Posted By Dan Greenfield on Mar 21, 2025 | 4 comments

It’s about time!

DC Comics in 2024 launched a new sub-line of Facsimile Editions, adding Bronze Age treasury/tabloid issues to its offerings. The program has been wildly successful, with new treasury reprints now coming every other month, or so.

There’s also been a reprint of the landmark miniseries The Untold Legend of the Batman in tabloid size — the first new treasury collection DC has put out in decades.

Meanwhile, fans — including yours truly — have asked: “Where’s Marvel?” The House of Ideas publishes Gallery Editions — hardcovers that are about the same size as a treasury (which are about 10″ x 13″). There’s also the upcoming (and already renamed) Archive Edition format, which is basically a Gallery Edition collecting a run of Facsimile Editions, like last year’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars and Amazing Spider-Man reprints.

But no actual, bona fide softcover treasuries.

Until now.

Coming in December 2025 is the Spectacular Spider-Man: Lo, This Monster Treasury Edition, reprinting the short-lived 1968 Spectacular Spider-Man magazine series that ran only two issues.

Here’s the rub: There’s only extremely sketchy information. The title is listed on distributor and retail websites, but there’s no cover, no description, and no info on whether this will include original ads and whatnot, like a Facsimile. (I suppose there’s a very outside chance they mean something else when they say “Treasury Edition,” but I don’t see how.)

We have a title, byline (Stan Lee and John Romita Sr.), a release date (Dec. 9) and a list price ($29.99). It’s also noted as a paperback, which tracks — though what type of cardstock is obviously unclear — and a page count of 136, which adds up: The two mags were 68 pages each.

But that’s all. And of course, this has not been solicited yet, so the rest is open to speculation. (Publishers typically do not comment on unsolicited products unless they release the info themselves.)

This may help, though — a description of 2019’s trade paperback collection of the same issues:

Collects Spectacular Spider-Man (1968) #1-2. Spider-Man swings into a brand-new magazine-sized format – and the results are spectacular! The year is 1968. With John Romita Sr. channeling film noir in his visuals and Stan Lee offering longer stories for a more mature readership, these were Spidey tales like nothing that had come before! In the first issue, told in glorious halftone black and white, things get political as Richard Raleigh bids to be the next mayor of New York – but will his campaign be derailed by a monster running amok in the Big Apple? Then, Lee and Romita go fittingly full-color for the Green Goblin’s high-flying return – and deliver a feature-length showdown between Spidey and his archnemesis! Plus: Revisit the origin of Spider-Man – as retold by Stan and his brother, Larry Lieber!

Marvel published a trio of treasuries in 2016-17 that collected Modern Age material but the line didn’t last. They also use the format for more recent reprints, though those dimensions are about 1 1/2 inches slimmer than a classic treasury. (Only one online listing for this one notes dimensions: 8 1/2″ x 13″, so this could be that same size.)

Either way, this would be the first new Marvel treasury in decades that collects a vintage story. And we’re still hoping for reprints — like this:

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MORE

— MARVEL Sets Dates For June’s Landmark FANTASTIC FOUR and X-MEN Facsimile Editions. Click here.

— FANTASTIC FOUR: Marvel to Publish GALACTUS TRILOGY as Facsimile Editions Across Three Months. Click here.