Jun 07, 2024
Well, at least it closes the main arc of the magazine about the portal...
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It's not a well known fact, that some countries like France and Russia had 20 more additional issues with brand new stories after this one. I have all of them in Russian and I doubt they'll appear on the site, so I decided to leave my ratings and comments for them here. Surprisingly, they were quite cool. Some of those exclusive issues were even the best of the series!
#61 - 7.5
A fine Grey Hulk story, even though a simple one.
#62 - 7.5
It's actually a cool idea to adapt the Secret Wars in this magazine. It's a shame the story was exclusive, even though there isn't much of "s
tory" at all.
#63 - 7.5
The second part of the Secret Wars. All in all there's not much to talk about. Imagine a very short and simplyfied retelling of that 12 issue saga. It's pure fan service and it works OK in this magazine, but that's it.
#64 - 7.5
A weird team-up of Shocker and Harry Osborn. It's also the only appearance of the Shocker from this universe. He even teamed-up with Spidey against dinosaurs at the end, so it's not a typical Spidey story at all.
#65 - 7.5
Spidey vs Doc Ock. Nothing innovative, the story is worse than the one from Marvel Adventures where Spidey of that universe befriened Ock's tentacles. But it was still alright.
#66 - 7.5
Invisible Woman touched a glove of Galactus and almost made the entire universe to disappear. But Spidey and Uatu helped her. Not the best story I've read, but it's not bad.
#67 - 8
Venom secretly possessed Spidey in order to save Eddie from a bunch of lizard psychoes. An overcomplicated story for such a magazine, but still a good one. I really love when Connors helps Spidey when he's not the mad Lizard.
#68 - 8.5
A funny story where Pym as Yellow Jacket tried to take the superhero job from Spidey. Tons of cameos make the story better.
#69 - 8
Spider-Man and Hulk vs Super Skrull. The baddie had a very weird plot, but the story overall was fine. It's also really cool to see John Ross in these exclusive issues, because he was a rare guest in the latest issues and his artwork literally associates with this universe for me.
#70 - 6
I'm not a fan of the Savage Land stories. Everyone went mad until Spidey could free them from some evil affection. Ka-Zar was almost absent from the story, even though he literally was on the cover. I think it could be executed better. It's not like the story is bad, it's just really mid.
#71 - 7
This issue finally closes the whole Norman Osborn saga. He's back in New York from the prehistoric times. But the story itself could be much better imho... Anyway, it's really cool that the magazine stayed true to its continuity.
#72 - 7.5
The direct sequel to the story from issue 66. Spidey saves Galactus from a horde of... symbiotes? I must admit, it sounds weird, but it worked fine. The concept could be executed much better, though...
#73 - 7.5
Captain Kerosene was a character of Glenn Dakin, who wrote the majority of stories for this magazine. So it's not a surprise he used him twice. But I never expected the third appearance... It's a shame that English speaking audience probably will never know this story existed... It was a cool one. The previous issue with Cap had a hint that he probably survived, but now it's 100% canonical. He's alive and well. Even better than the last time we saw him.
#74 - 7.5
The story is typical "Doctor Strange wakes Peter at night and their astral forms travel into some weird parallel reality to help the physical body of Doc". But this issue had a full actual appearance of Cyttorak... I mean, did anyone even see him somewhere? He was mostly just mentioned as the creature that gives Cain Marko the power of the Juggernaut. But here he is, or rather his Earth-10995 version.
#75 - 8.5
The issue has a very poor artwork, but the story dives deep into Spider-Man's origin and shows a really great version of Crusher Hogan. A touching and heartwarming comic.
#76 - 8
Pure fan service, tons of different villains, the Punisher and even a new never seen before costume for Spider-Man. That's what you should expect from such magazines.
#77 - 6
A very boring Spider-Man and Thor team-up against some random never seen before creature named Zzurg. Absolutely skippable.
#78 - 8
A great Chameleon story featuring Nightmare and Enforcers.
#79 - 8
It's a fine Man-Thing and Spider-Man team-up, but it also closes the story arc of Hank Pym quite well. Man, the dude really went through so much changes during his appearances in this series...
#80 - 7.5
It's a really insane issue. Imagine: the Sinister Six vs... the maximum Carnage team? There were too many villains to make a masterpiece of a story, but anyway, it was a pretty cool way to finally finish the series on a very epic note. I mean, even doc Ock married aunt May on the final panel out of nothing...
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So yeah, that was it. For years the series was really hard to find and we spent a lot of time to find all issue and document them online. After reading the whole collection, I must admit I got quite fond of this universe, even though back in 2009 I felt it was too dumb and childish even for my 9 years brain. The magazine gets much better with time. It's a very interesting part of the Spider-Man universe and it's a shame so very few people can read and enjoy it... more
