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Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Nine Lives Has the Black Cat
Collects Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #186-206, Amazing Spider-Man Annual (1964) #13, Spectacular Spider-Man Annual (1979) #1.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN reaches its historic 200th issue! Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard and John Byrne have entered the web and are here to prove why Spidey has become the world's favorite super hero. Sure, there are tenacious villains to fight, but the true drama comes from the life of Peter Parker. As AMAZING SPIDER-MAN swings toward a landmark 200th issue, Peter's ailing Aunt May is hanging on by a thread. When the man who killed Uncle Ben returns, Peter is faced with a chilling choice. Then, Felicia Hardy - the Black Cat - makes her first appearance, Mysterio weaves his illusions, Spidey faces Doc Ock in an Annual extravaganza and a gang war forces a team-up with the Punisher! With a little disco Dazzler for added excitement, you'll love every page.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN reaches its historic 200th issue! Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard and John Byrne have entered the web and are here to prove why Spidey has become the world's favorite super hero. Sure, there are tenacious villains to fight, but the true drama comes from the life of Peter Parker. As AMAZING SPIDER-MAN swings toward a landmark 200th issue, Peter's ailing Aunt May is hanging on by a thread. When the man who killed Uncle Ben returns, Peter is faced with a chilling choice. Then, Felicia Hardy - the Black Cat - makes her first appearance, Mysterio weaves his illusions, Spidey faces Doc Ock in an Annual extravaganza and a gang war forces a team-up with the Punisher! With a little disco Dazzler for added excitement, you'll love every page.
- GenresComicsSpider ManMarvel
488 pages, Paperback
Published February 25, 2025
5 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
Marv Wolfman
2,302 books304 followersMarvin A. "Marv" Wolfman is an award-winning American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on The Tomb of Dracula, creating Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 21, 2025
A solid collection of classic Spidey tales :)
March 11, 2025
Top 20 Reasons this is my favourite Spidey story arc:
(1) Art by Keith Pollard and John Byrne, chiefly.
(2) The Chameleon had refined his powers back in Daredevil #134, as written by Wolfman, and here again has made further improvements to his tricks...resulting in Spider-Man being in trouble with the police, about 30 seconds after being cleared by them of all charges.
(3) How deftly a story originally slated for the series Marvel Team-Up got revised and incorporated into the story arc going on here. Great Captain America appearance, terrific art.
(4) For a second or two, Peter Parker has to talk down a worked-up Harry Osborn from becoming the Green Goblin at a very bad time.
(5) John Byrne draws the Man-Wolf. J. Jonah Jameson talks to the Man-Wolf as father to son, even while being attacked and kidnapped by him. But pleading with a wolfman (no pun intended) only goes so far...
(6) An old villain gets revealed as the mastermind behind most of what has been going on for the past several issues. This will be one of his best appearances - due his plans for revenge against Spidey and Jameson both, and his limited time to get it done.
(7) Issue #192: Spidey and Jameson shackled together, and the shackles are a bomb on a timer. It's a very suspenseful and inventive finale to the major story arc launched in #186 (which starts this Collection), but of course we have subplots still unresolved, mainly in Peter Parker's crumbling personal life.
(8) The burglar who killed Uncle Ben is re-introduced (actually, he had made a quick appearance back in Amazing Spider-Man #170, but that tease finally comes to fruition in #s 193-200)
(9) The Black Cat makes her first appearance. Yes, she is an echo of Catwoman from Batman -and she was originally supposed to debut in the Spider-Woman series while Wolfman was writing it - but, revised and reconfigured, she makes a memorable debut here.
(10) Issue #195 ends with a very depressed and defeated Peter Parker opening and reading a telegram from the nursing home where Aunt May had recently moved to. This is a gut-punch finale to a comic book, let me tell you.
