Miles Warren’s diaries and other bullshit to make it look like he had not created clones, when he really had.

Oh god, whatever! Not only that, but there’s still the fact that a Gwen Stacy clone is out there and a dangling loose end…

Norman Osborn never really died, either. He was just living in Europe at the time.
This was more Clone Saga fallout – but this one I actually agreed with, although Norman Osborn’s revival was one of the biggest stretches foisted upon the Spidey-reading public, and remains a pretty unpopular one among segments of Spidey fans. First of all, if you actually read Amazing Spider-Man #122-123, or even saw the first Spider-Man motion picture, then you know what happened to Norman was pretty unambiguous – he took the Goblin glider square on in the chest (the comics) or the lower abdomen (the movie) and died. Issue #123 shows his body actually being carried away on a stretcher with J. Jonah Jameson spewing venom (no, not the villain) that Spider-Man was responsible. Fast forward more than 20 years, and the debacle known as the Clone Saga is a badly adrift story in need of a resolution – namely a villain sinister enough and with the wealth, intelligence and connections to have manipulated the whole “Peter is really a clone, no he’s not he just thinks he is affair.” In a controversial decision, Marvel Editor in Chief Bob Harras decided that person had to be Norman Osborn, although the spider-writers at the time had worked it out that it would have been Harry Osborn. It turns out that as a result of the Goblin formula, Norman’s body now had a special healing factor that just happened to repair what for all intents and purposes had to be a ruptured heart. Right. And monkeys really will fly out of my butt – Jim Carrey notwithstanding. And then Norman spent the next several years building a criminal empire in Europe while nurturing his secret plans against Peter Parker to fruition, all the while letting Harry flounder as his successor and Roderick Kingsley get away with playing the HobGoblin after ripping off all of Norman’s good ideas (this was explained in Osborn Journals, but as much as I liked that one shot – it’s full of rationalizations).

Aunt May actually knew for some time. Then she died. Then it turned out that not only did she not die, but also she never knew. And now she knows.
Since, during the Clone Saga, it was decided that Peter wasn’t going to be “real,” and he and Mary Jane were going to be shipped out to Portland, there was a big problem of what to do with Aunt May. After all, if May still lived, there was no way that Reilly could ignore her – because after all, he was her “real” favorite nephew, and he couldn’t avoid communicating with her, even before he came back to New York. But if Peter and MJ moved to Oregon, wouldn’t May go with them? And what would happen if she actually saw Reilly and realized he was the spitting image of Peter Parker? Now, since May had never really progressed as a character in all of the years that she had been part of the titles, and in many ways was actually an irritant, it became fairly easy to send her packing to the Great Beyond – which writer JM DeMatteis did in a damn fine and touching 400th issue of Amazing Spider-Man (April 1995). And shockingly enough, May told Peter that she knew he was Spider-Man. But then again, maybe it shouldn’t have been that shocking. As May stated “I would have been a fool not to know.” Of course, this created some continuity problems – for example – just when did May find out? Surely it was after she shot at Spider-Man back in issue #115 (December 1972), or when she nearly married Doctor Octopus in issue #131 (April 1974) – probably Gerry Conway’s biggest goof. So that was a solid subject of debate in spider fandom for some time, and was never really resolved, although it was generally assumed that it was around the events of Amazing Spider-Man #200. Still, though, continuity problems aside, it was the perfect resolution to May’s character and storyline.

And then came the reboot. EIC Bob Harras decided that May should come back. The problem was, fandom wasn’t really screaming for May’s return, nor was she really needed to bring a story to a logical resolution, like Norman Osborn’s return. Sales on the Spider-Man titles, which really tanked when it was found out that Peter was the clone, didn’t rebound as hoped when he became the real one again. Of course, there were a lot of reasons for this – people who still pissed off about the Clone Saga – those who hated the fact that Peter was the clone – and those who liked Ben Reilly and were pissed that he was killed off! Spider-Man was overexposed with four monthly titles, and the industry in general was in a state of serious decline after the speculator bust. Apparently, though, Harras assumed that Spidey’s problems would be solved by bringing May back – and this time she wouldn’t know that Peter was Spider-Man because Harras “hated that idea that she knew.” Well, if Bob Harras hated it – then it was surely reason enough to shit all over a beautiful story now wasn’t it?

So – in conjunction with the other stupid ideas that were rampant at the time, it was decided that Norman Osborn kidnapped May months ago, substituted a genetically altered actress in her spot, told her of Peter’s id, etc. Then after she died, Norman brings back the real May, but has implanted a genetic bomb in her that if removed will melt down all of humanity into primordial soup.

I won’t bore you with the rest.

Anyway, not only does May come back – but she’s a f*****g moron and with the same doddering old fool characterization that wore out a long time ago – but she did get a new hairdo.

And then JMS comes along and say “geez – here May is, essentially Peter’s mother, and she’s been this same old fool for 40 years – we need to move her character and relationship with nephew along a different path to keep her viable!”

Sometimes it helps to be a big shot writer who can suggest something new and bold and having the bosses say “O.K.”

Untold Tales of Spider-Man and Webspinners
For three decades, Marvel had avoided the “untold tales” temptation that DC long gave into. The only events that happened in Spidey’s life were those that had been chronicled in the various spider-titles up to that time.

But then, in conjunction with the revelation that Ben Reilly was the “real” Spider-Man as part of a plan to “de-age” Spidey, Marvel came up with the “Untold Tales” stories as a way of capitalizing on the perception that the public was hungry for stories of a teenage Spider-Man, but still trying to work within the foundations of the originally continuity. Written by Kurt Busiek, Untold Tales literally took place in between the original Lee-Ditko stories, not contradicting, but supplementing the original continuity. Busiek was actually able to do what John Byrne was unable to do years later with Chapter One, tweaking Spidey’s continuity as we knew it to update some of the content and references, but still tell entertaining stories that were completely faithful to the tone of the originals. It was also priced at an affordable 99 cents, which may have been a factor in its demise after only 25 issues (retailers don’t get much margin on a 99 cent comic), along with Busiek’s desire to leave the title.

For a while I never considered it continuity, but eventually relented because it was a completely faithful rendition of the characters, and it was entertaining – two things that tend to cover a multitude of sins.

Webspinners’ take on bending continuity was not presenting stories that unfolded in a linear fashion, but by having them occur in various times in Spidey’s history. For example, one story could take place during Spidey’s high school prom, and another could be in the current time line, while another could take place during the days he wore the black costume. Part of the idea was to give different creative teams that weren’t part of one of the regular core titles a crack at telling a Spider-Man story. Like most other things – when the story worked it was a good idea, and when it didn’t – it sucked. Ultimately, the fact that it was still a pretty soft comics market for a third Spidey title, combined with the revolving creative team concept that seems to be contrary to what comics fans want (although that didn’t stop Marvel from trying again with Tangled Web years later), resulted in the demise of Webspinners after only 18 issues.

Re-imaginings

Chapter One
Chapter One is one of those bizarre ideas that came from the post Clone Saga, reboot period where most of Marvel’s senior management must have been smoking dope. The problem wasn’t so much in the concept, because the concept was not a bad one – but remember, this was Marvel of the 1990’s, and execution was often a problem.

Chapter One was conceived as a twelve part limited series that would run through most of 1999, and would retell the first year of Peter Parker’s life as Spider-Man – which writer/artist John Byrne considered to be the first 18 issues of the original Amazing Spider-Man run (not an unreasonable assumption). Byrne had become one of comics’ most notable forces after his turns at redefining Superman in the 1980’s, and stints on X-Men and Fantastic Four. The idea of updating a few events and “re-ordering” certain others (for example, he made the comment that he wanted to reduce the number of radioactive accidents in the Marvel Universe) so that they made a little more sense in the context of what we now know about Spidey wasn’t a bad idea. Back in the early 1960s’ Stan and Steve were cranking out the stories and making up the character as they went, with no idea that they were creating a contemporary American mythology. Of course, the whole style of writing was different at the time, more flamboyant and by the seat of the pants, and certainly less “realistic.” Plus, Stan has admitted that no one knew less about science than he did at the time, so naturally there were all kinds of leaps in logic. Rightly or wrongly, the internet fan community went immediately ballistic at the news, particularly since there were hints that Spidey’s origin was going to be revised and tied in with Doctor Octopus’! Even though fans often have a reputation for going whacko at the drop of a hat, this furor has to be taken in context of the events of the times (1) the Spidey titles were going to be rebooted with new #1’s, which was hugely unpopular also (and since reversed on Amazing), (2) the rumors were flying, soon verified, that Aunt May was coming back after having been “dead” for four years, which frankly, seemed like a dumb idea, (3) the titles were being wound down with a truly awful storyline (“Gathering of Five” and “Final Chapter”) which consistently show up on several worst Spidey stories lists to this day, (4) John Byrne, hugely popular in the past, was in the minds of many fans, in addition to being past his prime, a cranky, bitter, and mean spirited person. The last point is conjecture based on the chatter I saw during those times. It was during this time that the internet term “Byrne stealing” came into being – as Byrne made the comment that folks who read through a comic off the shelf without buying it are committing an act equivalent to stealing. And (5) it was also learned that some of Spidey’s old villains were in for a redesign.

