Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "newspaper-comics"

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Ultimate Newspaper Comics Collection, Volume 3 by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book covers both daily and Sunday newspaper strips of the Amazing Spider-man from January 12, 1981-December 31, 1982.

The book features the appearance of two known Supervillains: Doctor Octopus (who is out for revenge and for Aunt May's heart) and Doctor Doom: Who is out to take over the world after a flying saucer crashed in Latveria. Beyond this, the book offers a stream of other plots: There's a man with telekinetic powers who wants to defeat Spidey as the first step on the road to world domination, robots bent on world domination, an assassination plot that Spidey gets involved in because Peter Parker's apartment is going co-op, a group of Spider-man fan vigilantes, an attempt to cash in Spidey's image with Spidey jeans, a wealthy woman who wants to learn Spidey's identity because she's attracted to him, and a thrilling cross-country spy thriller among other plots.

Overall, this was good. No plot overstayed its welcome (a big danger for these sort of strips.) Some were actually quite exception (my favorite probably being the cross country chase.) The important thing to remember about the comic strip is that it's written for a different audience and probably should be viewed as being in a different universe than typical Marvel comic books (as evidenced by Spidey thinking the Sub-mariner was a mere comic book character in the last pages of this book.) It's more goofy and lighter with one plot having the absurd idea that someone would think J. Jonah Jameson was Spider-man. I do think Lee laid politics on a little thick with the overt identification of some groups as conservative and there were a few weaker plot turns, but overall the book is good if you're looking for some fun Spider-man stories with a lighter touch.



View all my reviews