Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2

Reprints X-Men #101-110
Written by Chris Claremont.
Penciled by Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, Bob Brown and Tony De Zuniga.
Inked by Sam Grainger, Terry Austin, Bob Layton, Tom Sutton, Dan Green and Tony De Zuniga.

After their battle in space with the Sentinels, the X-Men are travelling back to Earth in a space shuttle. Upon returning to Earth's atmosphere, the shuttle crashes in New York's Jamaica Bay.

All of the X-Men emerge from the wreckage except for Jean Grey, who was piloting shuttle.

Suddenly, Jean flies out of the water wearing a new costume. She calls herself Phoenix and says she is no longer Jean, but has become "fire and life incarnate!" Jean suddenly collapses and is taken to the hospital.

The X-Men's leader, Prof. Charles Xavier, says that Jean and Scott don't need the rest of the team hanging around the hospital and orders them to take a vacation. The professor has good timing, since Banshee has just received an invitation to visit Cassidy Keep, his family's castle in Scotland. He's accompanied by Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus.

Their vacation has barely begun when the X-Men fall through a trap door. They find themselves standing in front of Banshee's cousin Black Tom Cassidy and Xavier's half-brother, the Juggernaut!

Black Tom possesses the mutant power to project heat through his shillelagh. Since Tom and Banshee are related, they're immune to each other's powers. So they must engage each other in hand-to-hand combat.

Juggernaut is one of the strongest beings on Earth and is (as his name suggests) nearly unstoppable. Storm is unable to help her teammates due to an attack of claustrophobia. How can the X-Men hope to stop Juggernaut and Black Tom with the odds stacked in their enemies' favor?

Subsequently, the X-Men visit Scotland's Muir Island, where their friend Dr. Moira MacTaggert operates a mutant research facility. But when the X-Men arrive at the island, they are met by Magneto, master of magnetism and oldest foe of the X-Men!

This new group of X-Men is still struggling to learn how to fight their opponents as a team. Magneto exploits this and quickly gains the upper hand. Thankfully, Cyclops arrives and decides the X-Men are outmatched and not ready to tackle an enemy of Magneto's caliber and orders them to flee the scene. Cyclops also deduces that Eric The Red is planning to attack Xavier and orders everyone to fly back to New York.    

When the X-Men return home, Eric The Red is waiting for them. They attack him, but Eric is joined by another combatant. He's Firelord, a former herald of Galactus. He possesses the Power Cosmic. His power is (in Firelord's own words) "like unto that of a raging sun!". Firelord isn't evil, but he's been tricked into believing the X-Men are the aggressors. The X-Men are easily defeated by Firelord.  

At the same time, Jean Grey and her new housemate Misty Knight are hosting a housewarming party at their New York apartment. Jean's parents and Prof. X are in attendance. Suddenly, a women with avian features materializes in Jean's living room. We learn that she is an alien named Lilandra of the Shi'ar.   She has been mentally communicating with Xavier for months, telling him that her brother, Emperor D'Ken, has grown insane and drunk with power. 

A few minutes later, Firelord arrives at Misty and Jean's apartment. Jean transforms into Phoenix and takes on Firelord. Phoenix is so powerful that she handles the former herald with relative ease, blasting Firelord from Greenwich Village to the New Jersey Meadowlands!  

While Jean is distracted by Firelord, Eric The Red attacks Lilandra. He is revealed to be Davan Shakari, who was exiled to Earth by Lilandra. Eric now serves Lilandra's brother, Emperor D'Ken. He sets up a stargate that will transport him back to the Sh'iar homeworld. Eric takes Lilandra with him, to be executed there.

Eric's stargate closes before the X-Men can jump into it, but Phoenix creates a new stargate. The X-Men, especially Cyclops, are amazed at how powerful Jean has become.  

When the X-Men arrive at the Shi'ar Empire, they're attacked by the Imperial Guard, superpowered Shi'ar who are led by their Praetor, Gladiator. The X-Men are outnumbered by the Imperials, but they hold their own long enough to free Lilandra and escape.  

She explains that D'Ken has been driven mad by his discovery of the deadliest weapon imaginable.  Lilandra tells the X-Men that every million years, nine stars align and shine into the M'Kraan Crystal.  This would allow the crystal to open a gateway to absolute power.  

