What'd we discuss last week, about selling books by slapping Popular Character on them? Well, here we are again. Amazing Spider-Man is always the primary Spidey book. Spectacular is usually #2, although I've never been able to tell if there's a real difference in the stories the tell. Maybe that Amazing tends towards bigger stories and Spectacular's to smaller-scale, more personal stories. But that might have been simply the difference between David Michelinie and J.M. DeMatteis, the authors on those books back in my youth.
I have no idea what niche Web of Spider-Man filled. Focus on organized crime rather than costumed villains? A lot of the issues I have heavily involve the Kingpin or some other mob boss types jockeying for position. Chameleon trying to sucker the second-raters that went after Spidey in Acts of Vengeance into killing Kingpin for him. The Lobo Brothers, Hammerhead, Tombstone. Again though, maybe that's because most of those issues were written by Gerry Conway.
Possibly also "redemption" as a theme. Conway, between this book and his stint on Spectacular prior to DeMatteis taking over, regularly used characters that had been enemies of Spidey's but were now allies, if not always easy ones. Rocket Racer, Puma, Prowler, the Sandman, even Will O' the Wisp on a couple of occasions. Harry Osborn took a couple of turns as the Green Goblin, trying to redeem his father's name (though DeMatteis then sent Harry into the downward spiral that ultimately killed him.)
Conway was the writer from #50 to #70. Before and after that, the book cycles through writers, nobody sticking around much longer than one storyarc until Terry Kavanaugh, who writes the book for most of its last three years. Saviuk hung on as the regular penciler until almost the final year of the book, dropping off right about when the Clone Saga got going. I'd say it was just in the nick of time, but he'd already drawn Kavanaugh's "Who is FACADE?" story that I've never read, but heard nothing but bad things aboout, so maybe he was still too late.
Saviuk's style feels like it rests halfway in between Sal Buscema and John Romita Sr. Little rougher around the edges than Romita, but with thinner linework and not so squared off as Buscema. Either way, Saviuk always makes sure you've got all the information you need on the page, and that you can follow what's happening. Nothing flashy in panel or page layouts, just solid, straightforward storytelling. Characters are easy to distinguish, like Saviuk could do a guide to how the characters are going to look. Or maybe I just think that because I saw his art in so many comics when I was younger.
2 comments:
I think the idea behind PPSSM was that it would lean more into the civilian life soap opera side of the character, but the civilian life soap opera side is one of the defining characteristics of the entire Spider-Man concept, so (shrugs)
I guess that would fit with putting his civilian name first in the title (although I think by the time I was buying comics they'd dropped that and it was just Spectacular Spider-Man), but yeah, that doesn't work when his dating/money/sick aunt/dickweed boss problems are already so baked into the character.
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