What was the best year of the Spider-Man comics?

[Mister Mets]

It seems fair that if I ask what the worst year is, that there should also be an opportunity for more positive discussion.

Best can be defined however you want it, although it generally means there was a unusually high number of good Spider-Man comics.

Some contenders...

1982- Roger Stern's Amazing Spider-Man had a fantastic batting average, with the Return of the Black Cat, Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut, the Cobra/ Hyde two-parter and the Roxxon Tarantula saga. Mantlo's second run of Spectacular had the beginning of the Ock/ Owl war, as well as the debuts of Cloak and Dagger. And Dematteis wrote the bulk of Marvel Team-Up.

2001- Featured the beginning of JMS's Amazing Spider-Man, the debut of Tangled Web, the best of Jenkins's Peter Parker Spider-Man, and the finest arc of Ultimate Spider-Man (that showdown with the Kingpin.)

The spiderfan.org indexes can help you calculate what year a book came out. Keep in mind that the cover date is usually two months after the issue ships.

[oldschool]

It seems fair that I ask what the worst year is, that there should also be an opportunity for more positive discussion.

Best can be defined however you want it, although it generally means there was a unusually high number of good Spider-Man comics.

Some contenders...

1982- Roger Stern's Amazing Spider-Man had a fantastic batting average, with the Return of the Black Cat, Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut, the Cobra/ Hyde two-parter and the Roxxon Tarantula saga. Mantlo's second run of Spectacular had the beginning of the Ock/ Owl war, as well as the debuts of Cloak and Dagger. And Dematteis wrote the bulk of Marvel Team-Up.

2001- Featured the beginning of JMS's Amazing Spider-Man, the debut of Tangled Web, the best of Jenkins's Peter Parker Spider-Man, and the finest arc of Ultimate Spider-Man (that showdown with the Kingpin.)

The spiderfan.org indexes can help you calculate what year a book came out. Keep in mind that the cover date is usually two months after the issue ships.

1982 for me though one can select from a number of years in the mid-1980's as that was remarkably consistent time for the titles. 1985, for instance, had Peter David killing it on PP:SSM and DeFalco/Frenz on ASM, a somewhat underrated run since they followed the great Roger Stern era but plenty of good stuff here!

[Metamorphosis]

Super tough question. Personally, I'm gonna go with 1988.

You had McFarlane just starting on ASM with Michelinie. This year also marked the full debut of Venom.

PAD was just wrapping up his run on Spec with the very excellent "Return of the Sin Eater"

Conway was just starting into a solid run on Web Of. When there we're fill-ins, as there often were on this title, they were solid this year: Owsley (Priest) and PAD again (his "Cult of Love" story is super-underrated).

A big part of this choice is nostalgia, as this is probably the year I became a fan for life of the character. I do regard this era as a peak of sorts for the character in comics. But this was before all the titles started intersecting with eachother in crossovers (KLH the year before notwithstanding). The marriage to MJ was in its infancy, and it was a relatively uncomplicated time for the books, before they started this obsession with trying to "fix" Peter Parker and the titles.

Yeah, 1988 all the way for me. Great time to be a reader.

[normanosborn]

Hard choice.

I think 2013 wins (Superior, Superior Foes, and some epic stories in Scarlet Spider).

[oldschool]

Hard choice.

I think 2013 wins (Superior, Superior Foes, and some epic stories in Scarlet Spider).

That was a great year but I have a hard time putting it above 1982, 1985 or even 2001 largely because of Peter's absence. Still, it was one of the most enjoyable years in recent memory for sure with a very high level of storytelling across the board.

[comicscollector]

Well i am going with one obvious.
1963.The first year of ASM was great.The synergie betwen Stan Lee and Steve Dikto estabilished the tone and made for a great set of stories right in the first year of the character.Many characters dont have a defining era right from the start.Hulk,Thor,Daredevil are some characters that did not have a defining era right from the start for exemple.But the first year of ASM was great from the start.

1982.Roger Stern run in ASM made this title great again.Not that it was sub par before but it was Stern and Romita Jr stories that brought back the greatness to ASM as it had during the Stan Lee era.

2008.The change of a Status Quo that was in the stories for 20 years made me excited about Spidey stories.This was the moment which i returned reading Spider-Man stories again because the big change revitalized the stories and made the stories compeling again.it put the character in fron of multiple story possibilities making me want to read what would happen in the next issue due the change.

