Who needs adjectives when you've got radioactive spider-blood?
Spider-Man (Vol. 1) is a superhero comic published by Marvel Comics from 1990 to 1998. With an assortment of writers including Todd Mc Farlane, Erik Larsen, Ann Nocenti, Terry Kavanagh, Don McGregor, and Howard Mackie; and artists by Todd Mc Farlane, Erik Larsen, Rick Leonardi, Andy Smith, and John Romita Jr.; the series featured Spider-Man going up against the likes of the Lizard, the at-the-time new Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch), the Wendigo, Thanos, a new Sinister Six, Morbius, Hydra, and other threats both superhuman and mundane. Crossing over with the other Spider-Man comics of the 1990s — The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Web of Spider-Man, and The Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1); the comic was part of the Infinity War and Maximum Carnage events, as well as the The Clone Saga. The series was retitled Peter Parker: Spider-Man following #74,note and in 1999 was relaunched as Peter Parker: Spider-Man (Vol. 1).
In 2016, Marvel launched Spider-Man (Vol. 2), starring Miles Morales. Spider-Man (Vol. 3) was a five-issue miniseries published in 2019 and set in the alternate universe of Earth-29320. Spider-Man (Vol. 4) was an eleven-issue series by Dan Slott tying into the End of the Spider-Verse.
Spider-Man (Vol. 1) provides examples of:
- Back from the Dead: In #17, Spider-Man dies while trying to save a woman and her daughter from a ruptured freon tank, running into Lady Death and Thanos in the afterlife. As Thanos taunts Spider-Man over how futile his heroics are, the daughter dies from freon exposure and Spider-Man picks a fight with the Mad Titan to force Lady Death to return the girl to life. To Thanos' dismay, Lady Death sides with Spider-Man and allows both Peter Parker and the girl to return to life.
- BFG: In Revenge of the Sinister Six, the Sinister Six run around with massive weapons after stealing them from HYDRA. Spidey attempts to match them with backpack-mounted web cannons, but after that disastrous usage, he dumps it.
- A Bloody Mess: In #17, this is used for an in-universe Retcon when Spider-Man was killed by a bomb and fought Thanos. Returned to Earth, he found that what had been blood was now the contents of a smashed jar of tomato sauce.
- Chrome Champion: Robin Vega from #82-83 is a mutant able to transform herself into any metal. She has shapeshifting, super strength, and, if not Nigh-Invulnerable, at least she was Made of Iron. This was her only appearance, so she shined briefly. Given her abilities, it was a shame. Also kind of a
living anvil against racism (in the form of Fantastic Racism). - Continuity Overlap: Over the course of the 1990s, the series' narratives overlapped with the other Spider-Man publications of the time — The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Web of Spider-Man, and Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man / The Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1).
- Crossover: The title crossed over with other Spider-titles, but also with X-Force:
- X-Force (1991) (issue #16 crossed over with its opening arc).
- Maximum Carnage (issues #35-37).
- The Clone Saga (issues #51-75).
- Darker and Edgier: The McFarlane-helmed run (issues #1-12) has some of the darkest subject matters in a Spider-Man comic so far. To wit:
- Issue #6: Ghost Rider uses his Penance Stare on a Pedophile Priest who recorded indecent films featuring children. In the same issue, Spider-Man webs up a junkie who is shown on panel ready to snort a pin of a white powder in a dark alley at night.
- In issues #8-12, a pedophile sheriff kills runaway boys and mutilates some of the bodies to pin the blame on the Wendigo, a feral creature of the American wilderness who is known for killing people, but this time, these victims were not its doing.
- Disposable Vagrant: Unfortunately, a sentiment shared by some of the antagonists (minor or otherwise) during the McFarlane-helmed run (issues #1-12):
- Issue #6: the Pedophile Priest states that his victims were "street kids [who were] nothing special. ... [and] worthless".
- Dr. Psych Patient: Doctor Hope — himself a psychiatric patient — makes a comeback, still experimenting on his fellow inmates to give them superpowers.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Jason Macendale — having divested himself of his demonic Superpowered Evil Side, which became a separate entity called Demogoblin — doses himself with Calypso Serum to gain superhuman abilities equal to the original Green Goblin's but without the Goblin Formula's inherit psychosis.
- Evil Counterpart: In #24, Spider-Man faces off against the Spider-Doppelgänger, a monstrous Humanoid Abomination made in his image... with six arms, three-fingered claws, a fanged maw and slavering tongue akin to Venom's, and razor-sharp organic webbing.
- Evil Versus Evil: Issues #24 and 46-49 dealt with Spider-Man caught in the middle of Jason Macendale (Hobgoblin)'s revenge against Demogoblin, and vice-versa.
- Foil: During the McFarlane run, famous antiheroes Ghost Rider and Wolverine oppose Spider-Man's tactics regarding heroism:
- In "Masques" (Spider-Man #6-7), Demogoblin kidnaps a child. Ghost Rider is more obsessed with getting Demogoblin than saving the hostage, and is lectured by Spider-Man at the end of the two-parter.
- In "Perceptions" (issues #8-12), Wolverine's handling of the case leads to the discovery of the culprit, and Peter ponders if the Canadian mutant's methods were right to solve the case.
- Forced Transformation: The #-1 issue reveals that the first batch of the Goblin Serum mutated Niels van Adder into the monstrous Proto-Goblin.
- Frame-Up:
- In the "Perceptions" arc, the pedophile sheriff tried to cover up his tracks and pin the blame on the Wendigo, stirring a panic and causing some hunters to converge to his home town. The sheriff hoped the hunters would take care of the "feral child killer", so he could get away with his murders.
