How old are your favorite Spider-Man stories?

My top five favorite Spider-Man stories are all old enough to run for President: Amazing Fantasy #15, the Master Planner saga, The Night Gwen Stacy Died, Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut and the Kid Who Collected Spider-Man.

There are some newer ones that would be on my top ten (Kraven's Last Hunt- which isn't that new, The first Kingpin arc of Ultimate Spider-Man, Superior Spider-Man #1-10) but they're not in my top five.

Preferences can occur for a variety of reasons. It could be that I like these older comics because these were better than the material when I started reading (the mid-90s) and that if I was a little younger, my favorites would be the more cinematic later stories.

But I'm curious what you guys consider your absolute favorites.

Mine spans a few more decades. I think there have been inspired stories across most of time, but a few stand out to me - Night Gwen Stacy Died, Clone Saga from USM, Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2, Life Story and I'm going to cheat and just call the entire Lee/Ditko run as one story. I seriously can pick up any Lee/Ditko story from that time and enjoy it thoroughly.

Nothing from the Romita years, which surprised me. Maybe because I feel that the soap opera of that era was flawed. Stories were good, and the look for Peter was established, but I don't love stories from the era like I love some others.

I don't know about a top five, but the firsts that come to mind (and probably I'm going to forget some) of my favorites are:
Master Planner Saga
How Green was my Goblin/The End of the Green Goblin
The Night Gwen Stacy Died
The Hobgoblin stories by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr (plus #251, with Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz)
Kraven's Last Hunt
The Harry Osborn Saga by J.M DeMatteis and Sal Buscema
Spider-Man: Blue

There are many other Spider-Man stories that I love, but these are the ones that have had the major impact on me, and they cross through various decades

They're far too spread out to make any generalizations but I would say 50, 25, and 12.

My favorites all time stories are mostly stories from Stan Lee with art by Steve Dikto and John Romita Sr.
Lots of the first stories in ASM,that were done in one story are my favorites like the first story with Electro,Mysterio and Lizard.
Amazing Spider-Man#39,40 is another of my all time favorites stories of Spider-Man.
But Nothing can Stop the Juggernaut by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr and the return of Sinister Six by David Michelinie and Kraven Last Hunt are likely stories that are in my Top 10 that are the only ones that were not writen by Stan Lee.
So i would say my favorites stories are from the 60´s but there are stories from the 80´s and 90´s that are there as well.
But this is a incredible difficult question to answer to me because Spider-Man is my favorite character to collect comic books thus, why whenever i get new collection of comic books as TPB many times they are of Spider-Man stories.
Spider-Man comics to me are generally good reads to me in any decade really,i can´t say there is period of time of Spider-man comics that are not worth reading and collecting to me,generally speaking.

[I]Spider-Man: Blue[/I]: 18 years old
[I]Spider-Man: Life Story[/I]: 1 year old
[I]Spectacular Spider-Man #6-10[/I], "Countdown": 17 years old
[I]Ultimate Spider-Man #8-13[/I], "Learning Curve": 19 years old
[I]Peter Parker: Spider-Man #30-32[/I], "One Small Break": 19 years old

My favorite stories (in no order):

-- Kraven's Last Hunt
(came out in 1987, so one year before I was born)
-- ASM #14 ["The Grotesque Adventure of Green Goblin"]
(came out in 1964, so 23 years before I was born)
-- ASM #246 ["The Daydreamers"]
(came out in 1983, a year before my brother was born)
-- ASM #50v2 ["Doomed Affairs"]
(came out in 2003, 17 years ago)
-- Sensational Annual #1 ["To Have and to Hold"]
(came out in 2007, 13 years ago)


I don't think age is important more than when you discover it. Like for instance, of these stories, "Doomed Affairs" was the only comic I read when it hit the stands. All the rest I discovered later, in the last few years mostly. Like Roger Stern's "The Daydreamers" I had heard about but I only read it in 2018. Fraction's Annual is something I missed when it came out and again I read that from following Spider-Talk. So to me, "Doomed Affairs" is somehow an older story than "Kraven's last hunt" which I read three years back if that makes any sense.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4926471]My favorite stories (in no order):

-- Kraven's Last Hunt
(came out in 1987, so one year before I was born)
-- ASM #14 ["The Grotesque Adventure of Green Goblin"]
(came out in 1964, so 23 years before I was born)
-- ASM #246 ["The Daydreamers"]
(came out in 1983, a year before my brother was born)
-- ASM #50v2 ["Doomed Affairs"]
(came out in 2003, 17 years ago)
-- Sensational Annual #1 ["To Have and to Hold"]
(came out in 2007, 13 years ago)


I don't think age is important more than when you discover it. Like for instance, of these stories, "Doomed Affairs" was the only comic I read when it hit the stands. All the rest I discovered later, in the last few years mostly. Like Roger Stern's "The Daydreamers" I had heard about but I only read it in 2018. Fraction's Annual is something I missed when it came out and again I read that from following Spider-Talk. So to me, "Doomed Affairs" is somehow an older story than "Kraven's last hunt" which I read three years back if that makes any sense.[/QUOTE]

It makes sense.