Ultimately, the series sold fairly well, but fan reaction was mixed to poor. As the series rolled out, even many who had positive expectations (like myself, I was actually looking forward to this) had their hopes dashed because of the execution. What was wrong with Chapter One is worthy of an article itself (and I wrote one – but it needs updating). As it turned out, the changes that Byrne made actually did nothing to improve or enhance Spidey lore. One of the most glaringly dated aspects of the origin, the bite of the “radioactive” spider was replaced by an even more ridiculous concept of a radioactive explosion that killed virtually everyone who was present, except Peter Parker and Doc Ock, plus a few others that were fodder for a follow-up story later during Amazing Spider-Man. Doc Ock received a horrible redesign to which I shall always refer to as “Pantsless Bionic Ock” because he looked like a cyborg with no pants, and it was revealed that not only were Norman Osborn and the Sandman related (because of that funky hair, no doubt), but Osborn was responsible for siccing the Sandman on Spidey in the first place, of outfitting Electro after his electrical accident (giving him a blue costume – o.k. technically lightning is blue, not yellow. But Electro isn’t Electro without that dumb green and yellow costume. As silly as it is – you know what his deal is when you see him), and of even employing Quentin Beck aka Mysterio in the special effects department of Osborn Studios (actually, I liked the idea of Osborn owning a movie studio, but that was about it). Even worse, Byrne’s revised origins began to show up and be referenced in the regular Spider-Man including an awful villain known as “Captain Power” (Amazing Spider-Man #451 (October 1999)) who turned out to be another survivor of that radioactive explosion that gave birth to both Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Again, the problem wasn’t that things were tinkered with, it’s that they were tinkered with badly, the changes added nothing, and improved nothing but were merely changes for their own sake, sometimes making even less sense that the tacky 1960’s stories. The stories unsuccessfully tried to impose the more deliberate and methodical method of storytelling on old plotlines that were slam bam thank you ma’am, and the humor that was such a key component of putting Spidey on the map in those early days was completely absent.

Marvel began running away from Chapter One before the series was even completed, as evidenced by what happened when writer Paul Jenkins, in his first assignment on the Spider-titles, asked editor Ralph Macchio what origin story he should reference when he did his Chameleon story beginning in Webspinners #10 – the original Lee-Ditko version or Byrne’s Chapter One. He was told to use the original, which was the effective end of any possibility that any of the Byrne revisions would take hold. As far as Marvel, and most fans are concerned, Chapter One does not exist.

Unfortunately that created some nasty continuity problems as the regular titles in that first year after the reboot, particularly the “Captain Power” story – clearly depended on Chapter One being a part of continuity. So what do we do with it? Reconcile it into continuity by some convoluted explanation? Say that it was part of a parallel universe? Or ignore it completely? Sad to say, since I am a continuity buff, it is simply better off left ignored. That doesn’t mean that the whole first year or so after the reboot can be ignored, just those plotlines that dealt specifically with the ramifications of Chapter One, which fortunately, aren’t that many. So my advice to the new Spidey fan is ignore Chapter One. It’s like new Christians watching something like The Last Temptation of Christ. Only see it when you thoroughly understand the source material.

Interesting, as this article is being written, the current Marvel Age series is out which also retells those original stories, but clearly takes a more respectful tone – changing very little except what is needed to update to modern reference points. But frankly, I don’t see that it serves any purpose – those old stories were for the most part fine the first time and are still fun to read, dated references and all. If the revisions improved the stories then I would be more inclined to accept them – but they don’t – and they don’t even succeed at recapturing the old magic. My opinion is that unless something really new, revolutionary, and interesting can be done that make the old stories better, they should simply be left alone. They are what they are. Invest the time, energy and resources in new Spidey stories. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind if Marvel Age is successful in brining in new Spidey fans – because ultimately, that is the name of the game.

But what happens 40 years down the line? When we do reach the year 2045 and Amazing Spider-Man #1000? Many of us will not be around, and those who are – will we even care about Spider-Man’s continuity string? Will life in that era be so radically different from the current times that it will be silly for the characters to be anything but products of that future time, rather than the 1960’s – which in many ways they still largely are? Will it make even less sense to try to keep a single string of continuity over 80 years than it did 40? Is the question as silly as it sounds? Will the subject even be debatable at that time? Will the Marvel Universe as we know it just one day “end” and start all over again? Or will it just simply change without any notice? Or will there even be comic books as we know them in 40 years? I honestly do not have an answer. Whatever the answer it – I hope it ensures the long-term survivability of the character as we know him. And really, that’s what it is all about. I don’t diss Marvel at times because their vision at times disagrees with mine – that’s life in the US of A. And I like Marvel. I really do. I just expect that the vision they articulate be soundly supported by facts and figures and a careful consideration of such – not “Let’s do this with Spider-Man! It’ll be cool! Will people like it? Don’t care! It’ll be coooooooool!!!!” Or ditching or failing to promote certain characters or concepts because of one person’s personal bias – or coming to a conclusion about what a market wants without doing one damn bit of market research. That’s the stuff that irks me.

But here’s another question – why do certain people care so much about continuity? I can’t speak for everyone – but as for me – continuity gives the whole story of Spider-Man an epic saga feel – not just a “cool story of the moment,” feel. For his adventures to go back to literally his first appearance more than 40 years ago, to chronicle the rise and fall of certain villains and relationships over many decades (I’m thinking of the lives and deaths of Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn in particular), for events of the long past to influence the future – all of this makes each issue more of an exciting (if the issue’s good, that is) chapter in an ongoing literary experience. It’s like the reader is part of an epic tale told over the span of decades, and it also makes back issues more fun to read, knowing that they still resonate, even now.

Epilogue
This has without a doubt been the longest, and one of the hardest series I’ve completed. Hopefully, it fulfilled the purpose for which it was intended – giving the new reader the lowdown on Spider-Man, while keeping the old fans interested and entertained as well. Did I succeed or fail? Please let me know! Of course, there is always a possible that there may be additional chapters in the future, depending on whether or not another angle occurs to me.

Editors Note: This is a pretty complete list from 1963-2007, basically from BND-Present is omitted.

In the interests of brevity and sanity, I limited the discussion to those writers and artists who have contributed to at least 12 issues of one of Spider-Man’s core titles, which is essentially Amazing, both Spectaculars, Web, No Adjective, both Sensationals, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood, and the first Unlimited. Marvel Team-Up is not included because even though many folks consider that to be a “core” title, I do not for the purpose of this article. Its very nature, the requirement that Spidey share the spotlight with another character, usually in a one-issue story, precluded the use of his supporting characters or any real character development. No significant change in Spidey’s status could really occur in Team-Up. And limited series, while some have been good, typically do not contribute significantly to Spidey lore. Of course, after establishing those ground rules, I’ll break them in giving an exception to Ultimate Spider-Man, since, regardless of the debate surrounding it and its place in the Spider-Man Universe, it is a significant book in Spidey’s history, and the Bendis/Bagley unbroken strong of co-producing the title, which will reach an astounding 110 issues before “Bags” leaves the title – deserves recognition in this day and age of revolving door creative teams.

Of course, the arbitrary cutoff at 12 core issues means that a lot of talented and popular writers and artists who have at least dabbled in Spidey (such as Jeph Loeb, Dan Jurgens, Alex Ross, Frank Miller and many others) will not be discussed. On the other hand, this also precludes me from knocking folks who get stuck with a one-issue fill-in assignment in which nothing of too much importance can happen, nothing can change in the life of the character, but 22 (or more) pages of story still have to be told. Not as easy a task as one might think. In the original version of this article, I even listed creators who met my criteria, but of whom I had little or nothing to say – and said just that. Looking back, I think that looks pretty dumb, so I’ve cut a lot of that out as well.

For a complete list of all of the collaborators on Spider-Man over the years and the issues they worked on (because I’m not listing them here), you should go to Spider-Man Info ’cause he’s got ’em all in a nice, neat, and concise format. I don’t know how that boy does it.

Obviously, this column is entirely subjective, from someone whose only qualification is that he’s an aging Spider-Man fanboy with his own personal forum on which to rant and rave. Sometimes I think the relative anonymity of the internet has made a lot of the online criticism towards creators a bit too personal and vindictive. I must admit as I look back on some of my older articles, I can get a bit wound up. But, just because a person writes a lousy story or draws like he’s still doing acid doesn’t make him a lousy person who goes home and beats the spouse and kids and kicks the dog. They just cranked out a bad story at a bad day at work, just like many of us do less than stellar jobs once in awhile at our place of employment. This is illustrated by the fact that on my best and worst Spider-Man stories articles, there are several writers who have stories on both lists!

Now, I am really less than capable of evaluating artists. When it comes to art – I know what I like and don’t like and I’m not very good at articulating the nuances. It reminds me of the time I went to see the show “The Fantastiks” at the Derby Dinner Theater in Clarksville, Indiana more than 25 years ago. Even though I am a “cultural maggot” – as a college roommate of mine, an English major who actually read that incomprehensible book by James Joyce, Ulysses, called me more than once – I actually enjoyed the show. However, on the ride back home, a couple of the passengers were criticizing the female lead and using what they considered to be her limited octave range as a means of backing up their arguments. They certainly sounded like they knew what they were talking about, because I sure as hell didn’t – I thought the poor girl did fine. So, take my views on artists for what they are worth. Hell, take all my views for what they are worth. If I seem to spend too little time on artists relative to the writers – well, I just don’t see the need to bore you by writing long elaborate paragraphs when I really have nothing to say.

