Customer Reviews

Amazing Spider-Man Complete Comic Book Collection

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

All of these Marvel complete collections on DVD-ROM are insanely great values, but this one is even better than the others. Like all of them, you get the classic stories from the '60s, the decent stories from the '70s and '80s, and the horrible stories from the '90s.

But whereas the Fantastic Four and Uncanny X-Men have been fairly undistinguished in the '00s, Amazing Spider-Man has had a superb run by J. Michael Straczynski. Straczynski's run up to 2006 is collected in ten graphic novels, which are... well, you can look the price up here on Amazon, if you want a precise number. But suffice it to say that if you just wanted to read those modern comics, and didn't care about the Lee/Ditko era or anything else before the turn of the century, you'd STILL be saving piles of money.

As far as the quality and ease-of-use of the comics go, my expectations have been met and exceeded, and I'm picky. The scans are high-quality two-page spreads (including all ads and letters and Bullpen Bulletins, which are interesting in their own right -- I can't wait until I start reading Hostess Fruit Pie ads) and show about as much detail as actually exists in the source. Plus, these are regular ol' PDFs, so there's no need to install some weird proprietary application on your computer (and Adobe Reader in full-screen mode on a 1600x1200 display is absolutely perfect for reading a two-page spread).

I bought this along with the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four sets, and am reading them all in parallel month-by-month, starting at the beginning. This doesn't quite fulfill my childhood dream of having every Marvel comic ever published and reading them all in order (though it'll get even closer once they release their Captain America, Hulk, and Thor DVDs), but it's a heck of a lot closer than I ever thought I'd get, for a heck of a lot less than I ever thought I'd have to pay.

I can't recommend these sets -- and particularly this one -- enough to any fan of Marvel superhero comics.

One very mild caveat: Like a few of the earlier reviewers, the version I got only went through mid-2006, not through the end of the year as in the picture and description above. On the one hand, that's unfortunate, as Straczynski's comics are good and worth reading; on the other hand, mid-2006 is already up to the point where it's into the "Civil War" stuff, which is crossover central (the Road to Civil War print collection that was just released, for instance, includes a few issues of Fantastic Four and two issues of Amazing Spider-Man (which actually are included on the DVD), so if you want to read those FF issues, you'd pretty much have to buy the print collection anyway). I wouldn't fuss about the missing months too much.

This set has got everything. Almost every major Spider-man moment is in this collection. From Spider-man's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, his wedding, and not to forget those great super-villain battles with the Green Goblin and Venom.

Each issue is scanned in .pdf format. It has all the original colors, ads, and fan mail printed. They are all organized by year and it says they are all printable. If you are looking for the entire Stan Lee and John Romita Sr.'s run, here it is. It is great to see where Todd Mcfarlane, the creator of Spawn got his start on old webhead. J. Michael Strackzynski, the writer of Babylon 5 also takes a crack at Spider-man's life.

The collection covers the beginning from Amazing Fantasy #15 to Amazing Spiderman #531, which is around the start of Marvel's Civil War.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on purchasing back issues, you can own this entire collection for around $40-$45. If you have the ink, you can print out any issue to your heart's desire.

The only drawbacks are around the 80s when several spider-man books begin to crossover. You only get a part of the story in Kraven's Last Hunt or Maximum Carnage. One major moment of Spider-man's life is left out, where he fights Harry Osborn as Green Goblin. The conclusion of that story took place in The Spectacular Spider-man title. That problem is going to fixed in the future as GIT Corp. has plans to release a complementary collection dvd that includes The Spectacular Spider-man, Web of Spiderman, and Peter Parker: Spider-man. They say on the boards that it will be out by fall of next year, but you never know with this company. I waited about six months for this dvd after it was delayed from its original release date from march.

Now that I have it, I cannot wait to dig into the mythos of the old webhead. I recommend this to anyone who loves comics and loves Spider-man.

Be sure to look out for the Ultimate Spider-man collection and there are a few others like the Hulk, Daredevil, Iron Man, and Captain America collections that are due out next year.

Amazon made an error in describing a new edition of this dvd that goes through December 2006. I contacted the manufacturer, GIT, and they said there is no second version. The dvd only goes thru June 2006. So nobody is being cheated

I'm not a Spider-Man fan. I love POWERS, THE ULTIMATES, SUPREME POWER, PLANETARY and other stuff by Warren Ellis, Brian Michael Bendis, et.al. So when I bought this, I wondered if spending a whopping $49 would be worth it.

I wanted to read Straczynski's recent run of Spider-Man, but if I was going to spend about $20 on a graphic novel, why not spend a little more for the whole thing. And that's just what you get. In addition to getting Straczynski's 4-year run (which includes Spider-Man's evolution and discovery of his totemic powers), you get everything leading up to JUNE 2006 (which is just like 3 issues ago!). And all on 1 DVD-ROM.

