“Spider-Man: Life Story” is the miniseries for anyone who has ever calculated that Peter Parker, who was a high school student when he was bitten by a radioactive spider in the early 1960s, would be 70 today.
Here, writer Chip Zdarsky and illustrator Mark Bagley explore what it would be like if Peter Parker had aged like the rest of us after becoming Spider-Man 60 years ago.
Lots of important characters from Peter’s life are here – Gwen, Mary Jane, Harry, Flash, J. Jonah Jameson – but what happens to them is different from what happens in the traditional comics. And not just that Peter and the gang are aging over the decades.
Available now in a collected format, “Life Story” was originally published in six separate issues, with each issue depicting a decade in the life of Peter Parker/Spider-Man: the 1960s, 1970s, and more. The collection also includes the annual “Life Story” one-shot featuring a story about the aging and embittered J. Jonah Jameson who pays the price for his plans to unmask and/or kill Spider-Man.
“Life Story” is an interesting book. Marvel is building on its success with Spider-Man by applying the same format to “The Fantastic Four.”
It’s an intriguing format, especially for longtime Spider-Man fans.
