Sensational Spider-Man in the 1990s
Sensational Spider-Man first began publication in 1996 in the middle of the Clone Saga. It replaced Web of Spider-Man as a recurring monthly title and was used to try and boost up Ben Reilly as the new Spider-Man.
Starting with a very nineties issue #0, the first seven issues were written by Dan Jurgens and penciled by Klaus Janson. The pair really tried their best to set up Ben Reilly as the new Spider-Man, taking the time to set up Ben Reilly with a job, as well as a supporting cast that was separate from Peter Parker during his long tenure as the wall-crawler. Unfortunately, this also came at the time that Marvel decided to walk-back all the changes they made with the clone saga. Two issues into Jurgens and Janson’s work saw the return of Peter Parker, his wife Mary Jane, and a doubling of the supporting cast as the creative team tried to juggle the new characters introduced in the title with Peter Parker’s extended cast and the ongoing clone saga. One ongoing plotline was how Ben’s love interest, Jessica Carradine, turned out to be the daughter of the burglar who killed Uncle Ben. She starts off hating Spider-Man (blaming him for her father’s incarceration and death), learning that Ben Reilly was secretly Spider-Man, and coming to terms with that fact. However, with the end of Jurgen’s run, it’s resolved with Jessica leaving town.
Todd DeZago took over as writer in the following issue and was paired with Mike Wieringo as artist starting in issue #8. While most of the other Spider-Man titles were doing story arcs that crossed between titles, Sensational Spider-Man told self-contained stories. Issues #8 featured the Looter while issues #9 and 10 had Ben Reilly fighting the Swarm. The only exception being issue #11, which was part of the Revelations story arc that saw Ben Reilly get killed off and Peter Parker restored as Spider-Man.
Despite the fact there were still many heavy story arcs going on in the other Spider-Books, particularly the return of Norman Osborn, Sensational Spider-Man mostly stayed out of it and told fun stories, something that was absent from Spider-Man titles for far, far too long. For example, issue #13-15 was a story about Spider-Man going to the Savage Land and teaming up with Ka-Zar and the Hulk to fight a prehistoric chicken monster. Whiles issues #21-23 saw Spider-Man team-up with Doctor Strange to stop the mystic named Bruel, which contains a touching farewell to Mark Gruenwald, a long time Marvel editor who had just recently passed away. Still, Sensational Spider-Man got pulled back into the fold of the other Spider-Books with issue #25 being part of the Spiderhunt story arc, and issues #26-28 being part of the Identity Crisis arc.
Ultimately, the powers that be at Marvel decided to reign in the Spider-Books and Sensational Spider-Man was one of the titles put on the chopping block. The last two issues, #32 and 33 were part of the Gathering of Five Event which ultimately led to a brand-wide re-launch of Spider-Man books.
This would not be the last volume of Sensational Spider-Man. In 2004, Marvel launched a new series titled Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, which was — can you guess? — part of their wildly popular Marvel Knights line of books. After 30 issues the title was renamed Sensational Spider-Man and ran for an additional 11 issues before it too was axed, this time by the Brand New Day initiative that saw all the Spider-Books canceled in favor of releasing Amazing Spider-Man every week. Sensational Spider-Man can’t seem to catch a break.
