A Perfect Spider-Man Story: UNSCHEDULED STOP 

What's your favorite single issue or short arc of Spider-Man? Read the complete essay on Comic Book Herald: www.comicbookherald.com/a-perfect-spider-man-story-unscheduled-stop/

I love how Quesada thought to himself: “Growing up, changing, getting married and having kids isn’t relatable. You know what is relatable? Staying a couch surfing 25 year old your entire life and making deals with the devil definitely is tho”

Any story that utilizes Shocker as a serious threat immediately gets major props from me. He’s always been one of my favorite Spidey villains and doesn’t seem to get the spotlight too often as the solo villain for a story.

"We’re calling him Ben” (Marvel Comics 1000) is the first thing that came to mind If I have a boy, he'll probably be named Peter. And I have a friend who picked comic-related middle names for his kids

I need to echo your appreciation for Shocker. He has a nifty attack, an iconic suit, but really just wants to get one good score and retire. He has no over arching fiendish plans, he just has no other skills.

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man Issue 310 immediately comes to mind. Written as the final issue to Zdarsky's run on the title, with him doing the art and coloring. He made a documentary style comic with interviews with civilians discussing Spider-Man. The interviews range from hilarious to tear-jerking, with a final page that perfectly encapsulates Spider-Man as a whole. I read it when I was trying to get back in to comics and it worked like a charm. It solidified Zdarsky as one of my favorite writers and to this day one of my favorite Spider-Man stories ever.

As a whole, Brand New Day didn’t work for me. But this, the Rhino two parter and what they did with Flash was excellent.

“Everybody loves a hero. People line up for em, cheer em, scream their name, and years later they’ll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them to hold on a second longer. I believe there’s a hero in all of us. That keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride. Even though sometimes, we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most… even our dreams.” - May Parker

What makes this Spider-Man Story so Amazing is certainly the presence of The Shocker as the Antagonist. You Brilliantly explain the reasons that The Shocker is one of the Best Opposite of Spider-Man. Because he challenge Spider-Man and Awake the Hero inside him.

If you want some more short Spider-Man adventures to discover, I highly suggest that you track down issues 20-50 of Peter Parker: Spider-Man, Volume 2 by Paul Jenkins. Almost all of the arcs are two or three issues and the Parker Luck is completely on full display throughout the run. The stories range from funny, sad, touching and introspective. My favorite issues are # 20, where Peter is in such a funk/ depression that he has to rediscover his ability to laugh, and issue #33, where Peter recounts the time that Uncle Ben took him to his first baseball game. Truly powerful stuff. After you read the run, you’ll want to make another video. Trust me. Great work, Matthew!

The Shocker is unironically one of Spider-Man's best villains, although funnily it's mainly because he isn't really that villainous. He's SHOCKINGLY good at heart.

Spec 200 is the first comic I ever bought myself and remains my favorite single issue of Spidey

I know why people hate the Brand new Day run but I always loved it. It was the first time as a young adult I started collecting comic books month to month. Seeing Spidy face off against new villains every week and having the books in my hands was great. This story floored me along with New Ways to die and Flashbacks. Good to see you cover this era with the respect it deserves. The circumstances around it weren't great but at least the webhead's adventures were spectacular.

I really love how this story inspired more to the episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes dedicated to Spider-Man than any other more popular or recognizable story of the character

i love this arc, it’s really fun. i think brand new day has a lot of stories that are great, but are pushed to the side simply because of how awful the brand new day direction was

There’s an episode in Avengers : EMH show that has a very similar premise to this issue where Spidey and Cap are trapped underground with civilians who they must protect from the serpent society. I’m not sure if this issue was an inspiration for that episode but yeah the resemblance is uncanny

Spider Man & Human Torch is one of my Favorite stories being it go across the Decades through Peter & Johnny friendship and the Bad and the good moments through their lives another is Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and see her perspective of spidey's adventures.

It's a Julyder-Man miracle!

I love this story (and the other BND arcs you mentioned, especially New Ways to Die and Shed)! JJJ Senior was a fantastic addition to the supporting cast.

Guess this is what inspired that episode of Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes where Captain America and Spider-Man escort civilians in the subway whilst fighting against the snake villains. This is after the Skrull Invasion.

