Review- SPIDER-MAN: THE COMPLETE ALIEN COSTUME SAGA BOOK 1

God bless Marvel's collected editions program. If you sit back and look you can see the pieces of the puzzle being assembled across multiple formats. The Spider-Man By Roger Stern Omnibus bumps right up to these two chunky trades which bump into the Epic line. You can get almost four straight years of Amazing Spider-Man, with the gaps before and after those years being rapidly filled in.

Back in 2003 I descended down this rabbit hole of madness stumbled upon the Essential line at the now-defunct Borders Books And Music in Oakland Mall. I dreamed of owning the entire run of Amazing Spider-Man in such a format. Within the next few years we will likely have the first 30 years of Amazing Spider-Man completely restored and available in collected editions.

SPIDER-MAN: THE COMPLETE ALIEN COSTUME SAGA BOOK 1 (Marvel, First Printing, 2014; Softcover)

Collects The Amazing Spider-Man #252-258, Marvel Team-Up #141-145, Marvel Team-Up Annual #7, and Peter Parker,The Spectacular Spider-Man #90-95 (cover dates May- November, 1984)

Writers: Tom DeFalco, Al Milgrom, Cary Burkett, Tony Isabella, David Michelinie, Jim Owsley, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern

Artists: Pencilers- Ron Frenz, Greg LaRocque, Rick Leonardi, Al Milgrom*, Paul Neary, and Bill Sienkiewicz*; Inkers*- Josef Rubinstein, Bill Anderson, Brett Breeding, Sam De La Rosa, Mike Esposito, and Jim Mooney

Journey into nostalgia with me as we head back to the magical land of 1984, where a 10 year old kid was spinning the spinner rack at 7-11 around on a cold wintry day that February and stumbled upon a bizarre cover: Amazing Spider-Man #252. Try to imagine (or remember if you are old enough) a world with little access to the Direct Market (comics specialty shops as they were referred to at the time), no real media hype or interest when changes happened to canonical characters, and actual honest to gosh surprise when you saw the issue cover and had no idea what was about to happen. It was magic. Each issue was the moment that you lived in. No past, no future, only the current issue on the spinner rack determined if a series lived or died.

I read all of the new Amazing Spider-Man issues dozens of times in 1984. I started picking up Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man with #92 and read it monthly through 1989. Aside from the Annual, all of these Marvel Team-Up issues were new to me. I wouldn't pick that series up until #147 that fall.

I loved watching the entire saga unfold, with Peter learning about the costume along the way. #258 blew my mind when it came out. I was also reading Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars back then. Many people erroneously claim that Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars #8 was the first appearance of the black alien costume symbiote. This is false. ASM #252 was the first issue that the costume appeared in.

Puma was a favorite of mine when he was introduced. I loved watching The Answer/Black Cat/Kingpin/Silvermane/Cloak And Dagger saga unfold over in Peter Parker,The Spectacular Spider-Man. These are some of my all-time favorite comic books even if I realize that they are not among the greatest comic books ever made in a big picture sense.

I didn't realize at the time that panel 4 was a Ron Frenz homage to Steve Ditko. Kraven The Hunter and Spider-Man were posed in a similar manner by Ditko. 

The solitary nature of this hobby circa 1984 is something a fan could never have today. Spinner racks with no Previews (or even Marvel Age, which at the time was a comic shop exclusive), no Internet to discuss and speculate, only the imagination of a 10-going-on-11 year old kid driving things. While I love the Internet and interacting with other fans, I really feel that this hobby (and the world in general) traded off a lot of things in the process for better and sometimes worse. It is what it is, but I'm glad that I was a kid in the old world. And I am glad that I was there when these comic books were originally released.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4.75 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This is the part where I go into tactile sensations and materials used in physical media. Those with heart conditions, high blood pressure, or women who are pregnant should exit my blog at their earliest convenience, as their safety cannot be guaranteed beyond this point.

Linework and Color restoration: Excellent throughout. There is an odd dropout in a word balloon or two but nothing any sane person would notice.

Paper stock: I love the matte coated stock that Marvel uses in their trades of material with flat coloring. It looks and feels like a comic book but doesn't feel cheap. It also smells nice.

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Laminated cardstock cover.