I'm Trying To Find A Specific Review Of A Specific Spider-Man Comic...

[mistervader]

... anyone who can help?

I can only tell you what I remember. I know this review was SCATHING of the comic, and the comic was pretty old. Maybe early 90's to 70's, even, and it features Spider-Man helping someone out while he was Peter Parker. I think it was an attempted rape.

The thugs then try to get back at him, while the people around him try to start a neighborhood watch, and Robbie Robertson calls this "vigilantism". Things go to Hades in a handbasket when Peter lets go the criminals or something, and the neighborhood watch gets dissolved because Peter was being a dick or something.

Do you guys know this comic? And do you guys know where this article is? I'd be REALLY grateful if you can help me out here.

[Chris S.]

While this arc sounds incredibly familiar I can not recall the issue numbers.

Where was the article published? What databases have you used?

I wrote a paper on Spider-Man last year for a class. I used my universities databases and found about 6 articles that directly covered the comics. My paper was concerning Harry's drug dependence and the lack of approval by the comic code.

My point in telling you this was that I searched very broad and never was able to find any articles like you suggest.

My university also has one of the largest collections of Stan Lee material in the country. This is not a crazy claim. http://catalog.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=Stan+Lee+&SL=None&Search_Code=TALL&PID=ALcdlEym4jwh8aRExcngPtI8PypR&SEQ=20081010113115&CNT=20&HIST=1 This will provide you with a abstract of the information housed in the collection. It was incredible.

My point being that in my research I went through a majority of the reviews and articles that Lee saved. It was incredible what he saved. There was more than a million fan letters that I went through. They were all original copies as were a majority of his manuscripts.

My point in short is that you may be involved in a lost cause. I wish you luck in finding this review but will be surprised if you do after my research.

[Gordon Smith]

That sounds very familiar to me as well. I'm pretty sure that's an arc written by Peter David during his days on Spectacular Spider-Man prior to the marriage. If not that title, it probably appeared in web of Spider-Man in the same time-frame.

[oldschool]

Sounds like Peter acted "out of character" in this story (as many of this board feel he is acting nowadays as well). I am curious what story this was as well; it does not ring a bell just yet.....

[mistervader]

A few more details I remember...

I think the thugs hired an assassin to try to kill Peter. I'm not sure if the assassin found out he was Spider-Man because of this, or something similar.

The neighborhood watch formed because they idolized what Peter did. But by acting like he didn't care, the watch dissolved.

The most striking line from the review of the comic (The review is online, but Google yielded nothing for me.) was that it was being compared to the Kitty Genovese incident. That's why it stood out to me.

[Gordon Smith]

I managed to track down the review (http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/law/back20010130.shtml) misterevader is talking about. It's from Bob Ingersoll's ''The Law is an Ass'' column. The actual story took place in Web of Spider-Man #11 (http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/reviews/spiderman_web/011.html) and Web of Spider-Man#12 (http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/reviews/spiderman_web/012.html). I was only half-right about this being a Pater David story. Bill Mantlo was apparently the writer for #11, and David did #12.

[Chris S.]

I managed to track down the review (http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/law/back20010130.shtml) misterevader is talking about. It's from Bob Ingersoll's ''The Law is an Ass'' column. The actual story took place in Web of Spider-Man #11 (http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/reviews/spiderman_web/011.html) and Web of Spider-Man#12 (http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/reviews/spiderman_web/012.html). I was only half-right about this being a Pater David story. Bill Mantlo was apparently the writer for #11, and David did #12.

Is this right? I am interested to see...

[BlueCutey]

Read both the review, as well as the reviews on Siderfan. Amazing the difference there...

[Optimus]

Nice find Mr. Smith. And an interesting read.

[mistervader]

I managed to track down the review (http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/law/back20010130.shtml) misterevader is talking about. It's from Bob Ingersoll's ''The Law is an Ass'' column. The actual story took place in Web of Spider-Man #11 (http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/reviews/spiderman_web/011.html) and Web of Spider-Man#12 (http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/reviews/spiderman_web/012.html). I was only half-right about this being a Pater David story. Bill Mantlo was apparently the writer for #11, and David did #12.

Thank you SOOOO much! You just made my day. My Google-Fu is no match for yours, kind sir!