I’m really starting to love Mark Waid’s work. I’m currently picking up his run on DD every couple weeks and loving it, does anyone else know about some of his long runs that are collected? Marvel or DC, I don’t really mind!

"Why would Mephisto want their marriage?" As a Silver Surfer fan I ask the same question regarding why Mephisto constantly wants his soul. Also to answer your question its kinda a copout, but the issue of Hickman's FF where he eats a hotdog with Franklin on the rooftop post Johnny Storm's death and just tries to be there for him.

Great video. The Brand New Day era is my favourite Spider-Man run. Will check out the podcast you mentioned. Thanks for the great content!

I listened to you on the Geeksplained Podcast talk about the best Spidey stories and it got me to read some genuinely great Spider-Man! I recently lost love with Spider-Man, I was fatigued by what I felt was the main title floundering its own potential. I didn't care about Spider-Man and that felt wrong, so I went back to that episode and started hashing out my own ideas around Spider-Man. And its really helped me fall back in love with the Wall-Crawler.

Shocker is my favourite Spider-Man villain so I’m gonna check this out.

My favourite Spider-man and Green Goblin story is Trick of The Light with A Death in the Family following it themes.

I've never read this, but Mark Waid is my favorite writer of all time! I'm not at all surprised he wrote "A Perfect Spider-Man Story"

Now if only we didn’t have to go through “One More Day” to get to “Brand New Day”.

7:12 Spider-Man's interactions with Shocker in the Ultimate Spider-Man game were funny, "I never knew your name was Herman."

So glad you made a video on this story. I heard you talking about it on your podcast and 100% agreed. Waid and Martin are hands down two of the best people to work on spider-man. 'Peter Parker Paparazzi' and 'Power to the people' are fantastic. The trade UNSCHEDULED STOP is in (death and dating, I think) has an issue and its the best Peter Parker and Betty Brant story. Love a vid on that some day.

I’ll give this Marcus Matin Bub this. If he ever wanted to pull a Tim Sale and release a series of self contained trades in a similar vein to The Colors Series…he’s got my buck.

I love Shocker... Underrated villain.

Hell yeah! 90s Saturday morning animation Spider-Man squad 😁

Hobgoblin origin and black suit saga and Black Cat are my favorite stories.

Didn't know much about this story. Thanks for making a video on it.

I think it’s easy for people to write off the Brand New Day era just because it came fresh off of OMD’s frankly terrible decision to split Peter and MJ off. But honestly, the BND era had a lot of great Spidey stories (though I’m still not done finishing that period). This story being one of them. Waid and Martin really brought their A-game in creating an accessible short story that really gets to the heart of Spider-Man. I think these days it’s easy for Marvel and DC to forget about the importance of one shots and two-three part story arcs as they’re more concerned these days with writing for the trade. That’s not to say they’re gone (Tomasi and Gleason’s Superman used this a lot and the current Flash run does it to great use). But sometimes a simple story is all that’s needed to get at what makes a character important and Unscheduled Stop does this very well with Peter. Great video as always

Mark Waid is definitely my favorite comic writer

If I was a spider man writer I would undo one more day. Spider man needed to grow

Life Story is one of my favorites

Something that I like about spiderman Most is when He helps people no matter at any price.

I don’t have a lot of love for post One More Day Spider-Man, but of course I recognize that just because editorial screwed the character over big time- that doesn’t mean there weren’t good stories told. I wasn’t really aware of this little arc, glad you made a video bringing it to attention!

Always excited for some Brand New Day love! A period of comics should never be written off just cuz of the real world history or overall opinion of the day and this is why. It does a disservice to the creative teams and makes new fans miss out on potential bangers

i do remember that everything leading up to grim hunt was incredible, i really enjoyed those stories specially the ones involving Rhino and Sandman, grat video Matt!!

Fun fact: In comics, Peter is relieved Shocker has a very simple mind and only resorts to robbing banks or petty crimes. He said that if shocker took himself seriously, his gauntlets could level city blocks and cause small seismic earthquakes enough to literally sink the ground. If shocker just took himself seriously, he could be one of Spidey's most dangerous villains

Haven't read unscheduled stop in a while, but this video certainly brought back good memories of it. My favorite short stories are my dinner w/ Jonah by Chip Zdarsky and Lifetime Achievement by Nick Spencer. These stories really added a lot of Depth and pathos to Peter and JJJ's relationship. I love seeing a pro-spidey Jonah and him dealing with the ramifications of his smear campaign against Spider-Man in Lifetime achievement.

