When does Spider-Man actually get INTERESTING?

I'm just hoping that some of you guru's can help me out here. Spider-Man has always been my number 1 guy ever since I could remember watching TAS on Fox Kids back in the day. It was back in 2009 when I actually got into comics though. Back then, I kind of wanted to say that I've read everything since Amazing Fantasy 15, but now, I've done a 180.

So far, I've read every Amazing and Spectacular Spider-Man issue all the way up to January 1981. But now I've had enough. I've read some books that have to do with politics that have given me more enjoyment than what these old issues of Spider-Man have. I want my overall experience w/ comics to be the same w/ some of those political books I've read; Its so good you can't even put it down. There's a lot of problems; The artwork sucks, but its pre-90's so thats a given, but I guess the biggest gripe primarily is the storyline, or lack thereof. It seems like the vast majority of these issues just employ some type of super lame generic villain that will only be used for one issue only. I bet the general idea behind that was for Marvel to be able to meet their whole one issue a month quota, because the quality of the villains is flat out atrocious. Even after reading all of those issues, primarily the Death of Gwen Stacy issues is the one that stands out to me that I can remember.

Now that I've decided I want to actually enjoy what I'm reading, and not force myself to do it as if I'm in English class reading some "classic" novel, I would like to know which issues are the most important. Now that I'm in the 80's, I'm aware of the fact that some of the important stuff that happens is Peter and MJ getting married, Peter having a love interest w/ Black Cat and obviously the symbiote. I would definitely be interested in the issues that center around those first 2 storylines. I already know the issue where the symbiote makes its first appearance. But even with that, it still looks like when the symbiote comes around, Marvel still has plenty of issues full of lame super villains that only last for so long with no real story. I'm hoping that as Eddie Brock comes along, as well as Venom, things got much better, I could certainly read everything from that point. Any help would be appreciated.

I love the older stories, it sounds like you are younger and not able to relate to the older stories. Maybe if you looked back at the pop culture of history you may be able to appreciate the stories more. As for the art I tend to like it also. I did not find the 70's and 80's stories booing at all but I was also alive during those times so I can relate to them. For example I am reading the 70 Power Man and Iron Fist books and enjoying the flashback.

truth is Spidey never gets interesting. Unfortunatlly marvel never knew what to do with the character and everytime they go 1 step forrow they also take 2 steps back .

Spider-man it`s pretty much the same in all the 700issues. Nothing important ever changer about the character. he gets married and then...(need i say more). For me Spiderman is a great character but it never goes anywere. It`s the same thing over and over and over and over again.

Stories you might like: Kraven's last hunt, Death of Jean DeWolf, Birth of Venom (Trade that more or less collect how venom got to be, it is not perfectly put together) and vengeance of Venom (trade) the first stories with venom. You could try to hunt down the story with PP's Parents sadly it has as far as I know never been collected.

I think some of the stuff in Michelinie/McFarlane's run was interesting. Spiderman working for Silver Sable, Peter making a book and touring for it, as well as the Symbiote/Venom was all good, and I actually thought they handled the marriage between Peter and MJ pretty well.
However it still suffers from some incredibly lame 1-2 issue villains thrown in there like Paladin and Chance.

i say skip ahead until jms's run or slotts run. And just read some big stories in between like venom, and kravens last hunt. people love jms up until bnd and slott gave the character big changes even before superior

I get what you mean! But from the death of Gwen Stacy I found that things get a lot more interesting and brings depth to the characters. The 70' and the 80' were the "Renaissance" for me and pretty much enjoyed them a lot! The 90' are kinda very complicated (And a lot more expensive ! :( ) with Webs, Spectacular, Amazing, Spider-Man... all running at the same time makes it hard to follow in continuity so I dropped a bit in there... And every characters went on and had some mechanical arms or muscle or eyes or finger.... So yes there are some issues that I just browsed through (a lot in the 90'), 'cause reading them for me was a pain... (Also for my wallet but you get your money back by reselling them... or you lose some... but yeah... life...)

As mentioned before, Kraven Last hunt is a must, the whole Hobgoblin Saga is very good (it gives you background for a lot of characters), the issues featuring Carrion are also great, The black costume arc is also cool, MacFarlane run is pretty iconic too and The Clone Sage is kinda messy but enjoyable. Then from volume 2 things get more up-to-date and falls a bit more into our current socio-cultural context, but again some issue are not worth reading entirely... (Ultimate is also very good)

@paulwafflez:

Like @spider11211 and @hitmanspike said,some older runs are in the top 10 best comicbook runs of all time.....Roger Stern,Tom DeFalco,Peter David,J.M.DeMatteis,Gerry Conway,...even Michelinie's run is concidered a very good one.....he created Venom and Carnage for God's sake!

JMS's storytelling was spectacular,his stories not so much.
Bendis's Ultimate is one of the best Spider-Man runs ever,without even being in the regular Universe.

Avoid Howard Mackie's run,no matter the cost.....

Characters like Spider-Man,Batman etc aren't called "The best Superheroes ever" without having interesting stories......

Honestly, from the time Stan Lee is off the book, ASM kinda lags. There's some occasional great stuff in Conway's run, like Death of Gwen Stacy, of course, but that stuff is mostly for the die-hards.

But, you stopped right before it became great. Power through until you get to Roger Stern's run. From there ASM maintains a pretty high level of quality all the way up until the Clone Saga. Then, I'd just recommend skipping to JMS's run.

I'd also recommend checking out some of the Spectacular Spider-man issues. Particularly Mantlo's second run on the title, Peter David's run, which includes one of the top Spidey stories of all time, and then onto J.M. DeMatteis's fantastic stuff.

@paulwafflez: New to this place, but thought I'd share my recent experiences with ASM and USM... I was in the same position as you around 2 yrs back, when I simply had no idea where to jump in... After some reading, and luck, I started ASM at the JMS collections and worked my way all the way up top #700 and the move to SSM... I continued reading, despite not being huge fan of SSM, in hope that things would sort themselves out...

After #700 I started reading USM from #1... I am currently on book 20 of 27 I think (I collect TPBs) and I can honestly say I was so surprised at how good these are... I didn't fancy reading USM to begin with... Stupidly felt disloyal to ASM by doing so, but I am so pleased I got over that... The thing I love about USM is that there is still a story about 'Peter Parker'. SSM has lost any kind of story that does involve him suiting up... I like the background story just as much as the spiderman story... I also think that the artwork of Mark Bagley is outstanding... I don't really dig Ramos!!!

Once finishing USM, I plan on going further back in ASM and working my way back up to the JMS collection...

Think there would be more than enough interesting stuff in there for you...

Never!!!

This.

BB

As much as I love Spidey this is the biggest problem I have with him.Right when something happens Marvel decide to make him two steps back and we start again from level zero.

I like him. He's like marmite right now.

You read 300 odd issues of something you hate? LOL

How would you rank the writers Stan Lee, Denny O'Neil, Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Len Wein, Gerry Conway?

Who did you find sucked the least? who sucked the most?

Regardless, I don't think I would recommend anyone to read Spider-Man from start to finish, there's just waay too much sub-par stuff there, and by the time you get to the good stories you'd be totally burnt out on the character IMO.

As soon as it started feeling like a job you should've stopped, because when you get into the frame of mind to push forwards to get it over and done with you're not going to enjoy anything anymore.