Spider-Man Complete Chronology Update 7

Covering Secret Wars and Convergence really put me behind on the Spider-Man chronology.  And I’ve made several promises that once those two crossovers were behind me, I’d be pouring most of my efforts into Spidey.  I could use the excuse that Secret Wars is technically not quite over yet, but actually I’ve been working really hard on an update.  Unfortunately, it’s not ready yet.

After the break I’ll get into a bit of the “why” and also look at three books that you may be wondering if I missed: Untold Tales of Spider-Man Annual 1997, Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #1-3 and the first story in Tangled Web #14.

Spider-Man Complete Chronology Update 1

 

For this first official update I’ve added issues that fall in the timeframe between Amazing Spider-Man 51 and Marvel Team-Up 4.  The chronology notes are still pretty lightweight at this point as the bulk of the issues are Amazing.  The introduction of Marvel Team-Up in 1972 is the first time that Spider-Man is appearing in more than one title a month.  It adds some complexity, but the two titles are actually pretty tightly knit editorially, and the two series weave together nicely.

There are some spoilers if you’ve missed out on the last 50 years of Spider-Man and are just getting started.

Spider-Man Complete Chronology Update 0

 

Being all cool and trendy (and to infuriate Ryan), this will be the “zero issue” of the chronology updates as technically it isn’t an update, but the notes for the initial list as we roll this out.  After the break, read my thoughts about the placement of issues in the chronology between Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #50.  The notes are a little on the light side this go round as most of this chunk are the early issues of Amazing interspersed with Untold Tales of Spider-Man, which Marvel has been pretty clear about where they fit chronologically.  There are some spoilers if you’ve missed out on the last 50 years of Spider-Man and are just getting started.

The Definitive Chronological List Of Every Spider-Man Comic Book

Say you’re up late one night and you decide you want to read every Spider-Man comic book ever published but only if you can do so in chronological order.  Not publication order, mind you, but in an order that has all 2,000+ issues make sense as a single story.  Because this is what you do when you’re up late.  Don’t blame me.

Before today you had two options.  First, you could find some online reading orders but they can be lacking so that option is out.  Second, you could read every issue and then try to put them in order as you go but that defeats the purpose of reading them in order.

As of today, you have a third option.

One of the secret projects I’ve been working on for Gabbing Geek has been this definitive Spider-Man reading chronology. The goal is to incorporate as many canonical appearances as possible in an order that someone reading Spider-Man for the first time could follow.  Interested?  Find out more after the break.