A great gift, worth it.This is the best complete collection of a fantastic series I've ever seen. Marvel should do more like this. Thanks for reading.Kurt Busiek clearly understands Spider-Man. He knows how to write a classic Spider-Man as seen in the 60s and 70s, but with a more modern narrative. He understands how to properly balance Spider-Man with Peter Parker, or drama and comedy, and all around he really knows what he's doing. This book is a great callback to the early days of Spider-Man told throughout random points in his career. For someone new to Spider-Man it could be quite different, but still it's self contained enough that you would not feel too lost. However, if you are a longtime fan of Spider-Man, and you know alot of the basic plots from the old day, you likely will be able to figure out exactly where these stories fit in basic Spidey history.For the most part, this book gets a glowing recommendation, but I will give a couple points of criticism. For one, the art is a little inconsistent, but considering how much you're getting here, that's usually to be expected. Secondly, while the writing is bang on it's mark, one must remember that the mark here is silver and bronze age comics, so it does get a little clunky and wordy from time to time, and seeing as it's just telling random stories from Spider-Man's past, it doesn't exactly lead anywhere or build up to anything. It's not enough to make this a bad book by any means, but it is enough to drag it down a little bit, so you've been warned.As for the book itself. It's about as good as any Marvel Omnibus. It's a red pleather-bound, hardcover book with a dust jacket as seen in the product picture. The spine is a little weak, but holds up pretty well, and the reprinting of these comics are about as quality as always. Though there is the occasional black page where I imagine an ad was supposed to be, but not too often, thankfully. Certainly not as often as it was in the This omnibus collects all of Untold Tales of Spider-man including the amazing fantasy issues 16 and 17, bonus stories and the follow up story from a couple of years ago.The main comics of Spider-man at the time were in a serious continuity quagmire with the clone saga and related stories. Kurt Busiek and Pat Olliffe instead set their stories in the early days of Spider-man's career, with more insight given to his supporting cast including new ones created for the series. The series had its own cast of villains including scorcher and the spacemen. Classic villains like the radioactive man and the wizard appear as well. There is an issue devoted to Mary Jane Watson though in the time this is set, Peter has not met her yet.The series was an attempt to tell fresh stories and they did and they were not any less serious. The issues with Peter's classmate Sally are powerful and really helps provide more info into the Spidey universe.The book is well printed and has good sewn binding and will hold up well. There are not many extras sadly but one part that stands out is a chronology that says which issues are placed where in the timeline which is very useful.All in all this is a worthy purchase for anyone's collection and you will not be disappointed.Busiek may be the most underrated writer in comics. He writes about the characters, giving the reader insight into who they are. Each story reminds the reader what Peter learned from Uncle Ben: " with great power comes great responsibility". He also gives insight into other characters with first person stories from the viewpoints of the vulture and Mary Jane. The artwork is in the style of the original comics.This is a very nice omnibus hardcover with extras and a must read for any fan of Spider-Man and Peter Parker.My opinion about Spider is suspicious! I love this character since I remember I exist! :)Who doesn't know Untold Tales series really need to know, as soon as possible!It is a funny, creative and delicious series to be read! Enjoy it!Great stories and great Art!! I had never read these stories before but I found them excellent. Great depiction of Spidey.If you've time for a little history lesson, this paragraph's just for you. JUST for you. If you're already familiar with Untold Tales and want the skinny on this recently-released Omnibus edition, feel free to skip down a paragraph or two. My feelings'll only be hurt a little bit. So anyway, as part of its bid to attract new readers in the mid 1990s Marvel launched several new series at a cut price in the hopes that the drop in cents would boost sales and among said titles was The Untold Tales Of Spider-Man, under the guidance of writer Kurt Busiek (of Marvels fame) and Pat Olliffe's pencils. At the time, Spider-Man was waist deep in the deep waste of the multi-year arc fans shudderingly recall as the Clone Saga (`saga', in this case, a term too slight for what could better be described as an age), and the tales Untold presented must surely have come as a relief from Ben Reilly's monthly battles with cyber-terrorists, plot saturation and any regard for credibility. Hell, I'm a clone saga apologist and even I get tired of those stories from time to time.What Untold Tales presents, for your consideration, is a collection of stories set during the original Stan Lee and Steve Ditko era, those original 38 issues (plus annuals!) which many and most consider to have defined the character in a fraction of the time other iconic characters have enjoyed. It helps if you've read those issues (they're available in paperback form as Marvel Masterworks volumes 1-4) but these stories stand up very well on their own. Sure, you'll miss out on a lot of little and loving references (including riffs on Lee's original inconsistencies, like calling Peter "Palmer" in an early issue and the ever-changing surnames of Liz Allen and Anna Watson) and a deeper understanding of why exactly Flash Thompson and Betty Brant merit quite so much page time.Busiek's and Olliffe's level of reference to these older comics treads that fine line between respect and reverence - it's not weighted down with clever-clever callbacks to obscure one-off characters but there's enough there for those who've read the original run to recognize and a genuine sense of warmth and familiarity