Spider-Man: Life Story By Chip Zdarsky & Mark Bagley

[blackspidey2099]

Thus far Life Story is sitting at the top as my favorite Spider-Man story. Zdarsky is knocking it out of the park.

Honestly, it might be mine as well.

[Russ840]

He did it. He stuck the landing on this one.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I liked the last issue but,

spoilers:

Benjy surviving Morlun feels like some huge stretch. I think Zdarsky pulled his punches on that one. I like the way the final issue handled Superior Spider-Man, and Kraven was cool in his return appearance. And yeah, Miles Morales is more or less coronated as Peter's true heir.

end of spoilers

[Jman27]

Since comics are immortal and Im not I am using this as my ending for Spider-Man this series was perfect and the callbacks to previous spiderman stories make it even better

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Since comics are immortal and Im not I am using this as my ending for Spider-Man this series was perfect and the callbacks to previous spiderman stories make it even better

That's more or less what this series is about. Giving Peter an ending.

I have no idea how it will hold up later on, but to me this feels like Spider-Man's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, and it's better than Reign for sure, in terms of telling a last superhero story.

[Mister Mets]

The Eisner winning online magazine PanelXPanel released a new issue spotlighting Life Story.

http://panelxpanel.com/

It's three bucks, and definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in intelligent Spider-Man commentary. It's got an extensive interview with the creative team, interviews with Zdarsky on how he became a writer and how he designs covers, as well as spotlights on Spider-Man's villains, the motto, the passage of time in this story, and more.

[mrswing]

Wow. Tears.
Between this and Friendly Neighobourhood Spider-Man, this is shaping up to be one of the best Spider-weeks since 1963.
Awesome work, messrs. Zdarsky and Bagley. Just awesome.

[Prof. Warren]

He did it. He stuck the landing on this one.

Yep. This was a damn nice mini.

[AlexCampy89]

Wanna be honest.

It's a meddling story overall.

[SPOILERS]

It started great. It managed to make sense of the Clone Saga, which is quite the accolade by itself, but the ending in space is very weak and out character(s).

Also it tried to force Peter too much into the overall greater Marvel universe. C'mon, Peter is the last of the old heroes to be alive? Old men fighting Civil War? Tony Stark acting like a villain? Norman not being aware of Harry's death? Ezekiel just name dropped? Peter willingly omitting Ben how Morlun is dangerous and let his inexperienced kids fight him on their own? That's more than irresponsible, it's stupidly reckless.

I'd say that the first three parts were incredibly amazing, including Secret Wars and the Symbiote Saga and Kraven's last hunt (although Hobgoblin deserved a mention).

Everything else after it, it's just a weak rehearsal of already weak stories.

[/SPOILERS]

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The Eisner winning online magazine PanelXPanel released a new issue spotlighting Life Story.

http://panelxpanel.com/

It's three bucks, and definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in intelligent Spider-Man commentary. It's got an extensive interview with the creative team, interviews with Zdarsky on how he became a writer and how he designs covers, as well as spotlights on Spider-Man's villains, the motto, the passage of time in this story, and more.

I double recommend this. I bought this and read this myself and it's a great stuff.

Some highlights:
-- Zdarsky said that Spider-Man is the best character to explore aging with since that's an unresolved debate that went public in a big way with OMD and undoing the marriage. He said that Peter aged in real-time in the Lee-Ditko era and than later the brakes were applied, meaning that whether Marvel likes it or not, Spider-Man aging is a part of the foundation of the character. Zdarsky is kind of neutral on that, although I think the series itself and his silence makes it clear that he prefers Peter growing up and becoming an adult.
-- Brevoort in interview repeats his claim (Absolutely BS but unchallenged here) about Peter aging coming because writers didn't know he'd be successful (forgetting that sales increased after he went to college and increased every time he aged which is a provable and proven fact).
-- Associate Editor Alanna Evans points out that Spider-Man aging is interesting on account of the fact that you rarely see it nowadays.
-- Tom Brevoort mentions that he and Roger Stern discussed a real-time aging Spider-Man story in the '90s (which Stern had mentioned in a Crawlspace podcast) and many attempts after that. He said that he was surprised that Zdarsky was so insistent on grounding most of it in Spider-Man's actual publication history.
-- According to Zdarsky, he thinks that if Spider-Man aged for real, he would only experience 1/10th of his actual published adventures and that led him to focus on specific villains rather than take an encyclopaedic approach.
-- LF #6 was originally going to be spoilery and include spoilers:

