2 crampons out of 5

This is the original 1989 cover because I secretly have no computer skills.

Gerry Conway is the Spider-Man writer I grew up with.  His mix of comic soap and character maturity worked well when I was a kid and thankfully remains one of the few pre-modern era Spidey writers that I can go back and still enjoy his issues.  In 1989, “Parallel Lives” came out (I believe) as part of the Marvel Graphic Novel series.  Perhaps needless to say, the Spidey landscape was much different then, as it was prior to the 19 reboots that have occurred just in the past ten years.  Still, I can’t help but think, though the ‘novel’ solves some then-unknown factors regarding Mary Jane and Peter, that it would’ve been as plodding of a read then as it was now.

I have no idea why Marvel reprinted this thing.  Generally, classic reprints are done for some kind of reason – a new movie, some plot point that was dug up to tie in with a current crossover, whatever.  While you could suggest the upcoming Spider-Man movie (July 2012) is the reason, I’d be cautious in supposing that this modern, hip take on Peter would bring fans over to classic S-Man stylings.  But I’m not following current Marvel hullabaloo, so perhaps there’s totally a reason mixed into some crossovers that my internettable research hasn’t uncovered.

“Parallel Lives” is a sort of summary of top-level Spidey history from his bite to his marriage to MJ (which now doesn’t exist, I believe).  The catch is that we get inner narration from both Peter Parker and Mary Jane, exposing bits of untold history that was skipped due to its Spidey-centric storytelling.  For those of us familiar with the old MJ, it is (and I suppose was, in 1989) nice to see things from her perspective, fleshing out the model wife into a more realistic, damaged character who comes around to her attraction to Peter.  But the vast majority of the story drags because it either retells us thing we all know (that origin story) or revisits key Spidey moments at such a fast pace to remove their impact.  Once Conway lays the groundwork for MJ and Pete to finally hook up, the book takes a drastic turn toward fun, and resumes the pacing of the Conway stories I enjoyed reading while still including the background narration that ups the tale to more than just another Spider-Man story.  Alas, this is such a small portion of the book – really only the last fourth – that its hard to recommend the whole thing.  It took me several days to get through the first portion because I found it uninvolving.

This might work as a thin “get to know your classic Spider-Man” book for new readers with a slightly more mature edge than regular comics thanks to Conway attempt to get inside the heads of our leads.  For regular readers, though, I don’t imagine there’s much here you haven’t experienced elsewhere in your collection.