Spider-Man is one of the most prolific comic book characters of all time. With around 20 ongoing titles and a whopping eighty-eight Spidey miniseries throughout the years, more stories have been told about Peter Parker than nearly any other character in the Marvel Universe. At peak Spidey Saturation in the mid-’90s, he was headlining four concurrent ongoing titles. Even when those stories didn’t cross over they often referenced experiences Peter was having elsewhere, which necessitated a sort of all-in scenario for anyone who wanted the whole story.
There were some real advantages for Spidey to occupy so many pages every month, chief among them a vivid, deep supporting cast and relationships. Readers could expect rich inner lives from even the smallest villain.
There were disadvantages, however. With so many stories, there were bound to be rough edges and subpar excitement. Occasionally stories could feel phoned-in, meant to fill pages and little else. Other times, standalone stories were overshadowed by the ongoing soap opera of Peter’s life, leaving small chunks of adventure that didn’t quite fit in with the larger narrative.
Marvel Comics
Despite covering the first appearance of fan-favorite goopy murder boy Carnage and the beginning of Peter’s LMD-parent storyline, The Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: The Hero Killers is almost completely made up of those self-contained discards, stories of varying quality that might not be necessary to understand the trajectory of the major narrative but had to go somewhere in the Epic Collection.
Marvel Comics
The titular story, one of 1992’s six Annual crossovers — stories broken up between the oversized annuals of varying titles — is a half-hearted and somewhat pandering crossover between Spidey and relative newcomers The New Warriors, a story more interested in cross-promotion than narrative depth. While these issues (like any annual of the era) are backed with stories detailing that rich supporting cast — Venom, Black Cat, and Cloak and Dagger — even these feel inessential, disposable.
Marvel Comics
The book also contains a brief graphic novel concerning the gruesome specter of the long-dead Kraven the Hunter. Penned by JM DeMatteis, the story attempts unsuccessfully to address trauma, grief, and guilt, but fails to add anything of note to the masterpiece it attempts to follow up. Without any signifier of the passage of time, the story feels as if it could land anywhere in a post-Last Hunt chronology, meaning its place in Peter’s life at this moment feels like an uneven distraction.
Similar things could be said about the rest of the book, as well, as even the standard issues of Amazing Spider-Man collected here only serve as prelude to the more steady, more exciting books that follow. All of this is to say that The Hero Killers feels much weaker than other entries in the Epic Collection. These are not stories that fall into that all-in commitment to Spider-Books.
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