Thursdays With Wade: Revisiting Joe Kelly's Deadpool Part 9

Today’s reading: Deadpool #11

Story by Joe Kelly
Art by Pete Woods

 

To celebrate their first year, Team Deadpool wanted to do something special for its 12^th issue. (Sure, Flashback Month screwed up the numbering, but not the intentions). 

What they landed on was a Forrest Gump-like tale in which Deadpool and his roommate/prisoner, Blind Al, end up in 1967’s Amazing Spider-Man #47, a classic Stan Lee/John Romita Sr. tale involving Kraven the Hunter, Osborn hair, Aunt May fainting, Mary Jane dancing for no reason and the origin story of Deadpool’s best friend/tech guy, Weasel. 

For the parts of the issue that were lifted from ASM, the team took the negatives from the original issue, covered up the parts that needed to be switched out, then drew in Al in the place of Aunt May or Deadpool in the place of Spider-Man. Panels were reordered as needed, and extra subplots involving the Daily Bugle staff were removed. The original plot was about Kraven returning to town to get revenge on Norman Osborn for stiffing him out of $20,000 in his quest to defeat Spider-Man and crashing Gwen Stacy’s send-off shindig for Flash Thompson, who was leaving town for the Army. 

P.S.: This is during that stretch when Osborn doesn’t remember being the Green Goblin, after a fight with Spidey in Amazing #39-40. 

The book switches back and forth between the past – where Wade and Al are – and the present, where Weasel and the Great Lakes Avengers are working out how to bring them back. There’s also a framing sequence featuring the Watcher, because why not pretend this romp is an event of great cosmic importance? 

Pete Woods deftly handles blending in with Romita’s ’60s art, though one suspects that classic Marvel inkers Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott helped significantly. DP regular Nathan Massengill inks Woods in the present. 

Filling out the cast is a number of classic Spidey characters, including Anna Watson, Harry Osborn, and a never-before-seen Empire State University science student named Jack Hammer, who is every bit as much of a clean-cut nerd as Peter Parker, but more of a prick about it. 

Ladies and gentlemen, meet young Weasel. 

“You gotta wonder what happens to a kid like this t’mess up his life,” Wade ponders. You happened, dude. You happened. More on that later. 

Wade and Al travel not only 30 years back in time but clear across the country, landing smack on top of Aunt May on the porch of her home in Forest Hills, Queens. Not knowing they’ve teleported through time as well as space, DP uses his belt clicker to travel to Chicago, where he believes he’ll find the Hellhouse and a ride home. What he finds, instead, is the Hellhouse’s predecessor, Sister Margaret’s Home for Wayward Girls. Said wayward girls proceed to kick Wade in the shins until he leaves, breaking his teleporter in the process. 

How the main characters in the past and present realize Wade and Al are trapped in time is a bit of not-unexpected ridiculousness. Al figures it out because Aunt May’s TV is playing way too many old shows. Flatman of the GLA figures it out because human portal Doorman coughs up a Ferragamo platform pump he believes was made circa 1967. This leads to a bunch of unfortunately of-their-time jokes about Flatman’s closeted homosexuality. 

Thankfully, the LGBTQ crowd isn’t the main target of Wade’s merciless mirth in this issue. That honor goes to the signature ribbed-for-whose-pleasure hair of the clan Osborn, which is the subject of wisecracks in 13 – count ’em (I did) – 13 separate panels. 

Deadpool and Norman Osborn will cross paths again many years in the future, in a crossover with Thunderbolts during the Daniel Way era. And yes, Wade makes more hair jokes. 

Anyway, to bring Wade and Al back, Weasel and Flatman deduce they’ll have to replicate the double-teleportation event that sent them to the past in the first place. Except Wade’s bodyslide belt is busted, so he has to find some other form of ’port technology. Fortunately, an ESU class picture on the wall of Aunt May’s home shows Peter standing next to one Jack Hammer. 

Hammer and Peter Parker may share an affinity for the sciences, but they’re far from friends. They’re both up for the same job at Osborn Chemicals, and Hammer harbors a crush on Gwen Stacy, a then-future Parker girlfriend. So it’s only natural that he scoffs at Wade, who disguised himself as Peter, when he asks him to help fix his belt. To get proto-Weasel to loosen up, Wade-Peter takes him to Gwen’s party, gets him nice and blind with drink … and then pretty much turns him into the Weasel we all know and love, aka ruins his life. 