- Dwight Faron, the Master of Vengeance, frames Spider-Man for murder — blaming him for ruining his life five years prior, when mobster Geoffrey Barnett blackmailed him into making drugs and used him as the fall-guy to get webbed-up by Spider-Man. This draws the attention of the Punisher, who kills Barnett and aims to kill Spider-Man as well until the misunderstanding is cleared up.
- Headbutting Heroes: Spider-Man and the Punisher both want to take down the Master of Vengeance, though Peter Parker wants to leave him webbed up for the cops and Frank Castle wants to leave him in a closed-casket funeral. Further inhibiting their ability to work together is the fact that Spider-Man considers the Punisher to be just as much a supervillain as the Master of Vengeance due to his murder-happy style of vigilanteism, and fully intends to leave him webbed up for the cops as well.
- Heel–Face Turn: Demogoblin does some soul-searching in #46, disillusioned by Carnage's bloodthirsty rampage, and decides to seek out his former host Jason Macendale to grant him forgiveness. With Macendale on a power-trip after juicing up on Calypso's Super Serum, the two Goblins fight with Spider-Man getting swept up in the conflict. This leads to Demogoblin sacrificing himself to save a mother and her child endangered by Macendale, with Spider-Man swearing to avenge him.
- The Hero Dies:
- Spider-Man briefly dies from freon exposure in the 17th issue, but is permitted to return to life by Lady Death.
- Ben Reilly, the dyed-blond clone of Peter Parker who took over as Spider-Man during The Clone Saga, dies at the hands of the original Green Goblin, Norman Osborn — who is revealed to be alive and well years after his apparent death.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The antagonist of the "Perceptions" arc, the pedophile sheriff, is killed by hunters interested in hunting the Wendigo, thinking the creature was responsible for the boys' deaths. At the end of the arc, Wolverine lampshades it.
- Long-Lost Relative:
- Issue #26 introduced the nephew of the burglar that killed Uncle Ben.
- Issues #46-50 focused on a previously unknown son of Kraven, called The Grim Hunter.
- Issue #76, post-Clone Saga, introduces Jill Stacy, Gwen Stacy's cousin. Her brother Paul appears later and develops something of a rivalry with Peter while the latter is back in university.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Hope, the Big Bad of the 1987 "Life in the Mad Dog Ward" crossover event, returns in the "Return to the Mad Dog Ward" arc (#29-#31), where Spider-Man learns that he was kicked out of Pleasant Valley Clinic and has set up a new Mad Dog Ward in City Hospital, continuing to perform unethical experiments on his patients to turn them into monstrous super soldiers.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Demogoblin, the Spider-Doppelgänger, and Carnage all sport huge mouthfuls of fangs — the first being a demon, the second being a Monstrous Humanoid clone of Spider-Man, and the latter being a symbiote.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: From #64 to his death in #75, Peter's clone Ben Reilly takes over as the main character of Spider-Man.
- Power Perversion Potential: During his tenure as writer, Todd McFarlane wrote an implicitly explicit (consensual) bondage foreplay scene
◊ between Peter and his wife Mary Jane Watson. - Psycho Prototype: Downplayed in that it still causes psychosis, but #-1 reveals that the first batch of Goblin Formula was a great deal more mutagenic than the one that turned Norman Osborn into the Green Goblin, physically transforming Niels van Adder into a Hades Shaded monster dubbed the Proto-Goblin.
- Redemption Equals Death: Demogoblin pulls a Heel–Face Turn but ends up dying after being crushed by a collapsing church, having stayed behind to save a mother and her child. Neither the death or redemption stuck, as Carnage resurrected the demon using Frances Barrison's recently-deceased corpse as a vessel in Absolute Carnage, resulting in a gestalt entity calling herself Demagoblin.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Pursuit arc, which kicks off in #45, involves Spider-Man furiously hunting the Chameleon, who'd built a pair of life model decoys posing as Richard and Mary Parker, tricked Peter into thinking they were his long-dead parents, and then revealed they were robots and ordered them to kill their "son"—leading to "Richard" attacking Peter and "Mary" sacrificing herself to save him. Meanwhile, the Chameleon's motive for doing so is in order to avenge his half-brother Sergei Kravinoff—who was Driven to Suicide at the end of Kraven's Last Hunt—by driving Spider-Man insane and killing him.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Spider-Man finds himself going up against Avengers-level villain Thanos, Hydra — a fascist terrorist organization usually opposed by Captain America, and the Friends of Humanity — a hate-group usually targeting the X-Men.
- Super-Empowering:
- Spider-Man seemingly becomes the host of the Phoenix Force in #25, using it to vanquish the demons D'Spayre and Nightmare... though this is revealed to just be an illusion.
- In preparation for his triumphant return, Norman Osborn organizes a ritual called the Gathering of Five hoping to end up with the blessing of Power, though he ends up being cursed with Madness while the blessing of Power goes to an individual revealed in Peter Parker: Spider-Man to be J. Jonah Jameson's teenaged niece Mattie Franklin.
- Very Special Episode: The "Something about a Gun" story arc, which takes place immediately after several high-octane superhero-on-supervillain brawls, Spider-Man engages in some relatively mundane street-level crime-fighting, breaking up an arms-trafficking ring selling guns to minors and trying to locate a missing gun after it's picked up by a bullied child who contemplates using it to get revenge on his tormenters—meant as a PSA regarding firearm safety, the negative impacts of bullying, and school shootings.
- Villain Team-Up: The Revenge of the Sinister Six arc (#18-#23) had Doctor Octopus organize a new Sinister Six to take down Spider-Man, with the roster being comprised of himself, Electro, Vulture, Mysterio, the demon-possessed Hobgoblin, and eventually the alien monster called Gog.
