The BEST Spidey Story Ever.

Here is one of the cases where the back-up feature is far more important than the main story. The story of Tim Harrison “The Boy Who Collects Spider-Man” is told in ½ newspaper article format and ½ thru personal interaction with Spider-Man. The article starts off telling a little bit about Tim and goes on to tell of how Tim comes across his massive collection of Spider-Man, while the personal interaction starts off with Spider-Man coming into Tim’s room at night waking him up to talk with his biggest fan. The two talk for a while and Spider-Man tells Tim how he got his powers and why he stopped trying to make money off being Spider-Man and started fighting crime instead, then as Spider-Man starts to leave Tim asks him who he really is and Spider-Man tells him that he can’t tell him because he has to protect his loved ones. Then before Spider-Man leaves he takes off his mask and tells Tim that he’s Peter Parker! Now this is 1984 and back then you could count on one hand how many people knew Peter’s identity which completely blew my mind back then, the two talk a few more minutes before Pete finally leaves. He’s standing on a wall outside his body language obviously sad and beneath him is a plaque for a cancer hospital, and the newspaper article finishes hoping that Spidey visits his biggest fan soon because he is dying of leukemia and has only a few weeks left. To me it was the saddest thing I had ever read in my life to that point and now almost 30 years later I’ve had a chance to re-read it after purchasing it thru CCL and it is even more sad and touching to me being a father now, and I won’t lie it brought tears to my eyes. To me this might be the best and most sincere Spider-Man story EVER. ‘Nuff Said.