(Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection 17)
Peter David (Text),
David Michelinie (Text),
J.M. DeMatteis (Text),
Christopher J. Priest, et al.
180419: best superhero graphic i have read. review tomorrow...
200419: day late. i am not an organized superhero/villain like kraven. riley rec'd this to me but he meant only the title book, which is the best here. far best. art, story, arc, dialog/monologue... 'man of the year' which begins this collection, has moments, good story, family dynamics, irony. on wolverine there is some, plus politics, spies, betrayal etc. on gang war/hobgoblin is more what i always expected from comics. the existential 'big question' is here at least resolved by the long, long, too long issues about 'the wedding'...
maybe if i was a kid i, if i knew spidey, if i remembered this mary jane watson character etc. as mentioned previously, once me and my brother could read my mom would let us read no comics, so i do not know these things. did i have that common store of cultural myths? was i even as a child ever convinced of true love, for example. no. why i was/am skeptical if not cynical after much life i do not know: my parents love, care for, each other, my brother, wife, family, further cousins (mostly) seem to like being married, but like any religious aspect in stories this annoys/frustrates me. and i never did much like fairytales, myths, romances, soap operas etc...
and then there is 'kraven's last hunt'. damn this is good. this elevates the entire collection and, for me, coming right after comic book romance, saves the book at the right time. could read it alone. again and again. story told in images, quick, direct, with no pauses for thoughts of hampering realism, in plot or characters, just operatic extreme emotions/declarations, intense homosocial love from kraven, mythic/epic etc. mindless horror of vermin necessarily rescued by our good spidey. and the long death and being... no, read it/look at it. best superhero comic i have read (ok so i have not read that many...). riley says no one will ever make film of it. give me the money, i will...