Spider-Man Confidential: From Comic Icon to Hollywood Hero [Paperback]

Edward Gross (Author)

Book Description

Series: Spiderman | Publication Date: April 2002

For four decades, Spider-Man has enthralled fans of his comic books and television show. Now, step inside the story behind the superheros growing empire, which is as fascinating as any of his adventures. Entertainment writer Edward Gross tells all in this first unauthorized history of the Spider-Man (a.k.a.webslinger), his creator, and the movie that will catapult him into the public eye. Gross shows how Stan Lees frustration as a comic book artist spawned the creation of a revolutionary comic book hero as he follows Spider-Mans popularity through the 60s and 70s. He provides Spider-Mans fans with a riveting biography of the superhero, a rogues gallery of archenemies, and a behind-the-scenes episode guide to all five television series. Spider-Man is back and this fact-filled, fully illustrated book will become the perfect resource for his millions of fans.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In time for the spring release of Columbia Pictures' Spider-Man comes a history of the comic book hero in all his many incarnations. Spider-Man Confidential: From Comic Icon to Hollywood Hero recounts the 1962 birth of Spider-Man, created by Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee as a kind of everyman hero who would break with the comic book formula by losing as many battles as he won. Entertainment writer Edward Gross (X-Files Confidential) briefly traces the evolution of the strip and provides episode guides for the various Spider-Man animated television series. He also details the making of the Hollywood film and offers a "Rogues' Gallery" of Spider-Man's enemies.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Spider-Man is coming to the big screen, and his marketers want to make sure you have all the ancillary materials for his emergence. Following Disney's lucrative strategy of pre-selling a movie by launching the tie-ins before rather than after it hits the theaters, Gross' chatty, polished, quasi-instant book limns the angst-ridden, costumed, caped, web-tossing superhero from his comic-book beginnings through his various TV manifestations and up to the forthcoming film. Fittingly, Spidey's original idiom, the comics, receives the most attention. Marvel Comics' Stan Lee envisioned Spidey as a more human superhero, who would interact with the real world and entertain self-doubt. In the upshot, Spider-Man changed how superheroes are portrayed, as the recent makeover of Superman attests. Maniacally upbeat and perhaps a bit manipulative, the book nevertheless informs well. Checklists of the Spidey comics, episode guides for his many TV manifestations (including even the quaint, limited-animation, late-'60s series), a day-by-day rundown of the movie's making, and an alphabetical gallery of Spidey's nemeses make this a must for intensive comics and pop-culture collections. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786887222
• ISBN-13: 978-0786887224
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,055,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spiderman, Behind the Scenes..., July 19, 2003

By 

D. Hill "dhill757" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spider-Man Confidential: From Comic Icon to Hollywood Hero (Paperback)

This is a great book on all the politics and ego clashes that have gone into making all the various Spiderman incarnations throughout the years, on TV, the cartoons and the films. The one down side of it all is - no pictures. Then, too, it is also billed as an unauthorized bio so it would be fitting that Marvel Comics would not permit any artwork to be used (see the DC Comics approved Les Daniels histories if you want the watered down histories of comic book characters). Particularly of note is why Steve Ditko left drawing Spiderman in the first place (according to the book, he didn't like Stan Lee), why the great Spiderman cartoon of the 1990's was cancelled (network idiocy, according to series writer John Semper), and why James Cameron never got around to making the Spiderman movie (after Titanic was made, he felt he was too big for it). This is a no-holds barred look at the Spiderman franchise, all it's good incarnations and it's bad (like the awful Nicholas Hammond TV show and the last terrible Spidey cartoon, Spiderman Unlimited). It isn't a comprehensive book, but it is a valuable resource for those of us who always wondered why such a great character never received (until recently) a good screen treatment. In the past, according to the book, Marvel Comics was mostly just interested in making a buck on Spiderman, could have cared less how he had been portrayed. These days, since they're owned by Toy Biz, they have an interest, at least - to sell more Spiderman toys. The fact that so many pin-headed executive types have been involved with the character over the years makes you grateful that the character has been as creative as he has. Spidey's greatest villain is not the Green Goblin, it's all those network execs that have kept trying to dumb him down for televison or improve on an already good idea.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So, you want to know more about SPIDERMAN, October 8, 2002

By 

ronald (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spider-Man Confidential: From Comic Icon to Hollywood Hero (Paperback)

This is another book that capitalizes in the SPIDERMAN HYPE
after the movie, it is mostly a summarized review of the
comics, the Cartoons and the TV series that were made before
the movie.

If you are a new fan of SPIDERMAN and you need to know how
does the story in the comics differs from the one in the
movie, you need to buy this book; but remember that there
is going to be lots of spoilers.

The cartoons descriptions is Okay, including a very rare
summarization of a Japanese Animated version of spiderman
with weird storylines (please skip the chapter, the japanese
transformed SPIDERMAN into a POWER RANGER), unfortunately
there is no pictures to know how these animation looked like;
obviusly there is no reference pictures of the other animations.

About the old TV series, it is mostly a behind the scenes of
the production, with an episode guide and some politics of
the showbiz.

Now we get to the Movie, the book details the long process
since the movie was tried to be produced until today, please
note that there is big reference about the previous script
which had DR. OCTOPUS as the villain instead of the GREEN
GOBLIN.