-Amazing Spider-Man #194-#200

Aunt May is missing and presumed dead, and a new Cat-themed villainess makes her premiere in this late 70s saga from Marv Wolfman. The story is packed with memorable fights, with Mysterio, the Kingpin, and the Black Cat all getting a good deal of spotlight, and the crook who started it all, the Burglar from Amazing Fantasy #15 himself makes a startling return. The Black Cat obviously went on to become a pretty important supporting character for Spidey, and the Kingpin battle here has to be one of the standouts for the villain, with him being given an ultimatum by his wife to give up his life of crime within 24 hours.... so of course he's decided its imperative that he finds and kills Spidey as soon as possible before his time runs out and he has to go straight!

-Amazing Spider-Man #41-#43

Here we've got the ushering in of a new era with the first meeting between Pete and the person who would become his most important supporting character, Mary Jane Watson. Introduced with the immortal line "face it Tiger, you just hit the Jackpot!" this arc sets up MJ as a possible love interest whilst dispatching Betty Brant for good. John Romita Sr's artwork is timeless as usual, with him becoming noticeably more comfortable in his role here and settling into his own style (in previous issues he'd attempted to draw like Ditko in order to ease the changeover between artists). The Rhino also makes his first appearance here, with the plot following his mission to kidnap Jonah's son.

-Amazing Spider-Man #267

This is an offbeat story from Peter David that tries to answer the question that nobody probably had the inclination to ask "What would Spider-Man do if there were no skyscrapers to swing from?". In the story a crook manages to escape from Spidey after a robbery, but not before he's hit with a tracking tracer. After a short search he's tracked down to the suburbs, where Spider-Man has all sorts of troubles. Its a well done, memorable premise that's filled with a lot of laughs.

-Spider-Man's Tangled Web #5-#6

This is a nostalgic tour of Spider-Man comics through the ages that uses Spidey's on and off friendship with the Fantastic Four's Human Torch as a backdrop. The book is a selection of short issues each set during a different chapter of the wall-crawler's history, going from the quiet suburban life of Ditko's era, to the Coffee Bean Barn of Romita Sr and the offbeat Spider-Mobile of Gerry Conway's run, all the way to the time of the Alien Costume. Its a fun, well-crafted journey with a lot of charm.

-Amazing Spider-Man #290-#292, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21

Loosely inspired by the sci-fi classic "Flowers for Algernon", Flowers for Rhino has the rogue going through with an operation to increase his intelligence, he's grown tired of being used and humiliated by those who are smarter and more successful than him and decides he's going to do something about it. All in all its a poignant, well written and interesting story from the very talented Peter Milligan (heralded for his work on Shade the Changing Man and Enigma for DC Comics).

-Amazing Spider-Man #290-#292, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21

Pete finally gets hitched in this 80s offering from writer David Michelinie. As luck would have it, just as he decides to pop the question MJ is in the middle of a crisis and is packing to leave to try to help her estranged and dysfunctional family, her father's back on the scene and her sister's in jail. Pete decides to follow her to lend some emotional support, but is being pursued by Alistair Smythe and his Spider-Slayer robot. The drama here plays out well and we get a lot of moments that show how Pete and MJ compliment each other. In the original issues this story always felt like it came a little out of the blue, but taken as a standalone collection (which is how I originally read it) it works quite well.

-Amazing Spider-Man #498-#500

For the 500th issue of Amazing Spider-Man, writer J Michael Straczynski gives us a celebration of his past and look into his possible future. Happy Birthday is a time travel story where, after an attack on New York instigated by the Dread Dormammu himself, Spidey botches one of Doctor Strange's spells and is sent careening back and forth through time. We get to see some interesting possible future's for the wall-crawler, and are taken through a quick homage of his greatest early fights from the Ditko era. John Romita Jr's art is memorable as usual and its very cool to see his take on so many defining moments.

-Amazing Spider-Man #38

During the course of the Coming Home arc Aunt May learned that her Nephew was Spider-Man, this is the issue where she reveals that she knows his secret (well, actually its the second time this has happened in Spider-Man comics, but the first time had been written out of canon by later writers). The two of them sit down and talk through Pete's choices as Spider-Man and manage to come to a new mutual understanding and respect for each other. Its a good issue that puts a lot of focus on one of Spider-Man's most important supporting characters. As mentioned earlier its been done before, but this time you get to see May running through the whole gamut of emotions, going from shock, to denial, to acceptance, so things are explored very differently than before.

-Amazing Spider-Man #259-#261

This excellent three issue arc concerns the legacies left to people by the actions of their parents. We get (at last) the full story of Mary Jane's past and the reasons why she ended up moving in with her Aunt, and also see Harry Osborn dealing with the fallout of his Dad's actions as the Green Goblin, with the new Hobgoblin kidnapping his family in order to blackmail him into searching for more of his Father's diaries. I have to say that Defalco masterfully develops Mary Jane's character here, rationalising and fully explaining her early flightiness during Stan Lee's run with her later maturity. Its an important story that develops and moves many characters forward, returns Spidey to his classic Red and Blue costume, is actually very funny, and shows MJ to be a strong and multi-layered friend who's in no way a damsel in distress (Sam Raimi and company could have done with taking lessons from this story!).

-Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1

For Spidey's first annual Lee and Ditko decided to bring back all of his major foes, having them band together to take on the Wallcrawler, and at a time when he'd lost his powers no less! Luckily their pride gets in the way and they set up a gauntlet instead of fighting him all at once, they kidnap Aunt May and Betty Brant to assure his compliance. The story packs in a whole host of great battles, and Ditko provides his best art ever, with some excellent, timeless splash pages, and May's complete obliviousness to everything going on was a funny character-defining moment. Definitely an influence on Raimi's second Spider-Man movie.