Though, for a brief, shining moment, Wade does think about making sure the future turns out OK for his sidekick. At one point, Gwen lets Jack dance with her, and Wade, watching from the sidelines while thinking up additional Osborn-hair jokes, considers ensuring they end up together and that Weasel gets the job at Osborn Chemicals. It’d mess up the timestream, but what the hell, right? 

But then Kraven attacks, and all bets are off. Wade ditches the Peter Parker disguise and goes full Deadpool to fight the hunter. Wisecracks aside, the fun part of this is watching DP fight using Spider-Man’s moves, because he’s being drawn onto the page in place of the web-slinger. After all, isn’t Deadpool just Spidey with an extreme ’90s edge? (P.S. Have I mentioned how excited I am for Kelly and McGuinness’ upcoming Deadpool/Spidey team-up book? Because I am very excited). 

While Deadpool is out pretending to be Peter and fighting like his alter-ego, Al disguises herself as the presently unconscious Aunt May (all it takes is pulling back the hair) and suffers the misery of being cared for by Mary Jane’s aunt, Anna Watson. The real May is set up on her couch, where when she comes to, a scarecrow is set up to spook her so she passes out again.  

And what about the real Peter Parker? Wade summons the freelance photographer via payphone to Bayonne, saying there’s something out in the dumps that might ensure good pictures of Spider-Man. Mischief managed. 

Then, of course, there’s good old ditzy Mary Jane, who apparently never stops dancing to the tune in her airy head. “So young to be involved with the crack,” Alfred-as-May thinks while watching MJ shake her hips for no apparent reason (In the original book, MJ had put on some rock ‘n’ roll records to dance to while Anna and Aunt May tidy up their new shared living space). At this point in the Gwen-Peter-MJ love triangle, Gwen clearly has the advantage. For more on the classic Gwen vs. Mary Jane argument, check out this old chestnut. 

The fight with Kraven ends anticlimactically, as it did in the original issue, when Kraven realizes Osborn doesn’t remember anything about the Green Goblin and won’t be giving him his $20,000. He walks off, DP saves Normie from falling off a building and burgeoning alcoholic Weasel, fresh from not getting the Osborn job, agrees to fix Wade’s belt, ensuring he and Al can get home. 

And so begins what has become a proud tradition of shoe-horning Deadpool into the past of the Marvel Universe, a convention used to great effect during Gerry Duggan, Brian Posehn, Mike Hawthorne and Scott Koblish’s run on the character, during which DP teamed up with Power Man and Iron Fist against the White Man in the 1970s, helped Tony Stark face the Demon in a Bottle in the 1980s and wrangled the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos in the early 1990s. He also teamed up with many a classic Marvel hero against Doctor Doom and the Beyonder in this summer’s Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars miniseries, the true events of which the Wasp had erased from everyone’s memories. 

By this point, Deadpool had already cemented itself as my favorite book, but this issue, with its time travel, high joke-per-panel ratio and fun at the expense of silver-age conventions, cemented the series as one of my all-time favorites. I like Deadpool because of this series. I love him because of this issue.

Context alert: A big four-page ad in this issue teases Heroes Return, the grand re-entry of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers to the main Marvel Universe. None of them will be teaming up with Deadpool for the time being. It’s just fun to know what else was going on at the time.

Next time on Thursdays with Wade, we’ll dip back into the dark, swirling madness of T-Ray and Typhoid Mary with the two-part “Drowning Man” storyline from Deadpool #12 and 13, which will bring a number of ongoing plot threads to a head. See ya there.



In addition to writing for The Matt Signal, Dan Grote is now the official comics blogger for The Press of Atlantic City. New posts appear Wednesday mornings at PressofAC.com/Life. His new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He and Matt have been friends since the days when Onslaught was just a glimmer in Charles Xavier's eye. Follow @danielpgrote on Twitter.
  

Greetings from Battleworld HALFTIME REPORT

Today marks the release of issue 4 of Secret Wars, which means we’re halfway through Marvel’s multiverse-reshaping epic. Seems like a good time to take stock of what’s come so far. And so far, most of what Matt and I have read has been thoroughly enjoyable. With that in mind, here’s a power-ranking of the Secret Wars titles to date.

X-Men ’92 (Dan): An amazingly faithful extension of the old Saturday morning cartoon show, and the best of the books by my accounting, though admittedly it’s among the least involved in the larger Secret Wars story. I would love love LOVE if this series carried on into All-New, All-Different Marvel.