Has to be my new favorite video you've done. Keep up the great work Matt!

You can never go wrong with Spider-Man, Merry Julyder-Man!!

I really enjoy your analysis of this story and of the BND era in general. I think that this era is unfairly maligned because of OMD. All those stories you cited as being strong are incredible (except for "Shed" ... I can't forgive Lizard eating his own son). This was my Spider-Man growing up, and I have also read a lot of the classic stuff too.

I really liked J.J.J. Senior. I loved the romance between him and May Parker. He made her so happy!

I think my favorite short arc of Spider-man is these two issues, 578 & 579, too! I was amazed when I saw this story was the subject of your newest video, Matt! These two issues, plus 577 (a Spidey/Punisher story by Wells & Paolo Rivera), and 555 (a Wells & Bachalo Spidey/Wolvie story), are the first Spider-man comics I remember reading. My Dad was a comic collector for many years and would take my younger brothers and I to his LCS. We were mostly just focused on the Pokemon & Yugi-Oh cards in the shop, but I remember looking through his stack of comics one day and started reading these. "Unscheduled Stop," or "beaten-down-Spidey-in-a-subway-covered-in-rats," as I remember it, was the most impactful (and my favorite) of the bunch. And hell yeah dude, Shocker is badass in the Spectacular Spiderman animated series that was airing around the same time! Quite a one-two Shocker punch to the brain as a young kid!

I Think Avanegers EMH made an episode similar to "Unscheduled Stop" With Captain America and Spider-Man being stuck underground with civilians while being attacked by the Serpent Society

3:49 love that tongue twister

Stop making me want a video on The Superior Foes Also two other great stories from brand new day were Mysterioso and Kemia's Castle

Thanks for introducing me to great stories matt

It was the summer of 2009 when, at the age of 7, I decided to start reading Spidey after seeing several episodes of both Spectacular and the 90s series, and the first issues I read were just these here, Amazing Spider-man 578 and 579. So this story will always have a special place in my heart, as well as the whole period of the Brand new day. Thanks so much for talking about this story Matt, I hope you can also do other videos about that period.

I would be really really happy if marvel makes a trade just for mark and martin issues. Which i know is unlikely but it would've been so good

Loved this video, Matt! Keep up the great work! If I can ask, is there any chance you would do a video essay on Spider-Man: Life Story?

I know he didn’t stick around but I love Red Vulture... also great video. I love going back to short Spider-Man stories. Still nothing beats Blue or Life Story for me.

I’m a fan of a lot of the short stories you mentioned (not Shed!) but one that I look back fondly on that you didn’t mention is Spider-Man vs Firelordby Tom DeFalco. ASM issues #269 and 270 are in the same vein as Spidey vs. the Juggernaut, and really bring the cosmic and the street together in a fun way.

This is my favorite Spider-Man story ever, so cool to see it acknowledged!

One of the things I like about Matt's videos is the synthwave played in the background.

I love these videos. They perfectly capture and display the characters and their morals from pages of the comics. thank you Matt ❤️🙏

Beautiful just found you a few months ago this is amazing, I haven’t read to many comics but I know a lot but I do love these little issues, never heard of these, but love it, and I swear I also have peter luck lol love ur channel ❤️

Great video and analysis. Spider-Man is my favorite marvel character and I really need to read more of these older stories.

Awesome love your videos bro🤙

Have you always uploaded your video scripts to the web? They're phenomenal, I love how passionate you are about this comic and character

I'm a simple man. I see a Matt Draper video on Spider-Man, I click on it immediately.

Ah, One More Day. One of the many things that haunt me when I lie awake at night.

The midnight at the end btw

Just wanted to see keep up the great work love videos like this

Joe Kelly's comics were amazing. He made the Rhino a multi-fascinated character. His Kraven and Blackcat stories were also great. I hope he sticks with Spidey after Savage ends.

Matt. Thank You for this great video. This 2 part story was printed and were part of aTPB here un México. I can't recall which were the other stories but I got in love with this story arc. Just a simple story of Spidey fighting Shocker, really entertain and not really complicated to understand or to must read tie-ins. Th art of Marcos Martin was great, really great, I wish he could have become the Main drawer for the title. Thank again for this return un time of My greatest superheroe. Thanks again.