(11) By this point, Peter had accumulated romance dilemmas, accidentally alienated his friends, become an even bigger target of J. Jonah Jameson than ever, lost his job at the Bugle, and even had a particularly rough time as Spidey...a lot of "even when I won, victory slipped through my fingers, literally, at the same time!". It is all written so believably, so tragically because it all happens at the same time, that it was obvious the rest of the ride to #200 was going to be epic. Oh, and I can't help thinking of where things get left off with Ned Leeds, in issue #195, given what is going to be done with his character, much much later in the series...
(12) Issue #196...which would be the best comic in this book, except that of course we are heading towards issue #200. Emotionally devastating issue...with one clue that all is not as it seems; Peter's Spidey-Sense tingles at a very odd time. And he begins to wonder if all is as it appears...
(13) The Kingpin returns. He wants to retire from crime...or rather, his wife insists he retire from crime, or lose her. With hours until the deadline for quitting, Kingpin has goons bring him Spidey, so he can kill him and bow out happy. Issue #197 is a splendid (almost)-All-Battle issue.
(14) J. Jonah's Jameson's obsession with, and hatred of, Spider-Man, finally seems to be driving him mad. His world too begins to crumble, as he struggles to hold it together.
(15) Mysterio is my favourite villain. To have him back, in a truly inspired storyline for him, as #200 approaches, is almost like a personal gift to me from Marv Wolfman, for all the comics I bought by him and fell in love with. The swimming pool sequence at the start of #199 is a mini-masterpiece, and shows the essence of Mysterio.
(16) Issue # 200 is my favourite superhero comic of any series, even allowing for subversive, genre-bending stuff like Watchmen, or The Boys, or whatever. Spider-Man versus the Burglar, the man who killed Uncle Ben. And Spidey is not exactly the superhero he was, up until the very end of #199, thanks to Mysterio's final weapon...I'll leave it at that. As a Spidey fan who was sort of dimly aware of the fact that the Burglar had been merely been captured, not killed, at the end of Spidey's origin story (as opposed to any films), it never really occurred to me that it would be perfect for him to one day return, in an epic storyline, maybe even leading up to an anniversary issue. I know this was obviously in the works, way back at #170 when Len Wein was writing the series...but whoever came up with all the details (and my understanding is that Wolfman took the existing tease and cooked up his own ideas), the result is the Spidey run I love the most.
(17) Okay. This Epic Collection does also contain two Annuals from both Amazing Spider-Man, and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man, which I should mention. And we also get Amazing Spider-Man #s 201-206. The Annuals seem oddly displaced, almost unwelcome, when it comes to maintaining the momentum of the main series, but at least they are presented here after #200. And we do get more John Byrne art...plus Doctor Octopus.
(18) Issues #201-206 do come off as a bit anti-climactic, compared to everything preceding them. BUT. We do get a decent Punisher story (though he's a bit de-fanged). We get an irrational J. Jonah Jameson running loose in the city, after his complete loss of grip on reality; that gets resolved in a way that left some fans disappointed, in the final issue presented in this Epic Collection. There had been a real chance to deal with Jameson's obsession with Spider-Man in a compelling and realistic way, and we get, instead, what we get. But, whatever the original plan may have been with this subplot, Wolfman was departing with Jonah's mental issues unresolved, and by issue #203 or so, we can see with hindsight that the groundwork was being laid for what happens in #206.
(19) Black Cat's return in #s 204-205 is a bit odd, and Marvel later steps away from what is established here, resets her course way up in issues #226-227 (they are not in this book), but the disturbing finale to #205 almost makes up for what will ultimately be a bit of what I'll call a Black Cat character arc misfire; there's not enough here for me to take a star off my 5-star rating. Too much of the other material is amazing.