Thors (Dan): This book about Battleworld’s hammer-wielding enforcers of the will of Doom is a spot-on police procedural, right down to the angry captain, the forensics nerd and the drunk racist cop. Who killed all those Jane Fosters? I can’t wait to find out.

Secret Wars (Dan): The first issue of the main book felt more like what should have been the last issue of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run, but it redeemed itself quite nicely with issues 2 and 3, exploring and explaining the mysteries of Battleworld. One of my favorite Secret Wars moments comes in issue 3, when 616 Reed Richards learns the universe was saved by Dr. Doom, who is Battleworld’s god. Imagine what happens when he finds out what became of the rest of his family.

Future Imperfect (Matt): It's not like most of these regions of Battleworld are cheery, but Dystopia, home of the Maestro, might be the darkest. In a world populated by Peter David characters, always a good sign, we see a cunning evil Hulk getting ready to wipe out the resistance to his reign, but even evil Hulks can't smash everything easily, especially when the ever-lovin' blue eyed Thing standing against him. Peter David at his best.

Giant Size Little Marvels: A Vs. X (Matt): I love all ages comics. I love Skottie Young's art. So a story where kids versions of the X-Men and Avengers duke it out in cute and wacky hi jinks is a perfect fit. It's charming, funny, and yet still finds a way to reference the overall Secret Wars more than some of the more traditional tie-ins.

MODOK: Assassin (Dan): What’s yellow and pink and red all over? This fun, violent series from Chris Yost and Amilcar Pinna featuring America’s favorite big-headed Metal Organism Designed Only for Killing and his new crush, Angela.

A-Force (Dan): #INeedFeminism because watching She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Dazzler and a bunch of Marvel’s other greatest female heroes – in their best outfits, no less – punching megalodons is awesome. Glad to hear G. Willow Wilson and Jorge Molina will be continuing this series into the fall.

Secret Wars 2099 (Matt): Peter David once again goes back to his previous work, only this time with a twist. Sure, Spider-Man 2099 is here, but he doesn't have powers and is an evil corporate douchebag in this realm. What he does get to do is introduce a whole new team of Avengers 2099, all of whom are tools of evil corporation Alchemax. And the Defenders 2099, who it looks like are about to throw down with the Avengers. Oh, and Hercules is there, who I miss after the end of his Van Lente/Pak series. 

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (Dan): Dan Slott continues his run on Spider-Man by giving longtime readers what they’ve long been denied – the reunion of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson – but then having Peter quit being Spider-Man after his family is threatened. Watching Peter give zero f---s about a supervillain defeating the Avengers and taking over New York City was among the great end-of-first-issue shockers of the early Secret Wars issues.

Infinity Gauntlet (Matt): The original Infinity Gauntlet was a broad, huge, cosmic epic. This new series is instead an intimate story about a family lost in a Battleworld kingdom overrun by Annihilation Wave bugs. It's a well characterized story about survival, with hints so far of greater cosmic implications. And Thanos, which is always a plus.

Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars (Dan): Marvel rewrites history by letting Wade Wilson come out and play during the original 1984 Secret Wars. Now if I only I could find his Mattel action figure mint-in-packaging with the lenticular shield.

Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos (Dan): Deadpool may be dead, but his demon-succubus wife, Shiklah, is alive and well and doing her darnedest to thwart armored-poseur Dracula and his legion of monsters, including a diabetic symbiote-covered minotaur.

Inferno (Dan): You want an old-school X-Men story, you got an old-school X-Men story! Colossus, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Illyana, Madelyn Pryor, Boom-Boom: The gang’s all here.

Runaways (Matt): When Dr. Doom likes an idea he likes, he takes it, so Runaways is set at the Von Doom School for gifted youngsters, and features a ragtag group of teen characters from throughout Marvel histotu, including Molly Hayes of the original Runaways Team, a bunch of mutants like Jubilee and Pixie, and Amadeus Cho as The Breakfast Club of Battleworld. 

Where Monsters Dwell (Matt): A solid Garth Ennis joint with dinosaurs, World War I pilots, and plenty of moral ambiguity. However, as we're ranking Secret Wars tie-ins, and this book has gone half its run without mentioning anything to do with the crossover, I can't rank it higher.

Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 5

Welcome back to Battleworld, everyone. This week, Dan Grote looks at the new issue of the core Secret Wars title, and the much anticipated return of a married Spider-Man...

