Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man

    (Marvel, 2006)

Stan Lee, Joss Whedon, and Fred Hembeck each write an original back-up story for this volume that reprints Amazing Spider-Man #87 wherein the hero, in the grip of a nasty flu bug, unmasks himself to Gwen Stacy and her dad.

Although it seems unlikely that Stan Lee hasn’t met Spider-Man at least once before, considering the popularity of the ironic, referential back-ups Lee wrote for so many Marvel titles back in the 1960s, in this volume, readers will particularly enjoy visiting Lee’s hepcat bachelor pad and his sardonic wit. Lee casts himself fittingly in the role of the cookie-baking Oracle from the Matrix movies who kindly explains the nature of things to Spider-Man.

Whedon and Hembeck riff in their own inimitable styles on the fandom and mayhem imparted to us these many years by Lee’s brilliant legacy.

— Leland Burrill
Jump to issue:
  NotesWriterArtist