Who Created Spider-Man?
When I was growing up back in the 60’s and 70’s the answer was obvious – Stan Lee! Stan created the entire Marvel Universe! By himself! With one arm tied behind his back! Stan has always acknowledged the efforts of artists and other creators, but was less consistent in actually crediting them as co-creators of various characters. And considering that it was always Stan on the public circuit (and clearly enjoying every moment of the adulation he often received), Stan on TV, Stan writing books like Origins of Marvel Comics, it was no stretch for the average fan to assume that Stan created the Marvel Universe, and just happened to be assisted by those “other guys” – Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, et al.

However, the last couple of decades or so has brought the issues of creator rights vs. work for hire arrangements to the fore and has made the reality behind Spider-Man’s (and other characters’) creation messier than the legend, which has culminated in the fact that the Spider-Man movies state that the character was created by Stan Lee AND Steve Ditko, (and the Fantastic Four and the Hulk films have listed Kirby as an equal co-creator with Stan), a sharing of credit that would have been unthinkable in the past. But not only that, but Kirby and another comics legend, Joe Simon, have laid claim to the Spider-Man idea – that Simon developed it and showed it to Kirby, who later pitched it to Lee, who took it and claimed it for his own. Now, there is a trail leading back to a “Spiderman” character created by Simon (who later renamed him the Silver Spider, and then the Fly – which did share several characteristics with Spider-Man), and Kirby, being the original artist at Marvel that Lee handed the assignment to, supposedly contributed several ideas, including the hero living with his aunt and uncle. He also drew the cover to the legendary Amazing Fantasy #15. However, due to Kirby’s workload and the fact that he and Lee’s vision of what the lead should look like didn’t quite jive, the character was assigned to Steve Ditko. In fact, Simon’s original “Spiderman” look and logo can be seen at the Simon Entertainment website. However, Simon’s “Spiderman” was an entirely different character, and while he claims credit for the name and the original concept, he does not claim credit for the character that Spider-Man eventually became.

Unlike the origin of Superman, which has a clear paper trail to Jerry Seigel and Joe Schuster, who created the character and THEN shopped it around, first to a newspaper syndicate and then National (DC) Comics (of course, that still didn’t prevent them from getting ripped off and royally screwed by DC), the story behind the creation of Spider-Man is much more complicated by the fact that he was a corporate-owned character at the start, and therefore by the very nature of the business, has several sets of fingerprints on him.

Complicating the fact is that Kirby is dead, and his recollections were clouded by his entirely justifiable bitterness over the fact that his contributions to American popular culture were never properly recognized, particularly financially. Ditko is a Salinger-esque recluse who never grants interviews or speaks publicly (although there has been the rare written statement), and Lee’s version of the events varies depending on the audience, the time, and the medium in which he is telling the story. He also claims to have a famously bad memory.

In the original Origins of Marvel Comics, first published in 1974 (of which I have a copy of the first printing, a Christmas present from long ago – one of the virtues of being an old fart), barely more than decade after Spidey’s debut, Lee states that Spider-Man was inspired by his childhood fascination with a pulp fiction hero known as The Spider, Master of Men (Just to step back a moment, “pulps” were the nickname given to many of the series fiction novels written in the 1930’s and 40’s due to the cheap paper they were printed on). He mentions nothing about the infamous fly crawling on the wall that he claims inspired him in the interview on the Spider-Man movie DVD (sort of like Bruce Wayne seeing the bat flying into a window at Wayne Manor inspired him to take the name Batman?) although he does discuss The Spider in his interview with Kevin Smith on the “Mutants, Monsters, and Marvels” DVD. Maybe both versions are true, although I suspect that Lee has probably realized that almost no one except pop culture fans (which I think Smith would readily categorize himself as such) knows who The Spider is anymore, whereas the crawling fly makes for a better story to a less knowledgeable interviewer and needs no additional exposition.

The supporters of Ditko’s co-creation claim note that Ditko created the Spider-Man costume (which in my opinion, alone is nearly enough to confer co-creator status – considering how iconic that design now is). They also cite the fact that “The Marvel Method” of telling stories involved the writer outlining the bones of the story to the artist, who then took those ideas and drew the entire comic, and then gave the pages to the writer to fill in the dialogue. A gentleman by the name of Blake Bell has performed an extensive amount of research of Steve Ditko’s work, which he has included in his website Ditko Looked Up . The site features several “visual templates,” or examples of Ditko’s earlier work in the 50’s and 60’s that clearly influenced the look of Spider-Man in the beginning. The scene which appears to have early versions of both Norman Osborn and Peter Parker talking to each other long before there was an Amazing Fantasy #15 is especially interesting. In one of those rare moments where Ditko deigned to talk about his contributions, when he discusses that Stan’s original concept of the Green Goblin was a spirit released from an Egyptian sarcophagus, and that he made the villain more down to earth, it is apparent that Ditko had a hand in a lot more than simply drawing the pictures.

There is a very well researched article called The Case for Kirby, which tries to bolster Jack’s claims to a hand in Spidey’s creation. Personally, although the author is successful (in my opinion) of demonstrating that Kirby likely contributed story ideas that eventually became early Spider-Man tales, I think he is less persuasive in showing that Kirby actually assisted in the creation of the Spider-Man character. Unfortunately, no Kirby artwork exists of his original designs for the “Spiderman” character assignment given to him by Lee – although Ditko once provided a rough sketch of it for a comics history book – which, although lacking in detail, illustrates what Lee said was likely true – that the hero Kirby came up with was too much of a “classic” muscular superhero for what Lee had in mind. Also, considering that with Ditko designing the costume, and if what writer Steve Webb, in an article he wrote called “Spidey, Stan, and Steve” (which I don’t have a link to – sorry to say – if Steve is out there – help!) is true, that the look for Peter Parker was a self portrait of Steve Ditko from high school, then that effectively puts the kibosh on any credit claimed by Kirby in Spidey’s creation. Jack’s legacy has long been secure WITHOUT adding the creation of Spider-Man to his resume, so I find it interesting that this argument is still pressed in some corners.

I believe that there is a tendency by many to downplay Lee’s contributions to Spider-Man and other Marvel characters because he is clearly adept at self-promotion, he became wealthy in an industry where almost no one becomes wealthy, particularly no one from his generation, and with his longevity (85 years old and counting), as the “last man standing,” his version of the events more than likely will be the one that people remember in spite of its spotty accuracy. This is more than enough to instill a certain amount of bitterness and hard feelings within the creative community, particularly among those who knew and worked with the old legendary artists. Still, while Joe Simon may have come up with the name Spiderman, Jack Kirby may have contributed some of the concepts, and Steve Ditko clearly gave Spider-Man and his universe its visual distinction, it was Stan who gave us Spidey’s and Peter Parker’s thoughts and angst, his self-loathing and self-pity, his obsessive worries and various complexes, and that goofy sense of humor that makes the wall-crawler so endearing. Not to mention that he did this for 100 issues straight – the early ones clearly better than the latter – but still – this sheer volume of work cemented the character of Spider-Man, which has deviated very little, if any, in the 30 plus years since Stan ceased writing the title. Well, except for the occasional wife slapping during the Clone Saga – but that’s another story.

So – who created Spider-Man? Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Just like the movies say.

The Legends
As I talk about the individual contributors, I have segregated Lee, Ditko, and John Romita Sr. from the rest, since I believe that they are all clearly in a class by themselves due to their work in Spidey’s early years and building the foundation of the character, which puts modern creators at a disadvantage when you’re wanting to look at overall contributions to the character’s legacy. They were also products of their time, particularly Lee in his stories and dialogue, and it isn’t fair to them to compare their efforts in the 1960’s, in which the stories were considerably more simplistic, affected by the Seduction of the Innocent legacy which nearly destroyed the entire industry in the decade before, to the modern writers and artists who are clearly more adept at telling complex, mature stories with a lot more creative freedom, and the improved technology and paper quality that enhances the efforts of the artists. So, with that caveat…

Stan Lee
You can say a lot of things about Stan’s writing. It’s corny, hackneyed, dated, and quaint (to quote Joe Quesada on one of Stan’s stories) and his attempt to put “realistic” dialogue in teenager’s mouths was laughable. There are a number of people who have even written off the Silver Age (approximately late 1950’s to early 1970’s) as a worthwhile era for new comics readers to delve into. That’s highly debatable, but then for example, I still prefer Classic Star Trek to any of its later incarnations because I’m biased toward cheesy stuff anyway. That said, and I certainly hope I don’t sound like one of those shills for Stan who thinks he walks on water, but I still firmly believe that he is the greatest writer in Spidey’s history. Short of someone doing a Peter David-style run (David did the Incredible Hulk for more than 10 years straight – absolutely incredible – no pun intended) on Spider-Man, I don’t think anyone will top him. First of all, there’s his 100 issue consecutive string on Amazing Spider-Man – making him a charter member of what I call Spidey’s “Century Club,” those creators who have written or drawn 100 or more core Spider-Man title stories. Then there’s all of the characters that he and his artists, Steve Ditko and John Romita, Sr. created. Stan’s sense of humor and pathos uttered from the mouths of Peter and the supporting cast set the tone for the character that has continued to this day. And in my opinion, the stories are still fun to read all these years later. For the first few years of the title under Stan, Spidey as a character wasn’t standing still, like it seems that he does every so often in later years. He aged, was graduated from high school, entered college, made new acquaintances and sadly watched older ones wither away. Now, none of those stories have made my personal top 10 list, and it’s my opinion that Stan began to run out of gas around issue 60 or so, as he ran certain storylines such as Aunt May’s fragile health, and Gwen Stacy’s fretting about Peter and his secretiveness, into the ground. Still, as a collective body of work, one has to just shake their head at the volume of product and creativity, even if it wasn’t Shakespeare. And all of these years later, Stan has probably written more Spidey stories than anyone with one exception (David Michelinie). Stan has his weaknesses, but he’s still the man.