(20) And that's it! I'll leave it at that. Of course, some fans are meh, when it comes to Marv Wolfman's run on Amazing Spider-Man; there's even one assessment video on YouTube that calls it the first "bad run" on the series. I disagree, and so do a lot of fans. Incidentally, Wolfman wrote issues #182-185, and although I'm a bit disappointed they did not make it into this Collection, if the choice was between including them, or making sure we made it up to #206 - so we could see everything about the J. Jonah Jameson story get cleaned up (including finding out whether he really did look under Spidey's mask while he and Spidey were shackled together and our hero was unconscious!), then I'm all for #s 201-206 making the page-count requirements, if any, instead.
On to Marv Wolfman's (and Keith Pollard's! and John Byrne's!) run on Fantastic Four, which came out in an Epic Collection right after this one. It's like they read my mind!
(1) Art by Keith Pollard and John Byrne, chiefly.
(2) The Chameleon had refined his powers back in Daredevil #134, as written by Wolfman, and here again has made further improvements to his tricks...resulting in Spider-Man being in trouble with the police, about 30 seconds after being cleared by them of all charges.
(3) How deftly a story originally slated for the series Marvel Team-Up got revised and incorporated into the story arc going on here. Great Captain America appearance, terrific art.
(4) For a second or two, Peter Parker has to talk down a worked-up Harry Osborn from becoming the Green Goblin at a very bad time.
(5) John Byrne draws the Man-Wolf. J. Jonah Jameson talks to the Man-Wolf as father to son, even while being attacked and kidnapped by him. But pleading with a wolfman (no pun intended) only goes so far...
(6) An old villain gets revealed as the mastermind behind most of what has been going on for the past several issues. This will be one of his best appearances - due his plans for revenge against Spidey and Jameson both, and his limited time to get it done.
(7) Issue #192: Spidey and Jameson shackled together, and the shackles are a bomb on a timer. It's a very suspenseful and inventive finale to the major story arc launched in #186 (which starts this Collection), but of course we have subplots still unresolved, mainly in Peter Parker's crumbling personal life.
(8) The burglar who killed Uncle Ben is re-introduced (actually, he had made a quick appearance back in Amazing Spider-Man #170, but that tease finally comes to fruition in #s 193-200)
(9) The Black Cat makes her first appearance. Yes, she is an echo of Catwoman from Batman -and she was originally supposed to debut in the Spider-Woman series while Wolfman was writing it - but, revised and reconfigured, she makes a memorable debut here.
(10) Issue #195 ends with a very depressed and defeated Peter Parker opening and reading a telegram from the nursing home where Aunt May had recently moved to. This is a gut-punch finale to a comic book, let me tell you.
(11) By this point, Peter had accumulated romance dilemmas, accidentally alienated his friends, become an even bigger target of J. Jonah Jameson than ever, lost his job at the Bugle, and even had a particularly rough time as Spidey...a lot of "even when I won, victory slipped through my fingers, literally, at the same time!". It is all written so believably, so tragically because it all happens at the same time, that it was obvious the rest of the ride to #200 was going to be epic. Oh, and I can't help thinking of where things get left off with Ned Leeds, in issue #195, given what is going to be done with his character, much much later in the series...
(12) Issue #196...which would be the best comic in this book, except that of course we are heading towards issue #200. Emotionally devastating issue...with one clue that all is not as it seems; Peter's Spidey-Sense tingles at a very odd time. And he begins to wonder if all is as it appears...
(13) The Kingpin returns. He wants to retire from crime...or rather, his wife insists he retire from crime, or lose her. With hours until the deadline for quitting, Kingpin has goons bring him Spidey, so he can kill him and bow out happy. Issue #197 is a splendid (almost)-All-Battle issue.
(14) J. Jonah's Jameson's obsession with, and hatred of, Spider-Man, finally seems to be driving him mad. His world too begins to crumble, as he struggles to hold it together.
(15) Mysterio is my favourite villain. To have him back, in a truly inspired storyline for him, as #200 approaches, is almost like a personal gift to me from Marv Wolfman, for all the comics I bought by him and fell in love with. The swimming pool sequence at the start of #199 is a mini-masterpiece, and shows the essence of Mysterio.
