Peter
Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man was the third Spider-Man title.
Following Marvel Team-Up which began in 1971, the first issue of
Spectacular was cover dated December 1976. Art and script was originally
by Sal Buscema, with Inks by the omnipresent Mike Esposito. Gerry Conway
plotted/edited the first two issues, and was then superceded by Jim
Shooter.
The concept with Spectacular was to focus as much on
Peter as on Spider-Man. Primarily in fact the stories were based around
Empire State University, Peter's campus. This of course was much of
Peter's appeal; that he had a life of his own with problems which you
could relate to. How many of us dreamed of donning a red and blue costume
and swinging off to face danger against some super-menace, rather than
coping with our mundane daily problems? We were Peter, and
Spider-Man was what we wanted to be.