Steve Ditko
I am clearly in the minority, as I have never been seriously jazzed about Ditko’s art – but again, I’m not much of an art critic. Like I said, I know what I like and that’s about the extent of it. I remember seeing Ditko’s Machine Man run during the 1980’s and thinking that it was dated. Still, that said, I have no doubt that he was the perfect creative partner for Stan when Spidey began back in 1962. His style (often is called “quirky” by those searching for one word to describe it), gave Peter Parker and the world about him an ordinariness that set him apart from the muscular and handsome Greek-god superheroes prevalent at the time. It’s hard to believe that he only illustrated the first 38 issues of Amazing Spider-Man because it just seems like he did more. It is Ditko who had a hand in designing and defining the look of several of Spidey’s classic rogues’ gallery, as noted earlier, and who ensured that the character and his adventures stayed firmly planted on terra firma, with stories involving gangsters and costumed hooligans, rather than cosmic, sci-fi bad guys.

The circumstances surrounding Ditko’s departure from probably his most famous artistic endeavor are somewhat shrouded in mystery since he is a notorious recluse who almost never grants interviews and probably hasn’t had a picture taken of himsel in 40 years. And Stan’s not much help because of his self-admitted poor memory, plus he and Ditko drifted apart during their run on Spider-Man to the point that they literally stopped talking to each other entirely, and therefore he may not really know what caused Ditko to finally bolt. One of the most frequently cited reasons is that Ditko and Lee had a serious disagreement over the secret identity of the Green Goblin – that Ditko wanted it to be an unknown and Lee wanted to make it someone who had already appeared in the titles – but I believe that this is merely an urban legend – often repeated because it’s simple, understandable, and quotable. In one of the rare paper trails that Ditko did leave, in an online effort known as “The Comics,” which was quoted in a magazine (which I can’t put my hands on dammit!) released around the time of the first Spidey film, he indicates that he intended the Goblin to be a character that was “close to J. Jonah Jameson,” which combined with the tension that was steadily increasing between Peter Parker and Ned Leeds – I believe that Ditko intended the Goblin to be Leeds. However, Osborn HAD shown up as a face in JJJ’s circle before he was actually given a name in issue #37 – so maybe Ditko did have that character in mind (although I doubt it – but I’ve discussed this elsewhere). I believe that the two men were just so different politically and philosophically, with Lee being a liberal and Ditko being an Ayn Rand individualist, as well as probably smarting over what he perceived to be a lack of sufficient remuneration, both from a credit standpoint and financial, that he just decided to bail. The fact that Ditko refuses to take easy money on the comics convention circuit telling his side of the story either solidifies him as an artist of unquestionable integrity or a weirdo – maybe a bit of both.

John Romita, Sr.
The world is full of brilliant visionaries who have a great idea, as well as the nuts and bolts folks who actually make those brilliant ideas work. To use a religious analogy, there are the Jesus types and the Paul types. Jesus had the message, but Paul was the one who took it to the rest of the known world at the time. John Romita, Sr. may not have had the flashes of original creative brilliance that Steve Ditko brought to the title, but his artistic style enabled the web head to crawl (pun intended) to higher levels of popularity. Spidey under Ditko’s influence was an angry place, rife with antagonism as Peter seemed to be in conflict with virtually everyone who crossed his path – Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, JJJ, Ned Leeds, Betty Brant. Even his burgeoning relationship with Gwen Stacy was combative as Gwen nearly slapped our hero in the face for making a sarcastic comment! Not to mention Peter’s antagonistic stands against college protestors on campus, who seemed to have little purpose other than to be seen protesting. Romita’s romance comic background resulted in a softening up of most of the central characters, improving Peter’s relationship with them and resulting in “the gang,” of Peter, Gwen, Harry, MJ and Flash, which helped strengthen the soap opera elements of Spidey’s story and gave us a collective group of likeable people we enjoyed spending time with. He put a little extra weight on Peter and made him more physically attractive, which was somewhat symbolic of his being Spider-Man bringing him out of his shell. And what he did to the girls! Romita was the first to draw Mary Jane Watson in her full glory, and his original Gwen Stacy would have been worthy of a Wayne’s World “schwing!” Unfortunately, in order to distinguish between the two primary ladies, Gwen devolved into a more “wholesome” image after a time, which ultimately was a factor in her decline as a character.

As a result, perhaps there was an artistic compromise in the change from Ditko to Romita. Although Spidey’s popularity soon exploded, he did lose some of the edge that put him on the map originally. That’s all a matter of opinion. Even today, Romita’s pencils almost seem a little too soft and too clean in today’s grittier, grimier storytelling climate (which I think his son succeeds at admirably) – but I never object to seeing him back. In fact, in the back-up story to Webspinners #1, which was Peter and Gwen’s last night together before her death, his “soft, clean, dated” artwork perfectly captured the feel for what probably was the last night of whatever innocence Peter Parker had left, before his life was irrevocably altered. Todd McFarlane was right on the money on the Spider-Man movie DVD when he stated that Romita’s influence was so powerful that succeeding artists essentially re-drew Romita’s Spidey for a long period of time after that.

For the next segments, I’ll discuss the other writers and artists in the relative order in which they worked on the titles, in lieu of listing all of their credentials.

Writers

Gerry Conway
Next to Stan Lee – it’s likely that Gerry Conway has had the most influence on Spider-Man and his world than any other writer. This is made even more amazing (pun intended) when we note that Conway was a friggin’ teenager when he first took on the assignment. He is also a member of the Century Club, and unique in the fact that he had significant runs on no less than three of the core Spider-titles (Amazing, Spectacular, and Web). It is his run on Amazing that makes him stand head and shoulders above most of the others. Under Conway, both Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn met their deaths (until Norman’s was ret-conned nearly a quarter of a century later), which still resonates till this day. Harry took up the mantle of the Green Goblin for the first time under Conway, and the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane flourished from friendship to romance. Not only that, but he created the Jackal, chose Professor Miles Warren as the alter ego and gave us the first Clone Saga, which was a classic in its time – too bad it was bastardized later in the 1990’s. Conway also wrote the one-shot trade Parallel Lives after Peter and MJ’s marriage which took their relationship back to its very beginnings, and showed how it gradually blossomed into an enduring love.

Unfortunately, Conway’s later tours of duty on Spectacular and Web were fairly uneventful, maybe even forgettable. I never understood his “Joe Robertson in jail” storyline because it just didn’t ring true that such an event would occur.

Since then, Conway has gone on to become a successful television writer and producer, most notably on “Law and Order” (pick a version). It’s doubtful that with the current climate at Marvel that we’ll ever see him pen a Spidey story again, and he has stated that as a result of his age, he feels that he no longer could adequately relate to the character.

Len Wein
Wein took over Amazing Spider-Man after Gerry Conway and lasted until issue #180. He was the last writer to have Spidey largely to himself, as the first Spectacular Spider-Man saw print around Amazing #164. The stories weren’t bad, but Conway’s eventful run made Wein’s look like it was standing still. Peter’s relationship with Mary Jane for example, began to become annoying due to Peter’s relentless habit of breaking dates to become Spider-Man, blah blah blah. Fortunately, MJ wasn’t the daddy’s girl that Gwen Stacy became, and she actually started seeing Flash Thompson to make Peter jealous. And then there was another of Aunt May’s massive heart attacks that ended an interesting turn for May as a “Gray Panther” protester. Still, Wein turned in the terrific issue #153 which is one of my top ten favorite stories, and during his two and a half years, Marla Madison, JJJ’s eventual second wife, was introduced, Harry Osborn and Liz Allen began dating and were quickly engaged. The run concluded with the fairly well known five part Green Goblin tale that featured psychiatrist Barton Hamilton’s first and only appearance as the Green Goblin. Wein also brought back the original Burglar from Amazing Fantasy #15, but that storyline did not go anywhere until later in Marv Wolfman’s run.