Secret Wars #3

Story: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Esad Ribic and Ive Svorcina

Imagine you survived the end of the world. Now imagine you were supposed to survive the end with all your loved ones, but you watched them ripped away from you at the last second. NOW imagine you wake up in a new world where your sworn enemy isn’t just its ruler or its savior but its GOD. Not only that, but, as Dr. Strange puts it, “He is very, very good at playing God.” NOW imagine how Reed will react next issue or whenever he finds out his wife and daughter are Doom’s most trusted advisers, his son spends all day playing in the palm of a planet-eating giant and his brother-in-law is [spoiler].

And we were worried Marvel didn’t care about the FF anymore.

Secret Wars #3 dedicates itself primarily to answering questions, which is good because I’ve had a lot of them since this event started. As of this issue, we now know:

• What happened to Reed Richards’ Raft ™ from the 616 universe and its passengers, which if you’ll recall from issue #1 included Black Panther, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Captain Marvel, Thor, and a Phoenixed-up Cyclops.     
• A very few select characters remember what happened before Battleworld, and we know why the rest don’t recall.
•  How much time has passed since the final incursion.
• Where Johnny Storm is, and oo-da-lolli it’s a mini gut punch that makes perfect sense.
• Why Dr. Strange is the right hand of God Emperor Doom ™, and what happened to the Molecule Man, last seen confronting the Beyonders alongside Doom and Strange in New Avengers #33.
• How many Spider-Men survived the final incursion (although if you saw some of Marvel’s post-Secret Wars teaser images, I suppose you’ve already had that spoiled).

It’s a lot to take in, and besides most readers who haven’t seen everything Jonathan Hickman’s written for Marvel since Secret Warriors, nobody’s having a harder time with this than 616 Reed Richards, whom Esad Ribic draws in a perpetual state of exhausted, bearded shellshock. But I can only imagine the moment of clarity issue #3 provides will be brief, as Battleworld has much more to reveal, and we’re not even halfway there.

Side note: As someone who’s met him at cons, I very much appreciated the full-page house ad toward the end of the issue memorializing Herb Trimpe, who was the first Marvel artist to draw Wolverine for publication, among his many other credits for the company. Trimpe died in April at 75.

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

Story: Dan Slott

Art:  Adam Kubert, John Dell and Justin Ponsor

Some Secret Wars comics are meant to tell the complex story of Battleword (Secret Wars). Some are meant to be jumping-on points for new readers (A-Force, MODOK: Assassin). And some, unabashedly, are love letters to Comics Fans of a Certain Age. This book (and the digital-first X-Men ’92) is most certainly the latter.

Renew Your Vows takes place in what, at least to start, feels like a simpler time. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are married and have a young daughter, Annie. He works at the Daily Bugle and brings hot-scoop photos to an always-yelling J. Jonah Jameson. He’s not an Avenger. He patrols the streets of New York with other street-level heroes like Daredevil, the Punisher and Moon Knight. Captain America wears his old wing-tipped mask. Eddie Brock is still Venom and looks like a big, slobbering black-and-white monster.

Dan Slott’s name may be on the cover, but it sure reads like David Michelinie or J.M. DeMatteis to me. And it’s all being drawn by Adam Kubert, one of Marvel’s rock-star artists in the years after the Image exodus. For Spider-fans, this book is a warm, fuzzy blanket.

At least to start.

When a supervillain named Regent starts killing off superheroes and claiming their powers as his own, and Venom escapes from prison and threatens his family, Peter is forced to make a choice that will inform the series going forward.

“That was the day I learned what trumps great power … an even greater responsibility.”

We’ve seen alternate-future takes on Spider-spawn – “Mayday” Parker swings immediately to mind – but we’ve never seen Peter actively raise a child, at least to my recollection. “Renew Your Vows” turns back the clock on basically every Spider-Man story of the past decade, but it also sets it forward, showing us the darkness of a world where “One More Day” never happened. Is this Spider-Man’s darkest timeline (and if so, is there still paintball)? It’s too early to tell, but it’s worth sticking around to see.


...While I examine the return of the evil future Hulk and the most light-hearted of any tie-in you're likely to see.