10:24 This line feels especially relevant rn with all the Lotus stuff lmaao

Oh man. The memories this video jump started for me. I started reading comics around this brand-New-Day Era and I loved this story. Thank you for reminding me! Going to re-read this now.

The cover to issue 579 is one of my most favorite covers ever. Actually never got around to reading it, but after watching this o think it’s about time I change that.

Looooooved this. Gorgeous art too

Proverbs 13:12 - Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. Poor Spidey. He never gets what he desires. 😟

Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #231 & #232 - "Caught in the Act"

Peter Parker: Spider-Man by Paul Jenkins was filled with these kind of short grounded Spidey stories, check it out in case you haven’t

I remember liking the Todd Mcfarlane title from the early 90s. “Torment” I think it was called. Haven’t read it in decades. I don’t know how well its held up since.

"GET BACK HERE SHOCKER!!!!!!" "SHOCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!" "YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME" "I'LL CHASE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEARTH"

One of my all-time favorite Spider-Man stories is a single-issue where Uatu the Watcher and some other villainous alien bet the fate of the Earth on a bunch of kids playing football in Central Park. Spidey swings past and the kids beg him to play with them (with a shit ton of handicaps, including no web swinging, no super strength or superspeed, so Spidey sense, and one hand tied behind his back). And then it's just...Spidey playing football with a bunch of New York kids from the mid-80s intercut with existential commentary from two aliens on the moon. It's a fucking delight.

The most underrated RU-vid channel ever

Matt you are the man, I love your channel I always get excited when I see a new video posted! Do you ever think you'll touch a wolverine story? he's my favorite super hero hands down and I would love to see you cover a story of his!

I hope you revisit the BND Rhino arcs. I loved them, but it felt like no one else read them until this video. Then again, I'm sucker for arcs than humanize low-level villains and mooks.

I own this issue it's very good and right after hammer head ducking breaks spidey's jaw

Thanks for the great video as always Matt ❤

The Best part of any superhero story is when a hero meets a New villain. The powers,costume,personality how they Clash in other ways and so fourth!

The short Rhino Arc illustrated by Max Fiumara was just... so good but yeah there where a LOT of stories at this time I didn't read this one.

MCU Spider Man needs Shocker, Fisk, Vulture, Kraven, Ringer, The Fly, Circus of Crime in the movies.

Thank you! Im a Marvel Unlimited Subscriber ive Read alot of X-men,FF4,Huge Fan of the X-Factor when it was Ran by Madrox who i think is A Huge funny Underrated Character! And so on but not enough Spidey Thank you for the Recommends!

There was a two issue short on Spider-Man about the Rhino having retired and getting pulled into the life again against his will. Peter pulls out every stop to help his opponent redeem themself, but is helpless to stop the Rhino's rage. It was one of my faves as well, no idea the issues, though I think it was part of that long return of Kraven run.

Peter Benjamin Parker is the best Spidey!

For me, the issue with BND is that when Peter graduated high school, first story out of the gate was "the master planner saga" while when he got married, the first story was "Kraven's Last Hunt". Defining stories that only make sense with the new status-quo. BND didn't produce anything like that to justify the big change, and it's "best" stories being of the kind that can fit any era ultimately compromises the era and hampers those stories from any greatness. "Unscheduled Stop" is a fairly basic Spider-Man story with excellent art, in terms of script and character it's not doing anything special. -- Mark Waid's claim "Have we ever met Jameson's dad?" is ironic because that breaks continuity with Tangled Web #20 written ironically by Zeb Wells (who IIRC came later during BND run, after Unscheduled Stop and is currently writing, badly, ASM). Wells established Jameson's father as abusive in that story, whose canonical status is dubious so this is a case of continuity being broken. It's an example of the very loose approach to continuity that you see in Spider-Man since BND.

Great story it's also another one after that called Spider-Man 24/7

Yes, I agree, easily one of the greatest Spider-Man stories and one that tends to be overlooked.

I like it

My favorite single issue is either Spectacular 200 or Spectacular 310 but for a two or three issue story it'd probably be Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut

What's relatable with spiderman is his growth. Seeing him grow up from being a kid to being a man and starting a new story

Surprised you haven’t done a video on Superior Foes of Spider-Man since you like Shocker.