The Sensational Spider-Man: Self Improvement #1 Review

“I threw it together when I saw how trashed your own costume was.”

TRUE BELIEVERS! Enjoy this tale that might have been back in 1982 but finally gets the Mighty Marvel treatment here in 2019!

“Burn Job”

SCRIPT: Peter David, based on a PLOT by Randy Schueller

PENCILS: Rick Leonardi

INKS: Victor Olazaba

COLORS: Rachelle Rosenberg

“With No Power”

SCRIPT, PLOT, & PENCILS: Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz

INKS: Sal Buscema

COLORS: Chris Sotomayor

LETTERER: VC’s Travis Lanham

COVER ARTISTS: Mark Bagley, John Dell & Laura Martin

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kathleen Wisneski

EDITOR: Nick Lowe

SPIDER-MAN created by STAN LEE & STEVE DITKO

STORY: Firebrand attacks a woman at an art gallery and Spidey jumps in the way to save her, getting badly burned in the process. The Human Torch arrives, scaring Firebrand off. Johnny takes the wounded Web-Slinger back to the Baxter Building, where Mr. Fantastic heals his burns and makes him a new suit made out of unstable molecules. Furthermore, Reed tells Spidey that the woman he saved is the ex-wife of Firebrand. Spider-Man clumsily makes his way to her house, just in time to save her and her daughter from Firebrand, but his new, darker look scares Firebrand’s daughter. With this in mind and compounded by all the technical troubles Spidey has had with the costume, he politely returns it to Reed and starts sewing a new suit.

Swinging around town, Spider-Man comes across a drive-by as a boy screams for his Uncle Pete who was shot. After checking on the victim, the Wall-Crawler tracks down the shooters to an abandoned building. He confronts them, quickly taking them down, only to find the boy whose uncle was shot there for revenge with a gun of his own. His name is Peter, too, and he feels responsible for what happened, as his uncle was trying to keep him out of the criminal life and he wouldn’t listen. Spider-Man talks Peter down, but the guilt remains…

THOUGHTS: I’m an easy mark when it comes to a Mark Bagley cover. Throw in Spidey in the black costume and that’s an immediate buy for me. It’s a pretty straightforward affair, recalling the pin-up style covers he would produce when he was the artist on Ultimate Spider-Man. If it ain’t broke!

Once upon a time in the ’80s, fan Randy Schueller had an idea for a new suit for Spider-Man and he submitted it to then EiC Jim Shooter. It never made it to the page…till now. Peter David takes the basic idea and steeps it in the era, much like he is doing on Symbiote Spider-Man. Reunited with his long-time collaborator Rick Leonardi, it feels like a classic Spidey story from the jump!

David takes the plot and breathes his trademark life into it. His banter between Spidey and the Torch is spot on and is always fun to see. I was a little underwhelmed by Firebrand as a villain, but he foot the bill as a bad guy who could bring the heat, so to speak. The divorced wife in hiding aspect would be hard to shoe horn in to a more established Spidey villain without having way too much to explain.

The story moved at a brisk pace and I enjoyed David throwing in a non-Firebrand-related suit mishap to add more weight to Peter’s decision to eventually discard the suit. A helicopter save may be a superhero trope, but by having it be the result of not one, but TWO new features from Spidey’s black suit, it adds more credence to get rid of his cool, more advanced costume. Plus, it gave David a chance to not only throw Jonah in the story, but to have him be right about that Masked Menace as well! Kinda. Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day!

While I buy in to Spidey’s ultimate reason to give up the suit-not wanting to be mistaken for “some sort of venomous evildoer”- the phrasing felt a little ham-fisted, making reference to a character who wouldn’t exist in this reality. I appreciate what he was trying to do, but it sounded weird and took me out of the story for a moment.

It warms my nostalgic-for-the-90s heart to see Rick Leonardi penciling anything Spider-related. As one of the artists responsible for the design of the black costume and an artist on a few issues of Amazing during the Symbiote Saga, he’s a perfect choice to bring this tale to life. I really loved seeing his take on the classic costume, but had a hard time wrapping my brain around the coloring of the new black suit. Instead of being the look we’ve loved since the ’80s, the chest spider and web shooter ports are blood red. It’s in stark contrast to the whites of his eyes and that contrast is what throws it off for me. It also makes him a little Black Widowish. I’m also not a fan of seeing mouth expressions coming through the mask. That’s not exclusively a Leonardi technique. Various artists have done it throughout the decades and it just always strikes me as weird looking. Other than those minor quibbles, I really enjoyed seeing Mr. Leonardi’s contribution. It felt right, balancing the line between acknowledging the era in which it took place and looking contemporary.

The backup story, also done by a classic Spidey team, is a little more nebulous as to the time period in which it takes place. Locking down an era isn’t important for this story to work though. It’s a simple, yet perfect story of why Peter is Spidey and why he will always be Spidey. He gets personal with another nephew named Peter who has recently undergone a tragedy and displays why his character, compassion, and empathy are really his greatest strengths. It should come as no surprise that DeFalco can bring out the humanity in Spider-Man. Also, Frenz and Buscema continue to be a perfect pairing, not just in terms of their collaboration on this story, but having it be paired in the same book alongside Leonardi. If your Spider-Fandom goes back a few decades, you’re going to love seeing the return of all these greats. Frenz’s style uses more camera push ins as a technique, with the end of his story paralleling the closing of Spectacular Spider-Man 189 & 200 artistically.

If you’re looking for a classic spin around the old Spidey neighborhood, this special will scratch that itch for sure. For your $5 not only do you get two expertly told tales, but four pages of text as well, detailing the original pitch by Randy Schueller complete with notes by Tom DeFalco. It’s a fascinating insight into the creative process. So, what’re you waiting for, Web-Heads! Add this book to your collection today!

MY GRADE: B+

JAVI’S HUH?: Why exactly is this under the Sensational Spider-Man banner? This would’ve come out in an era before that title’s heyday. Spec or Amazing I would understand, with the appropriate ’80s masthead.