[Mike]

1963 Stan and Steve at their best.
1973 Gerry Conway and Gil Kane with John Romita
1978 Len Wein and Ross Andru

[Darth Kal-el]

The year Peter married Mary Jane and possibly this year if renew your vows restores the marriage

[Keeper of the Crows]

I’ve been trying to settle on a year, but I just can’t do it. These “best” and “worst” of threads have really made me realize…we’ve had some really great Spider-Man stories over the years. For a character with 50 years of continuity to have so many strong creative periods under many different writers is no small feat. Sometimes there’s a tendency to focus on the missteps (especially because Spider-Man inspires such passion, which on the whole is a good thing), but for me at least, there’s so much more good than bad.

[oldschool]

I’ve been trying to settle on a year, but I just can’t do it. These “best” and “worst” of threads have really made me realize…we’ve had some really great Spider-Man stories over the years. For a character with 50 years of continuity to have so many strong creative periods under many different writers is no small feat. Sometimes there’s a tendency to focus on the missteps (especially because Spider-Man inspires such passion, which on the whole is a good thing), but for me at least, there’s so much more good than bad.

Yours is not only a nice sentiment but one that is often overlooked: for a character with over 50 years of history and thousands of stories under his belt, there truly are a lot more good than bad stories. That is fairly uncommon among comics characters as, for example, both Superman and Batman have a lot more uninspired and campy periods in their history. We may disagree on the character's direction from time to time but Spidey hasn't had many periods where he stayed in a downturn for long. Based on conversations here, the late 1990's was really the only time that most here agree that he strayed too far from what we loved. Otherwise, some can argue that right around 1980ish, the character was a bit too static and the arrival of Roger Stern helped end that as well.

[Metamorphosis]

Yours is not only a nice sentiment but one that is often overlooked: for a character with over 50 years of history and thousands of stories under his belt, there truly are a lot more good than bad stories. That is fairly uncommon among comics characters as, for example, both Superman and Batman have a lot more uninspired and campy periods in their history. We may disagree on the character's direction from time to time but Spidey hasn't had many periods where he stayed in a downturn for long. Based on conversations here, the late 1990's was really the only time that most here agree that he strayed too far from what we loved. Otherwise, some can argue that right around 1980ish, the character was a bit too static and the arrival of Roger Stern helped end that as well.

True enough--though he has had some major storylines that were pretty bad and are still notorious. The good does outweigh the bad--the bad is just REALLY bad sometimes.

[Pav]

It's much easier to pick a least favorite year than a favorite one. For whatever reason, I'm less willing to answer this due to the large number of years of Spidey comics I've never personally encountered; perhaps the fact that a certain run caused me so much distaste that I quit comics altogether for a while makes it easier to ignore all the older stuff I've never read (and therefore can't factor into my answer for "worst").

There's also the nostalgia factor, which produces enough bias to give me warm thoughts about runs that other people effectively label as dismal - or worse. (I mean, cut a guy some slack for still liking the original Scarlet Spider comics! They were exciting for a kid even if they were not... very... good.)

Plus, isn't the easy answer the first year of ASM?

-Pav, who loves participating in positive discussions though...!

[Aruran.]

^But that's only the first 7 issues of Amazing. And that doesn't even include Amazing Fantasy 15.

[oldschool]

It's much easier to pick a least favorite year than a favorite one. For whatever reason, I'm less willing to answer this due to the large number of years of Spidey comics I've never personally encountered; perhaps the fact that a certain run caused me so much distaste that I quit comics altogether for a while makes it easier to ignore all the older stuff I've never read (and therefore can't factor into my answer for "worst").

There's also the nostalgia factor, which produces enough bias to give me warm thoughts about runs that other people effectively label as dismal - or worse. (I mean, cut a guy some slack for still liking the original Scarlet Spider comics! They were exciting for a kid even if they were not... very... good.)

Plus, isn't the easy answer the first year of ASM?

-Pav, who loves participating in positive discussions though...!

The first year of ASM is not really a fair answer for a couple of reasons IMO: firstly, it's the year that established Peter and most of his supporting cast as well as Doc Ock, Sandman, Vulture, Chameleon etc. so nothing can realistically "compete" with that. But the larger reason why it doesn't work for this exercise in my mind is that we only had less than 12 issues of ASM that first year (forget how many exactly as ASM launched as bi-monthly before switching to a monthly) and that was it. Starting in the mid-1970's , we have always had (at least) 2 in-continuity satellite titles to go with it. In 1982, for example, we had Stern killing it on ASM, Mantlo's most famous work on PP:SSM and JM Dematteis on Marvel Team-Up. That combo up against the 9 or so issues of ASM that came out in 1963 is not really a fair contest.....for either side.

-Oldschool, who is envious of Pav's signoffs.....

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

This question is easier to answer.

1963 Stan and Steve at their best.