There are few comic book characters as iconic and even fewer as synonymous with Marvel as Spider-Man. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the character and Marvel has been celebrating in all kidneys of different ways. One of the latest is the release of The Amazing-Spider-Man: Web-Slinger, Hero, Icon, a summary of the character’s long comic book history.
The standout of this book is without a doubt the seemingly infinite amazing and spectacular artwork featured. From Spidey’s first appearance, to some of his most recent stories, the book collects some of the best artwork from the incredible artists who have drawn him over the years. If nothing else, this book is worth the purchase for the visuals alone. The only problem it leaves you with is which page to leave out on display.
There is actually one other issue with this book though and that’s the fact that it skips about 40 years of Spider-Man’s history. The book starts, as it should, with the character’s first appearance and a brief summary of his first few years. It then jumps from 1966 to 2000 as it continues to tell his story. Obviously, this book can’t possibly encompass the entire history of Spider-Man without at least tripling its length, but this omission unfortunately leaves out some of the great creators in Spidey’s history.
With that being said, the stories this book does include get pretty comprehensive summaries. This is a great resource for those who haven’t read all of Spidey’s biggest stories and want to get an idea of the character’s lore. There is a lot of great information put together in well-written summaries for fans to take in. It even gives some knowledge of Spidey’s life on the big screen.
And to take that a step further, these entries even give readers a glimpse of the comic stories themselves. Full pages of these comics are featured throughout the book and, while they can be a bit difficult to read due to being shrunk down to fit, they allow the reader to see how these stories really played out.
And if those glimpses get readers interested in picking up comics themselves, this book serves as a great guide for selecting their comics and choosing where to start. The world of Marvel Comics can be overwhelming because of the extensive history of the characters and their stories, so having a guide can make things much easier. Pairing this book with a Marvel Unlimited subscription is a great way to get started on your Marvel Comics reading.
You can purchase The Amazing-Spider-Man: Web-Slinger, Hero, Icon here.