Spider-Man: The Secret Story of Marvel's World Famous Wall Crawler

by Roger Stern

Discusses the origin of the comic strip character Peter Parker, who, after being bitten by a radioactive spider, became Spider-Man.

64 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1981

About the author

Roger Stern is an American comic book author and novelist.

Reviews

[Michael Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction to Spider-Man — powers, origin, villains, creative team — for new readers (written almost 20 years after the character was introduced) and written in a style geared for the typical superhero comic book audience, adolescent boys. Well done for what it is.

[tony dillard jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically, this 1981 book doesn't come from Marvel. Instead it's a part of Ideals Children's Books Secret Stories collection of hybrid graphic novel/Superheroes encyclopedias. But it's very much a Stan Lee/Steve Ditko/John Romita Sr. work.

Along with reprints of Spidey's origin in the pages of Amazing Fantasy #15, there's a great mystery action reissue of Amazing Spider-Man #80, guest starring one of the wall-crawlers most dangerous does, the Chameleon. Plus, there are about a dozen or more pin-up pages of Spider-Man facts and members of his Rogues Gallery peppered throughout the book. Definitely the work of Ditko. I'm wondering if they were filler pages in the back of issues of ASM...

I've really got to get back into Spider-Man. He's always been a favorite of mine. As a kid, Superman and he would tussle on a daily basis for the #1 spot on my list of favorite comic book characters. Marrying someone who is deathly afraid of arachnids, Spider-Man has dropped several notches for the sake of love. But every time I read an adventure starring him, I've rarely been disappointed.

I like how even though this was a book aimed at kids, Roger Stern, the author of the history of Peter Parker and Spider-Man parts, did NOT dumb things down. I feel like a 48 year old could enjoy a brief timeline of important events involving Spidey could learn just as much as an 8-year old could have and not felt like they had read a book for those under the age of 4!

The question for me really is: do I keep this? I didn't hate it. No. In fact, I enjoyed the heck out of it. But it doesn't really fit my collection. I've got limited shelf space and it is too wide to fit in a storage box without spine damage. Plus I don't know how many reprints of Amazing Fantasy #15 that's got a place in my collection already. These books seem to command nice price tags. But that doesn't mean that they sell for those prices either. I have a feeling that if I took this in for trade credit, I would get way less than I should.

Choices, choices.

If you have The Hulk, Fantastic Four and Captain America Secret Stories and need Spider-Man to finish the collection, you know where you can find one... for now!