Spectacular Spider-Man: Lo, This Monster Treasury Edition

Classic, rarely seen magazine tales of Spider-Man in oversized glory!

At the height of the Silver Age, Spider-Man swung into a new magazine-sized format -- and the results were spectacular! With John Romita Sr. channeling film noir in his visuals and Stan Lee offering longer stories for a more mature readership, these were Spidey tales like nothing that had come before! In the first issue, told in glorious halftone black and white, Richard Raleigh bids to be the next mayor of New York -- but will a monster running amok in the Big Apple derail his campaign? Then Lee and Romita go fittingly full-color for the Green Goblin’s highflying return, delivering a feature-length showdown between Spidey and his archnemesis! Plus: Revisit Spider-Man’s origin as retold by Stan and his brother, Larry Lieber!

COLLECTING: Spectacular Spider-Man (1968) 1-2

Writer/editor Stan Lee (1922-2018) made comic-book history together with Jack Kirby in 1961 with Fantastic Four #1. The monumental popularity of its new style inspired Lee to develop similarly themed characters -- including the Hulk and X-Men with Kirby, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Steve Ditko, and Daredevil with Bill Everett. After shepherding his creations through dozens of issues -- in some cases a hundred or more -- Lee allowed other writers to take over, but he maintained steady editorial control. Eventually, he helped expand Marvel into a multimedia empire. In recent years, his frequent cameo appearances in Marvel’s films established Lee as one of the world’s most famous faces.

John Romita was born in 1930 and drew for Atlas Era Marvel Comics across many genres. By the time Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were defining the look and feel of the Marvel Age of Comics during the 1960s, Romita had made the move to DC Comics, where he was working exclusively behind the boards of the company’s many romance comics. It wasn’t until 1966 that he returned to Marvel Comics and the super-hero genre, drawing Daredevil before taking over from Ditko on what was fast becoming Marvel’s most important book, Amazing Spider-Man. Romita’s slick, clean craftsmanship would be a hallmark of his tenure, and his years of drawing beautiful women in DC’s romance books paid off with iconic renderings of Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson and the other women in Peter Parker’s life.

Larry Lieber helped introduce Ant-Man in Tales to Astonish, Iron Man in Tales of Suspense and Thor in Journey into Mystery. He also wrote Human Torch solo stories for Strange Tales. In 1968, he and his brother, Stan Lee, collaborated on the pivotal Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5, which revealed the secret of Peter Parker’s parents. Lieber both wrote and drew runs on Marvel’s top Western titles: Kid Colt Outlaw, Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid. Later, he scripted Marvel UK’s Captain Britain, also contributing occasional covers.