What do you guys think of Tom DeFalco's Amazing Spider-Man run (1984-1987)?

[QUOTE=Cheesedique;1542582]The era of Spider-Man where Owsley/Priest was the Spidey group editor was a great time for the character. All the titles were top-notch, save for the occasional inventory issues (which was Jim Shooter's mandate as EIC, that the books simply could not ship late).[/QUOTE]

Very much the truth. Owsley had all the Spidey books firing on all cylinders but the stress of working with the talent and handling relationships eventually did him in. When Defalco left ASM he was supposed to have been replaced by DeMatteis, but his Kraven's Last Hunt arc was changed to run through all 3 titles and Michelinie moved from Web to ASM once that ended.

[QUOTE=JGC;1546694]Very much the truth. Owsley had all the Spidey books firing on all cylinders but the stress of working with the talent and handling relationships eventually did him in. When Defalco left ASM he was supposed to have been replaced by DeMatteis, but his Kraven's Last Hunt arc was changed to run through all 3 titles and Michelinie moved from Web to ASM once that ended.[/QUOTE]

Yep--DeFalco was doing great work as ever over on Amazing. Michelinie was hitting his stride on Web, taking Peter out of New York for some ambitious stories, not all of which worked but most did. And then you had PAD simply killing it on his Spec run, A run that still stands as some of my favorite comic books of all time. It was when I started following the books regularly, and got some subscriptions to the titles, and that era made me a fan of the character for life.

[QUOTE=Cheesedique;1542582]The era of Spider-Man where Owsley/Priest was the Spidey group editor was a great time for the character. All the titles were top-notch, save for the occasional inventory issues (which was Jim Shooter's mandate as EIC, that the books simply could not ship late).[/QUOTE]

I'm reading all the books from the era. It's pretty solid, but it does kinda collapse in the months leading up to Kraven's Last Hunt.

The Gang War that DeFalco had been building up fizzles out, the Hobgoblin revelations are underwhelming, and a lot of it was published out of order, which meant that a Hobgoblin inventory story about a threat to a supporting character was published several months after ASM 289, the story in which Peter and the Black Cat broke up was published after the comic in which he proposed to MJ, and a [I]Web of Spider-Man[/I] issue that was supposed to lead into ASM 289 was published two months after that.

[QUOTE=JGC;1546694]Very much the truth. Owsley had all the Spidey books firing on all cylinders but the stress of working with the talent and handling relationships eventually did him in. When Defalco left ASM he was supposed to have been replaced by DeMatteis, but his Kraven's Last Hunt arc was changed to run through all 3 titles and Michelinie moved from Web to ASM once that ended.[/QUOTE]

Hadn't heard that before.

It was good. It had the issue of Pete and MJ talking in the park after all.

Combined with the art work of Ron Frenz: I would have to say that Tom Defalco's first run on Amazing Spider-man was a true treat of a follow up on Roger Stern's run. I mean how else can this creative team of Defalco and Frenz develop into the iconic team they are today ?

So yeah, I consider Tom Defalco's first run a bit of a success.

A great prologue to the marriage and the only run to feature Peter out of school and single for a stretch

Issues include #251-261, #263, #265, #268-285.

I think it's one of the more underappreciated runs, if only for how DeFalco writes the character interactions, particularly with the character of Mary Jane and how her relationship develops with Peter.

Tom also created Silver Sable, wrote the (in)famous Spider-Man vs. Firelord fight, and the X-Factor crossover (where Spidey was accused of being a mutant).

I’d say it was pretty solid.

I don't want to think about it.

I want to think about Ron Frenz and Black Fox.

Defalco’s run was solidly consistent and the collaboration with Ron Frenz is great. However, I don’t think it’s as good as Stern’s which came before or Michelinie that came after but I think it’s one of the best Spider-Man runs and a defining one.

Defalco served as editor to Stern and Frenz famously Pencillied The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man. So in effect he picked up where Stern left off. Defalco’s two running plot threads were inheritances from Stern. The first is the Hobgoblin mystery where Defalco went rogue on Stern’s conception and as such contributed to it being botched. Since a big part of Defalco’s run is dedicated to spinning wheels to that dead end I think that’s a major deficiency of his run and something that weakens it overall. Sure axing Ned Leeds was Owsley’s folly but the seeds for that sabotage was planted by Defalco himself.

The other is of course Mary Jane’s role. It was Roger Stern who created her backstory and he wrote an outline spelling it out which Defalco used. The main innovation is the idea that MJ had know Peter’s secret for some time. Mary Jane was permanently transformed by Defalco and she’s basically played the role of confidant for Peter ever since, marriage and Post-OMD, not to mention the various adaptations. So in terms of lasting permanent things to lore, this is a huge plus.

Aside from this. The high point is the Spider-Man and Firelord fight. The lovely Crusher Hogan one shot. And of course the Aluen Costume Saga which paved the way for Venom. I think this run is really worth reading for the Peter and MJ stuff alone Including ASM#275 where Peter confesses to her about Ben’s death and Defalco Frenz reprinted AF#15 in full in that issue for the first time (before the origin was redrawn by Romita Sr. and in ASM#200). At the same time this run had fil in issues like PAD’s Commuter Commuteth which is probably better than more than a few of their issues.

Still a classic run on the whole.

[QUOTE=Hybrid;4699607]Tom also created Silver Sable, wrote the (in)famous Spider-Man vs. Firelord fight, and the X-Factor crossover (where Spidey was accused of being a mutant).

I’d say it was pretty solid.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. He also continued the "Saga of the Alien Costume" from Shooter's [B]Secret Wars[/B], and revealed MJ always knew Pete was Spidey. DeFalco even got Pete (briefly) involved in Matt's situation from Frank Miller's [B]Born Again[/B].

The Best Era.

One of my favorite eras for the webhead. But I chose to be less generous voting in the poll and gave it an 'A' instead of 'A+'.