When the Imperial Guard resumes their attack, the X-Men are assisted by team of space pirates called the Starjammers! These pirates are led by Corsair, an Earthling who has a surprising connection to one of the X-Men.  

D'Ken positions himself at the base of the M'Kraan Crystal and the stars shine upon it, with disastrous results. The crystal causes the entire universe to "blink" out of existence. Eventually, the M'Kraan Crystal will cause longer blinks and the universe will cease to exist. Only Phoenix can save the universe from D'Ken's madness. 

Subsequently, the X-Men arrive home and are looking forward to spending a leisurely day having a picnic at a nearby lake. Their plans are cancelled when a man who calls himself Weapon Alpha arrives. Weapon Alpha wears a battle suit that enhances his strength, gives him a force field and allows him to fly. He has come to take Wolverine back to Canada. But Weapon Alpha didn't count on the X-Men arriving on the scene to help Wolverine.

Finally, a telephone repairman arrives at the X-Mansion. When Moira is showing the repairman to the phone junction, he zaps her with a stun gun. This "repairman" turns out to be the mercenary known as Warhawk.  

The X-Men are training in their Danger Room. Warhawk enters the Danger Room's control room, and decides to use it to kill the X-Men. Can the X-Men escape from the Danger Room and defeat Warhawk?

Plus, members of the original X-Men team show up at the mansion and challenge the new team to a fight.  

But there's something about these old X-Men that makes Cyclops doubt they're the real deal.

Review:
In short, this is a great collection of X-Men stories. The creative team really hits their stride in this volume and produces some of the most memorable tales of the Bronze Age.

Story:
Chris Claremont continues his run of great action and drama in Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2.

This book opens with a space shuttle crashing into Jamaica Bay and Phoenix rising out of the water. It's one of the most iconic moments of the Bronze Age. But then Phoenix collapses and isn't seen again for 76 pages. The next time we see her, Phoenix displays god-like powers, trashing Firelord and saving the universe.  

Fans of Claremont's trademark narrative captions will be glad to see the return of the "malicious narrator." In the images scanned below, the narrator reminds Wolverine that he's "never had any friends."  

During Phoenix' absence we get great battles that feature Magneto and Juggernaut, two of the old X-Men's greatest foes. Storm's claustrophobia flashback to her childhood during the Juggernaut battle gives Claremont a chance to give us more information about Ororo's past.

Claremont makes a gutsy move in the Magneto story. The X-Men retreat from one of comicdom's most powerful villains. That's not something that superheroes did in the Bronze Age. But Claremont makes it work, since the X-Men aren't ready to fight Magneto and saving Xavier is the more important matter. Once we learn that the mastermind behind most of the X-Men's problems has been Emperor D'Ken, Cyclops' decision makes more sense.

The Firelord-Phoenix duel does a nice job of showing how powerful Jean has become. Scott thinks to himself that Jean was the least powerful member of the X-Men and now has become one of the most powerful beings on Earth. Claremont follows up with Phoenix saving the universe from D'Ken's insanity. Claremont's narration is amazing during the M'Kraan Crystal portion. It's even more wonderfully over-the-top than usual. Just read the captions in the images below:

This book also contains one of Claremont's trademark "downtime" stories, when the X-Men get a few moments to relax at the mansion and talk to each other. This gives Claremont time to develop the characters a little more. Wolverine feels that everyone has misjudged him since he arrived. Colossus bemoans the fact that he lacks the words to describe his homeland to Storm. It's interesting to watch Cyclops feel alienated from Jean when she gains the Phoenix power (this will be very important down the road, when Jean/Phoenix is presumed dead). Nightcrawler shows that he's an all-around good guy. Kurt tries to get Cyclops to open up about his feelings and also tries to set up a date for Colossus.

The Weapon Alpha fight helps build Wolverine's backstory. It also shows the X-Men coming to his rescue, since they've grown to care about the abrasive Logan and consider him a friend.

On a less positive note, Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2 also contains some lackluster material. The book includes two fill-in tales that are a step down in quality from the rest of the stories. The Old X-Men/New X-Men duel (from X-Men #106) feels like a case of "been there, done that" since it's a bit too similar to a fight featured in X-Men #100.

The book ends with the Warhawk story, another fill-in. Warhawk was created by Claremont as an Iron Fist villain, but here he's just a generic criminal-for-hire bad guy.

On a personal note, the Cassidy Keep two-parter has long been a favorite (even if I find the leprechauns a bit silly), since it was my introduction to the Juggernaut.

In spite of the fill-in material, the stories are excellent, they add up to another great chapter in Claremont's long saga.

Art:
Dave Cockrum pencils the first 89 pages of Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2. His work is strong throughout and sometimes it's fantastic. Cockrum does some great work in this two-page spread from the Firelord story:

It should be noted that the Imperial Guard is an homage to DC Comics' Legion Of Superheroes. For instance, Gladiator is a stand-in for Superboy and Hobgoblin strongly resembles Chameleon Boy. This was a bit of an inside joke, since Cockrum penciled the Legion's stories and designed many of their costumes. It's Cockrum's last story and it's a nice farewell for the New X-Men's co-creator.

Speaking of homages, Cockrum also gets a nice Star Trek tribute in the image below. The Shi'ar bridge looks a lot like the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

John Byrne and Terry Austin succeed Cockrum and the art gets even better, even if it takes a few stories for them to develop what would become their classic style. Byrne and Austin's art at the end of the D'Ken story, when Phoenix saves the universe, still looks amazing  nearly 40 years after it was first published. Check out their work below:

Simply gorgeous work by Byrne and Austin.
That's one of the best examples I've ever seen of a writer, penciler and inker working together to make a great comic book story. Even today, when I read those pages I can almost hear the creative team saying, "let's knock the readers' socks off!"

I also love the way Byrne and Austin depict Peter's transformation into Colossus in this image:

The first fill-in tale features Bob Brown on pencils inked by Tom Sutton. They both did some nice work in the Bronze Age, but I didn't feel that their styles meshed well here. Which is too bad, since this tale is the last artwork Brown created before his untimely death.

Tony De Zuniga penciled and inked the last story. I enjoyed his work in Bronze Age horror titles, but De Zuniga's art here is a step down from Cockrum, Byrne and Austin.

How Does It Look?:
Here's a great image scanned from X-Men #107:

Here's how the same pages appear in Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2:

Extras:
Comic legend Stan Lee wrote an introductory essay for the 1993 edition of this collection. It's reprinted here in this book. If you enjoy Stan The Man's alliterative writing style, you'll want to read this essay.

Rating:
Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2 is highly recommended to any X-Fans. The M'Kraan Crystal story is reason enough to pick it up. While the aforementioned fill-in stories aren't great, the great far outweighs the mediocre in this book. The introduction of Phoenix and the art of Cockrum, Byrne, and Austin make this a must-have for any fan of Bronze Age comics.  

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!

Spider-Man and the Uncanny X-Men

Reprints X-Men #35, Amazing Spider-Man #92, Marvel Team-Up Annual #1, Marvel Team-Up #150 and Spectacular Spider-Man #197-199

Written by Roy Thomas, Stan Lee, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Bonnie Wilford, Louise Jones and J.M. DeMatteis.

Penciled by Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, Greg Laroque and Werner Roth.

Inked by Mike Esposito, Sal Buscema, Dan Adkins and John Romita, Sr.

New York has been rocked by the death of Police Captain George Stacy. He was killed by falling rubble during a fight between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Stacy's daughter Gwen and many other New Yorkers blame Spider-Man for the police captain's death. A corrupt politician named Sam Bullit is running for District Attorney.  Bullit gains Gwen's endorsement when he promises to take down Spider-Man.

Gwen and Bullit visit Peter Parker's apartment and find Parker in his Spidey costume. Panicking over his secret identity being blown, Spider-Man picks up Gwen and swings away with her. He tries to explain to Gwen that he's not a killer, but she doesn't buy it. Spidey insults Parker just to make sure Gwen doesn't realize they're one and the same.    

Bobby Drake, the X-Man known as Iceman, happens to see this and intervenes. They fight briefly until Spider-Man swings away. Bullit shows up and tells Iceman that Spidey must not escape next time. 

Iceman "saves" Gwen from Spider-Man;
Bullit plans to cash in on the public's fear of the Wall-Crawler.

At the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson have learned that Bullit is crooked. He has ties to white supremacist criminals. Jameson has withdrawn his endorsement of Bullit, which puts his and Robbie's lives in danger.

Bullit sends his henchmen to capture Robbie. Spider-Man learns of this and sets out to save Robbie,  but he's attacked once more by Iceman. He tries to reason with the "animated snowman" (as Spidey calls him) and says he's trying to rescue Robertson.  

Will Iceman cease his attack and help Spider-Man save Robbie? Will Bullit's crooked campaign succeed in getting him elected? 

Months later, an Earthquake hits a nuclear testing facility In Nevada. We see scientists being contaminated by radiation and crushed by the quake. 

Sen. Turner learns that it's not wise to antagonize Wolverine.

Nearby, scientists are meeting aboard an airplane to discuss human mutation. Prof. Charles Xavier is attending this meeting and has brought his students, known to the world as the Uncanny X-Men. Peter Parker is also on the plane, covering the conference for the Daily Bugle. 

The plane is attacked by flying robots, prompting Spider-Man and the X-Men into action. They defend the plane from the robots and successfully land it in the desert. Banshee and Storm determine that the robots must have emerged from a nearby crater.

Out of the crater comes a group of super-powered individuals who have adopted the names of Hindu gods! They tell the Spidey and the mutants that they are the scientists who were caught in the nuclear explosion. The gods are more than a match for the heroes, the X-Men and Spider-Man are subdued and captured.

Brahma explains the origin of him & his fellow gods, while the heroes try to escape.

Their leader, Brahma, says they need more energy to survive. The only way to do that is to siphon power away from Earth, which would mean the end of life on the planet. They ask Phoenix to help them do this, but she has other ideas.

Can the heroes prevent the gods from destroying the world? 

Sometime later, Cain Marko, better known to the world as the unstoppable Juggernaut recaptures the ruby that gave him his super powers. He wants to give it to his friend (and partner-in-crime), Black Tom Cassidy as a birthday present.

As expected, the ruby turns Cassidy into another Juggernaut! Tom is not happy about this and decks Juggernaut. The two Juggernauts engage in a slugfest in the streets of Manhattan. After a few minutes of battle, Cassidy realizes that his possession of the ruby has split the power of the Juggernaut between both of them: Marko's power has been cut in half. 

Two Juggernauts duke it out.

Spider-Man swings by and decides to take some photos of the fight, thinking Cassidy is a superhero.  But Juggernaut notices the webhead and the villainous duo goes after him. Spidey holds his own, but he's overmatched. Suddenly, the X-Men arrive to help.   

Spidey slingshots Juggernaut into Tom Cassidy.

Will the combined powers of the X-Men and Spider-Man be enough to stop Juggernaut and a super-strong Black Tom Cassidy?

Review:
Spider-Man and the X-Men are two of Marvel's most popular franchises. But they haven't had many classic team-ups, in the Bronze Age or otherwise. The stories reprinted here are good, but not great.

Story:
The first tale, from Amazing Spider-Man #92 is okay. Stan Lee wrote this and it takes place during a time when Gwen Stacy acted crazy and hated Spider-Man. That got old fast. But the fight scenes between Spider-Man and Iceman were pretty good. It's a typical "heroes fight because of a mistake" trope, but it works here. The subplot involving Jonah and Robbie was good too. It was good to see JJJ depicted as something other than a cartoonish buffoon who irrationally hated Spider-Man.

The story from Marvel Team-Up Annual #1, written by Bill Mantlo (with plot assistance from Chris Claremont and Bonnie Wilford), is more interesting for its "historical significance" than as a great story. Based on my research, it appears to be the first time the "All-New, All-Different" X-Men guest starred in another series.

Spidey & the X-Men fight Yama & Kali.

But it's an odd tale. The villains never appeared again after this story. Xavier attends a conference held on an airplane. Why? We don't really find out why it's held on a plane, beyond "so it can further the plot" and put them in the same place as a nuclear accident. There's a man on the plane named Senator Turner. An editor's note says he's a character from Marvel's Skull The Slayer series. Mantlo also wrote some of that series, but Turner's appearance is sort of random and adds nothing.

Having said that, it's not a bad story, I enjoyed Spider-Man's interaction with Wolverine. They have very different approaches to fighting crime and Mantlo does a nice job showing that here. Spidey gets off a great zinger about how no one calls Logan "the Amazing Wolverine."  

Wolverine & Spider-Man trade barbs as the heroes enter the Hellpit.

Louise Simonson (she was still known as Louise Jones when the story was first published) penned the Juggernaut/Tom Cassidy story and it's the highlight of the book. This was originally presented in the final issue of Marvel Team-Up and the series went out with a bang. Simonson knew the X-Men from her days editing their series and does a nice job with the characters.

Rogue absorbs Cassidy's power, becoming a Juggernaut herself.

It should be noted the only X-Men present are Colossus, Rogue, Nightcrawler, and Rachel Summers.  But Simonson succeeds in making the "B-Team" of mutants entertaining. It was interesting to see Nightcrawler take on a leadership role in this story, in the absence of Storm, Cyclops, or Xavier.  Simonson's depiction of Peter Parker and Spider-Man is also good. It's consistent with the way Spidey was written in his other series in the early 80s.

Art:
The first story credits Gil Kane and John Romita, two of the best pencilers in the history of comics, as artists. It looks like Kane penciled it, while Romita inked and re-drew some of the faces. We get Kane's "perspective" style with characters that look like the ones Romita made famous. It looks great,they're a fine combination and Spider-Man's fight with Iceman is very exciting, if a bit short.

Next up, Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito handle the pencils and inks, respectively. Buscema didn't draw the X-Men very often, but he does a good job here. He and Esposito were the art team for many years on The Incredible Hulk.  Their work here is as good as was in Ol' Greenskin's series. We get some nice looking fight scenes and I love the pages below where the "gods" start to dissolve.

Greg Laroque penciled the last story, inked by Esposito. It's not flashy, but it's good art, easy on the eyes. The full-page image below, featuring the X-Men's arrival is excellent.  

How does it look?:
Spider-Man and the Uncanny X-Men was published back in 1996, so the reprint quality is bit of a step down compared to more recent books.

I noticed some re-colorings in the Iceman story

Here's a scan from the original issue:

And here's how the same page looks in the tpb:

I don't know why they made Bullit purple in the bottom panel. There are a few other random panels that have changes like that. Most of the rest of the tpb looks okay, so I won't "disqualify" the book on that basis. Here's another scan from the book that looks great:

Rogue begins to lose herself in Juggernauts memories.

Extras:
This tpb contains several stories from other "ages" of comics. We get one page of X-Men #27 that features the first ever meeting of Spider-Man and the X-Men. Next up is X-Men #35, the first full-length battle between the mutants and the webhead. The book ends with 3 stories from the 1990s.

We also get one-sentence descriptions of the stories from some of the creators.  

The stories reprinted in Spider-Man and the Uncanny X-Men are not essential Bronze Age reading. But they feature some very good art and the stories are entertaining and full of action. The Juggernaut story makes it worth getting all by itself. And if you grew up reading Spider-Man and X-Men stories in the Bronze Age, you'll enjoy this book.  

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 Sals.

Spider-Man: Nothing Can Stop The Juggernaut

Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #224-230
Written by Roger Stern and Jan Strnad.
Penciled by John Romita Jr. and Rick Leonardi.
Inked by Pablo Marcos, Bob Wiacek, Jim Mooney and Dave Simons.

Note from your trusted blogger:
This post reviews a hardcover collection released in 2013 that reprints 7 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. I point this out because another reprint book with the same title was published in 1989, but that one only reprinted ASM #229-230. 

Variant Cover

Some great 1980s adventures of the Amazing Spider-Man!

An elderly man named Adrian Toomes moves into Restwell Nursing home. He meets and befriends Nathan Lubensky (who happens to be the boyfriend of Spider-Man's Aunt May). Unbeknownst to Nathan, Toomes is the Vulture, an old enemy of Spider-Man.

The Vulture flies again!

The Vulture goes on a crime spree, robbing banks and jewelers, while using the nursing home as a hideout. Spider-Man eventually finds the Vulture, but their battle puts Nathan's life in jeopardy.  

Later, two FBI agents are brutally murdered in the Bowery. The perpetrator is the Foolkiller, who has made it his mission in life to kill everyone he considers a fool. Foolkiller targets some alleged fools who are close to Peter Parker, which brings him into a conflict with Spider-Man.

Foolkiller shows an FBI agent what he does to "fools".

Next up, the Black Cat escapes from a mental hospital. She'd been faking insanity until she was able to break free. Black Cat wastes no time in getting back into her old habits and steals a rare painting. When Spidey chases her down, he learns that she stole it from a Maggia mob boss who had stolen it himself.  The Cat says he can take the painting to the police.