from the creators for a much-loved period in American comics. It creates a curious amalgam of old and new. The style is firmly 60s - Peter's still in his white and blue outfit, Betty's hair changes often enough to be noted in the supplemental material - but the tech is modern, with robotic assistants and flamethrowing supervillains and so on.Olliffe's art pays a consistent visual homage both to Ditko's progression and his figures (his Jonah's a dead ringer for the 60s incarnation of ol' flat top) but his Spider-Man takes cues from the evolution of the character since then, from Romita's solidity to McFarlane's disregard for physics. Most importantly, it's exciting and it works well, especially against Busiek's unquestionably breezy writing. This was a time when Pete's woes rarely went beyond worrying that the public thought he was a coward and fretting over Aunt May's health. No dead girlfriends, live burials or ...shudder... clones, just yet. As such, there's a tone to the writing that approaches superficiality, but the stories have depth and the continuity is flawless, both with the source material and this series' own timeline (both of which are presented in a flowchart at the book's rear). Shortly said, it's a really good read and the art is wonderful. What more could you ask for?Well, what you could ask for is the lavish presentation afforded to some of Marvel's best runs (and, erm, certain This is a great book and a really fun read, a couple of things let it down. The binding and paper stock are to the usual high standard of Marvel Omnibuses, unfortunately quite a few pages have been poorly scanned. They're still readable, but the pages are blurry and it takes you out of the action. It gets les of a problem as the omnibus goes on and only happens 10-20 times altogether over a huge page count, but still..The concept, in case you didn't know, is that these adventures take place between or in parallel to the early spider-man stories of the Lee-Ditko yearsI. Ilike Busiek's writing here. It's fun, captures the spirit of the earliest spider-man stories and adds to the mythology, Unfortunately it sometimes adds to the mythology in ways you would have expected to be mentioned in the original stories- so you have to suspend your disbelief a little. But maybe he sometimes gets a little too carried away with the spirit of the times. There is a whole issue which is just a prank war between spider-man and the human torch, which does nothing to carry any notion of story forward. On the other hand, there is a sort of innocent charm to this and I suspect that the issues like this will have a bit of a marmite effect on readers.It's not all like that and the story does progress through the early spider-man stories with it's own threads and taking us through familiar situations. I was disappointed with how it all ended though, it felt like Busiek could have built towards something but it all just kind of ends.The art by Pat Ollife is good solid 90's Spider-man artwork like I remember it from growin up, It has dated though so allowances must be made.I'm also impressed that the Amazing fantasy 16-18 are included along with a few annuals and related "Untold" publications outside the main series. This collection is pretty complete, and like I say, good fun. If it wasn't for the blurry pages it'd be four stars easily, so it depends how much that would bother you.Gearing up for the newest instalment of the Spider-Man film franchise, Marvel have released a new, Untold Tales of Spider-Man omnibus. This omnibus collects the complete (relatively) obscure run from the mid '90s, with a few extras at the back for good measure.The concept of this series was to return Spiderman to his 1960s roots, and add 'extra' stories between the original issues. For example, what did Spiderman do on his first date with Betty Brant? What happened after he ran away from Sandman, when Aunt May was sick? This run consists of 25 issues, plus a couple of annuals as well - the latter of which are a homage to the first few Spidey annuals, with some 'pin-ups', profiles of the bad guys, and creator-sketches too. The stories are well-written (as you would expect from Busiek - the writer of the legendary Marvels comics), and the art is generally very good. However, a few of the newly introduced villains fall a bit flat. Luckily, towards the end of the run, Busiek focuses the stories primarily on Spider-man's 'classic' rogue's gallery, and it's at points like this where the series really shines.The biggest problem with this omnibus is - why? There are loads of choices for (arguably) better Spidey runs. It's been a long, 5-year gap between vols 1 and 2 of the Amazing omnibus, so why they'd pick this left-field choice seems a tad strange.Nevertheless, it's still a most entertaining read. As with all omnibuses, the production is excellent - although these books are fairly expensive, they've been made with care. Like always, the printing, colouring, binding and page-quality are pretty much top notch. Overall, if you've got a spare £50 in your bank account, you could do much worse!The last Spidey Omnibus I had not purchased. Glad I did.Upon first flip through I was not impressed with what I saw in this book. The 1st 3 issues Amazing Fantasy 16-18 are painted issues. I hate painted comics...Luckily that was 3 issues. The balance has art by Pat Olliffe. Not an artist I was familiar with. Honestly on first glance his art did not really impress. First impressions right. Rarely are they conclusive.Kurt Busiek might as well be called Stan Lee in this wonderful series. He understands what it was that made Spidey the break through character from the 60s. These stories can litterally be slotted into the intial Amazing Spiderman issues found in Lee and Ditko's run Ich habe eine andere Version des Buches bekommen. Das Cover entsprach nicht der Abbildung. Statt einer einfachen Rückname wurde ich über unterschiedliche ISBN Nummern zugetextet. Das ust mir alles egal. Ich wollte nur das Buch auf dem Bild. Ich habe das überteuerte Buch behalten da mir zwar eine Gutschrift angeboten wurde aber ich in diesem Store sicher nicht mehr kaufen werde.Das Buch ist gut, aber es ist die neue Version mit dem ultra häßlichem Cover von 2020.