Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 3

Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #3

by Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo, David Anthony Kraft

Spider-Man's second longest-running series was second to none in action and intrigue!  In this collection, recurring rogues such as Kraven the Hunter, Electro, and Silvermane are joined by the more rarely seen likes of the Ringer, Goldbug, and the Robot-Master!  Plus: in these pages you'll thrill to the first appearance of Cloak & Dagger! Spider-Man's uneasy allies, Molten Man and WIll O'the Wisp!  John Jameson as the Man-Wolf!  Peter Parker's graduate studies!  The Smuggler, the Beetle and Moonstone -- all fated to one day form the Thunderbolts!  And the noxious Nitro, harbinger of today's Civil War!  

Collects: Spectacular Spider-Man #54-74 and Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #3 -- written by Roger Stern, David Anthony Kraft, and Bill Mantlo; illustrated by Marie Severin, Luke McDonnell, Jim Mooney, Jim Shooter, John Byrne, Ed Hannigan, Jim Sherman, Al Weiss, Greg LaRocque, Bob Hall, Rick Leonardi, and Al Milgrom.

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

544 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2007

About the author

Roger Stern is an American comic book author and novelist.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

I noticed a significant improvement in the work/writing of Bill Mantlo and Roger Stern in this volume, but it still felt like the lack of regular artist was doing them no favours. Highlights include the debut of Cloak and Dagger, an appearance by Nitro the exploding man (always fun!), and a captivating war between The Owl and Doctor Octopus! I read the comic books Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #54-74 and Annual #13 as collected in this volume. A 6 out of 12, Three Star read overall.

2014 read

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Stern is still one of best Spider-Man's authors ever and Bill Mantlo's work on this twin series of the Amazing One, more focusing on Peter Parker's character and his iconic luck is a solid classic underrated one.



Spidey's battling soon to be Thunderbolts Beetle (here the debut of his iconic 2nd suit)/Moonstone and Civil War: A Marvel Comics Event harbinger villain Nitro (responsable of original Captain Marvel death too), a fight against Kraven the Hunter throwing seeds for both J. M. DeMatteis' The Amazing Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt and Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man: Torment future storylines, the debut of Cloak and Dagger and much more.



This black and white mammouth reprints volume was a blast of a re-read for this Marvel Zombie here and the covers drawn by a young Frank Miller and an unexpected and awesome Bat-Man easter-egg just made my day.







Almost a ☆☆☆☆☆ score, sadly I've never been too much fond of Debra Whitman's character and storyline.



'Nuff said.

[Robert Reiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one took me a while. It’s a hefty book that covers over 20 issues of Spider-Man. This all takes place during the time when I first discovered comics as a young kid but many of these issues I had never read before now. Great stories and great art. I think what keeps me from giving it 5 stars is some of the cheese factor moments. In one scene a villain throws a paper clip at Spider-Man and it shatters a statue. Yep..you read that right. I’m not saying comics are supposed to be believable but a paper clip? There’s also some lame drama going on with Deb Whitman (a friend of Peter’s) throughout this run. She’s two fruits short of a loop and by the end of this book you find out why but I was not a huge fan of that particular side story. And finally to add to the cheese...there are moments where Spidey stutters...in his thoughts. Is that possible? “H-how am I going to stop him?” is in the thought bubble not the spoken bubble. This happens more than once. I thought it was pretty hilarious.

Overall though great collection of stories with great villains. Spidey always has the best villains and I had a lot of fun with this.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reprints Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #54-74 and Annual #3 (May 1981-January 1983). Peter Parker finds more stress at school as his grades begin to slip, and balancing his life as Spider-Man, a photographer for the Daily Bugle, and his teacher-assistant job is getting more difficult as his time and money are stretched thinner and thinner. With the arrival of new vigilantes Cloak and Dagger and the danger of his identity being uncovered by his coworker Deb Whitman, Peter finds being a superhero is harder than ever!

Written by Roger Stern and Bill Mantlo (with the annual written by David Kraft), Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man—Volume 3 reprints stories are in black-and-white (like other Essential collections). Issues in the collection were also collected in Cloak and Dagger: Shadows and Light.

Spider-Man is a Marvel classic. While Amazing Spider-Man generally gets all the attention, the sister book Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man also had a strong run in this period. As the title implied, it almost seemed to focus more on the Peter Parker aspect of Spider-Man’s life…which helped make the character one of the most rounded and believable characters in the ’70s and ’80s.