Future Imperfect #1
Story: Peter David
Art: Greg Land

Peter David has a long history with Marvel comics, and despite famed runs on Spider-Man and X-Factor, it will be his Hulk run that he is most remembered for. And of that run, Future Imperfect, the story of the Hulk going into the future to fight an evil version of himself called the Maestro, is probably the most famous, so it makes sense that if Marvel was picking and choosing great alternate history stories to make realms of Battleworld it would be one of them, and make even more sense they'd get Peter David to write it. David jumps right into the deep end, referencing the Secret Wars status quo with Maestro as this realm's Baron. Not only do we get the Maestro and Janis, Rick Jones's granddaughter introduced in the original story and who plays a role not only there but in the back end of David's original run on the ongoing Hulk series, but Ruby Summers, the daughter of Scott Summers and Emma Frost introduced in a dystopic future X-Factor story. The issue establishes what Dystopia, the city ruled by the Maestro, is like, and we see that there's a rebellion in place against it, which includes Ruby and Janis. The desert, the city, it's all classic dark future stuff, but David works with it and keeps it feeling fresh. When Ruby stumbles across a old man in an eyepatch wandering the desert claiming to be Odin, she thinks she's struck gold for the rebellion. Unfortunately, after she brings him to their base, it's clearly not Odin. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that "Odin" is in fact the Maestro reverted to human form, and a battle commences. Greg Land is an artist I can take or leave (I was a huge fan of his early work on Birds of Prey and Nightwing, but his excessive photo-referencing in recent years leaves me cold), and while in combat nearly all his characters have screaming their heads off expressions on their faces, his page layouts were solid for the fight between the rebels and the Maestro, and it came together well in the end. As with a lot of these Secret Wars tie-in first issues, the final page has a shock reveal, this time of a surviving hero who is leading the rebellion, and it's a nice reveal, one that should lead to a classic throw down in the next issue. With its nods to previous Peter David work, and his usual quick ear for witty dialogue, Future Imperfect looks to be a solid entry to the Secret Wars tie-ins, and since Marvel has said the Maestro is here to stay after the event, this would be a good place to get to know him.

Giant-Size Little Marvel: A Vs. X #1
Story and Art: Skottie Young

All these dark Secret Wars tie-ins got you down? Well, Giant Size Little Marvel is the cure for what ails you! The opening montage, which has musical notes bouncing around the narration and made me try to read them to the tune of the Tiny Toon Adventures theme song, lays out exactly what Secret Wars is about before before bringing us into the kingdom of Marville (not to be confused with the Bill Jemas series of the same name, possible the worst comic Marvel ever published), where at the intersection of Avengers Street and X-Men Way, the little heroes get into all kinds of mischief. The opening fight scene, which is perfectly tame and all ages, is a result of Iron Man melting one of Magik's toy ponies, and her summoning a monster to eat him. The main plot of the issue revolves around an escalating battle to build the best food stand at the corner, from lemonade, to hit dogs, to hamburgers, to Asgardian ribs, and so on, until it all breaks out in a brawl. Skottie Young is a master of drawing adorable little versions of Marvel characters, and the cameos fly fast and furious throughout the comic. While this isn't going to give you insight into the greater working of Battleworld and God King Doom, it's delightful fun and a good palette cleanser. Between this series, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and the new Groot ongoing from Marvel, and DC's new Bat-Mite and Bizarro series, it's a good time for all-ages superheroes from the Big 2.

A Web-Slinger’s Dilemma: Mary Jane Watson vs. Gwen Stacy

Today marks the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, your friendly neighborhood web-slinger’s Secret Wars solo title. Previews of the Dan Slott/Adam Kubert book show Peter Parker happily married to Mary Jane Watson, arguing over whose turn it is to change the diaper of their daughter, Annie.

Flashback to 2007. The Internet is ablaze with the wailing and teeth-gnashing of 1,000 nerds infuriated by a J. Michael Straczynski/Joe Quesada story called “One More Day,” in which, to save the life of Aunt May, Peter and MJ agree to let Mephisto erase the memory of their marriage and the public’s knowledge that Peter is Spider-Man.

“One More Day” served as Straczynski’s exit from the Spider-titles and ushered in the era of Dan Slott, who has since then steered the character through a series of bold stories, such as Dr. Octopus spending a year and a half in Peter’s body or Spider-Men and –Women from across the multiverse teaming up to defeat a cross-dimensional brood of vampire types. One thing he hasn’t done these past eight years: Reunite the Parkers.