Marv Wolfman
Speaking of Wolfman, Marv started his reign on Amazing Spider-Man #182 with an unexpected bombshell – Peter proposing marriage for the first time to Mary Jane. MJ turned him down in the succeeding issue, but Wolfman was just getting started. His time on Amazing lasted less than two years but in that time there was the proposal and rejection, and later Peter and MJ formally broke up. Pete then had a brief, but troubled affair with Betty Brant that got him decked by Ned Leeds, Betty’s husband. The Black Cat (Wolfman’s lasting contribution to the Spider-Man mythos) made her debut. Rock solid J. Jonah Jameson was in the throes of an apparent nervous breakdown, with Peter finally having enough of his crap and going to work for the Daily Globe and its mysterious owner. And of course, the infamous Burglar came back and Spider-Man finally settled his oldest score in issue #200. Soon after that – Wolfman left and Denny O’Neil came in and shit all over his unfinished plots. With Marv, it seemed that every issue meant something in the grand scheme of Spidey, and I have not been sorrier to see any spider writer leave than I was when Wolfman left.

Denny O’Neil
Sometimes you have to wonder what went wrong. Denny O’Neil is a comics legend, having redefined Batman with Neal Adams, creating supervillain Ras Al Ghul, and turning in some classic Green Lantern tales in the 60’s and 70’s. After Marv Wolfman’s untimely departure from the Spider-Man titles after Amazing Spider-Man #204, O’Neil, beginning with #207, should have been able to create a similarly memorable run on Marvel’s flagship character. But that didn’t happen. O’Neil’s era is arguably the worst in Spidey’s history, and at the time, was the shortest as he barely lasted more than a year before the title was turned over to Roger Stern. He clumsily and abruptly trashed several interesting storylines that Marv Wolfman had started, particularly the ones that revolved around Peter’s brief employment as a photographer with the Daily Globe. The villains were sophomoric and the storylines simplistic. One of the worst offenders was the time when Hydroman and Sandman, in a fight over a middle-aged barfly, accidentally merged to become a gigantic sand monster with a King Kong fixation. Due to the fact that his time was mercifully short, someone else at Marvel must have noticed some quality problems as well. This is really too bad – because it should have been a solid run.

Bill Mantlo
Bill Mantlo’s days on Spectacular Spider-Man, which came in two phases, has always been one of my favorites. Even though he created the infamous “Hypno Hustler,” he followed it up with a great Daredevil team-up and then the first and best “Carrion” story, which featured a living, yet dead clone of Professor Miles Warren (aka the Jackal from Gerry Conway’s Clone Saga). After that, Peter Parker became a graduate student at ESU with several new supporting cast members. Starting with Mantlo, followed by Roger Stern, and then Mantlo again, Spectacular developed its own identity apart from Amazing (and was actually better for a time). During Mantlo’s second spell on the title, Spidey’s relationship with Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat turned red hot. Mantlo also scribed one of the best Doc Ock stories, a multi-parter that saw Ock and the Owl compete for control of the New York underworld, Ock coming within a hair’s breadth of nuking New York after beating the Black Cat senseless, and Spidey spending an issue wrapping up some loose ends in his life, fearing that he may not survive the next battle with the good doctor. I was in college during this time frame, and for whatever reason, perhaps because Spidey and I were close to the same age at the time, it was one of my favorite eras. Mantlo also took the huge step of having Spidey reveal his secret id to Felicia, something he had never done with a woman before, although the seeds had already been sown that would lead to Felicia being turned into a dingbat. Incidentally, I also liked Mantlo’s long run on the original Micronauts title.

Sadly, a few years ago he was seriously injured in an accident that permanently incapacitated him both physically and mentally. And unfortunately, with no new portfolio of work and no ability to discuss the events of his era, Mantlo may be destined to be primarily remembered for the weird error in judgment when he wanted to give Spider-Man an illegitimate child, and then accused Editor in Chief Jim Shooter of censorship and compromising the creative process when Shooter realized what an awful idea that was, particularly for a family-friendly character who was being marketed on countless children’s products. That’s Shooter’s side of the story. We’ll never hear Mantlo’s.

Roger Stern
For me, it’s a coin toss to decide who I liked better as a writer on Spider-Man after the Stan Lee era – Marv Wolfman or Roger Stern. Stern’s impact exaggerates his duration as he wrote less than 50 core issues of Spectacular first, then Amazing. Spectacular Spider-Man had struggled for awhile after its debut, but finally found a sense of direction as Bill Mantlo grew into the character, and then for a time, Stern effortlessly took over with a series of relatively short, but interesting stories. Stern then moved to Amazing, and there made his most significant contribution to Spider-Lore – the HobGoblin! Issues #238-#251, the original HobGoblin story arc, is one of Spidey’s best ever. Certainly not to be overlooked is Stern’s classic, although admittedly manipulative, tearjerker, “The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man,” the great battle with the Juggernaut which illustrated Spidey’s tenacity, stubbornness, and “never say die” quality, and also his subtle additions to the backgrounds of long established villains such as the Vulture, Kingpin, and Mysterio. In a masterful dance, he was able to wrap the HobGoblin story up in a nice neat little package in the mini series HobGoblin Lives! coming up to his original conclusion about Hobby’s identity even after the character had been ruined by a decade of crap stories and characterizations. His final effort, Revenge of the Green Goblin took us deeper into the tortured mind of Norman Osborn than we had ever been before, but overall it was unfortunately not as good as it good have been. Maybe he was just a little rusty – or else it was the need to feed into an anniversary storyline that was unfolding in the regular titles. Stern seems to be another of those former comic writers that for some reason seems to no longer welcome in the business, for reasons of which I am totally ignorant.

Tom DeFalco
Also once the Editor in Chief of Marvel Comics, Tom DeFalco is probably one of the few remaining links to the Marvel that was still primarily in the comic book business as opposed to the “licensing” business. He had two tours of duty on Amazing Spider-Man, the first immediately after Roger Stern, and the second during the Clone Saga and ending at the reboot. Probably more so than anyone left at Marvel, DeFalco knows Spider-Man. It was under Tom DeFalco that Mary Jane Watson revealed that she knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, and the relationship began its fragile, tentative rebuilding that eventually ended in marriage (although DeFalco’s original plan was to have Mary Jane leave Peter at the altar – a decision reversed by Jim Shooter who wanted the comic storyline to dovetail with the events in the daily Spider-Man comic strip). Unfortunately, the HobGoblin storyline, which was dropped into DeFalco’s lap when he succeeded Roger Stern on Amazing, drug out way too long while he was writing the title, although he was not responsible for its bizarre and unsatisfactory resolution in issue #289. DeFalco’s second tour was not as strong as his first, a fact he has readily admitted, partially because several storylines he was moving along were abruptly cut short when the reboot was announced and he was relieved of his duties on Amazing in favor of Howard Mackie. DeFalco was also the author of the short-lived but fun Green Goblin series with Phil Urich as a super heroic Goblin, and his entire run on the Spider-Girl series has been readable and enjoyable from day one. DeFalco is a model of consistency – maybe not hitting the emotional and dramatic highs that some other writers do – but avoiding the gut wrenching lows.

Al Milgrom
Milgrom was one of those few twin threats who both wrote and drew Spider-Man stories. The most notable “contribution” of his brief run on Spectacular was essentially finishing off Mantlo’s run after he left that title. Milgrom continued the evisceration of the Black Cat until she departed the titles (temporarily) in issue #100. How much of this was done on his own or as the result of editorial mandates to ditch the Cat, I have no idea, but god, it was awful. “Oh Spider, My Spider..”

Peter David
I would say that as a writer – period – Peter David is the best to ever scribe for Spider-Man. There isn’t much in the way of franchise characters that he hasn’t written in comic book form that I haven’t liked (Spidey, Classic Star Trek for Marvel and DC, and Hulk).

David seemed to have a singular ability to alternate between brutal, gritty, ugly stories and whimsical flights of fancy like few others. Case in point, he could switch gears from a serious story such as The Death of Jean Dewolffe, where one of Spidey’s few friends in the police force is shockingly murdered, to the hilarious “When Commeth the Commuter,” a story about Spidey tracking a crook to the suburbs, and finding out that fighting crime there is as challenging in its own way as in an urban environment. He also re-invigorated the Black Cat and re-made her into a sexy, ethically dubious foil that had simultaneous affairs with both Spidey and the master assassin the Foreigner, playing them both! His one black mark is Amazing #289, where the HobGoblin was revealed as Ned Leeds and dispatched in a horribly unsatisfying way – but some of this was simply the deck he had been dealt – although in recent years he has been quoted as saying that the Ned revelation was supposed to be another con, but became permanent when Spidey changed editors.

