Spider-man: Chapter One

Spider-Man: Chapter One #0-12

by John Byrne, Al Milgrom (Contributor), John Kalisz (Contributor)

Acclaimed writer/artist John Byrne takes the web-slinger's reigns and reinvents the Spider-Man mythos for the 21st century! Witness your favorite web-spinner's earliest adventures as he faces off - for the first time - against the likes of Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, Sandman, the Green Goblin, the Lizard, Mysterio and Electro! Guest-starring Spidey's supporting cast, the Fantastic Four and heroes from throughout the Marvel Universe, in a decidedly different take on Spider-Man's formative years! Collecting SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE #0-12.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Spider Man, Marvel, Comic Book

186 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2012

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.

Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

#ThrowbackThursday - Back in the '90s, I used to write comic book reviews for the website of a now-defunct comic book retailer called Rockem Sockem Comics. (Collect them all!)

From the December 1999 edition with a theme of "Marvel Resurgent":

INTRODUCTION

Marvel Comics nearly disappeared from my subscription list once. I collected only THE INCREDIBLE HULK and REN & STIMPY for a couple of years. While I found the HEROES REBORN storyline two years ago to be almost a complete failure creatively, it did manage to draw me back into the Marvel Universe. The presence of two of my favorite writers, Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid, inspired me to continue collecting AVENGERS, IRON MAN, and CAPTAIN AMERICA during the HEROES RETURN sequence and beyond.

Having wormed its way onto my subscription list, Marvel is now attempting to regain its status as a major player in my comics collection --and maybe the collections of a few hundred thousand other comics readers -- with the reboot of the Spider-Man titles and Event Comics' creation of the Marvel Knights line.

BRAND NEW AND COVERED IN COBWEBS

SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE #1-3 (Marvel Comics)
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Vol. 2 #1 (Marvel Comics)
PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN Vol. 2 #1 (Marvel Comics)

I want to rediscover the joy and thrills Spider-Man once gave me, but Marvel Comics is sure making it hard.

Fortunately for me, I dropped the SPIDER-MAN comics long before the widely-reviled "Clone Saga." Unfortunately for me, I jumped back onto the Spider-Man bandwagon for John Byrne's Spider-Man reboot only to discover that Marvel still doesn't know how to treat Peter Parker with respect.

SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE is pretty much a waste of paper. A retelling of Spider-Man's origin, CHAPTER ONE promises to bring new energy to the character of Spider-Man. Indeed, Byrne's art is -- as always -- fine. Byrne's writing, on the other hand, is nearly insufferable at times. His captions and word balloons are full of overblown prose and twisted exposition nearly equal to the dreck served up in Stan Lee's original Spider-Man stories. And frankly, that's the problem with CHAPTER ONE: Byrne stays too faithful to the original Spider-Man saga.

Byrne's previous revamp, SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL (DC Comics), succeeded because Byrne took a chainsaw to the Superman mythos and cut out the crap. He then slapped the good bits back together with duct tape and gave comics fans a reinvigorated franchise. Love it or hate it, SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL made Superman interesting again. With SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE, Byrne simply noodles around with the Spider-Man origin story, making no earthshaking changes and definitely no improvements.

SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE isn't a reboot so much as a rehash. A fan with an interest in Spider-Man's past would be better served picking up one of Marvel's ESSENTIAL SPIDER-MAN comics and reading the original stories, warts and all. Or better yet, pick up Kurt Busiek and Pat Olliffe's overlooked gem, UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN, for engaging stories from the early days of Spider-Man's career.

Thankfully, Byrne is not writing the relaunched Spider-Man comics, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and SPIDER-MAN: PETER PARKER. But really, writer Howard Mackie (GHOST RIDER) has a long way to go before he wins me over with his lukewarm scripts. The premise of the new titles is weak. In the current Marvel Universe, Peter Parker has (once again) put aside his mask. He's going to finally complete that graduate degree, start a real career in science, and enjoy life with his supermodel wife, Mary Jane Watson-Parker. He's going to ignore all the crime, all the pain and suffering, all the injustice, and tinker around in a laboratory.

Riiiiighhhhhht . . .

Imagine Peter's surprise when someone else shows up wearing the costume and usurping the name of Spider-Man. Peter's torn between resentment and relief that he can be replaced. Maybe he can overcome the urge to jump into the fray, as long as there is someone there to cover for him. Maybe he can ignore the great responsibility that comes with his great powers. Maybe he can ignore the fact that his previous inaction (painfully reenacted and pointlessly tweaked in the first issue of SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE) resulted in the death of his beloved Uncle Ben.

