How was your view of Spider-Man shaped?

[Malachi]

Born in the 80's so Gen Y.

My first issue was Nocentis of Peter in an asylum.

Figured out that you actually could buy comics regularly around Dematteis Corona arc. Bought the Swedish comic from then until Byrnes reboot. Also went. To flea markets and bought from friends brothers and others. Got a good collection from late 70 through the 80's.
Swedish comics also had reprints of early stories so I was really intrigued to read the first Rhino story. John Jameson as powered up after a space flight and so on.

MJ and Peter seemed like a good match and as a young kid it was very nice reading about a healthy marriage. Seeing the old Peter and how he grew certainly talked to me and made me like him even more. Everyone can grew up and find both happiness and sadness.

Then I became a teenager and would get beaten up if I read comics so that ended. Picked it back up some years later when people didn't care the same way. Now MJ was gone and we had Jill Stacy. I liked her but it was obvious marvel had no clue or imagination behind her, she then changed her personality to soon leave the comics

Started reading Ultimate online. Then ASM. OMD happened and I quit. Such a dumb story and editorial interference.
Picked up very few issues until Spencer's run got good word of mouth. Read other stories during this time like Mary Jane loves Spiderman. Back issues.

I media the Raimi movies. 90's animated. Watched Amazing friends on VHS as young but they where scarce.

Skipped the Garfield movies(I really enjoy him as an actor) because it seemed like retreads. Watched the Holland ones because of the interconnectivness.

[omegafix]

So… is anyone not a Millenial here?

Gen-X here my first experience with Spidey was on The Electric Company

[witchboy]

While I'm a Gen Xer, my introduction to Spidey were two paperback size reprint books that reprinted his first ten issues. So my introduction was his earliest stories. It is interesting to me that I started from the beginning. I also had one book each for the beginning of Hulk and Fantastic Four. Those were what made me a comic book fan.

[Mister Mets]

Good question. I was born in the second half of the 80s.

I first became aware of the character because the New York Daily News had the comic strip, and that was one of my favorites when I was really young. At some point, I discovered that there were comic books with this guy, because in New York in the 90s, street vendors sometimes sold comics. I got a handful of scattered issues. The first one I remember getting was Spider-Man #46 by Howard Mackie , the first chapter of Beware the Rage of a Desperate Man by Howard Mackie and Tom Lyle, because Hobgoblin was on the cover, and he was in one of the comic strip stories (the Mutant Agenda) published at that time.

I got a handful of issues especially when I discovered the existence of comic book stores. Highlights were Spider-Man #1 by Todd Mcfarlane, which made the Lizard my favorite villain, Marvel Tales reprints of the first Sinister Syndicate story by Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz and the first appearance of Scorpion by Lee and Ditko, and a Spider-Man Megazine issue with “Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut” by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr, the End of Spider-Man (Amazing Spider-Man #18) by Lee/ Ditko and a Human Torch team up against Morbius by Gerry Conway and Ross Andru. My first exposure to the character in a continued narrative where his status quo could change from one story to another was through the 1990s Fox Animated series, which had the Lizard as the bad guy in the first episode, so that immediately hooked me. I got some scattered comics and TPBs (Spider-Man VS Green Goblin, the Original Clone Saga and Death of Jean Dewolff for the win!) but it was the early 90s, so there wasn’t as much of a market for reprints.

I was getting into the character at an inaccessible time during the Clone Saga, the Mackie/ Byrne relaunch and the intermediate era in between. I remember liking Chapter One, until I picked up Essential Spider-Man Volume 1, which had t he original work by Lee and Ditko, and it was so much better. It seems in retrospect that I devoured the first three volumes of Essential Spider-Man really quickly and those were the highlights of the comics I read in middle school. I was a brown haired dorky white kid who lived close to Forest Hills, and walked there every Sunday to visit my grandparents, and check out the comic book section at the local WaldenBooks. I was primed to be a major Spider-Man fan, even if at the time I was more into the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. I changed schools in second grade, although I kept touch with my best friend Deric Marshall. We likely became friends because we were short, and schools make students line up in alphabetical order by last name. And when I got into comics, and decided it was my dream to be a comic book writer, I discovered that Deric had gotten into comics and really wanted to be a comic book artist. Deric’s entry to comics was through the Spawn action figures, and his favorite artist was Todd Mcfarlane, so being a big comics geek helped me stay closer to my best friend. Many of the times we hung out were when we went to comic conventions in Long Island or in Manhattan.

