The Essential line reprints the classic comics in black and white. The Essential Spider-Man vol. 7 collects issues #138-160 of The Amazing Spider-Man along with Annual #10 and Giant-Size Spider-Man #4-5. Collaborating on this are people such as Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, Archie Goodwin and others.
After the death of Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker is having a rough time. Along with trying to cope with her death, he’s also got to find a new place after Harry Osborn goes into an institution and tries to rehabilitate himself. There are new adversaries, the first Clone Saga and more problems with the Spider-Mobile!
The adversaries in this volume aren’t great. It starts off with the Mind-Worm – a deformed man who feeds off of people’s emotions and turns them into mindless creatures. When Parker moves in he senses some of the strongest emotions he has ever feasted upon (angst!). He’s a fairly weak villain and is followed by The Grizzly, a former wrestler who wears a giant bear costume. It’s pretty hokey and doesn’t have the charm of, say, the Scorpion. But involved in the Grizzly’s origin is everyone’s favorite newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson and it leads to one of my favorite ever panels in Spider-Man comics. Spidey has just rescued Jameson from The Grizzly but Jameson is ungrateful as ever, so as Spider-Man swings out of the window JJJ throws his shoe at him.
In fact Jameson has some of the best moments throughout this volume. The villains do get better, although many of the iconic ones are absent. Instead, the overarching villain is The Jackal, who is the mastermind behind the Clone Saga. This technically should be called the first Clone Saga, for the more famous (or infamous) one took place in the early 90s and is regarded as one of the most controversial comic storylines ever. This one is less convoluted, but it involves a dazed Parker thinking he’s hallucinating because he thinks he’s seen Gwen Stacy! This all happens just as he and MJ are getting closer as well, so it’s drives a wedge in between them. But worse things are to come because Peter wakes up to be face to face with a clone of himself! The two Spider-Men fight while they try to figure out which one is the real one.
It’s a strange story and the resolution feels off. The Jackal ends up coming across like a Green Goblin substitute, and while he seems menacing at first he ends up seeming rather harmless. I also feel that the climax to this story was rushed and it fell apart a bit towards the end. I also find it strange how quickly the idea of clones is dismissed. After that there’s an appearance by The Lizard, Shocker makes a comeback, Ned Leeds and Betty Brant get married. There’s also a nice littler mystery regarding a computer system that collates date from the existing criminal database in order to determine who is likely to commit crimes. It’s eerily similar to Person of Interest, and I got a kick out of that.
The Spider-Mobile is finally done and dusted, and I found it amusing how the writers treated the concept with such disdain. It ends up actually attacking Spider-Man and I would have loved to have seen how the executives reacted.
Spidey is famous for his team-ups but in this volume there are only two – The Punisher and Man-Thing.
This volume is a comedown from the previous few. The first 6 volumes are pretty much perfect, with iconic villains and dramatic storylines. This one is a bit of a mishmash of different things and there’s not a strong overarching narrative. The Clone Saga tries to be, but ultimately it falls short, and given that it spawned the second Clone Saga it’s probably not looked upon fondly. There are good moments though, it’s just that the lack of notable villains hurts it. There was something I did absolutely love, however –
It’s just a little thing, but it’s something that I wish more comics would do and use the format in unique ways. Here Spider-Man is running across the ceiling, and since we’re from his point of the view the speech bubbles appear to us upside down. It doesn’t matter to the plot but it’s a cute thing that just gives a sense of something different. One of my main complaints with comics is that they don’t play around with the format as much as they could, but here is an example of one that gets it right.
It’s a decent volume. The first 6 are must-reads. This one is okay. It has its moments but it’s not up to the quality of the previous volumes.
