The Amazing Spider-Man Marvel Book Review

Book Review 

The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection is simply fantastic. They are great books for any comic book fan, and more specifically for fans of the heroes they feature. The focus here, though, is Spider-Man himself. An incredibly popular hero, Spider-Man has become synonymous with Marvel Comics, introducing a whole new type of superhero since his inception, one filled with excitement, drama and an impressive gallery of iconic villains that rivals DC's Batman.  

 The Amazing Spider-Man is essentially an anthology collecting twelve major stories from Spider-Man's first two years of publication history from 1962-1964. The comics don't just show Spider-Man's origin, they describe Spider-Man's origin. An entire catalog of iconic villain origins, including the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Mysterio.

  However, what is particularly interesting here is that everything is centered around these stories. The Fantastic Foreword breaks down the main parts of Spider-Man's character, including an essay-like structure that describes the main themes and ideas behind each villain. These extend to describing the less cheesy adventures in the text rather than wandering between those comics, along with exposition around the changing dynamic of Spider-Man's story and transitions to longer-form stories.

  Seeing the evolution from a simple "monster of the week" to the ongoing mystery surrounding the identity of the Green Goblin and J Jonah Jameson's desire to see Spidey destroyed are both themes that continue towards the end of this collection that will have you itching to check it out. more so than later stories. It also does a fantastic job of really visualizing this changing style of storytelling.

  Aesthetically, this hardcover collection looks fantastic and is incredibly stylish, especially if you intend to display it on your bookshelf. The red and gold on the front looks very slick, with the gold foil edges and full-color artwork on all pages only adding to that feeling. The pages themselves are crisp, beautifully presented, and the comics are very easy to read.

  If that wasn't enough, the book also has some neat extras late on, including a helpful "Further Reading" guide for checking out other Spider-Man books.

  If there's one complaint here, it comes from the first Sinister Six annual issue. It's such a remarkable storyline, and the first (of many) Spidey adventures to see the web-head take on multiple villains at once. It almost feels a little criminal (no pun intended) to reference one of the issues here, but it doesn't even bother to feature the comics in question, especially in a collection like this.

  Still, this is a minor point in an otherwise excellent book. As a huge Spider-Man fan myself and have collected many of these comics over the years, this Penguin Classic collection is a must have for fans.