When I was in high school, I was getting a bit more discerning about comics, discovering good stuff like Preacher, Sandman, Watchmen, Marvels, the Frank Miller Batman and the Claremont/ Byrne X-Men. But the Spider-Man comics got better, with Bendis/ Bagley on Ultimate Spider-Man, Jenkins/ Buckingham on Peter Parker Spider-Man, and JMS/ Romita Jr on Amazing Spider-Man, so I grew to appreciate the character even more. Everything was great about Spider-Man. The power set. The rogues gallery. The villains. The variety of writers and artists. The costume. And most importantly, the guy behind the mask. He spoke to me for reasons that I couldn’t articulate at the time, although I recognize that he’s a talented guy who means well, even if others don’t quite understand him. I think that’s a message that appeals to most of the readers.

[godisawesome]

While I'm a Gen Xer, my introduction to Spidey were two paperback size reprint books that reprinted his first ten issues. So my introduction was his earliest stories. It is interesting to me that I started from the beginning. I also had one book each for the beginning of Hulk and Fantastic Four. Those were what made me a comic book fan.

I’ve got a friendly query as a Millenial: were reprint collections, editors notes, and letter pages the best way to quickly digest a lot of comic lore at the time? Or did you guys have equivalents to the essential guides and “encyclopedias” I had as a young Millenial?

It just might be fun to see if there’s anything that could impact the “lookout” on the entire lore of the a character or not.

[Mister Mets]

I’ve got a friendly query as a Millenial: were reprint collections, editors notes, and letter pages the best way to quickly digest a lot of comic lore at the time? Or did you guys have equivalents to the essential guides and “encyclopedias” I had as a young Millenial?

It just might be fun to see if there’s anything that could impact the “lookout” on the entire lore of the a character or not.

So there were magazines like Wizard and Hero Illustrated that provided context.
Marvel also published occasional informational items like Spider-Man saga or the Official Index, which had synopses for major issues.

[Daibhidh]

It just might be fun to see if there’s anything that could impact the “lookout” on the entire lore of the a character or not.

When I was reading comics in the late eighties / early nineties my source for back stories was the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe, which was organised A-Z by character, with a supplemental issues for characters that were dead at the time.

[witchboy]

I’ve got a friendly query as a Millenial: were reprint collections, editors notes, and letter pages the best way to quickly digest a lot of comic lore at the time? Or did you guys have equivalents to the essential guides and “encyclopedias” I had as a young Millenial?

It just might be fun to see if there’s anything that could impact the “lookout” on the entire lore of the a character or not.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s reprints were very rare. Even the little books I started with were the size of a paperback book.

[WebLurker]

Yet another Millennial here. Can't say I recall when I first heard about Spider-Man, although I always liked the characters as long as I can remember. Had a few toys growing up, but my first direct experiences with the story were seeing the original Raimi movie on DVD. Clicked with the Ultimate comics through the library, but never really got into actually buying comics in general until adulthood. So, with that background in mind, not an OMD fan at all.

[Jekyll]

This has been fun. I was born in 88. My first introduction that really shaped my view of the character and helped me fall in love with Spider-Man, was the 90s animated series. To this day Barnes is still the voice I hear when I read Peter/Spidey in comics. Then of course came the Raimi films and that further helped to shape how I see the character. As far as the comics go........I didn't start reading regularly until late into JMS run and then I stopped when OMD happened.

I read some of Ultimate Spider-Man and then started reading again around Spider-Island. Of course as I've gotten older and have more money I've gone back and collected/read older stuff. Micheline is probably my favorite Spider writer I really liked how he wrote Peter and MJ. As I've grown older and married and now have a daughter, I find myself appreciating RYV more and more.

[godisawesome]

Noticed multiple Millenial responders here have mentioned dropping or not picking up the book after OMD like myself; now, I still *bought* Spider-Man stuff afterwards and read Spider-Man’s tuff afterwards, it just tended to be older or more alternate universe stuff.

Do you guys think Millenials might be more inclined to get their “fix” that way, and actually be more likely to contribute to the doldrums of current comic sales with minor boycotts, *because* they have such an easier time doing it than older Generations?

I sort of think that generally applies to the marketplace overall - that Millenials interested in superheroes simply aren’t by habit going to subscribe to comics on a monthly basis because they (and future generations) have greater immediate access to the back catalog, TPBs, and other media featuring the characters. Now, I still think that it’s likely most modern comic fans are still Millenials in total - simply because Millenials are the dominant demographic for entertainment right now - but do you guys think that might play a part on why current a spider-Man can “dominate” the industry but still have comparatively piddly sales numbers compared to decades ago?

[WebLurker]

Noticed multiple Millenial responders here have mentioned dropping or not picking up the book after OMD like myself; now, I still *bought* Spider-Man stuff afterwards and read Spider-Man’s tuff afterwards, it just tended to be older or more alternate universe stuff.

Do you guys think Millenials might be more inclined to get their “fix” that way, and actually be more likely to contribute to the doldrums of current comic sales with minor boycotts, *because* they have such an easier time doing it than older Generations?