(16) Issue # 200 is my favourite superhero comic of any series, even allowing for subversive, genre-bending stuff like Watchmen, or The Boys, or whatever. Spider-Man versus the Burglar, the man who killed Uncle Ben. And Spidey is not exactly the superhero he was, up until the very end of #199, thanks to Mysterio's final weapon...I'll leave it at that. As a Spidey fan who was sort of dimly aware of the fact that the Burglar had been merely been captured, not killed, at the end of Spidey's origin story (as opposed to any films), it never really occurred to me that it would be perfect for him to one day return, in an epic storyline, maybe even leading up to an anniversary issue. I know this was obviously in the works, way back at #170 when Len Wein was writing the series...but whoever came up with all the details (and my understanding is that Wolfman took the existing tease and cooked up his own ideas), the result is the Spidey run I love the most.
(17) Okay. This Epic Collection does also contain two Annuals from both Amazing Spider-Man, and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man, which I should mention. And we also get Amazing Spider-Man #s 201-206. The Annuals seem oddly displaced, almost unwelcome, when it comes to maintaining the momentum of the main series, but at least they are presented here after #200. And we do get more John Byrne art...plus Doctor Octopus.
(18) Issues #201-206 do come off as a bit anti-climactic, compared to everything preceding them. BUT. We do get a decent Punisher story (though he's a bit de-fanged). We get an irrational J. Jonah Jameson running loose in the city, after his complete loss of grip on reality; that gets resolved in a way that left some fans disappointed, in the final issue presented in this Epic Collection. There had been a real chance to deal with Jameson's obsession with Spider-Man in a compelling and realistic way, and we get, instead, what we get. But, whatever the original plan may have been with this subplot, Wolfman was departing with Jonah's mental issues unresolved, and by issue #203 or so, we can see with hindsight that the groundwork was being laid for what happens in #206.
(19) Black Cat's return in #s 204-205 is a bit odd, and Marvel later steps away from what is established here, resets her course way up in issues #226-227 (they are not in this book), but the disturbing finale to #205 almost makes up for what will ultimately be a bit of what I'll call a Black Cat character arc misfire; there's not enough here for me to take a star off my 5-star rating. Too much of the other material is amazing.
(20) And that's it! I'll leave it at that. Of course, some fans are meh, when it comes to Marv Wolfman's run on Amazing Spider-Man; there's even one assessment video on YouTube that calls it the first "bad run" on the series. I disagree, and so do a lot of fans. Incidentally, Wolfman wrote issues #182-185, and although I'm a bit disappointed they did not make it into this Collection, if the choice was between including them, or making sure we made it up to #206 - so we could see everything about the J. Jonah Jameson story get cleaned up (including finding out whether he really did look under Spidey's mask while he and Spidey were shackled together and our hero was unconscious!), then I'm all for #s 201-206 making the page-count requirements, if any, instead.
On to Marv Wolfman's (and Keith Pollard's! and John Byrne's!) run on Fantastic Four, which came out in an Epic Collection right after this one. It's like they read my mind!
July 27, 2025
Despite creating one of my favorite Spidey characters (Black Cat) Marv Wolfman isn't one of my favorite Spiderman writers. (He's average.)
I know that one of the hallmarks of Spiderman is bad crap happening to him, but I need some positivity too. (And good humor.) One of my favorite things about Spidey is what a nice guy he is, but he's too often a jerk in these issues.
Don't get me wrong, they're still solid, good stories. Just not my favorites.
This is a fine starting point for reading Spiderman. He's (almost) graduated college and starting a new chapter in his life. (Wolfman's run started in issue 182.)
Previously in Spiderman:
Aunt May had a heart attack (back in issue 176) and is still in the hospital.
MJ just turned down Peter's marriage proposal and left town.
Betty Brant is back. She left Ned and wants to get back together with Peter.
