I have not at all hidden the fact that I am a huge Spider-Man fan and have been so since I can remember. Back in the early 80s we had Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and I remember loving the show. I was drawn to anything Spider-Man, so it was no surprise that the first super hero comics I started seriously collecting were the three Spidey titles of the time, starting with the dark crossover event that has come to be known as Kraven's Last Hunt (Even though that title was made inaccurate due to them not letting comic characters stay dead. That Kraven is dead again and I so hope they let him remain that way this time). And with only a few brief gaps due to comic not being in the budget (Being an adult can really suck at times) I have been picking up the Spidey comics for about 35 years now.
This year Spider-Man the charter as well as Spidey's main title The Amazing Spider-Man, which really is the flagship title of Marvel Comics, hits two significant milestones this year.
Spider-Man as a character is 60 years old. Amazing Fantasy 15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, was released Aug. 10th 1962. I have said it before in this blog and so I shall repeat it again here, Amazing Fantasy 15 is the most influential comic ever. It was a huge surprise success with fans finding themselves drawn to character of Spider-Man and his related story, something that was considered a risky idea for its time.
Issue 1 of The Amazing Spider-Man would come out in March of 1963.
Issue 900 of The Amazing Spider-Man was just released on July 27th this year, right at the 60th anniversary mark for the character.
As I started shortly before the series hit 300, that means I have been collecting it for over 600 issues, even though there are a few gaps in there. If you factor in all the other Spider-Man series they have done over the years, with Spider-Man alone I have no doubt I should have over a thousand Spider-Man comics in my collection.
The Amazing Spider-Man is the first and so far the only Marvel titles to make that milestone. It got ahead of the older titles like The Fantastic Four or Thor due to various factors that reflect the series' popularity.
Issue 900 had some interesting ideas in it with the over all question of 'Who is Spider-Man' being literally asked over and over again. And answered in a fitting style for the character.
I'm not going to go into just what actual volume of the title we are in or how the legacy counting of the issues work, but Marvel just started the latest volume of the series and 900 is actually issue 6 of the new volume. They started this volume off after a gap of time from the ending of the last. During that gap Spidey did something huge that upset a lot of people, alienating many of his close friends somehow. We've not been given any details, just a flashback page of Spidey on his knees in a crater that it looks like he was responsible for creating. So it is clear there is a bigger storyline that is going to play out for the character right now and I am looking forward to seeing where they go with it.
New comic book sales are not very impressive right now, and the industry as a whole is not doing too great, with talking about how much longer they can keep going with such diminishing returns. Marvel has nowhere near the titles they did a decade ago and all of them have really low print runs, print runs at levels that not too long ago would warrant the cancelation of a title. Despite all of that I have no doubt that we will get to the big issue 1000 with the series, even if that ends up being Marvel's last comic.
Spider-Man has made his place in our culture as a iconic character that will live in some form or another for generations to come. There will be new stories for him in whatever methods will be out there for some time, as his influence will not just fade away. I plan to keep up with it all and continue to enjoy Spidey in whatever form is available to me as long as I am able to.
Nuff said.
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