David Michelinie

We are finally here.

This is the first issue written by David Michelinie, right? We've got Walt Simonson and Tom Palmer.

They've been in place off and on a little bit here and there.

But now we've got Simonson and Palmer and Michelinie together.

Are we ready to get inside? I am.

All right.

So as I said, it is the beginning of the era of David Michelinie.

He is our writer, folks.

After him, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz would continue this winning streak, and Spectacular would give a new writer, Peter David, a chance.

The decade would conclude with David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane breathing new artistic life into the character and Jerry Conway returning.

So, whittling down 10 to 12 issues for this was rock hard.

What follows are stories that, again, show what life was like for Peter Parker in the '80s, but also give a good representative sample of the stories and events that shaped the era.

Conway weaved a decade-spanning narrative detailing Tombstone and Robbie's involvement over many years, and he did it well.

But I picked this issue as further demonstration that the supporting cast are the Spider-Man strip's secret weapons, capable of generating many enjoyable stories, as well as introducing new wrinkles into time-worn tales.

I conclude the collection with another no-brainer, Amazing Spider-Man issue 300 by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane.

McFarlane was the first of the superstar artists that would dominate the '90s, but when Todd McFarlane arrived on The Amazing Spider-Man with issue 298, it was a seismic shift.

So my idea was, oh, and the other thing is in the last few years earlier in Amazing Spider-Man, they had been doing a story.

It was David Michelinie and Eric Larson.

We're doing a story where Willie Lumpkin, the Fantastic Four's mailman,

was dating Aunt May.

First up, we had Eric.

He said, regarding David Michelinie's name, I've been pronouncing it Michel-i-nie ever since seeing a letters column explaining that it rhymes with pickle my knee.

Yeah, you know, I vaguely remember something like that, Eric.

Thanks for pointing that out.

You know who, who I really loved having the most on My Star Wars Story and that I just, I probably got personally the most out of having on My Star Wars Story, besides, of course, Steve Glossen.

Um, David Michelinie.

David Michelinie wrote a great era of s- Marvel Star Wars, which is probably my second favorite, very close second favorite era of that comic.

But he's also the guy, you know, he co-created Venom.

He co- you know, he's just...

David Michelinie has such a rich pedigree.

He, he's the guy who wrote Demon in a Bottle, which is one of the most popular Iron Man storylines ever, and you know, it just, the, the guy has just been a wealth of, of comic history.

He's got all this in his head that, that came out of his head.

On this episode, we will take a look at issue number 27.

Issue 27 is cover dated March of 1985, written by David Michelinie, penciled by Steve Ditko, inked by Danny Bulinati, lettered by Diana Albers, colored by Robbie Corsea, and edited by Ralph Macchio.

Here is your cover description.

This cover is by Keith Pollard.

They're almost all one and dones or two parters.

Almost exclusively.

My opinion here, and I was peeking ahead earlier, so I may have to revise this in a few episodes, but David Michelinie gets a pretty solid run and he starts building a roster of new characters that become recurring.

He starts building a real universe here in his run.

I mean, this is my take on this storyline right now, which, I mean, might come across as a little harsh, but, you know, forgive me.

But, like, this is very much like a David Michelinie, like, late 80s, early 90s storyline of, like... you know, like, you know, Assassin's Nation plot, or, you know, like, this is the silver sable in the wolf pack, or whatever they're called, you know, of storylines right now, where I'm just like, okay, I get it, and, you know...

It's so funny you say that, like, you know, because I was thinking of Amazing Spider-Man 375 as a comparison to this one, too, where, like, there's this... clearly heated emotional battle between Venom and Spider-Man that like really should be the focus of the book and then suddenly Wild Pack shows up and it's like for what purpose

I'm confusing my packs it's like I get the temptation to like kind of juxtapose Spider-Man with these kind of like you know amorphous authority figures but like I also just don't feel it works.