The bite of an irradiated spider granted high-school student Peter Parker incredible, arachnid-like powers. When a burglar killed his beloved Uncle Ben, a grief-stricken Peter vowed to use his amazing abilities to protect his fellow man. He had learned an invaluable lesson: With great power, there must also come great responsibility!
This is a sampler of some of the most popular Spider-Man comics of the 1980s, complete with a (not particularly informative) Bendis introduction and a rather fanboy-ish (but slightly more informative) foreword to each story arc.
Organized chronologically, the book starts out with "Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut" and "Hyde & Seek" from Roger Stern & John Romita Jr.’s acclaimed run (the selected issues are 1982’s The Amazing Spider-Man #229-32), and both stories turn out to be great Silver Age-style fun in the Lee-Romita Sr. tradition. Even better is "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" (#248), a hero-meets-young-fan type short story that cranks the melodrama up to eleven – and succeeds beautifully.
Things then get a little grittier and wittier with Peter David and Rich Buckler’s "Death of Jean DeWolff," a multi-part event-type story (originally published in 1985 as The Spectacular Spider-Man #107-10) that co-stars Daredevil and has many fans but felt a bit clunky to me – I’d probably get more out of it if I was familiar with previous issues.
Finally, 1989’s "Venom Strikes Back" (The Amazing Spider-Man #315-17) by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane features still grittier writing and more gimmicky artwork – a trend that would continue throughout the early 90s, to increasingly absurd effect. At this early stage there’s still more to the story than just flashy pinups and big sound effects, but things are gradually starting to move into a direction I’m not all that excited about.
Bottom line: a very useful introduction to post-Silver Age Spidey mythology, recommended to the casual reader as an affordable alternative to those pricey Omnibus editions!