This is it, True Believers! This issue of Amazing Spider-man marks the real beginning of my love of comic books.

The Amazing Spider-man #324 - November 1989


Alright. I thought comics were pretty neat earlier in my childhood, but here is where I really started to appreciate them - mostly the art at this point. It is 1989. I'm ten years old. It is at this age that I actually start to seek out comics which, for me, meant buying one from Shop-Rite every week when my Mom took me grocery shopping. I had a few Spider-man comics before, but this is the first one hand picked by me. I had limited choices in regards to what comics I was allowed to buy. X-men was a big no-no (the X-men comic story I'll leave for another time). Spider-man, OK.

Spidey hanging upside down. Ahhh. So classic.


Issue Summary: I only know the bare basics of the story, since I only have part 5 of 6. I read the comics I bought, but I never really digested the story. It was all about the cool art (which is why - looking back now - Image comics and many comics in general in the '90s were so lame). Spider-man, with the help of Captain America, Silver Sable, and the loose cannon, Solo are trying to stop some crazy terrorists (A comic plot that has never been done before, I know. But I'm ten years old, remember and comics were all about the pretty drawings). Sabretooth is somehow connected to the terrorists. Cap and Silver Sable are on the hunt for Sabretooth somewhere in Mexico.

Captain America and Silver Sable bust some poor Mexican guerrilla heads - with style.


Spidey is busy mopping up terrorists on Ellis Island and New York. There is a good fight between Sabretooth and Silver Sable in some ancient Mexican ruins that I thought was fabulous.

Cap picks a bad time to visit the men's room. Thanks for the help, Cap!



That really is all you need to know. A standard comic book issue with some good action scenes.

Amazing Spider-man #324 was the first comic where I really took notice of the art. I remember seeing "Erik Larsen" as the artist and from then on checking my next Spidey issues to see if he was drawing it. He quickly became my favorite artist. I just missed out on Todd McFarlane's run on Amazing, so I'm sure he would have been my favorite if I had gotten his comics first. Larsen is a sentimental favorite of mine when it comes to artists.


That would be Solo. If I remember right, Solo was a character created (co-created?) by Erik Larsen. Pretty much a carbon copy of The Punisher, but I didn't care. I thought he looked cool. He had, you know, guns and grenades and stuff. Plus he had some sort of phasing/teleportation ability so he could pop up out of no where with guns blazing. Anyways, Solo became one of my favorite characters of course. Man, a lot of "favorites" in this issue.

Young Dan's Geeky Cool Rating: 10 out of 10.

Revised Geeky Cool Rating: 7 out of 10. Being my first Spider-man comic, it is still one of my most beloved comics. I went crazy over the art. This issue is very beat-up because of the number of times I flipped through it. I carried that thing all over the house.

Original Cover Price: $1

Current Value on ComicsPriceGuide.com (which doesn't really mean anything): $10 NM. My issue is probably in fair condition, but it is worth more than $10 to me. Nuff said!

Wait, I almost forgot the best part: cheesecake! Oh MJ, you sure could make a ten year old boy feel funny inside. It was probably just the sloppy joes I ate for lunch, though.