‘Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Round Robin’ features Spidey stories in name alone

Incredibly fun, if delirious and ham-fisted.

September 20, 2023

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, it seemed there couldn’t be enough Spider-Man. Not only did the character have significantly more titles than any other Marvel property – with Spectacular Spider-Man starting way back in 1976, Web of Spider-Man starting in 1985, an adjective-less Spider-Man launching in 1990, followed by Spider-Man Unlimited in 1993 – his original series, Amazing Spider-Man, started periodic stints of bi-weekly publication, cramming a total of five to six issues of Spider-Man every single month (discounting annuals and the endless miniseries and side character spinoffs).

With his present status – Amazing being the lone Peter Parker ongoing – it’s interesting to consider a time when the character was Marvel’s workhorse, one of the biggest draws to the Universe; only the X-Men and their assorted sister titles did as much to grab readers and dollars. Avengers, and the myriad characters contained within, were decades away from their current worldwide fame. Not that Marvel didn’t try to boost their profile – alongside their solo books, they litter the issues collected in Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Round Robin.

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Marvel was by no means resting on its Spider-bankrolled laurels. That same era saw a massive push to both revitalize older characters and bombard the market with fresh IP. Launched alongside that adjective-less Spider-Man were fresh takes on Ghost Rider and the Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as The New Warriors, who shuffled in neglected characters like Nova, Speedball, and Namorita with flashy new characters like Night Thrasher and Silhouette. Darkhawk debuted, as did (briefly) Brute Force. Deathlok, Namor, Nick Fury, and Quasar all got new turns in the spotlight. Fool Killer got a solo series, for god’s sake.

It was, if not a creative renaissance (as Marvel had in the 1970s), a point of property bombardment, a saturation point of nearly fresh new ideas. And nothing illustrates that saturation like Round Robin.

Starting with the Iron Man and Black Panther-heavy series of annuals, The Vibranium Vendetta, and ending with Marvel Graphic Novel #72 (Spider-Man: Fear Itself), which has the most insanely 1992 cover ever produced, the real meat of the volume is in the titular Amazing Spider-Man story.

Plotted and released during one of those bi-weekly periods of Amazing, the Round Robin story focuses not on Peter Parker, Mary Jane, or any of Peter’s celebrated and beloved villains; it focuses on . . . Moon Knight’s old sidekick and a secret society most famous for being a Captain America plot point. The covers alone telegraph how little Spidey you’re getting in a Spidey book: starting on the cover of issue #351, there are an escalating number of guest stars crammed into the frame, finally topping out (in issue #358, on a gatefold, wrap-around cover) at six Spidey-BFFs. That all of these characters had series of their own to go home to speaks to a sort of exhausting, cross-promotion low point.

It’s not all bad: Round Robin also collects the very beginning of Mark Bagley’s seminal run as Amazing’s penciller, though the pressures of bi-weekly creation sees strain not only on Bagley, but on every other aspect of comics production. Dialogue bubbles are attributed to the wrong characters, whose appearances alter from page to page. So, too, does tone and narrative focus as Al Milgrom rushes through the scripts, giving every character tedious and punny dialogue to fill the page.

It’s an incredibly fun time, however delirious and ham-fisted it feels. It feels almost like a trial run for later David Michelinie/Mark Bagley opuses like Maximum Carnage, which is likewise crammed with guest stars.

A Spider-Man story in name alone, Round Robin is a bit of delightful fluff, illustrative of an era where no character could be free of the guest starring role.