From the legendary time travel Deadpool (Vol.1) #11

Until now. Funny thing is, eight years is a long time to keep a major plot element out of play, and while I’m sure there are some people who heard about Renew Your Vows and said “Thank God, finally!” it feels like many Spider-fans have largely forgotten about her.

But who could do a better job of making people forget about MJ than the forces of Straczynski, Quesada and Mephisto combined?

Oh, hey Gwen!

If you’ve been to a con this year, you’ve probably seen at least one Spider-Gwen cosplayer in the sea of Harley Quinns and Deadpools and anime characters with whom you’re unfamiliar. This alternate-reality version of Gwen Stacy – from a world in which she got bit by the spider and Peter Parker became the Lizard and died – has sparked interest in Peter Parker’s other famous girlfriend like no other, to the point where Marvel spun her straight out of Spider-Verse and into her own series by Jason Latour and Robbie Rodriguez.

Quite simply, people haven’t been talking about Gwen this much since the Green Goblin threw her over the George Washington Bridge in 1973.

Which isn’t to say no one’s tried to keep Gwen in the public consciousness in the intervening 40 years. Emma Stone played Gwen in the two Amazing Spider-Man movies, and Bryce Dallas Howard played her in the third Sam Raimi film. Marvel has included Gwen in trading-card sets over the years. She was a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes. She was included in the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon series.

But the grave hasn’t always been kind to Gwen. Another Straczynski story that didn’t go over well is “Sins Past,” in which it is revealed that prior to her death, Norman Osborn had raped and impregnated her. Gwen’s children, Gabriel and Sarah, grew up to be evil, which is its own hornet’s nest of commentary on rape and the fridging of women in comics.

Before “Spider-Verse,” the last time I remember Gwen Stacy being used in a way that felt powerful was House of M, the 2005 alternate-reality story by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel in which Magneto had created a global utopia for mutants. Issue 2 opens with Peter waking up in bed next to Gwen, who in this reality is his wife and the mother of his child. When reality is restored, Peter retains his memories of the House of M world and freaks out on Dr. Strange when the Sorcerer Supreme won’t mind-wipe him, so he forgets how happy he was there. And this was a man who, at the time, was still happily married to MJ.

So where do you stand, dear reader? Did Tiger really hit the jackpot with Anna Watson’s model/actress niece, or do you believe in a world – that may have been destroyed in a pre-Secret Wars incursion – where Peter ends up with Capt. Stacy’s daughter? Was Gwen’s death so powerful a moment in comics history that she should have stayed in the grave, or are you rockin’ the white-and-magenta Spider-Gwen hoodie to cons? Are you happy to see a world in which “One More Day” never happened, or did you stop caring about the dissolution of the Parker marriage a long time ago?

Or, more simply: MJ or Gwen? Tweet #TeamMJ or #TeamGwen to @danielpgrote, and explain your choice.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

Spider-Man and his Amazing Critical Mood Swings No. 1 (Skottie Young variant)

Hey, everyone, Spider-Man’s back! Or, more accurately, Peter Parker’s back in his own body, so Spidey’s gonna seem like less of a cocky tool.

Amazing Spider-Man #1 hits stands today, marking a return to status quo brilliantly delayed roughly 18 months by writer Dan Slott, a man who’s spent at least three-plus years masterminding a longform arc that almost – ALMOST – makes you forget about that "One More Day" business.

But that’s the funny thing about Spider-Man, isn’t it? For every story that’s critically praised, there’s one that even more mercilessly panned. For every death of Gwen Stacy’s, there’s Norman Osborn impregnating Stacy at some point in the past and turning the children into monsters. For every Superior Spider-Man, there’s "The Clone Saga." For every "Kraven’s Last Hunt," there’s Kraven’s resurrection. Look ’em up, kids!

So in honor of Spider-Man’s spectacular quality pendulum, let’s do a bit of time-traveling and look at where his books and other assorted media were this time each decade, starting with the presentmost present.

Amazing Spider-Man #1, April 2014 

Written by Dan Slott, penciled by Humberto Ramos. 

After spending a year and a half as a shell for Doctor Octopus, Peter Parker is back in his own body, and Marvel has an “Amazing” Spider-Man title again. And hey, I’m sure that wasn’t timed to the fact that the second installment in Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man film franchise is set to bow next month, giving Marvel an accessible jumping-on point for new readers. It’s probably only a coincidence that the villain of the book is Electro, who also happens to be in the movie. Or that the movie will be out the weekend of Free Comic Book Day. You’d have to believe in Da Vinci Code-style conspiracies to tie all that together! All kidding aside, it’s a good time to be Spider-Man. In addition to the newly relaunched comic and the ongoing film franchise, there’s also the highly enjoyable Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon on Disney XD, in which Drake Bell voices Spider-Man as a SHIELD trainee alongside Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Nova, White Tiger and Agent Coulson as himself.

