MARVEL Spider-Man: A History and Celebration of the Web-Slinger, Decade by Decade

This book is Very Awesome!And I would say that it’s worth purchasing!

Many full-length biographies of famous people run thousands of pages. Comic book superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man are at least as well-known to the public as bygone historical figures. But would-be biographers of these superheroes face additional challenges. Real people only live one life, but comic book characters find their life stories going through reboots, re-imaginings, alternate timelines, and different universes. Thus, over the years, we’ve had multiple Spider-Men, some of whom aren’t Spider-Men or even Spider-Humans. Turning the life story of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (not to mention his myriad friends and foes ever over the years) into a short volume is a challenge. Fortunately, authors Peter David and Robert Greenberger are up to the task in “Spider-Man: A History and Celebration of the Web-Slinger, Decade by Decade.”“Spider-Man” is a 200-page coffee-table book measuring 9 ½ by 10 ½ inches. (There is also a Kindle version available on Amazon.) Approximately half of the pages comprise artwork and covers from various issues over the years, along with sketch cards, mock-ups, photos, and TV and motion picture stills. Almost every page has at least one illustration. This visual material is perhaps the book’s most outstanding attraction for genre fans. The drawings show the evolution of the character’s appearance and the changing style of the comics over the years. Spider-Man fans will also enjoy several candid photos of Stan Lee and other creative forces involved with the character. For that reason, I strongly recommend the hardback version of the book, which I read, as opposed to the Kindle version. I don’t think a reader or, even worse, a smartphone can do justice to these illustrations.Although the chief attraction of “Spider-Man” is the illustrations, the text isn’t too shabby either. The book was written by two novelists with extensive comic book experience, and the work reflects their familiarity with the genre and the subject. They faced the difficult task of winnowing 80 years of Spider-Man comics to 100 pages of text. So they concentrated on the basics. There’s an extensive discussion of Peter Parker, the character’s origin, and his loves, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Parker. The authors mention many villains and their first appearances in the comics, but they only concentrate on a few, such as the Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, and Venom. (J. Jonah Jameson also receives a fair amount of coverage in the book.) The text sometimes becomes a bit confusing, but I think that’s a necessary byproduct of the genre. Major ongoing storylines like the mystery of the Hobgoblin’s identity are also covered.The various Spider-Man TV shows and movies get their own chapter, concluding with a discussion of the trailer for the recent “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” (Although the book has a 2022 copyright date, it was completed before that film’s release. As a result, it doesn’t mention the big multiverse plot twist.) And the authors give the real-life personalities who shaped the comics their due, including Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.My primary complaint about “Spider-Man” is the size of some illustrations. As I mentioned earlier, many are panels or pages from various comics. Most of the book’s illustrations only occupy a part of a page. Spider-Man comics often have extensive dialogue (the web spinner is quite talkative), so text bubbles occupy much of the illustrations’ space. Unfortunately, the text sometimes is so tiny that I couldn’t read it without a magnifying glass. The editors who assembled the book should have made those illustrations larger so readers could appreciate the witty banter that is a highlight of the comics.“Spider-Man” is primarily a book for casual comic fans wanting to learn more about the characters or those who appreciate the decades’ worth of artwork and illustrations. It will probably seem old-hat and simplistic to those highly familiar with the characters and stories. I read Spider-Man comics at times during the series’ earlier years but lost touch until the movies arrived several decades later. I enjoyed getting caught up on what I missed during those years. While I doubt many people will want to read the text more than once, the illustrations hold up well after repeated viewings. For fans of the character or the genre, this volume is your friendly neighborhood coffee-table reference book.NOTE: I received this product as part of the Amazon Vine program. However, the contents of this review are entirely my own.

My son loved this book. He's really into it. Great present for any fans!

This is the sort of book that's not really for super-fans or True Believers as might be more appropriate. It's more of an overview of Spider-Man's history in comics, TV, film, and video games, with a heavy emphasis on the comics. There is some insider baseball for bigger fans with quotes from Stan Lee and various other writers, artists, and editors. It helps co-author Peter David worked for Marvel in the 80s, including on Spider-Man, so this isn't just "experts" who only know about Spidey from the outside.The book is only 208 pages with plenty of illustrations, so as I said it's not really the sort of book if you want a detailed history and analysis of Spider-Man. It's fun, though, if you just want an overview of Spider-Man's history and legacy.

Spider-Man has been around since 1961 and this book shares mostly a comic book history of him. Film and television portrayals are covered in chapter 9 (of 10 chapters), but there is just one sentence devoted to Spidey's appearance on The Electric Company, which is my childhood memory of Spider-Man.The book is printed on thick, 4-color pages throughout, with many comic book covers and panels from the comic books reprinted. The text covers themes in the comics including Spider-Man villains, Peter Parker's girlfriends (and their fates), toy tie-ins, (perceived) changing attitudes toward superheroes, the various Spider-Man authors, and of course many quotations from Stan Lee, Spidey's creator.The book looks great and for casual fans of Spider-Man this seems like a good introduction, especially to Spidey's comic book incarnations. I found the different prices on the comic book covers interesting, starting with 12 cents a copy in 1961, rapidly increasing after the early-1970s and skyrocketing in the 1990s. The front of the book has a table of contents with the chapter headings, but there is no index.The Amazon listing shows the publisher as becker&mayer! books, which is an imprint of The Quarto Group. Inside the book, however, the publisher is identified as Epic Ink, another Quarto imprint. The book is printed in China.

I was extremely impressed with this book. I’m not really into comic books, but I am a big fan of history of a good story. This book not only checks those boxes, but it quite skillfully offers the reader a window into the minds of the creators and artists that brought Spider-man to life. Like many other people, my interest in Spider-man come from the movies (and cartoon when I was a kid). This delve into what made him tick was fascinating.The entire book is chock full of high-quality artwork and photographs. It appears, at least to me, that the book does a great job of representing the various artists throughout Spidey's history. The Book even references the various cinematic incarnations of Spider-Man.All in all, I think this is a great book not only for a coffee table but just as great to add to one's library. It’s not just to comic book aficionados, but fans of the web crawler however they were introduced to the character. I highly recommend.

Be advised that this is being marketed as new material when the vast majority of it is simply old material from The Spiderman Vault (minus the souvenirs) published years ago.If you don't have The Vault it might be worth getting as it is well done but the list price of $40 is way too much.I have The Vault so I feel this is a major rip-off and will be returning.