Around the same time J Michael Straczynski was rehabilitating Spider-Man in the pages of Amazing by putting a new twist on the character, writer Paul Jenkins and artist Mark Buckingham were trying to get back to basics in the pages of Peter Parker: Spider-Man. Eventually things took a turn for the worse as the Green Goblin inevitably returned from the dead (again) and the hate-him-or-love-him Humberto Ramos took over on art duties, but for a while Peter Parker: Spider-Man was your go-to for fun, riotous Spider-Man stories that, for the most part, were done in either one or two issues. Jenkins had a natural feel for the wall crawler's sarcastic one-liners and sardonic sense of humour, throwing in some pop-culture know-how and great, pulpy adventures of the sort not seen since the Lee/Romita heyday. Buckingham on art duties helped, too, with a clean, crisp style that recalled the sixties run without ever seeming self-consciously retro or old-fashioned. The entire run with the pair is good - and not only criminally underrated but uncollected - but the stand outs have to be the Nuff Said issue (for a month all Marvel comics lacked dialogue, and the Jenkins/Buckingham story involved Spidey fighting, duh, criminal mimes), or the offbeat Christmas tale in #37, where a shivering, cold-suffering Spidey gets bullied by kids and accidentally involved in an attempted robbery by the Vulture, all whilst on the way to simply dig out his Aunt's driveway in return for some wheat cakes. Incredibly fun, charming, and a great story told in a single issue. With a slightly dated Austin Powers joke, but you can look past that, right?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
