10 Greatest Spider-Man Writers Not Named Stan Lee Or Steve Ditko
2. J.M. DeMatteis
Longtime comic book writer J.M. DeMatteis is best known by Spider-Man fans for writing some of the most provocative stories in the characters history. He first got his start with the Wall Crawler in the early 1980s with a stint on Marvel Team-Up, but it wasnt until he penned Kravens Last Hunt in 1987 where JMD truly established himself as one of the best. Kravens Last Hunt famously started out as a Wonder Man story before JMD pitched the idea to DC as a Batman miniseries. Because DC was about to publish The Killing Joke, DeMatteis brought his idea back to Marvel and repurposed it as a story where Kraven the Hunter shot Spider-Man and buried him alive. Fans and critics often hail it as the best Spider-Man story ever written. JMDs greatness continued as part of a critically successful run on Spectacular Spider-man with artist Sal Buscema. Together, DeMatteis and Buscema often produced better stories than what was found in the main Spider-Man series, Amazing Spider-man. During this run, JMD once again crafted a psychologically dark story in The Child Within which ultimately led to the tragic death of Peters college buddy-turned-supervillain, Harry Osborn. For the piece de resistance, DeMatteiss work on Amazing Spider-Man in the mid-90s yielded one of the greatest single issues of the past 30 years in Amazing Spider-Man #400. The Gift showcases the death of Aunt May (though it is later reversed). This tenderly written comic is an all-time tear jerker for Spider-man fans. With three of the best ever Spider-Man stories on his resume, it is hard to find anyone not named Stan Lee who is a better writer than him. Except
Mark is a professional writer living in Brooklyn and is the founder of the Chasing Amazing Blog, which documents his quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the Superior Spider-Talk podcast. He also pens the "Gimmick or Good?" column at Comics Should Be Good blog.