MIles' Black Spider-Man costume and logo as well as metal arms but ultimately Zdarsky chose to hide it

end of spoilers
-- Zdarsky said that he felt Peter found a measure of peace and acceptance in LF#6, finally forgiving himself.
-- The original title for the project was Marvel Age which was a 12 Issue Maxi-series about the entire Marvel Universe aging. The original title for the series was ''Marvel Age: Spider-Man". And Zdarsky even designed logos and stuff for that.

LF alternate covers.jpg

I personally think the left TPB cover is way better than the final version and Zdarsky should use or repurpose this for a second-printing. I also liked the cover on the right which Zdarsky rejected for being too arty. The bottom half is the panel from ASM #40, and the top half is a digital printing, mixing past and present.

Some of the articles published are pretty interesting too as criticism and so on.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You know it occurs to me that LF #6 converts Superior Spider-Man from Spider-Man Freaky Friday to Spider-Man Get Out, and that slight change emphasizes the major limitations of that story.

[WebSlingWonder]

AND HE STICKS THE LANDING! THE KICK IS GOOD! THE GOAL IS MADE!
In all seriousness...wow. What a powerful and uplifting miniseries. This will undoubtedly go down as one of the best Spider-Man miniseries ever, up there with Spider-Man: Blue easily. Zdarsky and Bagley crafted an excellent tale of sacrifice, power, and responsibility using the history of Spider-Man. Of this last issue, I particularly loved spoilers:

Peter's last words to MJ and his last dream of catching the burglar.

end of spoilers Such great stuff.

I'm intrigued by how much actually went into this, and I'm actually glad with the way it turned out overall. I think a 12-issue maxiseries would've been just as great, but having each issue represent a different decade made it feel so much richer to me. Overall, I'm all for how this story turned out, and I loved it from beginning to end. This is one of my favorite Spider-Man stories, period.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

AND HE STICKS THE LANDING! THE KICK IS GOOD! THE GOAL IS MADE!
In all seriousness...wow. What a powerful and uplifting miniseries. This will undoubtedly go down as one of the best Spider-Man miniseries ever, up there with Spider-Man: Blue easily. Zdarsky and Bagley crafted an excellent tale of sacrifice, power, and responsibility using the history of Spider-Man. Of this last issue, I particularly loved [SPOILER]Peter's last words to MJ and his last dream of catching the burglar.[/SPOILER] Such great stuff.

I'm intrigued by how much actually went into this, and I'm actually glad with the way it turned out overall. I think a 12-issue maxiseries would've been just as great, but having each issue represent a different decade made it feel so much richer to me. Overall, I'm all for how this story turned out, and I loved it from beginning to end. This is one of my favorite Spider-Man stories, period.

The great thing is we got to follow this from start to finish in a single year. This thread is basically a real-time record of that. Am proud to have been part of it with you, and others.

[WebSlingWonder]

The great thing is we got to follow this from start to finish in a single year. This thread is basically a real-time record of that. Am proud to have been part of it with you, and others.

Likewise, good man. Likewise.

[HypnoHustler]

What can I say? Great mini. I told you guys I thought Benjy was still alive (was relieved I wasn’t wrong... that would’ve been too cruel).

Loved Peter’s “dream.”

Loved they didn’t shy away from continuity like the clone saga or Ock marrying May, or even Civil War. A lesser mini (cough “reign” cough) would've ignored those more controversial elements of the mythology. Chip not only included them, but masterfully integrated them.

Some issues weren’t perfect (I feel this was mostly having to rush some plots as Chip only had one issue during each era to work with) but overall an excellent read. I’d give the mini an A-.