Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-man #300
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Penciler: Adam Kubert
Cover Artist: Marcos Martin
From the Publisher: “An oversized anniversary epic, told the only way your pre-eminent pals in the Spidey-Office know how — in the Mighty Marvel Manner! For weeks, the Tinkerer has been launching a campaign against his do-gooder brother, the Mason, and Spidey’s nearly met his maker more than once trying to stop their sibling rivalry! With a little help from a tech-heavy team of Marvel heroes, Spider-Man takes the fight directly to Tinkerer! But Tinkerer’s got tech of his own…and it’s out of this world!”
Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-man debuted in 1976 by Gerry Conway with art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito. Â Conway created the comic so he could be on a Spider-man book without taking a job from Len Wein (who was on Amazing Spider-man at the time). Â Conway wanted to create a book about Peter’s social life and the surrounding characters. Â That run ended in Nov 1998 with issue 263. Â In September 2003, Marvel launched Spectacular Spider-man Vol 2. written by Paul Jenkins with art by Humberto Ramos and Mark Buckingham. Â That run ended in June 2005. Â The current run, once again called Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-man (Vol 3.) was launched in June 2017 with Chip Zdarsky writing and art by Adam Kubert. Â Marvel Legacy reverted to old numbering in the last 8 or 9 books and thus, 300.
What Does 300 Do For you?
This book is a dense read right off the hop. Â Zdarsky is working diligently to end the Tinkerer storyline. Â In addition, he’s trying to launch into the next story arc involving some of Dr. Dooms old tech. Â The book is still sarcastic and fun, but there really is a lot of characters to follow including IronHeart, Hawkeye, Johnny Storm, Vulture, Shocker, Black Panther, and many more. Â These types of books are really quite an event but end up losing the story ever so slightly in all that eye candy. Â The event books do it quite often and I write it off to event-fever: I can do it so I should do it. Â Not bad – just not as good as normal where the story and dialog can breath.
The book also provides a gallery of the previous covers as well as a Black Cat short story. Â The Black Cat story seems like an afterthought to this book. Â If there’s a plan for it, it’s incredibly hard to see how. Â The story is just so mean and deflating to Spider-man. Â Certainly odd.
If you’ve been ready Spectacular over the last half year or so, you know what to expect. Â If not – this is a great time to jump in.