Spider-Man Visionaries: Roger Stern

Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #206, Spectacular Spider-Man #43-52, #54
Written by Roger Stern, Marv Wolfman, Steve Leialoha.
Penciled by John Byrne, Marie Severin, Mike Zeck, Jim Mooney, Steve Leialoha, Denys Cowan, John Romita Jr.
Inked by Gene Day, Steve Mitchell, Alan Gordon, Bruce Patterson, Jim Mooney, Dave Humphrys, Josef Rubenstein.

J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle and Spider-Man's harshest critic has gone insane. He's been forced to step down from the Bugle and been committed to a mental hospital. The source of Jameson's mania turns out to be mad scientist Jonas Harrow' s Response Variator Ray.

Jameson escapes from the hospital, but his freedom is short-lived as he is captured and imprisoned by Harrow. At the same time, Harrow has aimed the Variator Ray at the Daily Bugle offices, causing Bugle employees to attack one another. Only Spider-Man can save Jameson and stop Harrow.

Spider-Man avoids Jonas Harrow's Response Variator Ray.

Later, Spidey finds himself in the middle of a gang war that starts in the fashion world. A crime boss who calls herself Madame Belladona and her gang target designer Roderick Kingsley for stealing her fashion ideas. Spider-Man saves Kingsley, but Belladonna gets away, after stunning the webhead with her neo-atropine gas.

Belladonna gasses Spider-Man & escapes.

Next, Spidey's old foe the Vulture is back in New York. This time he's working with his nephew Malachai Toomes and attempting to take over organized crime in the city. Another crime boss named "Black Alfred" Tooks challenges the Vulture and Spidey is caught in the middle. Vulture comes closer than ever to finishing Spider-Man.

Spidey battles Cobra on a rooftop.

Following that battle, the Cobra escapes from Rykers Island. He leaves his partner Mr. Hyde behind in prison and heads for New York. Spider-Man catches Cobra in the act of robbing a jewelry store and a battle ensues.

Shortly thereafter, a murder occurs and Spider-Man investigates. The killer is the Prowler, a former criminal who has since renounced crime. Spidey is shocked by the Prowler's return to villainy, but it turns out to be a new Prowler. We soon learn that the Prowler was hired to make the hit by Belladonna. Things change fast when she turns on the Prowler. Spider-Man must bring them both to justice and try not to get killed in the process.

The Prowler takes a shot a Spidey in the Garment District.

Subsequently, Spider-Man recognizes a member of a criminal gang and chases him. This leads Spidey to a smuggling operation headed by a costumed criminal who calls himself the Smuggler. Spider-Man quickly dispatches of Smuggler and his gang, then turns them over to the police.

Spider-Man slugs it out with the Smuggler.

The next day, Peter and his girlfriend Debra Whitman meet up with Aunt May for dinner. Peter's a bit nervous, since May is bringing along her fiance, Nathan Lubensky. He's not sure how he feels about someone marrying his Aunt, who has been like a mother and who is all the family he has left.

Peter & Aunt May's lunch is interrupted by alien waiters!

But before Peter and May have a chance to talk, they're attacked by aliens. These aliens have fought Spider-Man before, when they worked as minions of the Terrible Tinkerer. But this time they've teamed up with Mysterio! Peter lets Mysterio and the aliens take him prisoner (so they won't harm Aunt May). But they're in for a shock when they learn they've unknowingly brought Spider-Man into the picture!

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At the same time, the White Tiger (who is also Peter's friend Hector Ayala) is investigating the murder of his family. This brings White Tiger face to face with a paramilitary organization led by the super-villain known as Gideon Mace. This results in Mace shooting White Tiger. Ayala survives the shooting, but his career as a crimefighter is over. Spider-Man sets out to capture Mace and pursues justice for the White Tiger.

White Tiger investigates his parents' murder.

Last but not least, Spider-Man must rescue the Smuggler. The NYPD tells Spidey that the Smuggler had been working for the Maggia crime organization. When Maggia learns that the Smuggler is planning to turn state's evidence, they capture him from police custody. We also learn that the Smuggler is Erik Josten, who suffered many defeats to the Avengers under the name Power Man.

Spidey & Smuggler team up against the Maggia samurais.

Spider-Man learns that Josten is being held captive on a boat called the Chrysanthemum And The Sword, which is a floating Japanese restaurant. The Maggia owns the boat and has it protected by samurai warriors. Spidey and the Smuggler will have to team up if they want to make it off the boat alive.

