Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Volume 16 by Len Wein is the end of Spiderman’s adventures in the 1970’s to the 1980’s. Marvel Masterworks takes older comics and restores them with a newer glossy printing. Marriage is on the mind of many Spiderman side characters as Betty Brandt and Ned Leads get married and Harry Osborn and Liz Allen get engaged, putting undue pressure on Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. This issue leads Mary Jane to go on a date with Flash Thompson since Peter is not around. Peter is thinking about sharing his secret, that he is Spiderman, for the first time. This book is packed full of notable villains and great action scenes. The villains featured are Doctor Octopus, Hammerhead, Kingpin, Jigsaw, The Lizard, and the latest version of the Spider Slayer. It also featured less notable villains, The Tinkler, who was brought back from the second issue of the Amazing Spiderman, The Human Fly, Willow of the Wisp, and Stegon, who was bought back from Marvel team ups and is a mutation of a man to Stegosaurus with the power to take old dinosaurs bones and reanimate them to dinosaurs. This volume also featured a couple of good guys like X-men’s Nightcrawler and The Punisher. The action scenes and Spiderman quips are great and make this volume stand out amongst others. I like how further stories are being set up with a lead into the next issue, there’s an art to this and it was executed very well. Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Volume 16 collected Amazing Spider-Man (1963-1998) issues 156-168 and Annual #10.

Plot Summary: Doctor Octopus is back and he goes to see his almost bride to be… Aunt May. Doctor Octopus was last seen evading a nuclear explosion while he was fighting Hammerhead. Doctor Ock is being haunted by the ghost of Hammerhead, that he’s trying to rid himself of, but things don’t go so well as he accidentally brings Hammerhead back to life. He will go after Aunt May, Spiderman or Doc Ock. Spiderman beats a dangerous robber that puts up a good fight without powers, he gets powers and becomes the Human Fly and he wants to rob weddings he picks the wedding of Ned Leeds and Betty Brandt to rob and ruin. The Spidermobile is back and it’s possessed. The Spidermobile last scene at the bottom of the Atlantic when he battled Mysterio, is gon when Spiderman goes looking for it, then it stalks him. Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler visits New York city for R and R, but he gets caught up in an assignation plot involving The Punisher and Spiderman. Each hero thinks the other was responsible but it was all a ruse to get them together and take them all out. The Kingpin wants to use Spiderman’s life force to bring back his son from the grave, Dr. Kurt Conners helps Spiderman, but an accident sets off his transformation into The Lizard. Stegon captures Billy as he needs Conners to help him bring dinosaurs back to earth. J. Jonah Jamison is sent pictures of Spiderman getting rid of his clone, more convinced than ever Spiderman is evil he teams up with a partner to make a new version of the Spider Slayer to take Peter Parker out.

What I Liked: The Doctor Octopus and Spiderman team up to beat Hammerhead is the best. The Mary Jane and Peter Parker relationship deals with grown up issues. I loved seeing the Kingpin back and has one heck of a fight. The best two part issue is Nightcrawler v. Spiderman v. The Punisher. The Spiderman and Nightcrawler fight was awesome. With Spiderman not knowing Nightcrawler’s transportation ability thinks he killed him. It was a really good story for Nightcrawler which was cool since Len Wein the writer of the issue helped create him. His is kind of the first introduction of Jigsaw one of the Punishers greatest foes. The possessed Spidermobile story was actually not bad and I liked what they did with the car, and how Spiderman returned it.

What I Disliked: The Willow of the Wisp antihero had a good introduction but ended up being pretty lame and the two last issues really brought down a really great volume at the end. It really threw the pace off of the whole book.

Recommendation and Rating: Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Volume 16 was a better volume of the series than previous volumes, the stories for the most part were fun, full of adventure and still kept the human nature of Spiderman. I rated Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Volume 16 by Len Wein 4 out of 5 stars. At the same time this comic came out they released a revamped version of The Spectacular Spiderman by former Amazing Spiderman writer Gary Conway that explored the human side a little bit more, which I will start reading to get the whole Spiderman story.