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The of the "Image Era" continued with yet another "Image" artist at the helm of Amazing Spider-Man whose art reminded many of Steve Ditko (at least me!)...Using many characters and a lot of action, his style appealed to many up until his last issue...Characters dealt with in those issues include The Punisher, Black Cat, Styx & Stone, The Sinister Six, Tarantula, Scorpion, Shocker, Rhino, Boomerang, Black Fox, Dr. Doom, and of course Venom!...The end of this era brought another Spider-Man great on for a very long run as artist, Mark Bagley with a very clean & crisp style with again, lots of action!...More stars than ever with the Round Robin: The Sidekick's Revenge 6 parter containing many guest stars.

This era of Spider-Man's life was sort of like a "calm before the storm" in that the next era begins a period of much drama and shock for Spider-Man with elements of his life coming back to haunt him (Much more on that next installment!)...There were some stories and events that did take place that would hold it's own place in Spider-Man's history: The Sinister Six storylines that ran through Amazing Spider-Man #334-339 (which included the death of Aunt May's fiancé, Nathan Lubensky) & Spider-Man #18-23 (Revenge Of The Sinister Six) with guest stars galore!... There were other memorable storylines running through the now 4 Spider-Man titles with the introduction of the new "adjectiveless" Spider-Man drawn AND written by Todd McFarlane then by Erik Larsen...The 1st issue sold MANY copies due to the fact that there were regular & black covers, in both bagged & un-bagged packages!

The other 3 Spider-man titles brought us other fine storylines...Spectacular Spider-Man brought us "The Child Within" (issues #178-184) & "Funeral Arrangements (issues #186-188)...Web Of Spider-Man had "The Name Of The Rose" (issues #84-89)...Spider-Man had "Torment" (issues #1-5)...All the "secondary" started to evolve into much more important parts of the Spider-Verse with better and better stories that involved more important characters such as Hobgoblin, Doctor Octopus, Carrion, Beetle, Puma, Vermin, Green Goblin II, Vulture, Kingpin, Tombstone, Silvermane, Rose, Lizard, Morbius, and many more...Yes, Amazing was the premiere title, but the other titles were improving each issue. Some first appearances included Cardiac, Knight & Fog, and Corona, but the last newcomer to be introduced to Spider-Man would least the biggest impression: Carnage!

Cletus Kasady was a serial killer imprisoned at Riker's Island prison and shared a cell with Eddie Brock (Venom)...He was nothing more than another supporting character until a piece of Venom's symbiote costume attached itself to Cletus and a new terror was born!...He was much like an insane version of Venom, cutting and dicing his way through those that got in his way including Venom himself...Spider-Man had his hands full with him and the future held many more meeting between these two (three if you count Venom!)...The next era we look at is one in which sets of a string of soap-opera like shocking events in Spider-Man's and more importantly, Peter Parker's life...A family reunion, sort of and the return of the true Spider-Man?