Untold Tales of Spider-Man Complete

Description:

Untold Tales of Spider-Man is the name of an American comic book series starring Spider-Man published by Marvel Comics for 26 issues (#1-25, and a #Minus 1 between #s 22 and 23) from September, 1995 to October, 1997.

Untold Tales' stories are retcons (Retroactive continuity - the deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction, common in comic books; the change is informally referred to as a "retcon," and producing a retcon is called "retconning"); they presented new stories set in Spider-Man's early super-hero career.

The series was primarily written by Kurt Busiek and pencilled by Pat Olliffe, though Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz also contributed. Tom Brevoort was the editor of the title throughout its run. The critical and fan approval of the comic boosted Brevoort and Busiek's career and by the time the series had finished both had achieved key positions on the bestselling Heroes Return titles Avengers and Iron Man.

This series was noted as one of the better written Spider-Man series during the turbulent Clone Saga that was running through the various then-published Spider-Man related titles from 1994-1996. Untold Tales was labelled as the most reader friendly title, due to its nature of being set in the past, away from the current events happening to Spider-Man during the unpopular Clone Saga.

Each issue of Untold Tales of Spider-Man featured a single self-contained story, though the book did have broad character arcs and subplots which developed throughout the series.

The title kept to a strong continuity, with the events in each issue taking place between specific stories from the first two years of The Amazing Spider-Man by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee. As those stories were originally told in the early 1960s the title had a somewhat retro style in its depiction of the world around Spider-Man.

The series spotlighted Spider-Man's early interactions with established characters such as J. Jonah Jameson, the Human Torch, Betty Brant, Mary Jane Watson, the Vulture, Sandman and the Green Goblin. It also introduced a number of new characters into the Spider-Man mythos, including The Scorcher, Bat-Wing, the Space-Men, Commanda and the Headsman. Of those listed only the Scorcher, Bluebird and Bat-Wing have been properly acknowledged in modern continuity.

During Marvel's "Flashback" stunt in July, 1997, when for one month all Marvel titles were numbered -1 and each was meant to be set before Fantastic Four #1, the title went even further back to tell a James Bond influenced story which involved Peter Parker's parents on an espionage mission before the character was even born.

The stories from this series are non-canonical due to the retcon of Spider-Man's early years from the Spider-Man: Chapter One lmited series (1998–1999) by writer/artist John Byrne, which was released after Untold Tales was cancelled. Untold Tales also featured stories from Spider-Man's early career, but instead of replacing the original comics they added to them, telling stories which occurred at the same time. Untold Tales was popular with many of the same fans who criticised Byrne's revisions. Today, most creators who have come after Byrne ignore the changes done by the Chapter One limited series.