Like many kids who grew up in the 90’s, two of my favorite shows were Batman: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The Animated Series. While the former has stood the test of time, the latter… well, not so much. Nevertheless, my attachment to these two shows ensured that when I first got into comics, I read a ton of Batman and Spider-Man comics. Of all of the Spider-Man stories that I have read, the run by J. Michael Straczynski remains my favorite. Follow the cut to see why.
When it comes to incredibly famous characters like Spider-Man, Superman, The Avengers and the like, even the best writers tend to write something pretty “standard.” With such iconic characters, it can be hard to write something unique without straying from the character’s roots and estranging fans. Thus, many of the best stories for such characters tend to be everything you expect from a story about that character, but in the best possible way. However, when Straczynski — often referred to as JMS — took the reigns of Amazing Spider-Man, he took it somewhere very different, while still staying true to what makes Spider-Man what he is (figuratively, not literally, as you’ll see upon reading).
JMS took the title and gave it a more mystical bent, rather than the superheroic sci-fi feel that the title has usually had over the years. Many new characters were introduced, from key players like the mysterious Ezekiel or the deadly Morlun, to minor appearances from students Peter taught. Indeed, despite some brief appearances from certain characters, nearly every antagonist is new. Indeed, by the end of his main story, some very drastic changes were made to Peter Parker, which some fans reacted negatively to, though I and many others found them to be very neat and interesting.
How then, did he “stay true,” as I claimed before? The answer lies in his almost flawless characterization. Pretty much every pre-existing character was written just right, speaking and behaving exactly as I would expect them to. Even the best writers have those one or two characters that they just can’t get a hold on, but in this instance JMS was just stellar with the entire supporting cast. His Spider-Man’s banter is perfect, but even more than that he got what really makes Peter tick; making him a teacher was a very interesting but believable choice. Similarly, everybody else, from Aunt May to Mary Jane to Doctor Octopus. There were a few exceptions, but I’ll get to that later.
For most of the run, the art is handled by John Romita Jr. Now, if you’ve been coming here for a while (at least, since I started writing), you might know that I am a very outspoken critic of Romita Jr. However, for reasons that I am unsure of, I enjoy his art very much when he draws for Spider-Man-related things. Maybe it’s because his style is very similar to his father’s, and is father was one of the definitive Spider-Man artists. Yeah, that sounds likely. Conversely, I’m normally a huge fan of Mike Deodato, who stepped in later in the run, but something about his style doesn’t really work for Spider-Man, in my opinion. It’s still technically brilliant, but it just doesn’t fit.
Now, I’m no going to lie and tell you that there aren’t any problems with JMS Spider-Man; rather, there are quite a few. However, I feel that most would agree with me that the big problems that the run has are the result of editorial. The two most controversial arcs from JMS’ run are, undeniably, Sins Past and One More Day, and both of them weren’t really his stories. True, Sins Past was originally JMS’ idea, but the editorial offices made him drastically change the story, resulting in a shoddy story and some extremely out-of-character actions by Gwen Stacy (for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, yes, you read that right). Additionally, the climax to the overarching story JMS had been writing over the course of his entire run — The Other — had to be turned into a crossover scripted by other, sometimes less talented, writers to get it out of the way in time for Civil War. But when you look past all this and just consider the stories he came up with and the writing he pulled off when given less than savory material to work with, he has to be given massive credit. Hell, even I, one who couldn’t stand One More Day, thought JMS did an outstanding job of scripting it.
Currently, Marvel has been putting out a few of their Ultimate Collections centered on JMS’ run, with the first four already in print and the last one coming soon. If you’re just looking for a Spider-Man story, I recommending getting up to the fourth one, which ends with The Other. The forthcoming volume has his Civil War tie-ins, Back in Black, and One More Day, and while the first two stories are good, they’re hardly essential (though the last one unfortunately is, if you want to keep reading the good post-OMD Amazing Spider-Man). Little back reading is required, aside from a basic familiarity with the character and the knowledge that at the beginning Mary Jane had left him for a while (you don’t even need to know why).
