O Espetacular Homem-Aranha por David Michelinie e Erik Larsen

Spider-Man Omnibus Collection

by Erik Larsen (Ilustrator), David Michelinie (Writer)

Este belíssimo volume traz todas as histórias do Homem-Aranha com a arte cheia de ação de Erik Larsen, incluindo sua colaboração com o escritor David Michelinie! Estes dois criadores de primeira grandeza colocaram o Cabeça de Teia contra pesos-pesados como Magneto, o Tri-Sentinela e o Justiceiro... Mas isso foi só um aquecimento para os eventos principais: o retorno do Sexteto Sinistro e um Venom ainda mais mortal do que nunca! Nesta fase seminal, o Homem-Aranha ganha habilidades cósmicas, perde seus poderes aracnídeos, enfrenta a Raposa Negra e luta ao lado do... Homem-Areia e dos Vingadores?! E Larsen ainda se desdobra como escritor para uma parceria entre o Escalador de Paredes e o Wolverine!

Esta edição especial de 888 páginas reúne histórias publicadas originalmente em AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (1963) 287, 324, 327, 329-350, SPIDER-MAN (1990) 15, 18, 21-23, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (1999) 19-21, material de MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS (1988) 48-50 e SPIDER-MAN (1990) 19-20.

Genres: Spider Man, Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fiction

888 pages, Hardcover

First published June 20, 2017

About the author

As a child growing up in Bellingham, Washington and Albion, California, Erik Larsen created seveal comic books featuring versions of a character named 'Dragon.' He eventually published a fanzine, which led to his doing professional work on a comic book called Megaton for creator Gary Carlson. It was here that he introduced the Dragon, a super powered superhero, to the comic-reading masses.
After a multitude of mailings, showing his work, Erik became aquainted with Jim Shooter, who was, at that point, Marvel's Editor-in-Chief. Erik eventually met Jim at a convention in Chicago and Jim was impressed enough with Erik's work that he consented to co-plot a story with him on the spot. That story was a battle between Marvel Comics characters Hulk & Thor. Although it wasn't actually published until years later, it did impress a variety of Editors enough to get Larsen some more high-profile work in the funnybook field.

Erik jumped around various books in this part of his career. He did an Amazing Spider-Man fill-in story at Marvel, a few issues of DNAgents for Eclipse, and he eventually took over the art chores on DC's Doom Patrol. Soon afterwards, he left DC and moved on to the Punisher for Marvel. Five issues of that book was about as much pain as that poor Minnesota boy could stand. Erik wanted to write and when a Nova serial was given the thumbs up to run in Marvel Comics Presents with Erik as the writer/artist, he gladly left the Punisher. But it was not to be! The powers that be had other plans for Nova and Erik's yarn didn't fit in with the impending New Warriors series. Editor Terry Kavanaugh gave Larsen an Excalibur serial to draw for Marvel Comics Presents while the poor bastard waited for his big break.

When ever-popular artist Todd McFarlane left his artistic duties on Amazing Spider-Man, Larsen was chosen to be his successor. That run was astoundingly well-recieved, and included popular stories like 'The Return of the Sinister Six', 'The Cosmic Spider-Man', and 'The Powerless Spider-Man'. Although he was comfortable with his position as Amazing Spider-Man penciller, he was frustrated drawing other people's stories. Larsen found that his ravenous desire to write had only gotten stronger. He left Amazing Spider-Man, quite pooped.

By this time, the New Warriors was going full tilt and Erik tossed together a proposal for a Nova ongoing series. While he waited for it to get the nod, Todd McFarlane left the new Spider-Man title that he had launched. Erik was called upon once again picked up the torch - and he ran with it. Larsen created a memorable albeit brief run on that title, despite a traumatic event in his personal life - his house burned to the ground, destroying all of his childhood drawings and comic books.

After this period, creator Rob Liefeld invited Larsen to help found a new comic book imprint called 'Image' at Malibu comics, alongside notorious creators Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino. Erik's flagship comic book at Image (which soon left Malibu and became the third lagest comic book publisher in the United States) was an updated version of his childhood creation -- 'The Savage Dragon.' Larsen has been succeeding with his ideas ever since, through his creations Freak Force, Star, SuperPatriot and the Deadly Duo as well as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which he helped revitalize and bring to Image.