David is now the scribe on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

David Michelinie
It’s hard to imagine someone writing more Spider-Man stories than Stan Lee, but Michelinie has. Although he has turned in stories for the other spider titles (my personal favorite of his is the two-part “Smithville Thunderbolt” story in Webs #8-9 where Peter Parker travels to a small town that has its own superhero), his most notable run was his long one on Amazing Spider-Man that began with Spidey’s second proposal to MJ in issue #290 and ending with #388 just as the Clone Saga was kicking into gear. His greatest claim to fame is creating the supervillain known as Venom, who first appeared in all his glory with an assist from Todd McFarlane in issue #299, and then later Carnage (#361). His biggest mistake was his overuse of Venom and Carnage, although he wasn’t the only one, and for some ungodly reason, that seemed to be what the public wanted. Venom appeared every year it seemed, to the point that he was almost as much a semi-regular as some of the rest of Spidey’s supporting cast. The world can only take so much brain eating action. Spider-Man began to go into serious decline during Michelinie’s watch in Amazing with its relentless high tech slug fests, multiple parters with numerous guest stars (“Round Robin: Sidekicks’ Revenge”), violent vigilante characters (Cardiac, the Jury, and even Venom, who was morphed into the “Protector of the Innocent”) crossovers within the spider titles and other Marvel books, such as “Inferno,” and “Acts of Vengeance,” his share of the 14 part wankfest called “Maximum Carnage” and ending with the “Robot Parents” storyline where Peter Parker’s parents supposedly had been in a Soviet prison camp all of this time rather than being dead. Not a bad idea – but it took TWO FRIGGIN’ YEARS for the story to play out. There wasn’t two years worth of story – six months badda bing badda boom – wrap it up. Two years – and what a surprise – they were fakes – androids created by the Chameleon in a scheme initiated by Harry Osborn prior to his death. It may be unfair to place Spidey’s decline on his shoulders, since he certainly didn’t initiate those crossovers, and Marvel was trying to ape the Image style of storytelling with loud obnoxious splashy happenings of all style and no substance. But, he was at the helm of the flagship title at the time, and right or wrong, a lot of the slinging mud sticks to him.

Todd McFarlane
McFarlane is more known for his artistic contributions than his writing – which is a good thing. He had a fairly brief 16 issue run on No-Adjective Spider-Man starting with issue #1 and focused on bringing a horror-story element to Spidey, including an excruciating five part “Lizard under control of a witch,” story, and turning the HobGoblin into a sick, demonic Jesus freak. While his reasons for trying to tell different kinds of stories was understandable (after all, when you’re writing the 4th monthly title, you need to distinguish it from the others), it just didn’t click with me.

Ann Nocenti
Ann was primarily a fill-in writer who made the cut because she got her 12 core issues in. “The Mad Dog Ward” which ran in Web of Spider-Man, where Spidey is heavily sedated and committed to a mental institution under the control of a doctor in the employ of the Kingpin is probably her most significant contribution, although rather oddly timed since it followed right after “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” giving readers one dark psychological mind-f**k plot after another.

JM DeMatteis
Speaking of which, you wonder if this guy was whacked around a lot as a child, because I don’t think any spider-writer has crafted as many mind-bender stories as DeMatteis, who showed a propensity for really delving into characters that were previously only caricatures. I was never a fan of “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” which is considered a classic by more fans than not, but there’s no doubt that he took a lame character in Kraven and completely overhauled him to the point that people forget what a tacky villain he really was for most of his existence. He also did a similar job on the Chameleon. His “Death of Aunt May” story in Amazing Spider-Man #400 was a beautiful piece of work which made May’s eventual return all the more abominable. His run on Spectacular before the reboot was also strong, as he seemed to capture the manipulative part of Norman Osborn’s personality perfectly, making him a strong, omnipresent villain who didn’t need to dress up in a green and purple costume to be Spidey’s greatest foe.

The drawback however, is that I think he went to the well once too often with these types of stories, or inexplicably added elements that weakened them. The basic conflicts in “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” and “The Child Within,” (a six-part battle between Peter and a deteriorating Harry Osborn and their individual psyches) were eroded by DeMatteis’ inexplicable fascination with that sickening cannibalistic Vermin the Rat-Man character. And then there was the Pursuit and Shriek storylines just before the Clone Saga where Spider-Man was on a continuous downer (“I am the Spider!” “Parker is dead!” ) and MJ was down because Peter was down (“Oh Peter, please don’t keep acting like a friggin’ maniac,” “Oh Peter, I need you, please come home,” “Oh Peter, don’t forget to pick up a gallon of milk when you’re done with your latest violent villain thrashing as a means of venting your anger”) and everyone else was just a product of bad upbringings and poor Shriek and Carrion and Carnage would have been o.k. if they had just gotten love and understanding as kids. Let me get out my damn hanky. During the Clone Saga, he foisted a seemingly all-knowing, all seeing, utterly incomprehensible character called the Traveler, whose shtick was a tiresome fascination with the difference between good and evil, onto readers. None of the other spider writers at the time knew where he was going with that character either, and Tom DeFalco later finally brought the character to as logical a conclusion as possible and jettisoned him.

That said, I still wouldn’t object to seeing DeMatteis make a return trip to the titles as long as he left that New Age touchy feely part of his writing behind.

Terry Kavanuagh
Another writer who may have simply had the bad fortune of trying to write Spider-Man stories in a time where it wasn’t quality, but quantity, that mattered. Still, he committed two unforgivable sins – it was he who broached the idea of having the Peter Parker of the prior 20 years to be a clone. He also killed off Parker’s photographer rival and long-time supporting character Lance Bannon in the story that had no ending –”Who was FACADE”? from Web of Spider-Man #113-116. Bannon took a picture of some dude slipping into this mean mother of a military battle suit – and was subsequently murdered. The mystery was spun with a number of suspects, including John Jameson, Jonah’s son. And who was responsible for the death of Bannon? We don’t know! Kavanaugh chose not to disclose the killer’s identity in that story, nor did FAÇADE ever return. Maybe I’m just too anal and a simplistic fanboy because I like my stories to have make sense and have endings. I know that many writers think that is a completely unrealistic expectation of fans – but pulling crap like this FAÇADE story is just bullshit. Considering that no future spider-writer ever considered following up on this unresolved plot pretty well says it all.

Todd Dezago
I know next to nothing about Dezago, although I saw him on a panel at a convention once. His primary contribution to Spider-Man was his run on Sensational Spider-Man, which was originally a vehicle for Dan Jurgens who got pissed off at Marvel’s flip-flopping vis a vis the Clone Saga and bailed on the title after issue #6. I totally blew off Sensational until it became time to scour the back issue bins, partly because I didn’t like Mike Wieringo’s art and frankly, I didn’t care for any of the stories when I Byrne-stole them. But I don’t really want to dump too much on Dezago – he was helming a title whose purpose no longer existed, and during one of the roughest times in spider-history.

Howard Mackie
Probably one of the, if not the most pilloried writer in spider-history, and considered by many to be the worst, an assessment which I think is debatable. Mackie started writing Spider-Man regularly with Web, and then moved over to No Adjective, thrust right into the Clone Saga/crossover mess from the start, but he certainly didn’t do any worse than anyone else during that time period. Prior to the reboot, he was turning in a series of solid stories in Peter Parker that meshed well with John Romita Jr’s. art. If he hadn’t made one terrible decision, he probably would be considerably less infamous than he is now, but he accepted the job as the writer of both surviving Spider-Man titles (Amazing and Peter Parker) after the reboot even though some time earlier he claimed to be tapped out on Spider-Man. It put him in the Century Club, but it also resulted in him being vilified beyond belief and eventually forced out of the titles and apparently the business altogether. And indeed, his two years on the titles after the reboot are arguably the worst in Spidey’s history, running neck and neck with Denny O’Neil’s brief run years earlier. In many cases he was simply following orders, such as Harras’ directive to kill off Mary Jane, probably the most unpopular move next to the revelation that Peter was a clone. Still, he had a habit of creating meandering storylines that went nowhere, and continuity was not his strongest point. He would introduce characters with great fanfare, such as the second Kraven the Hunter and Peter’s fellow employees at Tri-Corp (a new job Peter got at the beginning of the reboot that he never showed up to), and then go nowhere with them. Still, I find it incredible that his editor kept this poor guy on the pitching mound long past the point when he had clearly run out of gas, allowing him to take a vicious hammering. I have little doubt that this was part of the reason, along with his failure to capitalize on the success of the first X-Men motion picture, that resulted in Bob Harras getting his walking papers as well. Still, Howard’s final act, the 2001 Amazing Annual that had Aunt May spewing a completely inappropriate political diatribe, and Peter relentlessly hounding an emotionally fragile Mary Jane for sex was so distasteful that I regret sticking up for him at times.

Paul Jenkins
This none-too shy and retiring Brit was the one bright spot in two years of pathetic mediocrity after the reboot. His first foray into Spider-Man was an electrifying in-continuity Chameleon story in, of all titles, Webspinners, which wasn’t supposed to be comprised of in-continuity stories. This led to his assignment on Peter Parker beginning with issue #20 and outside of a brief respite at the end of the run of that title, resuming with the second Spectacular. Jenkins has told an eclectic mix of stories, ranging from the sad and sweet “Wait Till Next Year,” where Peter reflects back on his annual ritual of attending the Mets games with Uncle Ben to the stunning “Death in the Family,” featuring a turning point in the relationship between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, to Spidey’s comical encounter with crooked mimes in the “Nuff Said” no dialogue issue. This has been balanced with some less than successful attempts at the introduction of newer villains (Typeface, Fusion II, the Virus) and a couple of recent long story arcs featuring Venom and Doc Ock that began well but didn’t quite payoff at the end. Still, I’m glad he’s on the title for the foreseeable future.

