No matter how much Spider-Man grows up, storytellers keep finding new ways to explore his high school years. Be it the Spider-Man: Chapter One line or Ultimate Spider-Man comic run, high school is a vulnerable era in Peter Parker's life, where many fans first fell in love with the character. Untold Tales of Spider-Man filled in lots of the gaps in his history.
Across 26 regular issues and two annual issues, Untold Tales of Spider-Man tried to fill in the gaps between Amazing Fantasy #15 and the early issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Each issue sold for just 99 cents and the overall line was aimed at a younger demographic than other Spidey titles. The series was primarily written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Pat Olliffe, with other talents coming in to contribute from time to time.
The Untold Story
Many of the Untold Tales use familiar iconography from the high school era of Spider-Man. There are a lot of familiar faces, including familiar villains like Sandman, Vulture and Green Goblin. There are also new antagonists brought into the fold.
The first issue introduced Steven Hudak as Scorcher, a man fired for embezzlement who turned to crime. He donned a fire suit secretly provided by Norman Osborn, but he seemingly died fighting Spider-Man. He'd eventually return in the mainline comics to confront Ben Reilly before becoming a reoccurring henchman for villains like Norman Osborn and Zemo.
Other new villains included Jimmy Santini (Batwing), Cleavon Twain (Headsman) and David Lowell (Sundown). Many of these villains were created thanks to Norman Osborn's interference with Peter's life, turning him into essentially a villain production factory. Most of these characters had small roles after, with Headsman dying as part of Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts.
Untold Tales also introduced several new supporting characters and jocks, like Jason Ionello, who bullies Peter.
The Untold Tragedies
Untold Tales of Spider-Man also introduced several tragedies to the wall-crawler's life. One of the most well-known is that of Sally Avril, a character introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #15 who reappeared as a reckless, self-made superhero known as Bluebird.
Avril chases after fame as a superhero, copying Spider-Man -- despite having no powers of her own -- and ultimately dying in a tragic, needless accident. It's easily one of the most heartbreaking stories in Spider-Man's history and adds context to her other appearances, though her fridging is ultimately unnecessary.
Untold Tales #-1
Arguably one of the biggest influences on Spider-Man's lore came in the form of Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1. This negative story told a tale not about Spider-Man, but rather his parents. The comic revealed that Mary and Richard Parker were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sent to investigate HYDRA, with Baron Strucker serving as their primary enemy.
This revelation seems to indicate that heroism is in the Parker family's blood. It also served as the first major appearance of Peter's parents since Life Model Decoys sent by Chameleon and Harry Osborn infiltrated Peter's life to mess with him.
This chapter of Peter's life arguably impacted the world of Spider-Man films more than comics, since it appears this piece of lore helped inspire Sony when rebooting Spider-Man in 2012. The Amazing Spider-Man even credited itself as "The Untold Story" on several posters.