This trade paperback reprints seminal (and a couple of not-so seminal, IMHO), recolored issues from the first, ground-breaking series of The Amazing Spider-Man; the comic books included here are: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1, #39-42 (#39 & 40 featuring the wrap-up of the original Green Goblin saga, with the revelation of the first Green Goblin's true identity; this two-part story arc also features the first time that a super-villain learned Spider-Man's true identity, and didn't laugh it off as a hoax, as Doctor Octopus did in TASP Vol. 1, #12), #50 (the second time that Spider-Man gave up being Spider-Man; the first was in TASM Vol. 1, #18), #68-69 (comprising part of the Stone Tablet/Kingpin/Silvermane epic), and #108-09, the penultimate Stan Lee/John Romita issues of TASM, and Romita's personal favorites of the issues that he drew, apparently due to their being influenced by Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates newspaper comic strip.

John Romita (styled "Sr." here, due to his eponymous offspring having become a renowned artist -- primarily on Iron Man and The Uncanny X-Men, but also on The Amazing Spider-Man -- in the intervening years) is one of the two artists most closely associated with Spider-Man, despite having done yeoman work on Captain America (even on the 1950s-come-lately version, before graduating to the revived real thing in the 1960s) and Daredevil ('twas in the pages of Daredevil [Vol. 1, #16-7] that "JR" drew his first Spider-Man; rumor has it that it was this that convinced writer-editor Stan Lee to tap Romita for the job of drawing Spider-Man after co-creator Steve Ditko left in high dudgeon over a disagreement with co-creator Stan Lee, reportedly over the resolution of the Green Goblin's identity); Romita later went on to a distinguished, if brief, run on Marvel Comics' first modern superhero title, The Fantastic Four (Vol. 1, #103-06). Romita served as Marvel Comics' art director for a number of years, and any aficionado of early-to-mid-1970s Marvels will have or recall numerous issues of various comics whose covers were retouched, uncredited, by him. (Usually the faces of certain characters.) Other artists have left their mark on Spidey -- Gil Kane, Ross Andru, Sal Buscema, Todd McFarlane, even John Byrne -- but no one else "says" Spider-Man like John Romita and his predecessor, Steve Ditko.

Stan Lee wrote all of the issues reprinted here; it's rather depressing to see his writing get less polished, less attentive to detail, as the years progressed. Yes, by the time that #108 and #109 came out (early 1972: the issues are cover dated May and June 1972, respectively) his duties were far too varied and pressing for him to have remained the scripter on more than one or two titles, but one suspects that the fault lay with his refusal to give up the titles that he loved best -- such as The Amazing Spider-Man -- rather than due to a lack of talent in the Marvel bullpen.

Readers whose first introduction to Spider-Man is from the Sam Raimi-directed movies (3 at this writing) or the long-running newspaper comic strip are likely to be a bit surprised and confused as to the level of sub-plots in the earlier issues; in particular, fans of the movies will be dismayed at the lack of lethal violence, at Spidey's unwillingness to kill and the fact that "dumb luck" doesn't 86 his opponents at the end of every fight, while fans of the newspaper strip will be perplexed by the higher level of strength that is Spidey's birthright in his original, comic book incarnation. Long-time Spider-Man collectors will be pleased to get copies of these issues that are mostly handsomely re-colored; hopefully they've already got the originals or reprints of same to fill out the back story of the original ongoing clashes with the Green Goblin (TASM Vol. 1, #14, 17, 23, 26 & 27, 35, and 37), the conclusion to his first encounter with the Rhino (#43), the rest of his first struggle with the Kingpin (#51-2), and the rest of the eight month-long Stone Tablet/Kingpin/Silvermane epic (#70-5, with a two-part coda featuring a fight with Dr. Curt Conners [a.k.a. The Lizard] and the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four in #76-77).

For my taste, the best inker of John Romita's pencils is either Mike Esposito (credited as "Mickey Demeo" in the issues included here) or Romita himself; Jim Mooney's inks (here on #68-9) are too soft to do his pencils justice.

And despite the solemn finality of the "Flash Thompson's Vietnam Story" (in #108-09), some of the characters featured in this plot would be resurrected in the pages of Spider-Man's third "all new" title (the second being Marvel Team-Up), Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man. (This title was eventually shortened to The Spectacular Spider-Man, perhaps in recognition that most people bought it to see Spider-Man, not Peter Parker.) ( )