Beetlemania

More classic Spidey comics from 1981. After some poor issues of Amazing it was nice to read a solid, if not spectacular, story is Peter Parker issues 59 and 60.

Both were written by Roger Stern and were his last issues on this title before he moved on to the main book. Jim Mooney handled the artwith Ed Hannigan providing the layouts for issue 60.

Again, Stern spends a great deal of time on establishing the set-up for the story. Especially the motives of the villain. In this case, it's the tried and trusted "I'm going to make my reputation by beating the tar out of Spidey" motive - but at least it's valid for a villain such as the Beetle. What was particularly nice about the Beetle in this stroy was his approach to the fight. He tried his best to make sure all the odds were stacked in his favour (by for example using the Ringer in #58 to battle SM and thus learn Spidey's moves). All that prep and he still lost!

Stern adds a further random element into the story by re-introducing The Gibbon from issue #112 of Amazing. Again the Gibbon wants to get involved to prove his worth by beating Spidey.


One thing that struck me when reading these two issues is that there is far more panels and text in these stories than current comics. That is not to say that that is better or worse, it's just a different style.

I enjoyed both issues, although I guess I would have enjoyed them more if Mooney hadn't been handling most of the art.

Issue #60, although double-sized, didn't have a double-sized main feature. Instead there was a faithful re-telling of Spidey's origin. Back in the early 1980's reprints such as the Essential Series or even Masterworks were not available, and so every few years or so, Spidey's origin was re-told for new readers. This happened quite often in other comics as well.

Rating 7/10