SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP: AFTERWORD

With every volume to date of IDW's Spider-Man newspaper strip collections now in the rear-view mirror, I've read all of the strip's first decade of publication -- January 1st, 1977 - December 31st, 1986 -- and so I thought this would be a good time to sum up my thoughts on the whole thing. The verdict, in case there were any doubts, is that I really like it... for the most part. This version of Spider-Man feels more real to me somehow than most comic book versions. Not realistic, because it’s a far cry from that, but more... natural? Correct? Don’t get me wrong; I have great fondness for most of the late eighties/nineties Spider-Man comics I grew up with. I adore Roger Stern’s run too, more than I can articulate (though I tried some years ago). And I love the original 1960s-era Stan Lee/John Romita run nearly as much.

But this is different from all of those. It’s its own thing, but it feels more true to my own idea of what Spider-Man is meant to be. And I suspect part of the reason for that goes back to the formative years of my childhood, and the book I mentioned several times over the course of these reviews: THE BEST OF SPIDER-MAN, published in 1986. When I announced my first round of Spidey strip reviews in 2017, I said of that book:

"When I was a youngster -- say, maybe seven or eight years old -- I had a book called THE BEST OF SPIDER-MAN, which reprinted a handful of story arcs from the earlier years of the Spidey strip. I very nearly read the cover off that thing, to the point that it became one of the most battered, dog-eared books I owned. In a way, it was more formative of my understanding of Spider-Man than the monthly comics, since I had never really been a regular ongoing reader at that point."

And it's true. Though I was a Spider-Man fan from a very young age -- the first comic I can remember owning was AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #245 -- I dind't start reading with real regularity until the Gerry Conway run on SPECTACULAR and WEB circa 1987 or '88 -- and even then, I was only picking up random issues from spinner racks as I saw them. I didn't become an actual, honest-to-goodness montly reader of Spider-Man until somewhere around AMAZING #360 in 1992.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 22

NOVEMBER 9TH, 1986 - DECEMBER 31ST, 1986
By Stan Lee, Dan Barry, & Floro Dery

After well over a year of uncredited pinch-hitters from the Marvel Bullpen handling the daily strips, Spider-Man finally gets a new regular artist as the final storyline of 1986 begins -- and he's kind of a catch, too. Beginning with the July 28th installment, daily art chores are handled by veteran newspaper strip artist Dan Barry -- best known as the artist of Flash Gordon for many years after originator Alex Raymond departed the series.

Barry's run on Spidey will turn out to be quite short, really only lasting the duration of this single arc, but it's notable nonetheless. As this is the final arc we're looking at for now, Barry is the last artist we'll see on the strip -- but following his departure, Larry Lieber will return and proceed with a remarkable run as artist from 1987 all the way through to the strip's cancellation in 2019!

As this arc begins, Peter and Mary Jane are in a good place. MJ knows Peter's identity, so he no longer needs to hide his exploits from her. They're dating, they're in love -- the only fly in the ointment is that Mary Jane still can't commit to Peter's marriage proposal. But the wall-crawler's concerns quickly turn from his love life when corrupt politician Howard Danton Hayes begins accosting Mary Jane's uncle, Judge Spencer Watson. Hayes wants Watson to go easy on a friend of his, mobster Abner Zilden. And with that setup, we're off into a storyline which provides a surprising and much-needed jolt to the recently boring newspaper strip.