Spider-Man in the 1990s
By 1990, Todd McFarlane’s work had become incredibly popular. Originally doing art duties of Amazing Spider-Man, McFarlane was given his own Spider-Book to work on simply titled Spider-Man. The series was a huge hit. McFarlane was given both writing and art duties on his title and to begin with, he actually did quite well. His first five-issue arc, “Torment”, was a much better follow up to Kraven’s Last Hunt than anything J.M. DeMatties put out. In McFarlane’s arc, Kraven’s girlfriend Calypso sought revenge against Spider-Man for the death of her beloved and used the power of voodoo to enslave the Lizard, turning him into a savage killing machine. This was followed up with a two-issue story titled Masques in issues #6 and 7. In that story, MacFarlane made use of the fact that the Hobgoblin was recently merged with a demonic entity. This story featured the Hobgoblin trying to turn a young boy into a demon, the first step in creating a race of demons. The next five issues featured another long arc called Perceptions. Which saw Spider-Man travel to Canada to investigate a Wendigo sighting. There he teams up with Wolverine and discovers that this Wendigo is not a threat at all. It’s an interesting twist on your usual Wendigo story. The next two-issue story was a dud, titled “Sub-City” which saw Spider-Man temporarily return to his black-and-white costume to go rooting around in the sewers for Morbius the Living Vampire. After a fill-in story by Erik Larsen in issue #17, Todd MacFarlane produced his last Spider-Man story for Marvel. Issue #16 was a crossover story guest-starring X-Force which saw Spider-Man and Cable’s team of mutants fighting the Juggernaut. It’s doubly interesting since MacFarlane decided to draw the story so the book had to be read sideways. The last time an artist did this was John Byrne a decade early during his run on Fantastic Four. By this time, Todd MacFarlane left Marvel Comics to start up Image Comics, home of his most iconic creation, Spawn. Too bad MacFarlane seemed to lose whatever writing skills he had when he embarked on that historic move because early Spawn comics had terrible writing, but I digress.
The next issue was a fill-in by Ann Nocenti and Rick Leonardi which has Spider-Man face Death herself and battle Thanos.
With MacFarlane gone, Marvel gave Spider-Man to Erik Larsen who had an equally popular run on Amazing Spider-Man after MacFarlane was moved off that book. Larsen gave us a six-part epic, Revenge of the Sinister Six a follow up to his Return of the Sinister Six story in Amazing Spider-Man. This story has everything that was awful about the 90s in it. It’s got cyborgs out of the ass, with even Spider-Man getting a temporary cyborg make-over. It’s bursting to the seams of unnecessary guest stars, and the Sinister Six have one of the worst additions: Gog, an alien that was from an old Amazing Spider-Man story from the 70s.
Larson’s involvement with the title was sort lived. The next issue was another fill-in issue by H. Austin Mackie and Larry Alexander. It was part of the Infinity War event and there’s not much more that I can say about it than that. Terry Cavanagh and Chris Marrinan did the following isuse which sees Arcade try to get revenge against Spider-Man and Captain Britain for a past defeat back in Marvel Team-Up. Its promise of a “Spider-Pheonix” is greatly over-exaggerated. Issue #26 a Spider-Man 30t anniversary issue was by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Mark Bagley. It was a god-awful story wit a villain that has a giant Nintendo controller strapped to his chest. Next was a two-parter by Don McGreggor and Marshall Rogers titled “There’s Something About a Gun”. It bills itself as being a story that will be “talked about for years”, but this was more over-exaggerated than Spider-Pheonix. It’s a terrible story that is, I’m guessing, teaching kids not to play with guns? It features an annoying kid named Elmo who fantasizes about being Robocop so he can kill his bullies. His fantasy almost becomes a reality when he finds a drug dealer’s gun. As you’d expect a story like this to go, Spider-Man steps in to take the gun away and lecture the kid about guns. What this kid needs is a good psychologist.
Issues #29-31 was a follow-up to another old storyline, “Return to the Mad Dog Ward” by Ann Nocenti and Chris Marrinan revisit the characters she created a few years later in her three-part “Life in the Mad Dog Ward” story arc. It’s awful partially because Spider-Man takes a mentally ill man under his wing to try and teach super-heroics and then leaves him to is own devices, you know, like a real responsible superhero.
