| Title | : | Essential Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 7 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0785118799 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780785118794 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 528 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2005 |
Essential Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 7 Reviews
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Gerry Conway's final run-in is momentous with Parker all messed-up with the loss of Gwen; there's the coming of the machinations of the Jackal; there's the first, and possible(?) best ever 'Clone Saga' in all but name; there's a new Green Goblin, and we get to see just how tenacious MJ is! Also huge shout out to the best Amazing Spider-Man issue to date, in my opinion,
Len Wein's ASM #153, The Longest Hundred Yards, about Spider-Man going for one final touchdown to save a doctor's daughter. I read the comic books Amazing Spider-Man #136-160, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #10, and Giant Sized Spider-Man #4-5 that make up this collection. 6 out of 12 overall.
2014 read -
Lemme 'splain what made old comics great and bonkers.
Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2010's:
A bunch of superpeople try and stop a superrobot who decides that humans shouldn't exist because they're inefficient. Or something. He has infinite reasoning ability, but no ability to reason that existence is basically purposeless anyway, so striving for maximum efficiency in a task with no end goal is dumb.
Spider Man circa 1970's:
Peter Parker's Aunt May inherits a nuclear power plant. Doctor Octopus gets romantically involved with her, partially because he's interested in getting his (8) grubby hands on said power plant. Also, he goes to jail for a while and gets pretty ripped, but people still call him tubby. As Ock is trying to seize control of the plant, Hammerhead gets involved. Hammerhead tries to hammer his head into Ock, misses, and gets his head stuck in a power plant wall. Of course, this causes an atomic explosion, which destroys the plants and turns Hammerhead INTO A FUCKING GHOST! HammerheadGhost haunts Ock until Ock decides to make some kind of gizmo to destroy the ghost, but then it turns out that the gizmo actually REVIVES Hammerhead and makes him stronger than ever. This results in a team-up between Ock and Spider-Man, who try to defeat Hammerhead and also rescue Aunt May, who somehow got caught up in all this.
Oh, and also, The Spider-Mobile returns, and a dune buggy that shoots webs nearly kills Spider-Man.
That, my friends, is why the 70's were awesome. -
Ah, the 70s. When Peter Parker went from being a skinny high school wallflower to being a cosmopolitan university student. Moving out of his Aunt May's house, he actually found himself living with mostly black neighbors in the socially relevant part of town. A couple of Spidey-adventures with pro-wrestlers, foolish product endorsements, and the first go-round of the multi-issue mind-fuck-villain's plan undoing something that creates a big old continuity cluster-fuck.
The artwork is clear, and crisply presented in enlarged black and white. And honestly, after reading some more recent attempts to deal with relevant issues, the simplicity of these stories suits the material better. Iron man as super-federal-fascist might be more logical, but only if you accept the premise of a guy in armored underwear in the first place. -
This was very good in the beginning. Honestly the stuff with the jackal and the weird bit villains like mindworm and he grizzly are awesome. Also- the beginning of the clone saga is good! This was my favorite one of these volumes since 2. It dragged around the doctor octopus stuff but the mysterio and shocker stories were fun. Really, this is inches from being the ideal spiderman essentials volume. Giant Size #4 (featuring the punisher!) was probably my favorite. There is a lot of excellent here and it's probably the third strongest volume so far, as Peter grows and their world becomes more modern and the characters expand in their depth.
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This is pretty weak, honestly. A lot of MJ getting pissed for no reason or completely over-reacting to understandable struggles Peter has, Gwen trying to cope with her return is interesting, but it's very rarely touched upon. The clones are stupid, the re-animations and ghosts are stupid, and most of the situations are stupid, and people keep flip flopping on Spidey being the greatest thing ever and the world's greatest criminal, and even the Punisher and Strange appearances are dull.
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Gerry Conway is one of my favorite Spider-man writers and he writes all of this collection.
Alright Essential Amazing Spider-man is another of those big newspaper collection. I myself read all the issue collected here on Marvel Unlimited it collects ASM 138-160, Giant Size Spider-man 4 and 5, and Annual 10.
Is it worth reading? Hell yes. I love Spider-Man from pretty much any era and in the 60's and 70's are some of my favorite Spidey stories. Within this collection you get the original clone saga, the French supervillian Cyclone story, the new Mysterio, a saga of the Spider mobile, and Doc Ock fighting Hammer heads ghost over a nuclear power plant before hammerhead tricks Ock into reviving him!
Plus all the soapy goodness that were comics at the time. Also featured is Peter and MJ's first kiss and the return of Harry Osborn after he was the goblin. Betty Brant and Ned Leeds get married and honestly what else could you ask for in the ongoing epic of The Amazing Spider-Man?
This type of comic and these Spider-Man tales are classics. Goofy, ridiculous, and filled with so much wit and heart. They're loveable to the extreme and I love them.
5 stars. -
In my opinion the best super hero company is Marvel (not at the present moment but just in general) and the best super hero is Spider-Man and the best Spider-Man run is from 1972 - 1977.
I just like everything about that era. Great stories. Great art. Pacing. Villians. Plot Twists.
This is the best of the best.
1974-1976 with Ross Andru as the artist.
It's an argument that can't be settled because it's based on personal preference. My personal preference is that this is perfection. Really really good stuff. -
I read this when I was about 10, so around the time it came out. I read the first seven Essential volumes, I'm quite sure, but this volume is the one I remember best, with that thrilling cover. My memory is mostly of sitting in a camping chair behind my bedroom door, greedily eating up page after page, relieved to be in the world of comics and not at church. But then it was over, and except for a few issues of Superboy from the '80s, I don't think I read another comic book for years, only rediscovering them thanks to Neil Gaiman a couple years ago.
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Ehh. I enjoyed the first half a lot, but then it started going downhill. 3.5/5.