This initial story arc of the new Spider-Titles is an exercise in frustration and futility. C'mon, Marvel, don't you think naming one of the books PETER PARKER: SPIDER MAN instead of, say, PETER PARKER AND HIS BUDDY SPIDER-MAN, gives away the finale of this storyline? Unless (god forbid!) there's another clone's face under the mask or (even worse!!) there's a time-traveling Peter Parker under the mask, we know who's going to be wearing the suit within six months. Let's get on with it already.

And, hey, let's get Aunt May dead again -- soon! Her every appearance in these new Spider-Books is like that grating sound of fingernails being drawn down a chalkboard. Never have I hated someone so much, so fast in a comic. Put this whiny, senile old bag to rest, Marvel. Here's hoping for the return of SPIDER-MAN TEAM-UP and the first issue guest appearance of Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

Story aside, the art on the relaunched Spider-Line is quite dandy. Penciler John Byrne (FANTASTIC FOUR, SUPERMAN, NAMOR, SHE-HULK, NEXT MEN, JACK KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD, WONDER WOMAN) and inker Scott Hanna (BATMAN, THUNDERBOLTS) actually make that tired old Spider-Foe the Scorpion look dangerous and give the new Spider-Man a lean and lithe grace. Over in PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN, Scott Hanna slings his inks superbly over the dynamic pencils of John Romita, Jr. (X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN, THOR, DAREDEVIL). My only beef is that Romita's powerhouse style makes Peter Parker and Spider-Man look more like a professional wrestlers than the lanky gymnasts they should be.

I'm putting the SPIDER-MAN comics on probation. I really want to bring Peter Parker back into my life. I'm just not sure if this is the creative crew to do it.

SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE Grade: D+
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Grade: C
PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN Grade: C

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. It's basically a retelling of the early issues of Amazing Spiderman. It's hard to top the originals, so I sort of wondered why they would even try. However, I have to admit Byrne put his on spin on things and it turned out pretty well. Think of it as a remake of a classic movie. Flashier, but really not better. I could tell that Byrne must really have a fondness for the source material as this was some of the best work I'd seen from him in a while.

If you're a fan of Silver Age Spiderman you may enjoy this more than you'd think, so I'd say give it a chance.

[Alex Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Byrne’s attempt at retelling the early days of Peter Parker mostly falls flat, I’m afraid. He does his usual job of papering over continuity mistakes and making it more interconnected to the larger Marvel Universe but mostly it’s a pointless retelling of early Lee/Ditko classics.
If you’ve read the original stories there isn’t much to see here.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Byrne has been one of my favorite artists for almost as long as I've been reading comics. His X-Men run was among the first Marvels I ever picked up. And when he became a full-time writer, on books like Fantastic Four and Superman, I loved those too. I've at least enjoyed almost everything he's done...until this.

In what he clearly describes as work-for-hire, Byrne retells the earliest adventures of Spider-Man, originally created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. But a lot of developments and revelations have occurred since those first issues, and here Byrne is tasked with incorporating them retroactively. The biggie is that Norman Osborn (a.k.a. The Green Goblin) is the mastermind behind many of the foes Spidey faced in his early years. This worked in the movies, which of course were creating their own continuity, but reading it this way feels very contrived. And one "retcon" is just plain silly--the revelation that Osborn and the Sandman are distant cousins. There's no basis for this other than the fact that Steve Ditko gave them the same hairstyle. Ditko gave a lot of men this hairstyle; perhaps they all form some vast criminal organization--the Ridge-Haired League.

The stories are also updated with modern references such as home computers and email. They stick out like a sore thumb.

As for the art, it is fair but seems lazy at times. Perhaps some of the blame can be laid at the feet of Al Milgrom, a good editor but apparently the go-to artist when all the other artists are busy.

Maybe a new reader would enjoy these books, but to someone who read and reread the original stories (in paperback reprint) until they were falling apart, it feels like a half-assed redo of something that didn't need to be redone.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reboots may seem old hat nowadays, but there was a time when such things were new and handled with the utmost care. John Byrne rebooted Superman in the mid '80s when DC was trying to streamline their continuity and he was brought back to help Marvel do the same in the post-Heroes Reborn era. Marvel was dead in the water in the late '90s, the result of bad business dealings which resulted in bankruptcy. While fans are aware of the Ultimate Spider-Man series, this gentler reboot by John Byrne predates it by more than a year.

While attempting to update parts of Spider-Man's origins, Byrne introduced some concepts which didn't really work, such as making the Sandman and Norman Osborn (a/k/a the Green Goblin) related and Electro's godawful “updated” look. By and large this is a channel surfing version of the first 19 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Byrne glosses over some issues but by and large tightens things up. This is as much a retelling as it is a reboot.

Byrne was in cash cow mode here, being writer, artist, and letterer. This wasn't his high point as an artist, but his work is still decent for the most part. Many fans have decided that this series is not canon. Marvel has made so much of their continuity meaningless over the years that it can be difficult for one to tell exactly what is canon any more or not. This is an enjoyable but not essential read. If you are a John Byrne fan then it's a must read book.