Issue #32 which paired Steve Grant with artist Bob McLeod. Their first arc, “Vengeance” introduced a new character named the Master of Vengeance and guest stars the Punisher. It’s not perfect but it’s a nice change from the garbage that had appeared in this title after McFarlane left. The next three issues were all parts of the 14 chapter Maximum Carnage storyline. Issues #38-40 is a JM DeMatties story drawn by Klaus Janesen about Electro trying to blackout all of Manhattan but has to be saved by Spider-Man. It’s a rare instance when DeMatties wasn’t writing something about parental abandonment and actually had a hopeful ending. However, it’s not a good story, maybe DeMatties sticks to depressing stories for a reason. This was followed by a three-issue story by Terry Kavanagh and Jae Lee that features Iron Fist and a cyborg named Platoon. Not a great story, made only more painful by Jae Lee’s artwork of which I am not a fan and I’ve never really understood his appeal.
By issue #46 the title finally had a regular writer, Howard Mackie who worked alongside artist Tom Lyle. Their first arc together was titled “Beware the Rage of a Desperate Man” which saw the conclusion to the ongoing conflict between Hobgoblin and Demogoblin. My only complaint is that this story runs an issue longer than necessary. Issue #48 sees Hobgoblin kill off Demogoblin, but they squeezed out an extra chapter just to introduce a new character named Coldheart. Coldheart went on to do nothing of value for years until her character became a catalyst for Marvel’s Civil War event. There was also a lead-up to issue #50 which introduced us to the son of Kraven the Hunter and followed his transformation into the Grim Hunter. It would be an interesting character if had not been for the fact that the Grim Hunter was a walking 90s trope, the character hardly lasts very long, getting himself killed five issues later by Kaine during the Clone Saga.
Speaking of the Clone Saga, that’s exactly what happens after issue #50. I’ve gone at length about the Clone Saga elsewhere so there’s not much to really add here. Howard Mackie at least was able to write competent stories during this dark period in Spider-Man history. It was also during this period that John Romita, Jr. returned to drawing Spider-Man stories again. JRJR would go on to do art duties on nearly every issue of Spider-Man starting with Spider-Man #64, which saw Ben Reilly taking up the mantle of Spider-Man. Mackie and Romita would write one of the best Clone Saga stories of the whole run. It was also one of the few Spider-Man stories that was involved in another festering shit-pile of 90s comics, the Onslaught Saga. Spider-Man #72 features Spider-Man (Reilly) and Peter Parker working together to defend the city from an army of invading Sentinels. It’s really the diamond in the rough of that whole period, even if Romita draws some really bad looking Sentinels. Another highlight is issue #75, which is the story that saw the big reveal that Norman Osborn was involved in the deceptions behind the Clone Saga and kills Ben Reilly. Issue #75 also marks when the title (at least on the cover) starts going by Peter Parker: Spider-Man (although it remained simply “Spider-Man” in the indicia on the inside)
Issues #76 to 80 wrapped up a storyline started during the Clone Saga which saw Hydra getting involved with the local mobs. It also featured Morbius the Living Vampire and a new character named SHOC. It’s… okay. Issue #82 is one of the few Spider-Man stories that really addresses what was going on in the Marvel Universe proper following Onslaught. In a world without the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, a disappearance that was blamed on mutants, it was a nice touch. It featured the Friends of Humanity trying to organize on the campus of Empire State University and how they try to convince Paul Stacy into their ranks. Sadly this plot doesn’t go very far as Spider-Man is drawn into other major story arcs such as Spiderhunt, Identity Crisis, Gathering of Five, and the Final Chapter.
When the Spider-Man franchise we relaunched, Spider-Man was officially relaunched as Peter Parker: Spider-Man. That series would run for 57 issues. A second volume of Spider-Man would be launched in 2016, featuring Miles Morales the “Ultimate” Spider-Man after he crossed over to the mainstream Marvel Universe. The title was later relaunched under the Marvel Legacy initiative that saw titles assume the numbering. However, instead of taking it's Legacy Numbering from the mainstream Spider-Man titles, it took it from the various Ultimate Spider-Man titles. This lasted until issue #240 when the title was relaunched yet again as Miles Morales: Spider-Man in 2018.