J. Michael Straczynski
Obviously, the jury is still out on JMS. There is no doubt, however, that Amazing Spider-Man is overall much better after he started with volume 2 issue #30 (or #471 for those of us who follow the original numbering) than it had been in the last several years. Rather than follow the tried and true course of having Spidey routinely knock around the same supervillains that he had been thrashing for the last 40 years, JMS decided to introduce an interesting and controversial concept, the idea that Spider-Man might actually be part of a larger mythology dating back to ancient times. Really – it is an interesting idea. Unfortunately, the story got off on the wrong foot, began too slowly, too nebulously with too much talking in circles in an overlong first story that contained a few ultimately inconsequential, but irritating continuity glitches. Some seasoned Spidey fans (o.k., o.k., me) who had just suffered for the last several years with long drawn out storylines that seemed to go nowhere probably didn’t have patience with JMS’ initial efforts as a result. JMS’ run has also been distinguished by introducing two long overdue story points. He finally jettisoned Peter’s photography job at the Daily Bugle, which had worn unbelievably thin over time and made him a science teacher at his former high school, which provides an older Peter Parker the means to routinely become involved in the lives and the issues of young people – you know the “target” audience. More importantly, he turned Aunt May from a doddering old fool into the tough, intelligent, yet still compassionate and nurturing woman that we know she has to be to have endured all of the ills that life has tossed her way. And of course, she found out that Peter was Spidey – which should provide us with stories and perspectives that we haven’t seen before in Spider-Man. Probably his best effort thus far, though, was a story involving a visit from our old friend, Doctor Octopus. I just wish he would conclude his magic spider totem arc and give us some of the really cool stories that I have no doubt he is capable of telling.

Brian Michael Bendis
Bendis has one of the most unenviable jobs in comics, that of re-interpreting one of the greatest comic book icons ever for the 21st Century in Ultimate Spider-Man. The series was originally greeted with a lot of skepticism, particularly since during the time it was introduced, Marvel was letting the regular core titles languish in mediocrity and promoting Ultimate as “for new readers,” with the implication of “piss on the old readers.” The attitudes at Marvel have since changed, and with Bendis and artist Mark Bagley at the helm, Ultimate has carved out a distinctive niche, focusing on a high school era Spider-Man. He has provided a number of positives thus far after a shaky initial re-interpretation of the Green Goblin, including a stronger initial presence for Uncle Ben (making his subsequent murder more painful than in the original telling), a more logical and interesting take on Venom, making Aunt May a younger and more viable mother figure for Peter, and in a major deviation, having Peter reveal his id to Mary Jane, which, hell, a normal 16 year kid would likely do. Conversely, however, the stories seem to last almost twice as long as they need to, with several panels containing either no or minimal dialogue, often Peter and MJ engaging in page-long one syllable conversations. “Really?” “Really.” “Wow.” “Yeah.” “Cool.” I find Bendis to be a much better writer on stuff like his Daredevil run when he doesn’t have to dance so carefully around the edges of a mythology.

Still, in Ultimate Bendis is operating under a huge handicap – he really can’t tell much in the way of original stories because it seems the market wants him to re-tell all the old stories, as relentless requests for appearances by Venom and Carnage caused him to reverse his earlier decisions not to use the characters. I just hope like hell he holds fast against re-telling the Clone Saga.

It’s funny, because looking back at how I have evaluated each of the spider-writers, there seems to be a consistent thread. In the time periods in which there is only one, or two main Spider-Man titles, the writing is definitely of higher quality. As the spider-verse expands, AND the crossover and other event driven gimmicks take over – the quality drops precipitously.

Artists

Ross Andru
Ross Andru was the artist on Amazing Spider-Man when I first started collecting the comic on a regular basis in 1974, and I always seem to remember him having a thing for that little divot under everyone’s noses, but other than that – he was the standard by which I evaluated Spidey artists for a long time. I felt that one reason that Amazing under Len Wein was clearly superior to Spectacular under Bill Mantlo as the latter was starting out was because of the Ross Andru art. It was pretty jarring for me when he left the title after Amazing #185, but that’s a high school kid for you.

Sal Buscema
Sal is a popular artist, a Century Club member with more issues of Spidey to his credit than any artist with the exception of the younger Romita. And, sigh, I just never really warmed up to his art. For example, when Sal started on Spectacular, I just preferred Ross Andru’s pencils – feeling that they looked neater and more “realistic.” In later years, it seemed that Buscema’s work looked rushed, and when combined with Bill Sienkiewicz’s inks during the Clone Saga, just looked too terribly dark. I know that my opinion probably does not do the man or his art justice and fortunately he seems to do just fine in spite of it.

Ron Frenz
Although not on a par with remembering where one was during the Kennedy assassination or 9/11, I remember where I was when I really noticed Ron Frenz’ art for the first time. Although he actually started on Amazing Spider-Man #251, I really took notice of issue #252 – lying on the top bed of the two bed bunk that I shared with the self-same English major who called me a cultural maggot, in Room #211 of Jones Hall on the Indiana State University – Terre Haute campus. O.K., so my social life sucked so badly at the time that I could distinctly remember things like this – but it just seemed that Frenz’s lean and mean style, almost Ditko-esque without the dated cartooniness of Ditko’s work, combined with that terrific black costume that we were seeing for the first time, just rocked. That issue was a hot collector’s item for awhile, until a guy by the name of McFarlane became super-hot four years later. I missed Frenz for a long time, and was happy to see him come back to the spider-verse with Tom DeFalco on Spider-Girl – but – I don’t know what it is this time. It just doesn’t quite have the same appeal. Like I said, I only know what I like and can’t really articulate it.

Al Milgrom
Amazing and Spectacular penciler, as well as a writer for a brief time on the latter. He was the primary artist during the time period that Spidey and the Black Cat were a team, and I had no real problems with his art, although as mentioned earlier, I had issues with his writing. However, he is likely to be better remembered by fans as the artist who subtly included an uncomplimentary message about former EIC Bob Harras in a comic. The book was the Spider-Man Earth X Special, which focused on a parallel world Peter Parker who married Gwen Stacy and settled down and retired from being Spider-Man. Milgrom did the lettering for John Romita, Sr., and in a drawing of a crowded bookcase, inserted a message along the spines of the books about Harras being a nasty SOB and everyone was glad he was gone. The book went to a full printing before someone caught the message, pulped and re-print the comic. Needless to say, Milgrom was subsequently fired by Marvel, but here’s the question I want answered – was he right?

Todd McFarlane
Folks seem to either love or hate this guy, with nothing in- between. Fortunately, I’m one of the few who are in-between. I can understand why McFarlane’s art was such a big deal on Spider-Man at the time because it was a radical change from what had been seen before in the previous 25 years. He twisted Spidey in all kinds of weird, contorted positions, drew the webbing as it was expelled from the webshooters entirely different than anyone before him – and he turned Mary Jane from a straight-haired good-looking girl into a big-haired babe, which didn’t bother me too much because I’m a fan of big hair. However, I think his flattering attention to Mary Jane and her appearance in various stages of undress unwittingly led to a trend where successive artists, no longer feeling wedded to drawing a Romita Sr. – style MJ, started focusing on showing her primarily as a sex object. Artists like to draw beautiful, exaggerated images of women – I’m not complaining – but I think it’s a poor practice to continually portray the wife of your hero solely in that light. McFarlane also had a tendency to draw people who weren’t our major characters as pretty damn ugly folks.

However, as the years pass, McFarlane is becoming more well known for his legal battles with Neil Gamon and hockey player Tony Twist, his dick personality (according to another writer’s weblog), the way he gives other folks the shaft, and paying $3 million for one of Mark McGwire’s home run balls. Some of the anger towards McFarlane is probably jealousy – he got rich in a field where almost no one gets rich and was able to develop a successful toy business based on his own original creations (or Gamon’s depending on who you talk to). Unlike Stan Lee, however, who cultivated an image as “Uncle Stan,” McFarlane didn’t seem to care that he gave the impression of coming from the wrong side of the family tree.

I’m pissed off at him because when I was filling in the gaps in my Spidey back issue collection, it was only the McFarlane issues that wound up costing me anything. You can save the world or write the Great American Novel, but f**king with my pocketbook is an unpardonable sin. Well, that and coming up with the idea for the Clone Saga.

Erik Larsen
I always initially thought that Larsen was kind of McFarlane-lite when he first appeared on Amazing Spider-Man after Todd left the title. I could be wrong given my poor eye for art – but I could hardly blame him if that were the case considering how popular McFarlane was. Again, it was a different style, but it was o.k. with me. However, when he came back for a brief stint on the second volume of Peter Parker after the reboot, his stuff was awful – I couldn’t believe it was done by the same guy who did Amazing years earlier. He later admitted that his art was less than his best on those issues and he gave as the reason the fact that the stories were so bad he couldn’t really put his heart into it. Whether I really believe that or not – I can certainly relate to it.

Mark Bagley
I always thought that Mark “Bags” Bagley was one of the better post Romita Sr.-era artists during his five and a half year run on Amazing after issue #350, but he really, really shines in Ultimate Spider-Man, where the better quality paper supports his rich art. People talk about how much of early Spider-Man was Stan Lee and how much was Steve Ditko, but I think that it’s even clearer than in Ultimate, Bagley is every bit as much of a creative partner and storyteller as Bendis, considering how many panels and pages unfold with little or no dialogue in this series! It’s likely that American consumers are more familiar with Bagley’s Spider-Man than most of the other artists because it’s his Spider-Man that is seen on numerous kids products these days.

