1982 was a great time for comics. John Byrne's Fantastic Four and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Spider-Man being but two superb examples. Huh, howzat again? Lee and Ditko's Spidey? Yeah, the classic strips by Stan and Steve were being reprinted in Marvel Tales, a comic that had been running since 1964, first as an annual for the initial two issues, then as a bi-monthly from issue 3 to 64, before finally becoming a monthly from number 65 to the final issue, 291, in 1994.
The mag had reprinted most of the Lee/Ditko tales before of course, but from number 137, dated March, it began reprinting them in sequence from Spider-Man's debut in Amazing Fantasy 15, continuing right up into the Lee/Romita issues. Some 1960s topical references were updated, and covers, where necessary, were amended to include the bar-code box (even "flipping" them in some cases), but all the old Marvel magic remained intact.
I'm far too poor to be able to afford the original Amazing Spider-Man comics, so these classic issues of Marvel Tales were right up my street, and were doubtless appreciated by a great many other collectors too. Let's celebrate those 1980s reprints by taking a look at the covers and refreshing our memories of how good comics could be way back when. Even if you're too young to have seen them before, don't worry... you're sure to love them.
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