10 Essential Storylines To Read If You're Just Getting Into Spider-Man

2. To Have And To Hold

Spider-Man Matt Fraction To Have and To Hold
Marvel Comics

To Have and To Hold may be a difficult issue to track down physically, but in terms of one-shots, it might just be the best Marvel have ever had.

Set during a tumultuous time in the wall-crawler's publishing history (in and around the New Day debacle), To Have and To Hold isn't just a celebration of one of the medium's enduring relationships, but a distillation of what marriage means in a milieu that, at the time, wanted nothing to do with the concept. The story's writer, Matt Fraction, expertly navigates the web-slinger's history in a clear and succinct way, chronicling the evolution of Peter's relationship with Mary Jane and laying the case for why the pair really are - and should be - inseparable.

It's what Peter's always been about, and while there are certainly more grandiose Spidey comics out there, the wall-crawler's books are at their best when the story is driven not by the Sinister Six or some other character's villainous machinations, but by Peter himself. Fraction makes a concerted effort to examine MJ's agency in the wider Marvel canon and, for that reason, To Have and To Hold is no simple Spidey comic. It's so much more, and while it tends to slip beneath the radar, owed to the fact it's yet to feature in any wider Spidey collection, it's a single-issue all Marvel fans should take the appropriate time to marvel at.

You won't find a better love story in the company's history. Promise.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.