I don't buy OMD stuff myself, although I do get trades of the older stuff and did follow RYV back in the day.

[exile001]

I was born in 1980 in the UK, so my access to Spider-Man was very limited for a long time.

The first Spider-Man comic I read was Amazing Spider-Man #282, in which Spider-Man battles X-Factor after JJJ convinces them that he is a dangerous Mutant (X-Factor's deal being that they secretly helped the Mutants they captured). Spidey holds his own but ultimately (and typically) sacrifices his own wellbeing to help someone in danger, which convinces X-Factor to leave him in peace.

This was part of a UK Marvel reprint annual/sampler (called the Marvel Superheroes Omnibus from 1998), which I still have to this day, that also included an excellent X-Men comic where Sabretooth is trying to kill Psylocke in the X-Mansion and a memorable Hulk issue where he battled imaginary versions of his greatest foes in a junkyard (before getting KOed by Doc Samson!).

That was largely it for a long time until the Animated Series started airing in the UK.

I was (and am) a MASSIVE Batman fan by this point and was consuming anything based on comics I could get my hands on, so the Spider-Man and X-Men Animated Series' became favourites.

When I eventually became aware of US comics in '94 I started with Batman and Superman, as I'm pretty sure this was before Spider-Man TAS aired in the UK. At least it was way before I had decided to give Spider-Man a shot.

Alongside the Animated Series there was a UK reprint monthly comic, Astonishing Spider-Man, running the Clone Saga (and very helpful/related classic issues) and I was hooked! This was late '96.

After a while of reading that I added the Spidey books to my pull list and just bought up as many back issues as I could, starting with issues containing villains I loved (mostly Jason Macendale Hobgoblin, Doc Ock and Venom issues at first) and piecing together the rest of the Clone Saga.

I followed until the Byrne/Mackie soft-reboot and quickly quit (about issue #3) but kept buying back issues and collections. I maintain to this day this is the worst era of Spider-Man (I read it all years later for free online).

I came back for JMS with the Gwen reveal cover in Sins Past, and quickly went back and bought his entire run as well as anything Jenkins wrote.

Then BND happened and I lasted a couple of months and was gone again. Not that I despised OMD, though I don't think it's a great outcome, but I gave the new era an enthusiastic chance and I genuinely hate the new direction.

I eventually came back when I found a Big Time TPB with Hobgoblin on the back cover and, as I will always be a sucker for the guy, I bought all of Slott's run and continued until the Kraven arc of Beyond.

I'm currently keeping up with Spidey through this forum and the issue threads (and occasional piracy to laugh at the clusterfuck of MJ in Hell and killing off Kamala).

I'm mostly a trade buyer since the late 00's, but do buy exceptional runs when I'm really enthusiastic. I don't consider myself a fair weather fan of Spider-Man, I'm always buying collections of back issues, but I don't owe Marvel/Spider-Man my time or money when I think the books are bad.

[Alan2099]

Growing up, Spider-man was just one of those things that was just ... there.

I remember seeing Spider-man on the Electric Company as well as the three different cartoons he had. I wouldn't exactly call any of them my favorite cartoons, but I watched them.

Also, there were a few old comics floating around my house. I have no clue where they came from or who they originally belonged to. One of them was the first time Spider-man fought Dr. Doom (I have no idea if it was the original Amazing Spider-man #5 issue or the Marvel Tales reprint and the issue has long since disappeared so there's no way of knowing.) and the other was The Amazing Spider-Man #148, the issue where the Jackal's identity was revealed. It also contained Tarantual which, to this day, leads me to think of the guy as more important in SPider-man's rogue's gallery than he should really deserve.

I also had a Mego Spider-man that used to be my older sister's.

I didn't really get into Spider-man until later, sometime around 1993. I remember when I started reading that Vulture had stolen Spider-man's youth, he teamed up with the Jury, and Maximum Carnage was just dying down. Now what issues I actually bought at the time and what issues where back issues is a bit blurry. My comic store had a huge selection of back issues and tended to offer them cheap. On top of that, at the time, Marvel not only had the regular titles but Spider-man had TWO reprint series, Spider-man Classics and Marvel Tales, so my early dives into Spider-man would have me exposed to Mark Bagley, Steve Ditko, and Gil Kane all around the same time.

Of course there was also the 90s cartoon which left a big impression.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I was born in 91 so the 90s cartoon was my intro to Spidey. I also knew him from Unlimited, Amazing Friends and the Raimi films. I didn't read American comics till high school and college so Brand New Day was my era.

I was formed by shonen anime and Harry potter more than superheroes. So I didn't have a problem with Peter having help from his friends or former civilians getting powers. Plus Peter being perpetually in high school would've bored me.