Comics – A Fascinating Mess

I have decided to make my own “official” lists of all the comics I personally like and/or want to read. Unfortunately, I will be doing this for the rest of my life because someone decided to make comics the MOST complicated and absurd chaos I have ever encountered. But, I’m brave. So are you ready? Let’s do this.

BATMAN, SPIDER-MAN

BATMAN
I will be excluding all the comics based on “The Batman”, the animated series that comes on TV these days. It just doesn’t look like the original, and I suppose that technically it could be argued that “The Batman” is not the same person as “Batman”. I would be willing to argue that… not that I’ve seen “The Batman” on TV or read the comics, but if I argue that, I don’t have to think about the fact that my list might or might not be complete if you get really techincal about it. So can we all agree that “The Batman” isn’t the same dude but a clone or something? We can? Good.

Chronological Order of Series
Batman (1940-present) – currently 670 issues
Detective Comics (1939-present) – currently 842 issues, 816 include Batman
Superman/Batman (2003-present) – currently 41 issues
All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder (2005-present) – currently 7 issues

There are more, but I’m sick of making my head spin for the time being so…

SPIDER-MAN
I will not be including comics that don’t feature Spider-Man as the main or pretty much the main character. There are some other comics with him as part of a group such as New Avengers, but I don’t feel the need to read those so I’m not going to bother documenting them here. If you read this list and wish you had a more complete list (one that includes EVERY appearance of Spider-Man ever), just let me know and I might be convinced to add it in later just to be thorough.

By the way, the series in italics are from another “continuity”. Just to give those of you who aren’t familiar with how this works a little insight, comics often have various “continuities” running throughout which just means that one series might not follow the rules of another series when explaining back-story, character relationships, etc. So it’s important to know which series follows which continuity. Wikipedia does a nice job of laying it out, so I’m getting most of my information on continuities from them. Just follow, in chronological order, the series NOT in italics to follow the main continuity. After that, it’s just a big mess. But that’s how comics are, isn’t it? Messy.

Chronological Order of Series
Amazing Fantasy (Aug 1962) - introduced Spider-Man with one issue, #15
The Amazing Spider-Man (1963-present) – currently 546 issues
Spectacular Spider-Man #1-2 (1968) – 2 issues, black and white
Marvel Team-Up #1-150 (1972-1985) – 150 issues of Spider-Man-centric comics
Giant-Size Spider-Man (July 1974-1975) -6 issues
The Spectacular Spider-Man aka “Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man” (1976-1998) – 263 issues
Web of Spider-Man (1985-1995) – 129 comics, replaced “Marvel Team-Up”
Spider-Man vs. Wolverine (Feb 1987) – one-shot
Deadly Foes of Spider-Man (May 1991-Aug 1991) – 4 issues, miniseries
Spider-Man aka “Peter Parker: Spider-Man” (1991-1998) – 98 comics
Spider-Man Unlimited, Volume 1 (May 1993-Nov 1998) – 22 issues
Lethal Foes of Spider-Man (Sept 1993-Dec 1993) – 4 issues, miniseries sequel to “Deadly Foes of Spider-Man”
Spider-Man: Arachnis Project (Aug 1994-Jan 1995) – 6 issues
Untold Tales of Spider-Man (1995-1997) – 26 issues
Spider-Man: The Final Adventure (Dec 1995-March 1996) – 4 issues, miniseries
The Sensational Spider-Man (Jan 1996-Nov 1998) – 35 issues
Spider-Man/Kingpin: To the Death (1997) – one-shot
Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man (1998-1999) – 18 issues
Spider-Man vol. 2 (1998-2002) 57 issues
Spider-Man: Chapter One (Dec 1998-Oct 1999) – 13 issues, miniseries
Ultimate Spider-Man (Oct 2000-present) – currently 115 issues
Spider-Man/Daredevil (Jan 2001-April 2001) – 4 issues, miniseries
Spider-Man: Quality of Life (July 2002-Oct 2002) – 4 issues, miniseries
Spider-Man: Blue (July 2002-Dec 2002) – 6 issues, miniseries
Spider-Man: Get Kraven (Aug 2002-Dec 2002) – 6 issues, miniseries
Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do (Aug 2002-Jan 2006) – 6 issues, miniseries
Spider-Man’s Tangled Web (2002-2004) – 22 issues
Spider-Man/Wolverine (Aug 2003-Nov 2003) – 4 issues, miniseries
Trouble (Sept 2003-Jan 2004) – 5 issues, miniseries
The Spectacular Spider-Man vol. 2 (2003-2005) – 27 issues
Spider-Man Unlimited, Volume 3 (March 2004-July 2006) – 15 issues
Marvel Age Spider-Man (May 2004-March 2005) – 20 issues
Marvel Knights Spider-Man (June 2004-March 2006) – 22 issues, replaced “Spider-Man’s Tangled Web”
Spider-Man: Doctor Octopus Year One (Aug 2004-Dec 2004) – ??
Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (May 2005-present) – currently 32 issues
Spider-Man: Breakout (June 2005-Oct 2005) – 5 issues, miniseries
Spider-Man: House of M (Aug 2005-Dec 2005) – 5 issues, miniseries
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (Oct 2005-present) – currently 24 issues
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (Dec 2005-Sept 2007) – 20 issues
Web of Romance (Feb 2006) – one-shot
The Sensational Spider-Man (vol. 2) (April 2006-present) – currently 19 issues, replaced “Marvel Knights Spider-Man”
Spider-Man Family (Feb 2007-present) – currently 5 issues

How to Read All Spider-Man Comics
Here is the simplest way to read all the above comics – I have included as many compilation books as I can to cut down on the number of different items you would have to purchase or borrow in order to completely finish reading the whole list of series above. Instead of simply listing them in chronological order as I have done above, I have started with the first section below listing only the series that follow the main continuity of Spider-Man. Those are in date order from earliest to most recent. Then, the second section below does the same for all the other series that do not follow the main continuity.

Amazing Fantasy:
Issue #15

The Amazing Spider-Man:
Amazing Spider-Man Complete Comic Book Collection Win/Mac – This gives you all comics from March 1963 to June 2006; after finishing this, you would have to buy/borrow the remaining comics individually to catch up to the current issue.

More to come… stay tuned