There are bronze age Claremont and DeMatteis Marvel Team-Up issues that are newer to me than Brand New Day or JMS' run on[I] Amazing Spider-Man[/I].

All my favorite Spider-Man Stories are pre-1980.

Guess my favorite Spider-Man stories come from when I was around 6 or 7 years old, so we're talking the Round Robin, Carnage, and the Spider-Slayers. Part of me can't believe that these stories are nearing 30 yrs. old now. Their age really hit me when I showed one of those issues to a student of mine two years ago as part of an art project. I was stung by him remarking how he thought the comic looked old.

Aside from that, my other favorite Spider-Man stories come from the JMS/Romita years, which are approaching nearly 20 years ago. I can't believe it's been THAT long!

I like this question, because it got me thinking about "what ARE some of my favorite Spidey stories?" I think what I found is that the overwhelming majority of my favorites are the ones where Pete grows from facing a true or personal struggle... or come from a time where it didn't feel like everything was specifically written to be collected in the (inevitable) trade paperback, or when things weren't over-spoiled online. I tried to discount the fact that my favorites are older because of "nostalgia," but the stories to me from "back then" just seemed to have more to them. I have favorites from all different eras (some of which have already been mentioned):

Amazing Fantasy 15
Master Planner Saga
Amazing Spiderman 39-40
Amazing Spiderman 88 - 90
Amazing Spiderman 96-98 ("And Now, The Goblin")
Amazing Spiderman 121-122
Amazing Spiderman 135-137 (Harry Becomes Green Goblin)
Spiderman Vs. The Rattler (from the 70's Spiderman News Paper strip)
The Wraith Storyline from Marvel Team Up 48 - 51
The original Carrion Storyline from Peter Parker The Spectacular Spiderman
Nova 12/Amazing Spiderman 171 (Photon mystery... no real "struggle", just "fun" for me!)
Who Killed Jean DeWolff storyline from Spectacular Spiderman
Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut
Original Hobgoblin saga (ASM 238-251)
Kraven's Last Hunt
Death of Harry Osborn (Peter Parker The Spectacular Spiderman 200)
The Kid Who Collected Spiderman
Amazing Spiderman 300 (yes, Venom was pretty scary in his original outings...)
Amazing Spiderman 400 (one of the best. Ever. Hands down)
Spiderman: Blue
The Thousand
The first storyline with Morlun

There are probably others that I've missed, but these are the ones that came to mind most quickly. The most recent story that I would add to the list would be from Amazing Spiderman 698 - 700. I imagine what the impact would have been for me if the outcome of the story hadn't been plastered all over the place. No last-minute save for our hero, a shift in the status quo, etc.

Just my brief thoughts :)

[QUOTE=MichiganWebhead;4932957]I like this question, because it got me thinking about "what ARE some of my favorite Spidey stories?" I think what I found is that the overwhelming majority of my favorites are the ones where Pete grows from facing a true or personal struggle... or come from a time where it didn't feel like everything was specifically written to be collected in the (inevitable) trade paperback, or when things weren't over-spoiled online. I tried to discount the fact that my favorites are older because of "nostalgia," but the stories to me from "back then" just seemed to have more to them. I have favorites from all different eras (some of which have already been mentioned):

Amazing Fantasy 15
Master Planner Saga
Amazing Spiderman 39-40
Amazing Spiderman 88 - 90
Amazing Spiderman 96-98 ("And Now, The Goblin")
Amazing Spiderman 121-122
Amazing Spiderman 135-137 (Harry Becomes Green Goblin)
Spiderman Vs. The Rattler (from the 70's Spiderman News Paper strip)
The Wraith Storyline from Marvel Team Up 48 - 51
The original Carrion Storyline from Peter Parker The Spectacular Spiderman
Nova 12/Amazing Spiderman 171 (Photon mystery... no real "struggle", just "fun" for me!)
Who Killed Jean DeWolff storyline from Spectacular Spiderman
Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut
Original Hobgoblin saga (ASM 238-251)
Kraven's Last Hunt
Death of Harry Osborn (Peter Parker The Spectacular Spiderman 200)
The Kid Who Collected Spiderman
Amazing Spiderman 300 (yes, Venom was pretty scary in his original outings...)
Amazing Spiderman 400 (one of the best. Ever. Hands down)
Spiderman: Blue
The Thousand
The first storyline with Morlun

There are probably others that I've missed, but these are the ones that came to mind most quickly. The most recent story that I would add to the list would be from Amazing Spiderman 698 - 700. I imagine what the impact would have been for me if the outcome of the story hadn't been plastered all over the place. No last-minute save for our hero, a shift in the status quo, etc.

Just my brief thoughts :)[/QUOTE]

Welcome to the board.

Interesting selection of favorites.