Peter Parker is almost a sad-sack. You can see the problems he’s creating for himself a mile away…and so can he. The character knows that he’s failing all over the place be it in relationships, lives he destroyed, classes, and failed attempts to help the people he loves. It is this dynamic combined with the arrival of supervillains makes it a losing situation for the character, and with the death of Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spider-Man (1) #121 (June 1973), you actually don’t know if Peter will be ok or if things will just get worse.

The big entry of this comic collection is the introduction of Cloak and Dagger in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #64 (March 1982). The teen vigilantes are a little harder edged in their early appearances and are kind of like mini-Punishers…willing to kill. The characters already begin to flesh out a bit in their second and third appearances in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #69-70 (August 1982-September 1982) and further develop in their own mini-series later.

The book features classic Spider-Man art though it isn’t the Spider-Man art of Gil Kane that propelled the Amazing Spider-Man book to greatness, it is still strong. Spider-Man at this period was pretty consistent in look, style, writing, and story cohesion and that helped both Amazing Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man blend effortlessly.

Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man—Volume 3 is a solid entry in a solid series that is generally overlooked for Amazing Spider-Man. When Web of Spider-Man was introduced (replacing Marvel Team-Up), it feels like Spider-Man really started to get watered down, but here with only a couple titles, Spider-Man is a solid comic. Marvel followed Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular—Volume 3 with a fourth collection of the series in Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man—Volume 4.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing.
A compilation of Spectacular Spider-Man, collecting issues 53-74.

Let me put into context why I love it.
First printed in 1976.
My pre-teen to teen years were the 80's and the style of comics then are what made the biggest impact on me and are what I like.
Marvel in the 1960's to mid 1970's was all story, tons of text, not much art.
Marvel in the early/mid 1990's became all about the art and the story was lost.
From mid-1970's to mid-1990's Marvel got it right - they focused on the art but never lost track of the importance of story.

Which brings me to this book.
Amazing art, amazing story, great characters, everything done almost perfectly.
Loved it.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great set of Spidey stories! Cloak and Dagger debut, some old enemies return, and a nice look at Peter's life outside of the superhero business.

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-man Issues 54-74, and Annual #3.

This may be the third Spider-man book Marvel was publishing, and the villains may include more visits from second raters like Nitro and Goldbug than fan favorites like Doctor Octopus and Kraven the Hunter, but there are some great Spider-man stories from the early 1980s.

Among the highlights. We get to see the origin and early adventures of Cloak and Dagger, Annual #3 offers closure for the Man-Wolf saga, and we meet one of Marvel's most unlucky villains, Boomerang. We also get a gun control propaganda story in Issue #71. Debra Whitman's mental state comes to fore after her seeing Peter changing leads her convinced she's relapsing to viewing the world as fantasy.

The stories are enjoyable and written by two scribes who know Spidey. The art is good, but rarely impresses, though there are exceptions. Ed Hannigan pencils a couple of really fine title pages. The cover for issue #74 with Debra Whitman trapped by several tiny Spider-man is a classic.

Overall, while the stories aren't necessarily spectacular, they are really good and a worthwhile read for any Spidey fan.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gems include Spidey disguises as a samurai, Marcy Kane dons the tam o’shanter, Jack O’Lantern leads a Bellevue uprising, Killer Shrike kidnaps Marla, Beetle nearly drops a wall on Gibbon, Beetle crucifies Gibbon, Man-Wolf resurrects, Spidey v. Moonstone & golden Blue Beetle, Harry hoses Molten Man, Spidey v. Cloak & Dagger, Calypso drumming Kraven, Electro gets the Hannibal Lecter treatment, Boomerang mistakenly murders Kingpin’s Judas Goat, Robot Master resurrects, Dagger kills Silvermane, ‘Great Cloak & Dagger Hunt’, Spidey mistakes Moon Knight for Doc Ock, Owl v. Ock, & Kingpin tricks Ock but is robbed by Black Cat

[Harrison Delahunty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from some really grievous misunderstandings as to mental health and illness (which can be somewhat excused because.... eighties), this is a solid collection of stories. With the biggest hits of course coming from Roger Stern, we also see some surprising improvement from Bill Mantlo's writing, especially nearer the end of the collection.

[Tim Rooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Denny O’Neil does some career worst work on Amazing, Stern uses Spectacular to begin what is already shaping up to be an all time spin on the wall crawler. Small-time crime, great character work. A great many seeds being planted for the future.

[Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah the simpler times of superhero comics. Not too much talking but still the story was told. With great art.
So much fun.