Issues 186-193 ★★★
I'm so glad that Spiderman is no longer wanted by the police! I'd hoped that meant things would be better for our poor Spidey, but unfortunately that's not the case. Wolfman's run is particularly negative.
The first several issues deal with someone with a grudge against Peter and Jameson. They've been hiring costumed criminals to cause trouble for our spider (Chameleon, Electro.) Then they kidnapped Jameson's son.
I'm not a fan of the next storyline, where Jameson smears Spidey in the press because he's convinced Spiderman killed his son. (More people hating Spidey)
Issue 194-195 ★★★★★
The first appearance of the Black Cat!!!
I used to love these issues, and they're still good, but the continuing storyline stuff and Peter being a jerk really ruined it for me.
Issues 196-200 ★★★
Aunt May is dead?!? I wasn't a fan of this entire storyline. But Mysterio isn't one of my favorite villains and the battles through here were tedious. I kept finding myself not paying attention.
Annual #13 and Spectacular Annual #1 ★★★★
These were actually pretty good. I liked the mystery of the Amazing Annual and I prefer Mantlo's writing style in Spectacular.
Issues 201-206 ★★★★
A series of guest stars and the return of Black Cat! All of these issues were good but not great. Black Cat's issues weren't nearly as good as her first appearance, (or her later issues by Stern.) And we get the completion of Jameson's burnout storyline.
I know that one of the hallmarks of Spiderman is bad crap happening to him, but I need some positivity too. (And good humor.) One of my favorite things about Spidey is what a nice guy he is, but he's too often a jerk in these issues.
Don't get me wrong, they're still solid, good stories. Just not my favorites.
This is a fine starting point for reading Spiderman. He's (almost) graduated college and starting a new chapter in his life. (Wolfman's run started in issue 182.)
Previously in Spiderman:
Aunt May had a heart attack (back in issue 176) and is still in the hospital.
MJ just turned down Peter's marriage proposal and left town.
Betty Brant is back. She left Ned and wants to get back together with Peter.
Issues 186-193 ★★★
I'm so glad that Spiderman is no longer wanted by the police! I'd hoped that meant things would be better for our poor Spidey, but unfortunately that's not the case. Wolfman's run is particularly negative.
The first several issues deal with someone with a grudge against Peter and Jameson. They've been hiring costumed criminals to cause trouble for our spider (Chameleon, Electro.) Then they kidnapped Jameson's son.
I'm not a fan of the next storyline, where Jameson smears Spidey in the press because he's convinced Spiderman killed his son. (More people hating Spidey)
Issue 194-195 ★★★★★
The first appearance of the Black Cat!!!
I used to love these issues, and they're still good, but the continuing storyline stuff and Peter being a jerk really ruined it for me.
Issues 196-200 ★★★
Aunt May is dead?!? I wasn't a fan of this entire storyline. But Mysterio isn't one of my favorite villains and the battles through here were tedious. I kept finding myself not paying attention.
Annual #13 and Spectacular Annual #1 ★★★★
These were actually pretty good. I liked the mystery of the Amazing Annual and I prefer Mantlo's writing style in Spectacular.
Issues 201-206 ★★★★
A series of guest stars and the return of Black Cat! All of these issues were good but not great. Black Cat's issues weren't nearly as good as her first appearance, (or her later issues by Stern.) And we get the completion of Jameson's burnout storyline.
October 11, 2025
A nice collection with a few standout stories.
June 16, 2025
I think the Pollard and Byrne art took a step forward. The storyline leading up to issue 200 with little interruptions by the Black Cat character, makes this memorable. Although the Black Cat would have to wait a few generations before really finding her niche. It was interesting nostalgia going back and reading this. I was in my early teens when this originally came out, and I read many of these issues back then. Still have a few in my collection. However, I was a much bigger fan of X-Men, Daredevil and Avengers at this time in my collecting. Spidey had started to slip down my list from his precipice in my childhood years.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews