Marvel Masterworks: Luke Cage, Hero For Hire Vol. 1

Reprints Hero For Hire #1-16
Written by Archie Goodwin, Steve Engelhart, Billy Graham, Tony Isabella,
Penciled by George Tuska and Billy Graham.
Inked by Billy Graham, Syd Shores, Paul Reinman, and Frank McLaughlin.

Lucas is an inmate of Seagate Prison, serving a sentence for a drug-related felony he didn't commit. Seagate is a maximum security penitentiary, known as "Little Alcatraz" to its inmates. Shades and Comanche, two other prisoners, are planning a demonstration for the incoming warden. Lucas doesn't want any part of their plans, he just wants to get out of prison.

Seagate's head of security, Albert Rackham asks Lucas to serve as an informant and rat out Shades' gang. When Lucas refuses, Rackham tortures him, beating him within an inch of his life.

This ends when the new warden arrives and demotes Rackham.

Through flashbacks, we learn that prior to his imprisonment, Lucas teamed with his friend Willis Stryker and committed petty crimes in New York City. As they grew older, Lucas drifted away from crime, while Willis delved deeper into the underworld. The two friends both fell for a woman named Reva Connors, but it was Willis who won her hand.

One night, rival gangsters try to kill Willis. Reva ran off to get help from Lucas, who saved his old friend. Reva dumped Willis, worried that his lifestyle was too dangerous. Willis blamed Lucas for the attempt on his life and promised revenge.

Reva and Lucas' relationship blossomed and they were discussing marriage. But their dream ended when Willis planted heroin on Lucas and tipped off the police, which led to Lucas' felony conviction. Shortly thereafter, Reva was killed by a bullet intended for Willis.  

Seagate's doctor, Noah Burstein believes Lucas' story of his innocence and approaches him with an idea. Burstein is conducting a scientific experiment that could increase strength of humans. If Lucas participates, it may help his chances at getting released on parole.

Lucas is placed in a chamber and is undergoing an "electro-biochemical" procedure. Unfortunately, Rackham interrupts the process and turns up the chamber's controls, intending to kill Lucas. However, Lucas breaks out and escapes Seagate. He is shot by guards and presumed dead.

Lucas returns to New York and decides to take a new name. He now calls himself Luke Cage. Since he now possesses super strength and bulletproof skin, Luke decides to set up shop as a "hero for hire" and acts as sort of a super-powered private detective. He rents office space at a Times Square movie theater. Cage's new landlord is David "D.W." Griffith, who manages the theater.

When Luke gets shot, he receives medical treatment from Dr. Claire Temple, who works in a storefront clinic. When he arrives at the clinic, Cage is shocked to see that his old prison doctor, Noah Burstein also works there. Thankfully, Luke's hair is different enough to prevent Burstein from recognizing him. The doctor eventually figures out the truth, but keeps quiet. Burstein feels guilty about experimenting on prisoners and works at the clinic in order to atone for his past sins.

Before Cage can start a new life, he must face off against his former friend Willis Stryker, who now wears a snake costume and calls himself Diamondback. Stryker is armed with a variety of deadly knives and Luke will need every ounce of his superstrength to defeat Diamondback.

Cage's new career as a superhero leads to exciting adventures and encounters with various villains, including:

Gideon Mace, a former army colonel who has a mace in place of his right hand. Mace recruits Vietnam veterans to join his armed paramilitary organization. They plan attack Manhattan and steal large sums of money in the ensuing chaos.

A ghost haunts the movie theater that houses Cage's office.

Who is the Phantom of 42nd Street?

A man named Frank Jenks is killed in D.W.'s theater. Cage was en route to meet Jenks and investigates the murder. Things get more complicated when Jenks' body goes missing. Eventually, Luke learns that Frank's death (and subsequent disappearance) is the work of a crime boss known as Black Mariah!

Laura and Catherine Forsythe are worried that someone is trying to kill their grandfather, millionaire Raymond Huxley Forsythe. The granddaughters contact Cage and ask him to investigate some suspicious accident at the Huxley mansion. When Luke is searching the mansion for clues, he's attacked by suits of armor!

On Christmas Eve, Luke and Claire plan to spend a romantic evening together. Their plans change when Cage encounters gunmen from the past, present and future. But are they really the same man?

Cage takes his strangest assignment yet when he's hired by the Latverian Ambassador to the United States to bring in several former embassy employees. When Cage finds them, a fight ensues and he learns the Latverians are actually robots that have rebelled against their creator, Latveria's ruler Doctor Doom! When Cage visits the embassy to collect his fee, he learns Doom has fled for Latveria without paying Luke!

Luke borrows a rocket from the Fantastic Four and flies off to Doom's castle in Latveria. The Hero For Hire wants his payment and confronts Doom. However, a greater menace arrives and the Latverian monarch is forced to team up with Cage!

The offices of the Mainstream Motors company are attacked by a man who calls himself Chemistro.  He's armed with an alchemy gun that changes the chemical make-up of whatever Chemistro shoots. When one of Mainstream's employees is badly injured by Chemistro, the company hires Luke Cage to bring Chemistro to justice.

His second chance at life seems to being going well. Luke begins dating Claire Temple and his Hero For Hire career is a success. But Daily Bugle columnist Phil Fox gets suspicious of Cage and starts poking around. Fox steals notes from Burstein that prove Luke is an escaped prisoner.

We later learn that a prison review board fired Rackham from Seagate Prison over his extreme cruelty towards Cage and other prisoners. Sometime after that, Shades and Comanche escape Seagate. They were frequently tortured by Rackham in the prison and have sworn to make their former guard pay. They follow a trail of evidence that will lead them to Rackham, who has moved to New York City.

Phil Fox bumps into Rackham at the Daily Bugle offices. After a few drinks, the ex-guard spills his guts to Fox. Before all is said and done, Luke Cage, Comanche, Shades and Rackham all wind up face to face in a suburban New Jersey house, with guns ready to be fired. If that's not enough, the supercriminal Stiletto is watching them from the outside, waiting to attack!

Review:
A solid beginning for Luke Cage. None of these stories are classics, but they're lots of fun and this book is better than I expected. Cage has proven to be a good character, showing up in comic books and TV shows 45 years after his debut.

Story:
Archie Goodwin wrote the first four issues reprinted. These tales are heavily influenced by the "Blaxploitation" movies of the early 1970s and Luke Cage is sort of a John Shaft with superstrength. The origin story is good. During the late 60s and early 70s, prison atrocities and prisoners demanding rights were often in the news. So it makes sense that Marvel would create a superhero that came out of that background. Goodwin sets the tone for the series and the writers that follow generally follow his example.

Steve Engelhart succeeded Goodwin and his first story is a low point for this book. Black Mariah is an ugly outdated racially stereotypical character who speaks in an exaggerated "black" dialect. Even in 1971, Marvel should have known better to publish a character like Black Mariah. Engelheart gets things back on track with the Forsythe mansion story.

"Jingle Bombs" which originally appeared in Hero For Hire #7 is one my favorite parts of this book. It takes place on Christmas Eve and it's one of the Christmas comics I read every December. The story is ridiculous, but it's lots of fun.

The two-part Doctor Doom story is also somewhat ridiculous. But I can see Doom hiring someone like Cage to do his dirty work and Luke is the sort of person who would fly to Latveria to collect his payment. I also guess it was part of Marvel's plan to increase Cage's ties to the established Marvel Universe characters.

Cage has swagger to spare, constantly ribbing his antagonists during their fights. Some may be surprised and/or disappointed that Luke's catchphrase "Sweet Christmas" does not appear in these stories. That came later, but he does exclaim "Christmas" a few times.

Billy Graham and Tony Isabella co-wrote on the last two issue reprinted here and they do a good job finishing the Seagate arc that began the series.

I generally prefer Marvel's "street level" heroes like Spider-Man, Moon Knight and Daredevil. Marvel doesn't doesn't get more street level than Luke Cage, which means none of these stories require Cage to save the world. But that's okay.

The silliest story here features lions and tigers trained by Lionfang to speak English and Spanish.  But the tale culminates with a great fight between Luke Cage and Lionfang at Madison Square Garden.

I liked most of the villains here, all of them give Luke a tough time.  My personal favorite is Chemistro, his alchemy gun is very cool and the ending of his battle with Cage is tragic.

Art:
George Tuska penciled the majority of Marvel Masterworks: Luke Cage, Hero For Hire Vol. 1 and Billy Graham inked all of Tuska's work.

Luke battles Senor Muerte.

Tuska's art here is a mixed bag. Some of the characters faces aren't well defined, but he pencils good action sequences, the fight scenes are all nicely drawn.

Graham serves as both penciler and inker for the latter portion is an improvement over Tuska. I wish Graham had penciled the entire book, here's a gorgeous page that features Cage battling big cats.

And here's another nice example of Graham's work:

Great stuff.

How does it look:

Here's a scan taken from my old copy of Hero For Hire #12:

This is how the same page looks in Marvel Masterworks:Luke Cage, Hero For Hire Vol. 1:

Extras:
Engelhart wrote a new introduction for the book. In the back of this volume, you'll find a Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page from Hero For Hire #1, and five pages of original art and house ads.

The stories reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: Luke Cage, Hero For Hire Vol. 1 aren't classics. But they capture a moment in pop culture history and (with the exception of the Black Mariah tale) are all pretty good. Luke Cage is a very likeable character and I hope we get more of his Bronze Age solo adventures reprinted in the near future.

J.A. Morris rating:

3 Sals.

Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans

Reprints Fantastic Four (1961) #164-176
Written by Roy Thomas and Bill Mantlo.
Penciled by George Perez, Rich Buckler, John Buscema.
Inked by Joe Sinnott, Vince Colletta

A man calling himself the Crusader shows up in New York, invades a bank and attacks Calvin McClary, the bank's owner. Luckily, the Human Torch is nearby and intervenes. Crusader defeats the Torch and gets away. This menace is armed with Quantum Bands that give Crusader super-strength that make him very dangerous. Johnny will need his Fantastic Four teammates if he wants to stop the Crusader.

We learn that Crusader's real name is Robert Grayson and that used to fight crime under the name Marvel Boy. His father Horace was an atomic scientist who fled the Earth to Uranus in the 1950s.  Horace Grayson needed money to fund his Uranus project and McClary wouldn't loan it to him. This resulted in the deaths of many Uranians, and the Crusader has come to New York to avenge them. This leads the madman to attack banks all over the city. 

Later, the FF are flying over the Midwest when they encounter the Hulk! They battle the Green Goliath and the Invisible Girl eventually subdues him using her force field. The Hulk is turned over to the military. Reed makes a deal with Col. Sellers of the Air Force: If he's able to cure Bruce Banner of his Hulk transformations, Banner will go free and work with Richards.
 

The Thing doesn't like the way the Hulk is being treated by the military. Ben looks at Hulk and sees that they are both "monsters" who are unjustly feared by the powers that be.

Reed uses a device on the Hulk that he hopes will turn him back to Bruce Banner. The device is successful, but Col. Sellers suddenly reneges on their deal and imprisons Banner. When Ben sees this, he decides to free Banner, who turns back into the Hulk. The Thing teams up with Hulk and only the Fantastic Four can stop them.

They battle all over the city of St. Louis. Suddenly, Ben has a change of heart and attacks the Hulk. But in the middle of the fight, the Thing changes back to his human form! He's plain old, human Ben Grimm once again. 

Since Ben is no longer the Thing, the FF need a new member. They hire Power Man, also known as "Luke Cage, hero for hire".

Ben's happiness at regaining his human form is short lived. No one recognizes him on the streets of New York, and talk shows that wanted to interview the Thing are no longer interested in booking him. Plus, Ben feels like a loser knowing that he's been replaced by Power Man. Grimm is further incensed because Reed is paying Cage for his services.

In the middle of these changes, the Fantastic Four are notified of a series of bank robberies. They learn it's the work of Thor's old foe the Wrecker. He possesses a mystically powered crowbar and proves to be a tough enemy. Power Man gets a chance to prove that he belongs on the team when he goes toe-to-toe with Wrecker.

Following that battle, Cage is having a conversation with Sue and Alicia Masters and Franklin. Power Man suddenly attacks them, but Invisible Girl's force holds him back and subdues Luke until her teammates arrive. Power Man steals their Fantasticar and escapes. The Fantastic Four know that Cage must be under some sort of mind-control and wonder who the real villain is. 

Reed knows that they will need all the help they can get to stop Power Man. He also sympathizes with his old friend and builds Ben a "Thing suit." It's an exoskeleton that will allow him to become the Thing again, while staying human. The suit enables Ben to rejoin the Fantastic Four.

Ben tries on his "Thing suit" for the first time.

The FF tracks down Power Man. The heroes learn that Cage is being controlled by their old enemy the Puppet Master! 

After that conflict, a spaceship lands in Central Park.  A golden gorilla emerges from the ship and grows into a giant. The Fantastic Four battle the gorilla and are able to capture him using Sue's force field (which also returns him to normal height). To their surprise, this gorilla can speak and tells them why he has come to Earth. He says his name is Gorr and he came to Earth to seek their help against Galactus, devourer of worlds!

Gorr had been sent to Earth by the god-like being who calls himself the High Evolutionary, who has created a Counter Earth nearly identical to our planet. The High Evolutionary asks the FF to help them find another planet that Galactus can feed on in order to spare Counter Earth. Will the Fantastic Four succeed in finding another planet? Or is Counter Earth doomed? Before it's all said and done, the High Evolutionary must engage Galactus in direct combat.

When the FF directly confronts Galactus, it will have a long-lasting impact on Ben Grimm.

Finally, when the Fantastic Four return to Earth, they are accompanied by the shape-shifter from planet Poppup known as the Impossible Man. The alien finds himself alone in New York City. The Impossible Man eventually ends up visiting 575 Madison Avenue, which houses the offices of Marvel Comics! Impossible Man demands that Marvel create a comic book that features him as the star. When they refuse, he attacks Marvel with extreme prejudice!

Review:
While this isn't exactly "classic"material, Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans is mostly fun from beginning to end. But I have some problems with these tales.

Story:
Roy Thomas writes some very entertaining stories in this tpb. It opens with the Crusader story, which features the FF against a very powerful being who has been tragically driven insane. The Hulk battle is pretty good too. It makes sense that the Thing would feel sympathy for his fellow "monster."

The FF battle the Hulk & Thing on the St. Louis arch!

But after that, I'm not crazy some of what Thomas does.  Ben is returned to his human form, something he'd wanted for (at that point) 167 issues. But almost immediately after his transformation, Grimm starts whining about how he's no longer a celebrity. Is it believable that Ben would feel left out when it was time for his teammates to go into battle? Sure, but we should have gotten at least one issue's worth of pages that show Grimm enjoying the return to his normal old self.

Ben cries in his beer.

Power Man, hired to replace the Thing,  is well-written here. Cage tries to balance his enthusiasm with being in the FF with respecting Ben's feelings. It's also good that Thomas doesn't try to overload Cage's dialogue with "urban" idioms, a mistake made by lots of 70s writers.

Gorr's first appearance is ridiculous, but I mean that in a good way. What's not to like about a giant, talking, alien, intelligent golden gorilla?! Thomas gives us a nice tribute to King King and other giant monster movies. There are even references to the 1976 Kong remake. The Thing jokes that "Dino de Laurentiis could save a fortune if he just had a Polaroid".

The Galactus story is pretty good. Thomas demonstrates that Galactus simply hungers and wants to consume the energies of Counter Earth simply because he needs to. But I was a bit disappointed in the battle between the Big G and High Evolutionary. It's teased as an epic clash, but Galactus needs only 9 panels over a page and a half to easily defeat the High Evolutionary.  

The Impossible Man & the FF crash-land in Central Park.

Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans concludes on a funny note, with the Impossible Man paying a visit to Marvel Comics. I always liked things like this when I was a kid and still enjoy them today. It's entertaining to see Thomas, George Perez, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee depicted as comic book characters.

There's one more problem with this book. It ends with a cliffhanger. The Impossible Man story was followed by a two-parter that featured the Frightful Four. If you want to read what happens next, it's been reprinted in tpb called Fantastic Four Visionaries - George Perez, Vol. 2 (maybe I'll review that book here someday). 

Art:
The art contained in this tpb is excellent. George Perez draws the first 4 issues reprinted here and also the last story in the book.  Most of Perez' art is beautifully inked by Joe Sinnott, who inks the other pencilers as well. Look at this gorgeous two-page spread from Perez and Sinnott:

Great stuff.

John Buscema was, of course, a legendary artist and one of the best of the Bronze Age. This isn't his best art, but it's still good. Rich Buckler pencils the rest of the book and his art is also excellent. These stories were published during a time when Marvel wanted Buckler to deliberately imitate the art of Jack Kirby. But that's not his fault, and Buckler and Sinnott make a great art team. Here's an example of their work:

Power Man decks the Wrecker, while Ben struggles with life without super-strength.

How Does It Look:
Below you find the splash page as it originally appeared in Fantastic Four #175:

And here's how it looks in Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans:

And for good measure, here's another original page, scanned from FF #172:

It looks like this in the tpb:

Thank to SuperMegaMonkey for the scans from the old issues.

Extras:
Thomas wrote a column in FF #176 about the making of the story where Impossible Man visited the Marvel offices. That column is reprinted here. The tpb also contains 4 pages of original art.

Fantastic Four: Crusaders & Titans features some outstanding art from Perez, Sinnott and Buckler and some solid stories from Thomas. This tpb is recommended, but Thomas' handling of Ben Grimm in the middle portions and the cliffhanger ending prevent me giving the book a higher rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 Sals.

The Complete Frank Miller Spider-Man

 Reprints Spectacular Spider-Man #27-28, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14-15, Marvel Team-Up #100, Marvel Team-Up Annual #4.
Written by Frank Miller, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Denny O'Neil, Mark Gruenwald, Roger Stern.
Penciled by Frank Miller and Herb Trimpe.
Inked by Frank Springer, Tom Palmer, Bob Wiacek, Klaus Janson and Mike Esposito.

Spider-Man has been blinded by the Masked Marauder's opti-blast! His fellow superhero Daredevil tries to help him cope with this condition. But the wallcrawler is (understandably) distraught.  Unbeknownst to Spider-Man, Daredevil is also blind and uniquely qualified to help him. The heroes team up to stop the Marauder and his Tri-man droid from blowing up New York City.

Sometime later, Lucius Dilby, a servant of Doctor Doom, has created a device that will allow him to visit the Dark Dimension. Upon arrival, Dilby is given mystical powers by its ruler, Dormammu.  Doom wants Dilby to bring about the Bend Sinister with his new abilities.

Doom sends Dilby to the Dark Dimension.

Dilby arrives in New York and hits the city with a variety of mystical attacks. He creates a super-strong robot and sends it to battle Doctor Strange, the master of mystic arts. Dilby believes Strange is the only one who can stop the Bend Sinister from occurring. During a brief battle, Strange is beaten by the robot. Dilby needs a human sacrifice to bring on the Bend Sinister and decides to kill Doctor Strange.

Strange mystically contacts Spider-Man and asks for help. It's up to the webhead to stop Dilby and prevent the Bend Sinister. 

Shortly after that adventure,Spider-Man is swinging through New York when he's mentally possessed by someone. We observe a teenage girl on a rooftop, she is amazed how it feels to climb walls. The possessed Spidey is forced to attack a charity party held in a luxury apartment, where he tries to take two young children away from their uncle. The Fantastic Four are attending the party and try to stop Spider-Man.

After Spider-Man is subdued, the FF learn that he was possessed and not responsible for his actions. In short time, they learn he was controlled by a teenager named Xi'an Coy Manh. She was using Spider-Man to rescue her younger siblings from her gangster uncle. The heroes discover that Xi'an has a brother named Tran who is also able to possess people. But Tran uses his powers for evil. Will the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man be able to stop Tran before he can possess all of them?


Some months after that, Zebediah Killgrave, the Purple Man, arrives in New York. He's involved in a car accident with two drug dealers who work for the Kingpin of crime. Killgrave has the power to bend the  wills of other people, so he forces the Kingpin's men to fight each other. Spider-Man notices this and tries to intervene. But Purple Man forces him to hang from a lamppost and sing a song! Killgrave escapes from the scene.

Purple Man forces Spidey to sing an Elvis Costello song!

The Kingpin learns that Killgrave interfered with one of his drug deals and decides to take him out. But the Purple Man has other ideas. Killgrave visits Kingpin and tries to command him to do his bidding.  But it has no effect. Purple Man becomes a pawn of Kingpin. We learn that the Kingpin used earplugs to resist Killgrave's control.

A major charity fundraiser is coming up. All of the New York's "street level" heroes hear rumors of a major crime happening at the event. Daredevil, Moon Knight, Power Man and Iron Fist all show up to investigate the matter.

When Killgrave is introduced, Daredevil (still dressed as Matt Murdock) gets nervous. Purple Man knows that Murdock and Daredevil are one and the same. DD creates a diversion by starting a fire. The other heroes jump into action to help the people escape the theater. But Killgrave has other ideas and orders all the people in sight to kill the superheroes.