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Not as good as I remember from my youth. The plots are weak, rushed, and often nonsensical.
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This book collects Amazing Spider-man Issues 138-160, Giant Size Spider-man #4 and #5 and the Amazing Spider-man Annual #10. The first more than half of the book is the end of the Gerry Conway era as represented in Issues 138-149 and the two Giant Sized issues, Archie Goodwin wrote Amazing Spider-man #150 and then handed off the book to Len Wein who wrote Issues 151-160 and Amazing Spider-man Annual #10. The art chores are handled mostly by Ross Andru with assists from Gil Kane (Spiderman #150 and AS Annual #10) and Sal Buscema (AS #154 and #155)
The Conway era was great for Spider-man. Taking over for Stan Lee in Amazing Spider-man #111, his run took the character in the new directions with the death of Gwen Stacy (in the previous volume.) In this book, we get the start of the clone saga which has gotten a bad name, but that's due to the botched 1990s attempt to bring back the saga. Conway's final 12 issues work through the mystery of who the Jackal is as a question that's occasionally in the foreground but is always working through the background. During Conway's run we saw the return of Mysterio and the Scorpion plus Spider-man taking on some unique 1970s villains like the Grizzly and the Cyclone.
In Giant Sized Spider-man #4, we have a team up between Spidey and the Punisher which is notable for the lack of rancor that typically accompanies the team-ups these days. Giant-sized Spider-man #5 has a team up with Man-thing (because every Marvel hero in the 70s had to team up with Man-thing.)
Conway told great tale and built a very good arc. Whatever, the problems with the follow up, the original was a nice piece of 1970s storytelling. While I think one reason he killed off Gwen Stacy, he didn't know what to do with her, he did manage to really solidly establish the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane that would be so important for decades.
Archie Goodwin's Issue #150 is an enjoyable issue that manages to put a period on the end of the Clone saga.
Wein's writing is far more varied. We saw the return of some old villains, but also a few intriguing issues without premier Supervillains. Issues 153 and 155 are the type of things you'd see in a Batman comic of the era. Issue 153 has a scientist being blackmailed by men who kidnapped his daughter and the story is somewhat with a great tearjerker ending. Issue #155 is a full fledged Spider-man whodunit that fixes a hanging thread from a Daredevil story. Issue #156 has Spidey having to thwart robbers at Ned Leads and Betty Brant wedding. I enjoyed all these issues, though #156 was probably the weakest.
Returning supervillains was a big focus of this one as this era saw the return of Shocker (#151 and #152), Sandman (#154). Doctor Octopus and Hammerhead . (#157-#159.) The final issue of that arc has a team up between Spider-man and Doctor Octopus which is surreal. Wein brings back these villains without them feeling old or cliched.
He introduces a villain of his own in Amazing Spider-man Annual #10 where we meet the Human Fly, another villain created courtesy of J. Jonah Jameson and a mad scientist (ala the Scorpion.) However, this felt more than a retread, partially because it had a fascinating first part where Spider-man foiled the future Human Fly's attempt at kidnapping.
Finally, we have Amazing Spider-man #160 where Len Wein ties up the biggest loose end from the Conway era-the Spider-mobile. Spider-man had left the car in the river and in the book's finale, it's out for revenge. It's a great final chapter to that silly saga.
Overall, this was a great era for Spider-man and a great collection full of wonderful action, some good character moments, solid art, and great writing. -
That comic book is very cool
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Normally, this would've gotten at least a 3-star from me, since the artwork is mostly by the stalwart Ross Andru. Believe me, this rating doesn't reflect on his fine work. However this book does reprint the return of Gwen Stacy and the beginning of the horrid Clone Saga that has besmirched Spider-Man for forty years.
The final two new-material issues of Giant-Size Spider-Man are included here, with a hard-to-find Punisher tale and a Man-Thing team-up, both of which should have been included in the Essential Marvel Team-Up books.
The cover's also another rip of a classic Steve Ditko cover/situation, so the book's lucky it got a rating at all from me. -
yeah, more spider-man, doing spider-man things. aunt may looks like a skeleton, and spends lots of time in the hospital where all of peter parker's friends drop in to visit her (don't all college students visit friend's aunts in hospitals?) spider-man spends a lot of his time swinging around and feeling sorry for himself and almost all major attacks by super-villians coincide with parker's dates.
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Spider-Man is always my favorite superhero. He gets in great action sequences, he makes jokes all the time, but he also has a hard life rife with tragedy with difficult finances and romance. He is the most relatable in the genre.
Gerry Conway is great at devising complex storylines, and this is no different. The Jackal, a creepy guy dressed up as a Jackal, does some very weird stuff. And most of the villains are pretty fun to read about.
If you like comic books, this is the place to go! -
One more for the annals of Spider-man. Slowly by slowly I'm progressing my way through the 70's towards the 80's (can't way to read the Spider-man from the month/year I was born). Didn't feel like there were any really seminal moments in Spider-man history in this episode. If there were they are slipping my mind. Spider-man is getting harassed by the police more and seems a little more anti-establishment than before, but only slightly so.
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This volume had one of the most single issue arcs. It began with the Gwen Stacy clone saga and revealed The Jackal's true identity. Mary Jane officially became the new love interest while Harry recovers from his "insanity". The most valuable part of this volume was J. J. Jameson's fatshaming, on two occasions he accidentally shitlorded two fat women, it was brilliant. The three way battle between Hammerhead, Dr. Octavius and Spidey was a highlight too.
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Some entertaining Spider-Man stories, but nothing really groundbreaking. The most significant story is the Clone saga, which is really only significant because it inspired a lengthy storyline in the '90s that was highly controversial among Spider-Man fans, and led to a big drop in sales.
