Spider-Man is Marvel’s golden boy. He is unequivocally their most popular and lucrative character. Spider-Man has been a pop culture juggernaut ever since its inception in the early 1960s when it was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. In this inception, he spun out a web of various different franchises and inter-media IPs due to his popularity.
Spider-Man has appeared in more movies, shows, video games, cartoons, and graphic novels than the human brain can comprehend. But this article will focus on comics today. A character with a literary tenure like Spider-Man is bound to have many great stories and many bad ones. Let’s focus on the good ones today.
Stan Lee
Yes, this is a very obvious pick. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were the creative team behind the Amazing Spider-Man’s first handful of stories. After Ditko left, the famous John Romita took over, and the rest is history. As for Stan, well, his reputation is an infamous one. His larger-than-life persona has given him a lot of credit for ideas that some argue were never his.
Most of this is he said, she said, but many people admit that Lee wasn’t the sole creative force behind all the ideas he put his name on. Either way, Stan Lee has been a pillar of Marvel ever since the 1960s, and the comics he worked on, particularly Spider-Man’s, are still being adapted to this day. Talk about lasting power! His ideas are famous for a reason.
J. Michael Straczynski
Surprisingly, JMS is a bit of a controversial Spider-Man writer. This is because two of his stories, “Sin’s Past” and “One More Day,” are two of the most hated Spider-Man comic stories. He was essentially forced to write them, by the way, from editorial. Not counting those two, his run on Spider-Man was incredible. It was at the start of the 2000s.
A fresh start for the character. JMS was solely tasked with reuniting Peter and MJ after a supervillain estranged them. He did a great job. JMS has a very human and emotionally raw tone in his comics. His narration for Peter Parker is THE Peter Parker you think about when you imagine him from the old-school comics. He’s underrated and one of the best writers to do it.
J.M. DeMatteis
Ever notice that many Spider-Man authors have J’s and M’s in their names? DeMatteis is arguably the GOAT Spider-Man writer. He has made works like “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, which is most likely the greatest story the character has ever received. He also wrote the beautiful “Best of Enemies” comic, which killed off Peter’s best friend, Harry Osborn.
These were all in the 80s and 90s, but DeMatteis still writes spin-off Spidey comics. His latest four-issue mini, “Shadow of the Green Goblin,” is probably tied for the best Spidey comic of this year. He is a writer who just understands Spider-Man and, with a character like him, what comes with making a compelling story. He’s just one of many greats, but for this writer’s money, the greatest to ever write for this character. This is an impressive feat since there have been dozens of spectacular Spider-Man writers. Certainly, a writer can make multiple articles on just that topic alone, but who knows?
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