Spider-Man & Black Cat take out some gangsters.

Spider-Man then meets with his best friend in the NYPD, Captain Jean DeWolf and tells her that the Black Cat wants to go straight. DeWolf agrees and fills out the necessary paperwork that will grant the Cat amnesty for her crimes. But will the Black Cat's own foolishness (and kleptomania) get in the way of her freedom?

Spider-Man leaps & swings all over New York's rooftops
I love the panel on the right with the multiple Spideys!

Later, a series of murders hits New York City. There's one common piece of evidence linking the crime scenes: spider webs. This causes many (especially Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson) to accuse Spider-Man of being the killer. But the real perpetrator is a scientist who has developed a machine that causes venomous spiders to kill people. To complicate matters, this machine is also driving the webhead crazy. Can Spidey capture the real killer and prove his innocence?

Spider-man rescues a women who has been attacked by Spiders.

Last but definitely not least, the super-villain duo of Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy are docked in New York Harbor. Tom has learned about the existence of Madame Web. She's a psychic who has called on Spider-Man to stop crimes from occurring before they happen. The villains believe her precognitive abilities can help them commit crimes and defeat superheroes. Juggernaut decides to walk to Manhattan (on the ocean floor!) and capture Madame Web.

But Spider-Man is there to stop him. Juggy gives the webhead one of the worst beatings of his life, but Spider-Man keeps coming back. Juggernaut is out of Spidey's class. He's held his own against the Hulk.

None of the other NYC-based heroes are around, so it's up to Spider-Man to stop Juggernaut...or, in his own words, "die trying!".

Review:
An excellent hardcover collection from a great era of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Story:
I said in a recent review that Roger Stern was the best Spider-Man writer since Stan Lee and this book is another fine example. It contains the beginning of Stern's run on Amazing Spider-Man and it's among the best of all time.

Stern writes the definitive Juggernaut story here. I think this story put Juggy in the upper-echelon of Marvel villains, as he walks through buildings, survives a gas truck explosion and rips Spider-Man's webbing to shreds. And Spidey here knows he out-classed but he's willing to put his life on the line against Juggernaut. Their battle is one of the best stories in Spider-Man's long history.

The Black Cat's evolution from mentally disturbed burglar to Spider-Man's love interest begins here.  While the Black Cat "dies" here, it obviously didn't "take" since she's still around 30+ years later.

Spider-Man meets Star Wars:Spidey attends a costume party dressed as a Jawa. 
How cool is that?!

    
The other stories here also very good. The Vulture had always been depicted as a very old man. Stern gives us a story where the villain uses that to his advantage.

The Foolkiller was a fairly obscure villain, but Stern gives us a great done-in-one story built around him.

And we get plenty of scenes that feature Peter visiting the Daily Bugle, interacting with colleagues and friends such as JJJ, Robbie Robertson, Glory Grant and Betty Brant.

Peter Parker visits the Bugle;Betty Brant returns to her old job & mends fences with Peter.

 Aunt May and her fiance Nathan Lubensky are also used well in this book. Giving May a boyfriend (and eventual husband) was a nice touch, and Stern doesn't go to the overused "Aunt May has a heart attack" plot here.

Vulture & Spidey battle in a nursing home;
Vulture takes Nathan as a hostage.

In addition to Stern's work, we get an offbeat stand-alone story written by Jan Strnad. It's a good down-to-earth murder mystery featuring a one-shot villain. But it fits in nicely with the rest of the book. 

Art:
John Romita Jr. had been working at Marvel for a few years, but this is where he begins to pencil in the style that would make him famous. The pressure must have been tough on him, penciling the series that made his father, John Romita Sr., a comics legend. But "J.R. Jr." was more than up to the challenge. This remains some of his finest work. Romita is inked by Pablo Marcos, Bob Wiacek and Jim Mooney.  They all do a nice job without obscuring Romita's work.   

The fill-in story written by Strnad features good art by Rick Leonardi and Dave Simons.

How does it look?: 
The reprinted pages look great, as all the above scans would indicate. I don't see that any weird re-coloring has been done here. Here's another scan from the book:

Spider-Man: Nothing Can Stop The Juggernaut contains some classic Spidey tales and is highly recommended. I've read some of these stories many times over the past 30 years and they're still very enjoyable. I think newcomers to these stories will appreciate the book as well.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!