This was one whacky collection. It's mostly the DeFalco/Frenz run of Amazing Spider-Man #250-259 and boy howdy, did those issues disappoint. So incredibly boring and poorly drawn. They have very little to do with the birth of Venom and very much to do with storylines that aren't collected here (Aunt May, MJ, Black Cat, Hobgoblin). It just so happens that each issue had some minute detail about the black costume. Then there is a random collection of pages from Fantastic Four and some random Spider-Man titles with some summary pages too.
Then we jump forward four years to Amazing #300. While I didn't love David Micheline's over sexualization of MJ the writing was light-years ahead of the DeFalco issues and McFarlane's art can't even be compared to everything that come before it in this trade. A relatively disappointing book, especially for the $30 cover price.