Spider-Man: Life Story - Spider-Man 60th Anniversary Edition (Zdarsky/Bagley)

Spidey has always held a place of affection in my heart, being the first comic I regularly bought as a young kid - the UK black and white oversized reprints from those days.  Had a pair of letters printed, won a no-prize, all the usual jazz.

As a character and a comic he suffers from the usual soap opera problem - nothing really changes, reset button gets hit every now and then, he just doesn't age.   Such that affection these days is for specific storylines or runs - JMS's run, taken as a whole, not bad (apart from the Gwen storyline more so than the One More Day bollocks).

And now this book from Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley.  What if you took Spidey starting in the 60s and actually allowed him to age, get married, have kids, and (spoiler alert) die?  In many ways this is the only Spider-Story you ever need, as it touches many bases of his lengthy publication history....but.....but....but....you sort of really need to know the events being referred to (Civil War, Kraven's Last Hunt, Superior Spider-Man, Clone Saga, Miles Morales etc) to really get the best from this.

As a sad old man-child I've either read these or at least been aware of these and so this was a blast - slightly oversized, hardcover format, a blast from first to last.

But I really don't need to read any more Spider-Man stories now.

...

Nothing about the art, Craig?  Bagley is a instantly recognisable artist (Ultimate Spider-Man in particular firmed this up) and well suited to light material (Spider-Man action and quips right up his alley).  When the story goes dark he doesn't wholly have a rough enough edge - he's too professional.  It doesn't take away from the story enough to matter, and the lighter bits are more than enough to compensate.

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