It is well documented with longtime Spider-Man fans that, without question, the Amazing Spider-Man #229 & #230 are among the best stories from that book in the 1980s.
I loved that period for reasons as follows: for one I was a kid and in the Marvel Universe Spidey was king, to me. Secondly I also thought John Romita Jr's take on the character was definitive. With that, Roger Stern gave a hell of a run. As a writer/artist team they were a force on that book, right up there with Lee/Ditko, in my opinion.
However when I was a kid I missed both these issues!
Fast forward decades later and the price for me to pick up the books was beyond what I was willing to pay. I also missed the Spider-Man Megazine from the 1990s that reprinted these 2 stories as well. Any trades or hard covers was either off my radar or too pricey when I got to it.
Which brings us to 2010s the Amazing Spider-Man: the Gauntlet trade paperback.
This is sweet. Why? I’m getting the two missing issues of Amazing Spider-Man #229 & #230, but for other reasons to follow............
What lead me to purchase the books was the back up story of ASM #229 & #230, what became the icing on the cake were the “new stories” that were the actual stars of the book.
In ASM #626 we have artist Michael Gaydos beautiful art (and when I say I art he also coloured the story as well). He’s quite a talent. He has that ‘drawing from photo’ look a la Alex Maleev but also has that groovy shadowy semi hyper realistic style of John Paul Leon with a little wink and nod to the story board style of Rodolfo Damaggio. For those story driven the writing by Fred Van Lente delivered the goods, nothing ground breaking but a good old traditional feel to the Spidey legacy storytelling.
I should also mention the colours used, the tones, has a 70s New York crime movie feel but also bright and earthy /meets the 1960s groovy classic Spider-Man cartoon (dig them skies!).
It only gets better from here as Roger Stern is back along with Lee Weeks continuing the momentum in ASP#627 to #629. There is lots going on here, it has the classic Stern feel of his 80s Spidey work along with the amazing art of Lee Weeks.
Both Weeks and Gaydos give us the pre-1990s/McFarlane Spidey eyes, the kind Romita Jr and his predessors drew. I love it. That’s my Spidey. I won’t talk about the story, for the story you would need to read it!
Another story has also found it’s way here by Mark Waid and Tom Peyer, decent enough as it goes and worth the read.
So why am I writing this review? I’m no critic. I do not wish to critique. What I want to do is praise!
Kudos the talented teams on this book all of whom I applaud and all of which I wouldn’t own a copy if not for the fact that "when I was a kid I missed Amazing Spider-Man #229 & #230".
‘Nuff Said!
#JohnRomitaJr #RogerStern #MichaelGaydos #LeeWeeks #spidermanartists
