Jason Godin

Review Credits

Alpha Flight (Vol. 3): #7, #8

Marvel Team-Up: #100, #125 [Pt 1], #125 [Pt 2], #126 [Pt 1]

Thor (Vol. 2): #85

Ultimate Six: #6, #7

Venom: #14, #15, #16, #17, #18

Venom/Carnage: #1, #2, #3, #4

Introduction

I'm the young punk of the Spiderfan.org staff, having only been a reviewer since July of 2004. My first review was of Venom #14 (a REAL classic). Since Venom was recently cancelled (a mercy killing), I hopped on for the new Marvel Team-Up, since the original volume of MTU is my favourite cancelled series of all-time. I remain furiously loyal to Marvel, rarely venturing to buy a story arc or two outside the company.

Collects

All Spider-Man, all Avengers, all Ultimate titles, most X-Men titles, Punisher... actually I basically buy all of Marvel's current books (with only 4 or 5 exceptions including Marvel Age titles) plus JLA, Identity Crisis, and Green Lantern.

Why Spider-Man

On the old Edmonton ITV channel, they used to show the 60's Spider-Man cartoon at least 4 times a day. The network doesn't exist anymore, as it was purchased by a heartless corporation, but this is how I came to love Spider-Man above all else. He was just so real to me as a kid, and even as a teenager, that I had to follow him.

Amazing Spider-Man is the only title I've been consistently getting for the many years I've been a comic fan; I'm not really sure what the first Spider-Man comic I bought was anymore (it was around #310), since I've been trying to complete my collection and have a lot of older issues as well (my collection's getting huge... and disorganized - time to clean the attic), but Spider-Man is my favourite comic character, no matter what y'all think of Amazing #512.

Favourites

My all-time favourite Spider-Man story has to be the Maximum Carnage crossover. I know many will scoff at that, but I was 12 when it came out, and there was just something cool about seeing all of my then-favourites in the same books, even if there was really no reason for Deathlok, Iron Fist, or Captain America to be there. And I do like Carnage - he is the ultimate insanity, and as long as he remains a violent thug, he's cool. Of course, God help us if he ends up in a messy tale involving the Negative Zone and Blastaar... but even though it wasn't the best excercise in writing, it hooked me for good as a fan of Spider-Man.

One thing I've found is that Spider-Man stories to be consistently good over long periods of time (with some exceptions), where other titles have a few glorious shining moments, then turn to crap for a long while.

Other than that, my all-time favourite comic stories are Daredevil's "Born Again" (Daredevil, vol.1 #227-233, by Frank Miller), which is the greatest tale of a hero's fall and redemption I've seen to this day; Iron Man's "Demon in a Bottle" (Iron Man, vol. 1 #118-128), a gripping tale of alcoholism and a story that was at least a DECADE ahead of it's time; Under Siege (Avengers, vol.1 #270-277), the best tale of a superhero slugfest; and finally, Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men (Uncanny X-Men #94-200), which I've of course read through reprints, but it was consistently fun and contained half a dozen of the best storylines ever. I recommend any of these to people interested in the greatest comics of all-time.

So until Mary-Jane and Black Cat throw down for the oil-wrestling circuit, Make Mine Marvel!