Wednesday, November 30, 2022

READING THE CLASSICS: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #250

 

Published on March 1st, 1984

    The big #250 issue wasn't even double or triple size or anything. And nothing really "big" happened in it. Were anniversary issues not a big deal back then? They do mention the reason in the letters page. They said it was because this Hobgoblin story was big enough for 3 issues and thus wouldn't fit in a double size issue, anyway. Hmmm. I think this is the only #250 of The Amazing Spider-Man, isn't it? I don't even think they ever get near #75 or #100 again before they re-booted it. Currently they're on volume 6. That means they re-booted it five times. It looks like they originally went to #441 in 1998. So they've had five #1's since 1998...that's five new starts in 24 years. I wonder if they're going to keep doing that forever, because lately they go back to #1 every time a new writer comes aboard, which is getting ridiculous. Either way, #250 definitely feels like a golden era of the book, with writer Roger Stern and artist John Romita, Jr. on board. This issue picks up from #249 where The Hobgoblin was blackmailing some people like J. Jonah Jameson and Harry Osbourne. Spider-Man visits each person being blackmailed to try to find out more info on The Hobgoblin. Eventually he just uses the spider tracker that The Kingpin put on The Hobgoblin to track him down. There's a big brawl at The Hobgoblin's base of operations, which ends up catching on fire. Also, J. Jonah Jameson writes an article about how he funded The Scorpion and he gives it to the printer to publish. That's how the issue ends, with pretty much everything up in the air. I'm not entirely sure why they didn't just wrap this story up in this issue, considering it's the big anniversary issue. Great art and cover by JR JR and the writing is top notch. The great thing about this book is that it's a classic serial...meaning you really can't wait for the next issue since all of the storylines have been slowly built up so great. I really should just go and read the whole original run of this book. ***

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