Spectacular Spider Man Facsimile

Rating:
Summary: Spidey Betrayed -- by Indifferent Proofreaders
Review: This interesting black-and-white blast from Marvel's Silver Age past is thankfully uncolored, either by Ted Turner or anyone else -- but the appalling number of typos make the book irritating to read. Can't Marvel afford proofreaders, or is all their money going to publicize the Spider-Man movies? The contents page lists the reprint as "relettered," leading me to wonder if the typos were faithfully copied from the original or were added in the relettering, or a mixture of both. Pages 32 and 33 alone contain 6 typos, leading to such enlightening exchanges as "It's Mr. Jameson. He has any appointment." "My story will make you for a shoo-in for office." "Yes, yes. Or course." My own favorite is Captain Stacy's comment, "May heaven protect us from those they know all they need to know...about anything." Heaven protect us, indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Not so spectacular but of historical interest to Spidey fans
Review: This is a reprint of the over-sized black & white "Spectacular Spider-Man" comic magazine that Marvel put out in 1968. With story by Stan Lee and art by John Romita (Sr.) and Jim Mooney, this is an election year tale of a slick politician coming out of no where to take the lead in the race for mayor of New York City. Of the guy is running a major scam, having himself attacked at his public rallies as a way of building sympathy and support (Lee must have penned this script before RFK's assassination that year). But as the web-slinger discovered, the candidate is also creating an army of super soldiers so he can take over the entire world. There was a lot of fanfare about this comic when it came out, but we were all pretty disappointed with the effort. The new villain is not a super villain per se and it is hard to get excited about a new guy when you have the Green Goblin and the Kingpin running around (the Goblin pops up in the much better second issues of this limited run series; THAT is the one you want). But then the political realities of 1968 made this story seem such a trifle in comparison. So this ends up being more of interest from the standpoint of nostalgia and history (the first "second" Spider-Man title) than anything else. This 2002 reprint also includes an updated Spider-Man origin by Bill Everett.