Marvel Comics is slowly making its way through its stable of superheroes with its Marvel-Verse series, which serves as a taste tester for MCU fans to bridge the gap to comics. At least that’s my take, anyway, since the Marvel-Verse collections don’t exactly say what they’re going for. This week, the Amazing Spider-Man is getting a collection, not to be confused with the already released Marvel-Verse Spider-Man, which properly introduced the character. What sets this Marvel-Verse Spidey TPB from the other one? Mostly villains!
If you’re unfamiliar with the format, be sure to read my reviews for Marvel-Verse: Ms. Marvel, Jane Foster Thor, America, Moon Knight, Moon Girl, Morbius, Thor, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Doctor Strange, Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, Deadpool & Wolverine, Iron Man, Venom, Thanos, and Black Panther — each one features various stories from the title character’s history. This collection features: Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #51-52, Spider-Man: Master Plan (2017) #1, Spider-Man: Reptilian Rage (2019) #1, and material from Marvel Action Origins (2021) #1. It’s a slim collection running at 104 pages but features some iconic fights.
This collection starts with a retelling of the Spider-Man origin by Chris Eliopoulos with art by Lanna Souvanny. It’s a near exact adaptation of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s iconic opening issue for the wallcrawler. There’s a slight manga influence to be sure that younger readers might gravitate to.
Next up is the two-parter story featuring Kingpin! Written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Sr., this tale is as iconic as is it is historic. It features some great Kingpin fight scenes showing off his strength and inability to get even slightly hurt from a punch. This tale also prominently features classic J.J. Jameson and plenty of gangsters. There really is no other era in comics that captured the gangster as well as this.
Note the super cool webs! From Spider-Man: Master Plan.
Credit: Marvel
Following that tale, we get Robbie Thompson and Nathan Stockman’s Spider-Man: Master Plan, a lovely done-in-one tale. Stockman’s art is a selling point for sure, as he renders Spidey in high detail with expressive eyes and excellent agility. This tale has Spidey webbing up common criminals but eventually facing off against Crime Master. It fits in with this collection mostly since it features so much punching. Stockman also does some fantastic stuff with webs as they never seem to look the same in any two panels. Thompson has a great handle on writing in Peter’s voice, making it an excellent pick for this collection.
Closing out the collection is Spider-Man: Reptillian Rage by Ralph Macchio and Christopher Allen. It’s a run-of-the-mill sort of Lizard story, but Allen does a great job with a full-page splash of Lizard punching Spider-Man.
If you already purchased Marvel-Verse: Spider-Man, this collection probably isn’t necessary. This series of trades seems to be a taste-tester style to give readers a quick origin, some action, and a general idea of who they are. After putting this book down, I could see Marvel-Verse: Amazing Spider-Man as a good choice for younger readers wanting to get into Spider-Man for the fight scenes. That’s the recurring theme, anyway, but anyone even slightly familiar with Spider-Man comics can skip this one.
Join the AIPT Patreon
Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:
- ❌ Remove all ads on the website
- 💬 Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT
- 📗 Access to our monthly book club
- 📦 Get a physical trade paperback shipped to you every month
- 💥 And more!
You must be logged in to post a comment.