Amazing Spider-Man #504, April 2004 

Written by Fiona Avery and J. Michael Straczinski, penciled by John Romita Jr. 

Spidey teams up with a pre-he's-so-hot-right-now Loki to save Loki's daughter from Morwen, a mystical being whose first appearance was that issue. This was the same year Spider-Man 2 bowed in theaters, starring Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus, generally considered the best installment of Sam Raimi’s Spider-trilogy. There was no Spider-Man cartoon airing during this time, though “Spider-Man: The New Animated Series” had aired the year before on MTV starring the vocal talents of Neil Patrick Harris as Spider-Man, Lisa Loeb as Mary Jane Watson and Ian Ziering as Harry Osborn.

Amazing Spider-Man #388, April 1994 

Written by David Michelinie, Penciled by Mark Bagley. 

Peter Parker finds out his long-lost parents, Richard and Mary Parker, who’d claimed to have been held prisoner overseas for years, were actually robots serving the Chameleon, who at the time was working with the Vulture, who himself was in the middle of a big “I’m gonna make myself young and stay that way” kick. (Interesting to note that the Chameleon and Vulture are the first two villains Spidey had ever faced, if you don’t count the guy who killed Uncle Ben.) And if you thought that was a weird storyline, a little something called "The Clone Saga" was but months away. The mystery surrounding Parker’s parents has played a key role in Webb’s Spider-movies. Fox’s Spider-Man cartoon aired that fall and would run for three years and change in an animation block that included X-Men for a one-two Marvel punch. Among the most high-profile members of its voice cast were Ed Asner as J. Jonah Jameson, Hank Azaria as Venom and Mark Hamill as the Hobgoblin (which wasn’t too far a stretch from his Joker on Batman: The Animated Series).

Amazing Spider-Man #251, April 1984. 

Written by Roger Stern and Tom DeFalco, penciled by Ron Frenz. 

The end of a three-issue story featuring the original Hobgoblin, arguably Spidey's hottest ’80s villain, pre-Venom. It also marks a handoff of writing duties from Stern to DeFalco. Stern had not revealed Hobby's identity during his run, so the task eventually fell to Peter David, who revealed it to be Ned Leeds, who was killed, to be replaced by Jason Macendale. Not willing to leave well enough alone, Stern would retcon the whole thing in 1997 with the Scooby-Doo ending. A month later, in issue 252, Spidey would begin wearing the black costume he acquired during the Secret Wars. This was also a year after the cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends ended its two-year run, in which the titular hero was teamed with X-Man Iceman and created-for-the-show character Firestar, who would go on in the comics to become a Hellion, a New Warrior, an Avenger and, as of a few months ago, an X-Man. There was also an adorable dog.

Amazing Spider-Man #131, April 1974

Written by Gerry Conway, penciled by Ross Andru. 

That classic storyline in which Doctor Octopus attempts to marry Aunt May, who has inherited a private Canadian island rich in uranium, because those sorts of things should be gifted to frail old ladies who have made a career out of being on death’s door. The wedding, of course, never happens, and Doc Ock and Hammerhead end up presumed dead in an atomic blast on the island. Decades later, Doc Ock will again try to bond himself to the Parker family, by marrying his brain to Peter Parker’s body. That same year, PBS’ The Electric Company ran the first of three seasons’ worth of live-action shorts called “Spider Super Stories.” Our hero was played by puppeteer and dancer Danny Seagren. He remained in costume the whole time and did not speak, communicating solely via word balloon.

Amazing Spider-Man #11, April 1964 

Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Steve Ditko. 

Doctor Octopus returns for the first time since debuting in issue 3. This is also the first issue since Uncle Ben’s death that a key player is offed, namely Betty Brant’s brother Bennett. Betty, J. Jonah Jameson’s assistant at The Daily Bugle, was Spider-Man’s first love interest, and seeing as Betty blamed Spider-Man for her brother’s death, this of course threw a wrench in their relationship. At this point, Spider-Man the intellectual property was less than 2 years old. His first cartoon, the one with the catchy theme song, did not debut until 1967.