True, the Cons are that when it comes to Crossovers, you only get the Amazing Spider-Man stories and reading it off your computer isn't as fun as reading the actual comics -- but that doesn't compare to getting the entire run. It's like complaining about getting a free PS3, XBox360 AND Nintendo Wii, because the box didn't come with it or you're missing one controller.

$50 may seem steep, but if comics cost $3 now, so for the price of like one or two months worth of comics -- or for 2 books, you get everything. And it's true, you can just print out the pages if you want (so if you want to abuse your office or school's printer, go for it!)

Length:: 3:46 Mins

The Amazing Spider-Man Complete Comic Book Collection on the Ipad Video Review!, works great on the Ipad!

I bought this product because I wanted to catch up on stories from the 90's. Unfortunately, at that time Marvel ran several Spider-Man titles each month and the story lines moved between them. Because this collection contains only issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, you will find that you get the beginning of a story, but not the middle or end, because those were carried out in other comics; or the end but not the beginning. This product indeed contains the complete run--but it is made up of frustratingly incomplete stories. Also, each page appears with a horribly intrusive watermark. Save your money.

I bought this as an impulse buy. (Thanks to all the good reviews) But I must say this product is well worth it! And seeing as I work at a computer throughout most of the week reading Spider-Man through PDFs are great. Most times I just copy about 79 issues worth of spider-man onto my USB Key and I'm good to go. And just to keep this on topic ..... AWESOME Deal and an amazing steal! 500+ issues for only the price of about two really good graphic novels, great stuff! Buy it! 'Nuff said.

I really can't give this many Spider-man comics all tucked away in one DVD anything less than 4 stars. This convenience is probably why you are considering buying this and reading my review. All the comics are scanned in as double page spreads, adds and all. Since the scans were made two pages at a time, the comic spread open on its staples on the scanning bed, sometimes one of the pages is crooked as the comic didn't open neatly. Not really a big deal as no one reads a comic opened perfectly flat anyway. The comics are read in Adobe Reader, and if your monitor is 13" wide or more you can read the comics at actual size (in full screen mode).
So far so good. If GIT left well enough alone they'd have a perfect product (missing the Giant Sizes of the mid 70s unfortunately). However, it was decided to "clean-up" the old issues by brightening the backgrounds until they were super-white (even when the originals were fresh off the press they weren't this white), which results in significant color fading and color loss, not to mention that nobody enjoys looking into a bright white computer screen- it tires the eyes. Matters are made worse by applying an unsharp mask filter indiscriminately to every page, which creates some bizarre effects with the benday dot patterns. I would much rather they just left the scans alone. What we are left with are faded and grainy versions of the originals.
I could mention that, over 40 years, every Spider-man reprint has been botched in some way, but actually there are decent CBR files being exchanged around the Internet that are superior in quality to these scans, though you don't get all the adds, and the early Ditkos are not from the originals like they are on this set. So if you want every page and add from Spider-man #1 you'll have to get this disc, which comes in a colorful, gatefolded cardboard box that has no function whatsoever.
Don't go thinking they'll let you save any of these pages as jpegs. They're read only.

"The Amazing Spider-Man Complete Comic Book Collection" is a necessary part of any true "Amazing Spider-Man" comic book collector's collection. The only thing that is better then this collection is having the original books themselves. The Scans are complete books from cover to cover, ads, and pinups.
The scans look good at 800% zoon, but I find that 200% makes for an easy and clear reading of the scans. It is wonderful to be able to view the scans from any computer and prints them to read from other locations. The prints look equally as good as the scans.
I would recommend the "The Amazing Spider-Man Complete Comic Book Collection" to any true Amazing Spider-Man collector, who wants to see 43 years of the amazing stories, of Marvel's most amazing character, the one the only Amazing Spider-Man.

Here's one way to customize your PDF browser so you can actually read these things. Using Adobe Reader 8. Even if you just do steps 1,2 and 5 it can really help.

1. Go to VIEW>Reading Mode
2. Go to VIEW>TOOLBARS>Hide Toolbars
3. Go to EDIT>Preferences
-Under Full Screen Setup uncheck "Fill Screen With One Page at a Time" and unceck "Current Document only"
-Under Full Screen Navigation uncheck "Left click to go forward one page; right click to go back one page" and CHECK "Show Navigation Bar"
4. Click OK
5. Go to VIE>ZOOM>Zoom Too...
6. Zooom to 150% and continue to increase your zoom untill one page fills your screen. Mine is at 190% all monitors are different.
7. Go to Full Screen Mode
>>>Finished

In Full Screen Mode you can now easily pan threw the comic one page at a time using your mouse and turn the pages using your Navigation Bar. a transition can be added to make it appear as though the pages were really turning. try it. and goodluck