Review:

I have to confess to being a bit biased here. Back in 1980, I received a copy of Spectacular Spider-Man (SSM) #43 as an Easter present, and I remember buying Amazing Spider-Man #206 off the spinner racks like it was yesterday. But after re-reading these stories, I can say objectively that they're still very good.

Story:

The first story reprinted here presented Roger Stern with a difficult task: J. Jonah Jameson went insane and disappeared from Amazing Spider-Man (ASM) for the better part of a year. Stern had to bring him back in a fill-in issue. It's a good story and Stern does a nice job returning JJJ to the Spidey-verse and restoring the status quo.

The bulk of this tpb contains stories from SSM. At the time, it was considered the "lesser" Spider-Man title, but Stern treated it like an A-list series and I can say these stories are better than what was offered in ASM at the time.

These tales are reminiscent of early Stan Lee-Steve Ditko Spidey stories. The wall-crawler mostly deals with gang wars and street-level baddies rather than super-powered would-be conquerors. It's nice to see Spider-Man placed in some grittier-than-usual scenarios.

But we also get appearances by classic villains Mysterio and the Vulture. Plus, Stern gives us a good retcon involving Mysterio and his "alien" flunkies. And Stern brings back an obscure villain as well, but I won't "spoil" that part of the story.

Some of my favorite Spider-Man stories are the ones that take advantage of the New York setting. Stern gives us a great fight scene that takes place in Grand Central Station:

Spider-Man & Vulture battle inside Grand Central Station.

One thing that separated SSM from ASM was its supporting cast. It tended to focus more on Peter Parker's life as a student at Empire State Univsersity, rather than on his Daily Bugle co-workers. We get some nice scenes of Peter working in the ESU lab, interacting with fellow students Phillip Chang and Steve Hopkins.

But the most important character to come out of SSM was Debra Whitman. She was Peter's first girlfriend after Mary Jane rejected his marriage proposal. Their relationship never went very far because Parker would often run off during their dates to be Spider-Man, leading Debra to believe he didn't care about her at all. Spidey scribes didn't know what to do with her, and she later went (temporarily) insane and was written out of the series. But Stern writes her as a brave, intelligent woman here. Debra stands up to Mysterio and even engages him in hand to hand combat, helping Spider-Man defeat the villain (go Deb!).

Debra Whitman whacks Mysterio & breaks his "fishbowl" helmet!

I'm a big fan of Stern's work (this is my second review this week of a Stern-written tpb), but I have to call him out about one thing here. These stories include the first appearance of fashion designer Roderick Kingsley. I won't post spoilers about Kingsley, but let's just say he became a very important character in the Spider-Man titles later in the 1980s. But he's written (and drawn) here as an ugly stereotype. Madame Belladonna even calls him a "flaming simp" in the scan below. I won't hold Stern to the standards of today for a 1980 story, but it needs to be pointed out. Stern later changed Kingsley a bit via retcon, so I'm guessing he regretted his initial depiction.

Belladonna raids Kingsley office while Spidey prepares to intervene.

There's one fill-in issue co-plotted by Marv Wolfman and Steve Leialoha. It looks like they coordinated the plot with Stern's storyline, because the next issue written by Stern picks up right where the previous issue left off.

Art:

This book contains reprints of twelve issues and it's drawn by eight pencilers and seven inkers. So it lacks a consistent look, but the art is generally very good, if not great. John Byrne and Gene Day are a nice art team on the first story. Day was a penciler in his own right, but their styles mesh together very nicely. Mike Zeck and Steve Mitchell are the best art team here in my view. Marie Severin and Steve Leialoha give us some very Ditko-esque art in their issues. The reprint of #50 features art by John Romita, Jr. and Jim Mooney. That art team would later collaborate with Stern during his tenure at ASM.

Denys Cowan also does a nice job illustrating the White Tiger stories that were originally published as back-ups in SSM.

How does it look?:

Great. Just look at all the scanned pages above, and here's one more:

Steve Hopkins & Peter Parker work in ESU's lab while a gunman busts in.

Extras:

There's a nice 5-page interview with Stern in the back of the book. He discusses his opinions of Spider-Man, how he got the job writing SSM, his collaborations with the artists on the book, etc. Good stuff.

Spider-Man Visionaries: Roger Stern Vol. 1 is a fun book worth picking up. Roger Stern knew how to write Spider-Man better than anyone since Stan Lee. Marvel has reprinted some of Stern's later ASM stories (my review is forthcoming). But it would be nice if they would give us another book of Stern's work on SSM, since he wrote the book through issue #60. Recommended.

My rating: