So I’m a little late with this one? Yeah. Do I have any good excuses? The dog ate my other one?

Untold Tales of Spider-Man #2 - “Castles in the Air”
Original Release Date: October 1995
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Penciler: Pat Olliffe
Inkers: Al Vey w/ Pam Eklund
Lettering: Richard Starkings & COMICRAFT
Colors: Steve Matisson
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-In-Chief: Bob Budiansky

It’s a beautiful, clear night and a couple is taking full advantage of it on the roof restaurant of a tall New York building. The woman watches and smiles as her beau pours a glass of champagne.

The blissful evening is soon interrupted by a massive creature swooping down from the sky. The man, a wealthy city councilman-his name is Randolph Cherryh-shouts at the attacking creature, pleading with it to take the woman. It does not, but it doesn’t take Randolph either. That doesn’t mean it leaves him unharmed though…

It is morning and Spider-Man finds himself swinging quickly across the city toward his destination: Midtown High School. He’s only got a few minutes to go before his first class starts and the last thing he wants to be is late again.

Once he’s touched down, the ol’ webhead does a quick change to Peter Parker, high school student, and sprints toward the main building of the school. He blames his last-minute swing to school on the previous night’s activities; he spent much of the evening searching for the strange winged creature that’s all over the news.

Speaking of the news, he managed to grab the morning Daily Bugle. It’s the first thing he puts his nose to as he runs toward the school. Unfortunately, though, it blocks his view of Flash Thompson’s foot and leg, which promptly trips him up. Once again he finds himself the target of the school’s bully… and out of some math notes.

There’s a reward, offered by Councilman Cherryh, for the winged creature’s capture and Peter imagines using the money to move he and his Aunt May somewhere else-to escape his trouble with the bullies. He also imagines using his super strength to put them out of his way, but that’s always a bad idea. Instead, Peter does what he normally does: walks away.

Later in the evening, after dropping by the Bugle for some chastising courtesy of the loveable editor, J. Jonah Jameson, Peter, as Spider-Man, makes his way to Councilman Randolph Cherryh’s place. Once there he tells the councilman that his worries are all over, ‘cause he’s gonna be the one to bring the creature, which the press is calling Batwing, in. Cherryh doesn’t seem too thrilled at the idea of having to give up money to Spidey, but he’ll do what’s needed. So Spidey tells the man of his plan…

While Cherryh sets up the web slinger’s plan, Peter heads home. As he walks through the neighborhood, he spots the home of Tiny McKeever, the bully that stole his math notes from earlier in the day. He’d like to pound the guy a new one, but just as before, decides that’s a bad idea. Instead, he sneaks up to the bully’s window, shoots out a strand of webbing, and snags his notes.

Before he leaves, Peter overhears Tiny’s conversation with his father. It’s not a happy one, as the boy’s father shouts about a letter he received from the school about Tiny’s grades. Apparently they’re terrible and the father shouts that a boy too stupid to play football isn’t worth a whole lot.

Peter drops from the second story window to the ground below. There’s a side of him that doesn’t want to pay any attention… after all, the guy’s a grade-A meanie. But then again, no one deserves to be treated like that.

A spectacular gala is being held at the rooftop restaurant where councilman Cherryh was attacked the night before. Spidey waits, high up in the shadows, on a sheer wall; this is it, his plan. He watches all of the city’s wealthy wander about, mingling. It isn’t long before the trap is sprung!

From up above, the horrible creature swoops. The crowd reacts as they should-lots of screaming. The various bodyguards whip out their pistols and shoot wildly at the monster. Spider-Man intervenes, removing their weapons with his webbing; this isn’t how he intended things to go down.

Cherryh shouts his dissatisfaction at the wall-crawler and orders him to go after the creature. Spidey obliges, but announces he’ll be bringing it back alive. When the hero is out of earshot, Cherryh tells his men to grab the copter and hit the skies, they’re going to do this right.

Spidey tails the creature across the New York skyline, eventually catching up with it. After some fancy maneuvers, he finally connects a brutal punch. Instead of putting up more of a fight, the Batwing flees under a pier. Spider-Man follows.

Under the dark, wet pier, the web slinger uses his belt light to find the creature. What he finds, though, is not what he was expecting. Fear. A child. The Batwing pleads with Spider-Man-he doesn’t want to die. He only scared the people so that they would get out of his way so he wouldn’t have to hurt them-he only wanted food-the one variable present during each “attack” that had not been accounted for by anyone!

Under this pier, along with the creature, Spidey finds a diary. In it he learns of the boy’s trip to Carlsbad Caverns with his father and mother on an investigation of illegal dumping of toxic materials. During the trip, the boy is separated from his parents for quite a while and survived on anything available-including tainted water. Eventually he is rescued, but soon, back at home, finds himself transforming into a human bat creature. His parents did not approve and the boy fled.

The creature gets spooked by Spider-Man’s presence at his hideout and shoots up through the boards of the pier, surprising the councilman and his men up above. The men, using their guns, surround the creature, but Spider-Man is once again, having none of it! He takes out the men and allows Batwing to escape.

Cherryh can’t believe it! He begins a verbal tirade, but the wall-crawler puts it to rest with a well-placed shot of webbing.

For the rest of the evening, Spider-Man contemplates the situation. Being responsible involves more than just stopping crimes; it’s also about helping people in trouble in more general terms…

Later that day, Peter finds himself on the doorstep of Tiny McKeever. The big guy eventually answers the door, with a whopping shiner on his left eye. Peter explains that he snagged his notes back from Tiny, but would be willing to help him out with his math if he needed it. So he does

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The Untold Tales of Spider-Man book captured the best of Spider-Man; it had the fun, the heroics, and the everyman relatable elements that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko originated in their early run. This book not only did all that, but it managed to add on to the original mythos.

Instead of making huge continuity errors that the nerdiest of fans would complain over, Kurt Busiek managed to just add on to what was already there. Unlike John Byrne’s horrible attempt at changing and updating Spidey’s origin in Spider-Man: Chapter One, Busiek was just fine with working with the fantastic stuff that was already there. You see, Untold Tales of Spider-Man took place during those early years-sandwiched right in between the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko and Stan Lee/John Romita years.

This book came out during the mid-90’s horror that was the “Clone Saga.” Like another great book of the same time, Green Goblin, it was overshadowed by the massive mistake that was taking place in the core Spider-Man books. Now, it did find a bit of an audience, which still exists to this day, it didn’t find the audience it needed to survive and that’s unfortunate. Marvel was experimenting with a young readers/entry level comic thing (think today’s Marvel Adventures) with a 99 cent point. Perhaps the reason the book didn’t last was because readers thought its stories were aimed at a younger audience.

That’s a pretty heavy error for readers to make, especially considering that the original Stan Lee stuff was absolutely aimed at younger audiences, yet still managed to find those older ones.

Overall, this is a fantastically written and drawn book (and series!). Everyone knows the name Kurt Busiek by now-if ya don’t, then you’re not reading comics. Pat Olliffe might be a big more obscure for some of you, but he’s still working with Marvel today. His latest work was Last Hero Standing and Spider-Girl, both books full of, appropriately enough, old-school Marvel fun.

I highly recommend this, just as I do everything you’ll find here on the ol’ DBNO! You’ll find this particular line of comes pretty easy to come by (eBay is your friend). There’s a trade paperback out there too that you might be interested in if ya don’t happen to find the issues.