In 1968, backed by popular demand, Marvel launched Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man - an all-new action series starring your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler! In these inaugural issues, never before reprinted in one volume, Spidey faces some of his most fearsome foes - including Tarantula, Kraven, Lightmaster, Vulture, Hitman, Morbius, Brother Power, Hate Monger, Beetle and the Enforcers! Guest-starring the Fantastic Four, Inhumans and Champions!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's great to see reprints of these issues.,
By clyde asbury (Fayetteville, NC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials) (Paperback)
I enjoyed these Spider-Man tales when they were new, and I'm happy to see them available again. Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (PPtSSM) was fresh and new, and it invigorated Spider Man's character, bringing a younger group of readers to Spider Man's other titles.
Someone may be interested in this book to follow the development of the storyline of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (PPtSSM), or interested simply because it's Spider-Man. Particularly hot at the time were the Carrion issues. A correction on the editorial description: The first issue of PPtSSM was dated December 1976 and this is when the title began, not 1968. They have confused this title with two issues printed in 1968 called "The Spectacular Spider Man (tSSM)." Those two issues are rare collectibles and are not reprinted in the "Essential Peter Parker," but the second issue of tSSM is classic Spider-Man and Green Goblin - as well as Norman Osborn and Peter Parker at Thanksgiving dinner.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some spectacular, though disjointed, Spidey stories.,
By
This review is from: Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials) (Paperback)
From out of Marvel's celebrated vault of past titles comes the Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man Volume 1. As a fan of the Essential line, I had been looking forward to some more vintage web-slinging action, although future installments of the original Amazing Spider-Man (if numbers 5 and 6 are any indication) will probably only come out the same weeks as future movies. So imagine my surprise when I learned that January 2005 would see the release of the earliest issues of 1976's popular follow-up series (the first 31 in fact).
In his first spectacular outings, ol' web-head meets up with plenty of old foes (the pointy-toed Tarantula, the cadaverous Vulture, Kraven, Morbius, Scorpion, and even the long-not-really-awaited return of the Enforcers) as well as new ones like the photogenic Lightmaster, the psychedelic Hypno-Hustler (who has the 70's written all over him), and the trigger-happy Hitman (whose second and probably last appearance I had already seen in Essential Punisher). Some memorable storylines include Spidey teaming up with a neophyte hero from Arkansas in a pig costume (it's better than it sounds), assisting two former X-Men through the final chapter in the ill-fated history of the Champions supergroup (and why can't they have an Essential), a throwdown with the Maggia with the mysterious Moon Knight at his side, and a guest appearance by Daredevil who assists Spidey after the Masked Marauder blinds him (and how could horn-head POSSIBLY understand what he's going through?). The Spectacular series does a good job at keeping itself seperate from the Amazing series with unique story elements such as Flash Thompson's new romance with his savior from Vietnam, Sha Shan (see Essential Spider-Man 5) and the arrival of the White Tiger, a castoff from the discontinued black-and-white Deadly Hands of Kung Fu series (why doesn't it have an ... well you know). At least I think that the storylines are seperate. The one thing that got in my way of totally enjoying these tales is that they constantly make reference to other series that I just don't know anything about. The only other Essential line in this time period currently is Howard the Duck and the X-Men (see reviews on this site for their fifth Essential for complaints about a similar problem) and many story threads just feel disconnected. The biggest offender by far is the climactic battle with Carrion, which spun from and basically spoils the ending to events from Amazing Spider-Man #'s 147-151, which I would imagine would be in the seventh Essential (so when's that third movie coming out?). Nonetheless, these issues show the works of the best of Marvel's bullpen (Archie Goodwin, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont) and are known for being definite high points in an era that many have told me was fairly lean in good comic tales. Spidey fans will definitely want to swing on by the comic shop and pick this one up. [Final note: I was finishing this book on a lunch break last week when one of my co-workers saw me and enquired about my latest, as he says, "phonebook of comics". I told him about the Amazing and the Spectacular series of Spider-Man and he asked me this question, "Why would they put out two different comics about the same character?". After much introspection I responded with my hypothesis: "Because Spider-Man's ... cool?".]
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Volume for Any Fan of Spider-Man,
By goldenrulecomics (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Essential Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials) (Paperback)
This book collects the first 31 issues of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, which debuted in 1976 as companion to the character's main series. It's hard to imagine now, but because Spider-Man was also in Marvel Team-Up there was some concern at the time about overexposure! So Peter Parker was pitched as a series focusing more on his college days and friends, and in that sense it worked wonderfully. The stories have a clean freshness to them and almost all of them have held up well over the years. The series did a great job of mixing long-established villains such as the Beetle, Vulture, Morbius, with more recent ones like the Tarantula and Hitman, and also served to introduce the White Tiger to Marvel's comic-book universe after his introduction in its black-and-white magazines. There's a few clunkers that reflect the late 1970s, like a CB radio superhero and a disco super-villain, but Bill Mantlo, who wrote most of the stories in this collection, did a great run of stories, ending this volume with the multi-part introduction of Carrion. I think this is a great book for any Spider-Man fan. For more in-depth book reviews I've done, search for goldenrulecomics on the Squidoo website.
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