YMMV / Spider-Man: Chapter One

• Audience-Alienating Era:
  • The series was part of an attempt to dig the franchise out of the post-Clone Saga one, but it really didn't work and many fans felt it was only digging the franchise in deeper.
  • It was intended to be a Setting Update of The Amazing Spider-Man for The '90s but whereas Lee-Ditko's run still remains widely read and appreciated for its originality and timeless value, Chapter One now reads like dated 90s kitsch.
• Older Than They Think: A lot of the ideas for later Spider-Man reimaginings and updates come from here:
  • Norman Osborn as a Greater-Scope Villain who is connected to the origins of several villains. This was reused in The Spectacular Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man Series.
  • Electro gets a blue outfit here for the first time, which would follow the greater blue redesign in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic, and then the MTV Cartoon, and finally Jamie Foxx's role in the movie.
  • As controversial as the decision to have Spidey and Doc Ock be created in the same accident, this story isn't the first time creators have attempted to tie the two's origins together. Four years prior to Chapter One for the short-story collection The Ultimate Spider-Man Peter David and Stan Lee co-wrote a retelling of Spider-Man's origin where the science demonstration Peter attends is being conducted by Dr. Octavius, and in fact the spider lands on Otto's tentacles after its struck by the radioactivity, causing him to fling it away, land on Peter, and bite him. After he's bitten Peter wanders off in a daze while Otto's experiment fails leading to his own transformation into Doc Ock. The difference is unlike here, everyone else is evacuated before the building explodes.

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