Comic Vine Review

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The Amazing Spider-Man #1.1 - Learning To Crawl Part One: The Show Must Go On

4

You probably know the story of how Spider-Man started out his career. Here’s the parts you didn’t know about.

The Good

I have to admit, the idea of a series going back to the early days of Spider-Man’s career made me roll my eyes a bit. This is something that’s working in BATMAN with Zero Year (that’s just because of the New 52 reboot). I was also a big fan of UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN. This just didn’t seem necessary.

Fortunately, it’s pretty good.

What happened after Uncle Ben was shot? We know he was a TV performer but when next we saw him, he was trying to join the Fantastic Four and be a hero. Dan Slott sets out to fill in the gaps in that timeline (who paid for Uncle Ben’s funeral?). We get to see a young and inexperience Spider-Man trying to figure things out. You have to remember the level of guilt Peter must have been dealing with plus the fact that, financially, he and Aunt May were pretty screwed. Getting tiny glimpses into surrounding Marvel Universe (seeing the "first" appearance of certain future foes) was a nice touch as well. If you read last week’s new AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1, you know there’s mention of a new character that was around when Spider-Man first performed on television. We’ll see more of him here.

Ramón Perez’s art fits the tone and time period of the story. Because it’s supposed to take place back when the series first started, it’s great Marvel went with a style that feels like it would fit in with the original comics. Ian Herring's colors adds to the tone of the period.

The Bad

The main problem is how necessary is this series. I keep hearing readers are struggling with the number of comics on their pull lists. This is a good and fun series but there's some scenes you expect, like Peter potentially going off on Flash Thompson. We do have a new character that may play a role in the current AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues but the casual Spider-Man fan may wonder if this is essential. There can’t be any huge events or repercussions that will affect Spider-Man directly. If this is to plant more seeds that will pop up in today’s comic, that makes some sense.

There's also the fact that this is issue 1.1. It feels like this should take place after last week's ASM #1 rather than way back before the original ASM #1. But that's the problem with Marvel constantly relaunching volumes.

The Verdict

Let’s take a trip back to the early days of Spider-Man’s career. Not a simple retelling of stories we’ve already seen, this series sets to fill in some of the gaps between AMAZING FANTASY #15 and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 (Volume 1). With Dan Slott writing, you can’t help but wonder how much will come into play in the newly relaunched AMAZING SPIDER-MAN series. Ramón Perez’s art matches the tone of the time period nicely and it could be very interesting to see what happens to Spider-Man in this transitionary stage. If you think you know the whole story behind Spider-Man’s early days, it turns out there’s more than you realized.

18 Comments

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patrat18

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Fourth.

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CaptainMarvel4Ever

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Gotta love that Alex Ross cover.

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Godzilla_BK

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Sounds like something I can skip, my pull list is enough as it is

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NewComicGuy

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Go put in my pull and I accepted it. I have yet to read it but looks intriguing.

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HumanRocket

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Skipping.

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iceslick

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@g_man: I agree with your review, the modern technology makes it feel it takes place after Amazing Spider-Man. I think Dan Slott, should have try to avoid that. But either way the issue is still good and I guess I can just pretend the modern technology isn't there.

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derf_jenkins

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I had fun reading the issue. And that is my one simple way of deciding what I keep reading. If I have several issues that I don't enjoy or it's a new series that I don't enjoy right away, it gets dropped.

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fhnilo

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I still don't understand WHEN this story is supposed to happen. I mean, everyone's dressing in 60's clothes, right? BUT, there are Ipods and cellphones. So, really, WTF.

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TheIndecider

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Edited By TheIndecider

I liked it, I was just thrown off by the sudden appearance of modern technology. Why is JJJ typing his first rant about Spidey on a laptop if everyone is dressed like it's the mid-to-late 60s? Why does the kid impressed by Spidey have an iPhone, a tablet and headphones? It really doesn't make any sense and I hope it's explained or at least toned down a bit.

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ILLO_29

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I'm with everyone else, I enjoyed it but the modern tech did pull me out a bit. According the story in ASM #1 isn't this supposed to take place 15 years ago (1999) but yet we have iPhones (isn) which didn't come out until 2007 and even though laptops where around they weren't that common.

Does anyone know how many issues this is going to be?

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iaconpoint

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Edited By iaconpoint

Untold Tales of Spider-Man

Or is that pre- New 52?

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Fallschirmjager

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I would seriously do unspeakable things if Alex Ross would do interior work on ASM.

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spartan_john

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Marvel really needs to learn from the New 52, it's the same old Peter Parker again, kind of boring.

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deactivated-097092725

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Outside of time placing (the iPods, etc), I am enjoying this book. At first I had a twinge of annoyance about Uncle Ben's financial ineptitude but the story dealt with it deftly while also providing a real humanity to the horror of losing someone you love to senseless violence. It's those who do good things without fanfare who teach us what it means to be a good person and I feel this story gave that to not just superheros in disguise like Spider-Man, but to ordinary and just as heroic human beings like Uncle Ben.

I could do without the ugly take on Peter. I get that he wasn't the buffest of the buff but in some panels, he looks like a haggard forty year old. Cute-ify, please.

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VoodooPenguin

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My LCS pulled this for me even though I didn't ask them too. It was okay at best.