[Kieran Westphal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series gets a lot of flak, and most of it is pretty deserved. As a soft reboot for the character, it barely does enough new to warrant its own existence. And those new things it does do are either totally arbitrary or were better in the original stories by Lee and Ditko. The worst crime committed by this series is that it somehow makes those iconic and exciting stories that made Spider-Man so interesting all those years ago boring and flat in their retelling.

The only real strength is the art. Byrne's writing isn't particularly captivating, but his visual storytelling and the vibrant colors of the book are superb. I'd still recommend reading the source material over this, but for a seasoned Spider-Fan the art makes at least worth the time to read.

[Jefferson · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Byrne was one of the undisputed masters of mainstream comics in the 1980s. His work on Fantastic Four and Superman still stands as some of the all-time greatest, which makes this re-hash of Lee & Ditko's early Spider-Man stories all the more disappointing. He really seems to be phoning it in here, changing a minor detail here and there in place of the forward-thinking innovation that made his earlier work so great.

[Zachary King · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Byrne's version of "Ultimate Spider-Man" is more reverent than Bendis's revisionist take, but it's fluid and fascinating, over all too quickly when you feel that Byrne was only just getting started. I love Byrne's art, all the more when he's writing too.

[Timo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yet again I find myself asking: "Why the hell to re-tell once told stories, why not come up a brand new story?". Hopefully Byrne got paid loads to do this.
I have enjoyed Byrne's art all my life. But this just looks lazy and rushed. Just as the stories do.

[Yosef Shapiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a Year one for Spiderman. It was a late 90's reboot of Spiderman by John Byrne. In many ways a tribute to the original Spiderman stories with a modern twist.

[Anthony Rizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is really excellent, no doubt about it. The rest? Eh...just flip through and enjoy the art!

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

#0 to 8 are enjoyable: great art, entertaining way of telling the story.
With #9 and a inker finishing the art, Byrne seems not to care anymore. The script becomes simply bad.
One last thing: we see Mary Jane in #2 as she sees Parker being Spider-Man and then, she disapears completly from the story, only refered to. Very weird choice.

[Derek Moreland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong: this is a dull, dull, dull read. Any magic and personality John Byrne brought to Man of Steel is entirely absent here.

But: he does do a really good job of reminding everyone jut how terrifically awesome those Steve Ditko villains are. Even when he thinks he needs to "Bryne-tweak" the costumes (Elektro's being the most egregious example), their powers and personalities still shine.

Also, it's immediately clear that Byrne thought he was doing another Hidden Years, not a mini-series. Several subplots are left simmering in the final issue, and the last four pages are tacked on to give some closure to the main Sandman fight, but doesn't really give closure to the series.

[Chris LaMay-West · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of writer-artist John Byrne since I started reading comics, and I followed pretty much everything he did throughout the 80s and into the mid 90s. At which point I stopped reading comics, writing, being obsessive about music, i.e., basically being me, and instead focused on business, career, "success" et al. Having spent the last 10 years recovering from this detour, I've back-filled on a lot of comic milestones I missed along the way, including this, Byrne's 1999 stab at re-imaging Spider-man's early years. So how is it? I have to say, my review is mixed. The rest of my review can be found here: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2012/0...

[Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

So we all love our friendly neighborhood spider man, but finding all those original stories might a little time consuming. Insteps Spider man Chapter One, a more modern retelling of the origin of Spider man and all of super baddies. Each chapter introduces an iconic villain and at the same time deals with the social problems Peter Parker deals with as tries to balance his duel life. Each individually is an enjoyable story, but putting them together made it feel a little repetitive- Spider man deals with life as a teenager, fights a baddy that follows into the next chapter, rinse and repeat. I think what it suffers from is that it tries to do so much in one book.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Byrne wrote this 13 issue comic book series in 1998-99. It caused a stir at the time, because he changed, or tweaked a few things in the Spider-Man story. You have to remember this was BEFORE the films-which really changed some things up....
Byrne had done the same thing to Superman in 1986. I feel that he had better luck there.
This is easy to enjoy, but some of his changes don't ring true. The artwork is great, no doubt about that. But it is worth the time and it is a good 're-telling'(For the most part!) of how Spider-Man came to be.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had this ret-con revisionist interpretation of the classic Steve Ditko and Stan Lee Spider-Man stories been done by anyone other than Byrne, I would have given it a single star. Byrne actually made it fun read, although the concept was horribly misguided.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another John Byrne reboot. That's not a bad thing because I always find something to enjoy in his work. This one starts out a little slow but gets going nicely by the end. I wish Byrne inked all the issues--his art looks so different when others ink his work. Recommended for Byrne fans.

[Kyle Mclaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good retelling of Spiderman's first contact with some of his greatest foes.