-Amazing Spider-Man #400

In 1995 Marvel decided it was time to let Aunt May go and have Pete move on to the next stage of his life, thankfully writing duties were given to J.M.DeMatteis (the best writer working on Spider-Man at the time) and he handled the whole thing with respect and aplomb. The story has Aunt May waking from the latest of her long line of illnesses and covers the subsequent week of her life, which she spends with Pete before quietly passing away. The week is full of touching scenes, and for the first time we get to see Aunt May's thoughts on Pete's identity as Spider-Man with her giving full support to his actions. One of the best things to come out of the Clone Saga (though that's not saying very much), alas the story was later nonsensically retconned to bring back the status quo.

-Spider-Man: Blue 1-6

This melancholy lookback at Spidey's college years has Pete sitting in on Valentine's Day reminiscing about his relationship with Gwen Stacy and how her death affected his life. The main story is an abridged remake of issues #43-#48 and #63 of Stan Lee and John Romita Sr's run. It covers some of the most important early events on his life, from his first meeting with MJ to the day he moved out of his childhood home, and includes memorable battles against many of his most famous rogues. All in all Blue Is a misty-eyed nostalgia trip through Spidey's best days, with some very fitting art from Tim Sale.

-Spectacular Spider-Man #178-#184, #189, #200

Possibly the most underrated of Spider-Man stories (and criminally never collected) the Harry Osborn Saga is a raw and psychological Spider-Man epic from Kraven's Last Hunt writer J.M. DeMatteis that has the Wall-Crawler's best friend Harry Osborn lose his mind and take up his father's mantle as the Green Goblin once more. DeMatteis shows us the slow deterioration of Harry's mental health (which has never been that great to begin with), and expands on the Osborn family life, including Harry's childhood, and his turbulent relationship with his father. The story is tense, with the fallout between the two friends and its effects on the Parker and Osborn families being palpable, and it touches upon multiple themes surrounding the cycles of violence.

-Amazing Fantasy #15

This is where it all started, Spider-Man's origin, an origin that is easily among the greatest, and most widely known for any superhero character out there. Peter Parker, a bullied high-school nerd gets bitten by a radioactive Spider and gains a plethora of amazing abilities, only to learn some hard lessons about responsibility. Its a concise, memorable and well-structured morality tale that somehow manages to introduce and build its cast whilst hitting every lesson home in a mere 11 pages! Everything is fully formed, and right from the start we get lines like "with great power, there must also come great responsibility" which would come to define Spidey for the rest of his history.

-Amazing Spider-Man #248

A more grounded, slice-of-life issue about Spidey spending some time with one of his biggest fans. Probably one of the more influential and beloved of Roger Stern's issues, The Kid who Collects Spider-Man manages to be emotional and sad whilst masterfully avoiding some of the pitfalls that could easily have caused the story to have come across as contrived or trite. A simple but well-written and very memorable story.

-Amazing Spider-Man #31-#33

This heralds the end of an one era and the beginning of a new one for Pete as he leaves High School for College and comes into contact with two people who would become very important to him over the years, Harry Osborn, and Gwen Stacy. The plot of this arc concerns Spidey desperately trying to get hold of a rare serum that is the only hope for a very sick, close to death Aunt May, unfortunately Doc Ock has stolen the only batch in the city and time is running out fast. This is where the oft-referenced moment where Spidey is buried under piles of rubble and refuses to give up comes from, a moment which showed his strength of will and ability to go the extra mile against all odds like no other before it.

-Amazing Spider-Man #50-#52

Just look at that cover! certainly one of the most iconic in comic book history, with Pete turning and walking away from his life as a superhero after starting to question his motives and significance as Spider-Man. The story introduces major new villain the Kingpin, probably the most important addition to Spidey's rogue's gallery during the Lee/Romita run. Kingpin, a deceptively large freak of nature who's rotund body is made up mainly of pure muscle sees Spider-Man's absence as a perfect sign to start his criminal empire, and ends up kidnapping Jonah to silence him. The story has a lot of soul searching for poor old Pete and includes a pivotal moment for the character when he decides that no matter how horrible his life becomes as a result of being a hero, and how much of his own happiness he has to give up, being Spider-Man is his duty.

-Spectacular Spider-Man #107-#110

The story opens with the death of Jean DeWolff a policewoman who had become a recurring ally to Pete for the preceding nine years (often appearing in Marvel Team-Up, where she was first introduced). Spidey laments that he never took the time to get to know Jean, and resolves to solve the mystery behind her death and track down the killer himself. The story is more of a gritty crime story than we usually get with Spider-Man, especially for the time, fewer punches are pulled in regards to the crimes, and the murderer himself is more grounded than the usual colourful criminals. On top of the mystery and intrigue of the story, The Death of Jean DeWolff also explores the nature of law and order, and opposing views in regards to punishment and rehabilitation.

-Web of Spider-Man 31-32, Amazing 293-294, Spectacular 131-132

Touted as one of the darkest Spider-Man stories, this 80s offering from J.M.DeMatteis set shortly after Pete and MJ's marriage has Spider-Man buried alive by Kraven the Hunter (any sane person's worst nightmare) and Kraven takes his place as Spider-Man. The story was originally planned to be a Batman/Joker plot, but DeMatteis' proposal was turned down, leading him to retool his idea as a Spider-Man outing, after the huge success of Kraven's Last Hunt his original idea was given the go ahead, resulting in the Batman story "Going Sane" (which I also like a lot and which actually turned out very differently). The story has lots of overt symbolism and a strong psychological bent, playing with Kraven's feelings of inadequacy and failure, as such it represented a big return to relevancy for the villain who had fallen out of popularity at the time.

-Amazing Spider-Man #121-#122

For number one I went with the obvious choice, The legendary "Death of Gwen Stacy" a story that is often considered to have heralded the end of the entire Silver Age of American comics. The story has Norman Osborn going through a complete and total meltdown after his business starts to fail and his son falls once more into drug problems, an event that his paranoid mind blames entirely on Pete. Out for revenge he kidnaps Pete's girlfriend Gwen Stacy and takes her to the George Washington Bridge. This was one of the first times in superhero comics that a hero's love interest died, and stayed dead. Not only did the story have a lot of impact at the time but it was also filled with memorable and well realised scenes, from Norman Osborn's fevered hallucinations, to Pete's wide-eyed abandoning of a friend in need, to Mary Jane's quiet turnaround during the closing scenes that started her character on a new road for future development. Essential and much deserving of its praise.