How to read Todd McFarlane’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” Digitally

It isn’t simple.

There are four paths to getting digital comic versions of all of Todd McFarlane’s run on “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

One quick disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The links below will take you to Amazon’s site to buy digital comics. It’s not like there’s any other distributor to get them from.

Single Issues

This is the most expensive way, but easy enough to do. All of the issues are available for $1.99 on Amazon/Comixology.

A Comixology Unlimited subscription ($5.99/month) offers issues #298 – #300 and #315 – #317 free with membership.

Marvel Unlimited Subscription

You can subscribe to Marvel Unlimited. You’ll get access to all of the issues, but you’ll be paying monthly. The month you stop paying Marvel, you lose access to the comics.

Legends Collections

Spider-Man Legends: Todd McFarlane v1 – v3 collects all of the issues of “Amazing Spider-Man” that Todd McFarlane drew. That means it leaves out issues #324, #326, and #327. It is missing part 5 of the 6 part “The Assassin Nation” storyline that Todd McFarlane drew. It also leaves out issue #328, which wraps up the Captain Universe storyline. But it does include the Prowler story from “Spectacular Spider-Man Annual” #10.

The first book is $14.99 for 8 issues (208 pages). The second is $16.99 for 9 issues and a short story (226 pages). The third is $16.99 for 11 issues (266 pages).

To get all of the “Amazing Spider-Man” issues that are in the Omnibus, you would have to buy the three Legends volumes and then pick out the three single issues to finish the run. (You can also grab issues #296 and #297 that are also in the Omnibus while you’re at it, but you’re not missing anything if you don’t.)

Epic Collections

Three Epic editions will cover the relevant material, alongside a lot of other Spider-Man issues from the time.

“Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Venom“, collecting #295-#310 alongside two other Spider-Man issues from other series, is $19.99 for 507 pages.

You can match that up with “Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Assassin Nation” and get #311 – #325, along with the “Amazing Spider-Man” annual that Rob Liefeld drew and, naturally, the Marvel Graphic Novel “Parallel Lives.” That’s going to run you $19.99 for 481 pages.

You then need to buy “Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Cosmic Adventures“, to get issues #326 – #333. You’ll be buying all of that for the single issue left in McFarlane’s run and the beginning of Erik Larsen’s issues. It also comes with two annuals and six other Spider-Man comics. That’s another $19.99 for 501 pages.

If you’re only in this for the McFarlane issues, though, then buy “The Amazing Spider-Man” #328 as an individual issue, instead. That will save you $18.

You’ll also need to separately pick up “The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual” #10 for $1.99 to get the eight-page short story McFarlane illustrated, as written by Glenn Herdling. It’s not a Spider-Man story, but it does feature the Prowler and Silver Sable. McFarlane did a great job on the art for that one.

The Venom Option

If you’re just a Venom fanboy, then pick up the “Birth of Venom” collection. It combines two trade paperbacks, “The Saga of the Alien Costume” and “Venom Strikes Back.”

It has everything from “Amazing Spider-Man” #252 – #259, #300, #315-#317, plus the relevant pages from #298 – #299. It also includes related issues ranging from “Secret Wars” through to “The Fantastic Four.”

The standard digital price tag is $14.99 price tag for these 353 pages.

Bonus: Adjectiveless Spider-Man

The good news here is that there is a single digital package if you want to buy all 15 issues of the adjectiveless “Spider-Man” series that McFarlane wrote and drew after “Amazing.” It’s called, simply enough, “Spider-Man by Todd McFarlane: The Complete Collection,” and will run you $15.

If you want to ease your way into that series, the whole thing is collected as three smaller collections: “Torment,” “Perceptions”, and “Masques.” The first two books run $8.79, while the last one is $10.99.

Issues #6 and #7 are collected with the third book, “Masques”, to better keep the page counts similar through the three editions. Each story in the series stands alone, though, so it’s easy enough to read in any order.