As of 2004, Erik Larsen became the Publisher of Image Comics and shows no sign of slowing down.

Reviews

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun slice of life type spidy Omnibus with the Sinister Six being the big appeal. When David Michelinie is writing and Erik Larsen is on art, it's a pretty solid fun series. When it's just Erik Larsen writing and drawing...not so much. A 3 out of 5.

[Rumi Bossche · Rating 3 out of 5]

So 90s that it hurts some times. I am not a big fan of Erik Larsons artwork, but i am a fan of David Michelinie's writing and loved the previous Omnibus whith Todd McFarlane, this is the follow up to that omnibus. It gots lots of appearances by other Marvel characters thats cool, and its an easy read. There are a couple issues that Larsen wrote, again not a big fan. But its spidey, you know what you get, its wacky at times but also something you still love after those years. Also dig that between parts they explain the skipping between issues and making everything clear.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories aren't great, but the art is quite good. Peter and MJ's marriage dynamic is entertaining at times. Heroes include Captain America, Punisher, Wolverine, Thor, Beast, Hulk, Fantastic Four. Villains include Magneto, Venom, Electro, Doc Ock, Hobgoblin, Shocker, Mysterio, Vulture, Sandman, Scorpio, Doctor Doom, Kingpin. It's a thick book—over 850 pages.

Issues I liked
• Sunday in the Park with Venom
• Venom's Back
• Stalking Feat
• Powerless Part 2: The Jonah Trade
• Powerless Part 3: The War Garden
• The Boneyard Hop
• Revenge of the Sinister Six Part Two

[Jordan Schroeder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty cool stories… you can see Tod M. Art still in this run. Want the next run from David Michelinie. :) read most of this in Florida

[Harrison Delahunty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat disjointed collection of Spider-Man stories, spanning some better early-90's material all the way to some rather poor late-90s to early-00s stuff.

Each story in this collection is either written by David Michelinie or Erik Larsen, and (with the exception of only one issue) is penciled by Larsen. That means that the writing quality ranges from good to mediocre (the latter of which is mostly in the Larsen-written issues), and the art ranges from good-for-the-90s to absolutely abysmal. The bulk of the book, being Amazing Spider-Man issues 324 through 350 and Marvel Comics Presents 49 and 50, is genuinely solid. Michelinie's writing is consistently fun and well-paced, and Larsen's pencils were much more decent here.

The omnibus falls apart a little bit, however, as soon as you get to the issues where Larsen handles writing duties on top of pencils. The first of these, Spider-Man issue 15, sets the stage for some really unsatisfying and ultimately pointless stories that feel circular and insulated to a fault--none of them seem particularly important or engaging. We get a lot of Peter's whinging about marital problems that ring hollow and petty (from both the side of Peter and MJ) and none of it ever really seems to get resolved. We get a lot of 90s-tastic flashy crossovers and absurdly-ripped musclemen beating the crap out of each other, and all of it feels so--frankly--dumb. It is rather clear to me that Larsen has very specific strengths to his work, and they involve but two things: unrealistic women, and big musclemen punching each other.

Unfortunately, the Larsen-centric stuff brings down what was already an only decent collection of stories. While I did purchase the book almost entirely because it is one of the few places I have seen Spider Man numbers 15, 18-23 and Amazing numbers 460-462 (numbered here as 19-21), they are easily some of the weakest issues ever done for the character.

I would recommend this omnibus to completists only. There are other, much less expensive alternatives to get the stuff here that's really worth reading.

[Johari Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5. Brings back memories of my early Spidey reading days. Started with McFarlane with issue #314, and after Todd left Larsen took over. His Spidey evolved to his own after initially looking a lot like McFarlane's, and personally I prefer Larsen's own compared to McFarlane's. In terms of stories, these are pretty good for the most part, although Michelinie is definitely a better writer than Larsen's early stuff as per his run on Spider-Man.