John Romita, Jr.
Probably my favorite Spider-Man artist at the moment, maybe of all time. His style has evolved over the years, changing with the nature of the storytelling. When he first arrived on the scene in the early 80’s, his pencils were closer to his father’s, and things were brighter and neater, but a strong compliment to Roger Stern’s writing at the time. The dark, crime noir approach he took during the latter issues of the first volume of Peter Parker netted him some criticism from folks who thought that everyone turned out to be a big too big and too blocky, but I thought it was perfect as it gave that title a distinctive feel and mood that the other titles lacked at the time. As Romita settled into Amazing Spider-Man, his characters, particularly Spidey, seemed to become a little more lean and Spidey began to show some of his original Ditko-esque quirkiness. Unfortunately, JR jr (as he’s known and referred to in fanboy circles) is going to be taking an undetermined length of absence from the lead spider-title. While I’m not a person who only wants to see one artistic style on a character forever and ever, amen, I greet this news with a lot of hesitation because the current artistic environment seems overrun with wide-eyed manga-influenced characters. The picture to the left, from Amazing Spider-Man #505, which just came out the week I finished this article, is an example of why I like the younger Romita’s work.

Mark Buckingham
“Bucky,” as he’s often called, was Paul Jenkins’ principal artist during the writer’s run on the second volume of Peter Parker. I really didn’t care for his art at first, but it later grew on me, particularly after I saw the likes of Jim Mahfood and Humberto Ramos take turns at Peter Parker. But I will say this, I really liked his MJ in the Valentine Special in 1997. It’s hard to say why, but it’s a sweet and sexy, but not a supermodel look for Mary Jane. I wished that Bucky had a chance to draw her again when she came back into the series from her exile in Arnold’s Callyfornia.

Humberto Ramos
I don’t want to dwell on this because I pretty well stated my case in my article on Death in the Family , but I cannot stand this guy’s stuff on Spider-Man. I just do not like Spider-Manga. That’s a bias of mine, and that’s all there is to it. Manga is fine in its own context – I liked it in the series Gunsmith Cats, which was one of my guilty pleasures. I don’t like it in Spider-Man. Period. I thought the art weakened the impact of Paul Jenkins’ Green Goblin “Death in the Family” story, and made a dark, ironic moment at the end look cartoony and unbelievable. However, I am apparently swimming against the tide with that one. Manga and anime are big and getting bigger in comics in this country.

Others
As I’ve stated before, there are a number of artists I just don’t have a strong enough opinion on to warrant much of a comment, or whose contributions, even though they made my list, aren’t nearly as significant or memorable as others. These would include:

Gil Kane
To me, Gil Kane is a classic style. He doesn’t quite have the romantic flourish of a Romita, Sr., or the quirkiness of a Ditko, or the dark hues of a Romita, Jr., but his stuff was rock solid basic bread and butter art.

John Bennett
Drew some Amazing Spider-Man between the end of the Clone Saga and the beginning of the reboot. Not bad, but not a favorite of mine.

John Byrne
Byrne is on a lot of Spidey fans’ shit list because of the failed attempt to revise Spidey’s origin in his Chapter One series, and his participation in the plotting of some of the post reboot stories. That doesn’t mean, however, that he can’t draw. However, his art does not leave a strong impression on me one way or the other.

Rich Buckler
No opinion.

Steven Butler
Butler closed out the Web of Spider-Man series during the Clone Saga. It was o.k.

Tom Lyle
No opinion.

Jim Mooney
Mostly pencilled Spectacular off and on for four years back in the 70’s and early 80’s. No opinion.

Keith Pollard
Pollard was the artist that succeed Ross Andru on Amazing back in 1981, and was the first artist to draw the lovely Felicia Hardy, aka the Black Cat. It took a little getting used to after seeing Andru for several years, but I grew to like it.

Luke Ross
Ross’ time on Spidey was confined primarily to the end run of the first Spectacular Spider-Man from 1996-1998. I have little opinion on his art.

Alex Saviuk
Had a fairly long intermittent stretch on Web of Spider-Man for several years. He also did the Parallel Lives trade that I liked very much, maybe because it almost looks like a Romita, Sr. homage. He is also the only artist to draw Spidey in the famous (or is it infamous?) Spider-Armor (Web #100). A solid performer.

Mike Wieringo
Definitely not. Too cartoony and close to manga, although without the excessive exaggeration.

Mike Zeck
Zeck pencilled a handful of issues largely in Spectacular off and on from 1978 to 1988. I definitely liked his later stuff as compared with this earlier work, but otherwise have little opinion.

As you can probably tell – I like my art fairly simple, and people to look like people rather than exaggerations of people. I liked the Romita, Sr. – Kane – Andru runs, with nods to Ron Frenz and Mark Bagley, and certainly John Romita, Jr. I tend to prefer a Da Vinci Mona Lisa, plain and ordinary as it is, to Pablo Picasso’s cubism. The latter may be deeper, more meaningful, trendier, and the secrets of the meaning of human existence may be hidden within that weird-ass shit, but it ain’t for me.

Honorable Mention
This section is for those fellas who didn’t quite meet the criteria that I had established earlier in this article, but whom I nonetheless felt merited mention, either because I just really liked their stuff, or for other reasons given below:

Tom Brevoort
– Brevoort wrote only a handful of Spider-Man stories, including the mini-series Funeral for an Octopus, a Clone saga era story which dealt with the immediate fallout surrounding the death of Doctor Octopus (well, for as long as it lasted.) He’s probably better known as a spider editor than a writer, but he had a display of balls and common sense that was largely missing in the House of Ideas around the time of the Clone Saga. According to that classic internet analysis Life of Reilly at the end of the limited series called the The Final Adventure, Mary Jane was pregnant and close to delivery. Originally the story was going to end with the birth of the baby and close the book on Peter Parker’s Spider-Man career, since after all, he was the clone at the time. However, during the series, it was decided to reverse gears and make Peter the real Spidey again, and Marvel was aghast at the idea of Spider-Man becoming a (gasp!) father. When it was suggested that MJ have a miscarriage, Brevoort steadfastly refused to sanction this course of action. According to Glenn Greenburg, his exact words were, “There’s no way in hell that I’m going down in history as the man who killed Spider-Man’s baby.”

Good for you. I just wish we had Baby May now – but at least the way it turned out – there’s still hope.

Lee Weeks
Weeks has only scripted one Spider-Man story that I’m aware of – and it wasn’t even a core title, but the miniseries Death and Destiny, released in 2000. This was a more detailed look at the events surrounding the death of Captain George Stacy, Gwen’s father, which originally took place in Amazing Spider-Man #90. This is my favorite of all the Spider-Man limited series, even over the ones that have involved my beloved Goblins. It’s a terrific story, and a good characterization of Doctor Octopus as well. Weeks also pencilled the Mysterio Manifesto miniseries later that year. The story was disappointing, but the art wasn’t. I particularly like how Weeks can make straight-haired Mary Jane attractive without making her a sex object, and his front page drawing of her to begin Amazing Spider-Man volume 2 #29 is one of my favorites of the redhead. If I was king of the world, I’d give this boy a Spidey 12 issue maxi-series to play around with just to see if he could keep it up.

Kurt Busiek and Pat Olliffe
Busiek is certainly more renown for his Astro City series and his work on Avengers, and has done very little core Spider-Man. But he still made a significant contribution, along with artist Pat Olliffe and that was the 25 issue run of Untold Tales of Spider-Man in the mid-1990’s. Set in the early days of Spider-Man, Busiek weaved several brand new stories of a teen-age Spider-Man that fit almost perfectly within the time frame of the classic Stan Lee/Steve Ditko stories – referencing them, seldom if ever, contradicting them, yet including characters such as Harry and Norman Osborn, George and Gwen Stacy, and Mary Jane Watson before Peter even met them in the original continuity. Olliffe gave the series a retro look that suggested Ditko without copying him. This series helped end my prejudice against the telling of “untold tales.” Not that the new villains weren’t a bit lame or that there wasn’t an occasional clinker – but overall a worthwhile series. Too bad it didn’t last another 25 issues and take us through Pete’s first year of college. Busiek also scored with the one-shot Legacy of Evil in 1996, in which Spider-Man and reporter Ben Urich have to investigate the history of the Green Goblin in order to save young Normie Osborn – and Ben comes closer to a truth that he may not really want to know.

Phil Winslade
In late 2000/early 2001 Paul Jenkins scribed a team-up miniseries starring Spider-Man and Daredevil. While I had mixed feelings about the story, I really liked the art. I thought Phil Winslade made Spidey look lean and creepy, and even a lame villain like Stilt-Man actually seemed scary. I wouldn’t object to seeing him illustrate another Spidey tale.

NEXT TIME: Yes boys and girls, the final part of Spider-Man 101, and I intend to go down swinging by tackling a couple of the most troubling and divisive debates in the industry today. Continuity and Character Progression. Is continuity really important to a series’ success – or is it just a sop to fanboys that publishers need to scrap in order to attract those hordes of new readers that are out there just salivating to dive into a series if only it didn’t have so much of that pesky history. Should characters age during a series run or should they get down to Rod Stewart and remain “Forever Young”? And I just might make all of this apply to Spider-Man – somehow.