Roger Stern Archive

In the world of internet writing, the currency we operate in is clichés. How about this one, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” I mean, seriously, is there anything more tragic than spilling milk or crying over it? Or how about “Selling like Hotcakes.” If memory serves, I spent an

Read More...

Similar to what took place during “Spider Island” in 2011, Marvel announced a few months ago that there would be a string of spin-off miniseries and tie-in issues connected to its big “Spider-Verse” event. While none of these comics outside of the Rick Remender Venom series proved to be

Read More...

Every time I reach the end of Roger Stern and John Romita’s Spider-Man/Black Cat storyline in Amazing Spider-Man #226-227, I find myself feeling a bit melancholy. These comics are certainly not bawl your eyes out sad like ASM #121 or ASM #400, but Stern’s script so effectively taps into

Read More...

In celebration of Superior Spider-Man’s “Goblin Nation” arc, over the next two months, I’m going to acknowledge what I consider to be the 10 best Green Goblin/Spider-Man storylines. I’m creating this list based on a full array of arbitrary, unscientific criteria: namely historical significance, artwork, creativity and my overall enjoyment of the

Read More...

UPDATE: The second past of my Hobgoblin story is live on Comic Book Resources. As regular readers of this site should note, I have a bit of a Hobgoblin obsession. So much so that former Spider-book editor Jim Salicrup told me that I was acting like the backstory of

Read More...

So I’m back to this dance. It was inevitable in a month where I talk about Spider-Man and Avengers/X-Men crossovers that I would spill just a little bit more virtual ink on the topic of Spider-Man being an Avenger. For all you newbies out there, I’ve previously tackled the

Read More...

The “Hobgoblin Lives” mini-series certainly goes a long way in setting things “right” about the identity of the Hobgoblin in that writer Roger Stern was finally given an opportunity to explain the story he was building before leaving Amazing Spider-Man at issue #250. But despite the fact that Stern

Read More...

Retcons are often the lifeblood of comic book storytelling. I mean, who doesn’t appreciate somebody fixing the mistakes of a previous editorial regime by wiping that older story from existence? While I can understand some hang-wringing regarding how some retcons have been deployed in the Spider-Man universe over the

Read More...

Lo, there shall be an ending! After spending my entire summer writing about the “Original Hobgoblin Saga” in full, I have reached Amazing Spider-Man #251, the final chapter in the story that was originally introduced by Roger Stern in ASM #238 and then fleshed out over the course of

Read More...

Reading Amazing Spider-Man #250 is like watching the season finale of a television show where the showrunner  or writer knows he or she is leaving the show (either willingly or acrimoniously) and thus decides to introduce a ton of big ideas into the final script that are impossible for

Read More...