Marvel The Origin Stories: Spider-Man/Iron Man

Background

This volume from 2016 contains adaptations of The Amazing Spider-Man: An Origin Story and The Invincible Iron Man: An Origin Story, both originally released in 2011.

It has a black, padded cover. It is 8" x 11" and contains 68 pages (i.e. 34 pages per story, down from the original 48 that each individual volume contained). It seems to be a UK/NZ/Singapore/Hong Kong product. You may perhaps not find this format in North America.

Story Details

This isn't the first time that 2011 origin story has been adapted. Like the other adaptations, this one retains most of the original artwork and plot, but changes the text and the layout.

The original 48 pages of Spider-Man have been re-edited into a 34 page version by removing some of the glorious "no text" splash pages that were such an attractive feature of the old version.

By contrast, the text in general has been extended rather than reduced.

Example:

2011: "But one night on his way home from a TV performance, Peter arrived to find something worrisome.

2016: "But one night on his way home from a TV performance, Peter arrived to find police cars parked outside his aunt and uncle's house."

Also, the coloured/bolded emphasis given to text fragments in the original version is no longer present. All the text is now a simple black font.

General Comments

The original was pretty good. I loved the artwork when it first came out in 2011. The painted style was (and still is) very attractive. I also felt that the text showed due deference to the Lee/Kirby original tale, while also giving it a nice freshen-up for a new generation. So I'm not really sure why this tinkering was necessary.

Two stories in one volume doesn't really improve anything.

The changes to the text (slightly more wordy, and the kid-friendly coloring removed) make the story perhaps slightly more "mature" than the original. But the difference is pretty subtle, and I wouldn't say anything was "improved" — just "changed".

But cutting out ten pages of the original artwork is definitely a step in the wrong direction.

Overall Rating

I rated the 2011 version of The Amazing Spider-Man: An Origin Story very highly.

But this cut-down and tinkered-with adaptation isn't an improvement at all. I'm downgrading the rating to three and a half webs.

Footnote

I bought my copy in Hong Kong, where it had the alternate ISBN 9781474844130.