A mob of hundreds chases the heroes around New York, threatening to kill them. 

Finally, Doctor Octopus calls New York's Mayor Ed Koch and tells him he will kill five million New Yorkers. Doc Ock wants $5 million worth of gems or he will carry out his plans for mass murder. The villain is very cryptic about how he will commit this crime, but Spider-Man has a theory that may save the city.  

 At the same time, the Punisher is back in town and goes gunning for Doc Ock and Spidey gets caught in the middle.

Can Spider-Man defeat Doctor Octopus and save New York?

Review:
The Complete Frank Miller Spider-Man contains some very enjoyable stories from the late-70s and early 80s. These are a step below the quality of his stories and art that appeared in Daredevil, but they're lots of fun.

Story:
The first story, a two-parter from Spectacular Spider-Man starts in the middle of a story. This is because Miller didn't start penciling until that point in the saga. Miller didn't work on the next issue, so it ends in the middle of another story. I'm not a fan of reprint books that do this. I understand Miller didn't draw the rest of the story, I still think it's a weakness (the full story is available in another tpb). Having said that, Bill Mantlo writes a good story featuring Masked Marauder and Tri-Man. The Marauder was certainly a B-list villain, but Mantlo presents him as a serious threat here. He blinds Spider-Man and threatens to blow up New York with a nuclear bomb.

Denny O'Neil wrote the Bend Sinister/Dilby story. It's a good story, with one problem. We never learn what the Bend Sinister is. But it's still a fun ride. O'Neil sends Peter Parker to see a punk band called Shrapnel at CBGB, which is a nice nod to the New York music scene of the early 80s.

Peter Parker checks out a punk band at CBGB.

O'Neil also scripted the Doc Ock/Punisher story and it's been one of my favorite Spider-Man stories since I first read it in 1981. Doctor Octopus is portrayed perfectly here, willing to kill millions of people just to demonstrate that he is capable of doing so. And I love the interaction between Spidey and the Punisher in this tale. O'Neil gives us a nice sub-plot that shows the reader how the Daily Bugle selects its front page story. 

The Marvel Team-Up story featuring the Fantastic Four was written by Chris Claremont and it's pretty good too. It's also available in another reprint book I recently reviewed, here.

Miller wrote the Purple Man/King and it's a fairly lightweight story, but it's still a fun read. It was a nice way to have Daredevil's former "greatest foe" meet up with Kingpin, who became DD's arch villain under Miller's pen. Miller does a good job writing all the other guest heroes, none of them act out of character.

Luke Cage punches through the walls of the theater.  Nice art from Herb Trimpe!

Art:
Some folks who purchase this book may be surprised that some of the art doesn't look at all like classic Frank Miller art. The first two stories feature the first time Miller penciled Daredevil, the character that would make Miller famous. But Miller is heavily inked by Frank Springer and Miller's art only shows through in occasional panels.

The next story, from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14 is an improvement. Miller is inked by Tom Palmer and the art looks great. Lots of Ditko-esque mystical images on display here. Miller and Palmer give us several pages from the fictional Book Of The Vishanti sort of serve as "chapter headings" within the tale.

Splash page from ASM Annual #14 features The Book Of Vishanti

The artistic high point for me is the Doc Ock/Punisher story from ASM Annual #15. Miller is inked by Klaus Janson, who served as Miller's inker on Daredevil. Many of the pages feature front pages of The Daily Bugle in progress and the fight scenes are gorgeously rendered. Miller and Janson are one of the best penciler/inker teams of all time and this story is further proof.

The Kingpin/Purple Man tale, from Marvel Team-Up Annual #4 features pencils by Herb Trimpe and is inked by Mike Esposito. It's a bit of a step down from Miller's work in the book, but it's still pretty good.  I always enjoyed Trimpe's work, and he and Esposito make a good art team in this story.

Extras:
The back of this book features a nice gallery of covers penciled by Miller that feature Spider-Man. We get 22 covers from various Spidey series.

The stories from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14-15 make this book worth purchasing. The other stories are fun as well. But I can't look past the fact that the first story is joined in progress, so The Complete Frank Miller Spider-Man falls just short of my highest rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

 .5

3 and a half Sals.