We have a wonderful thread, started by Richard Mantle, that examines the Amazing Spider-Man starting with issue #51. I don't know why it took me so long to realize we don't have a thread that covers Spidey's beginning to the point where Richard starts.
Spider-Man is hands down my favorite Marvel hero and I love the early stuff. Peter Parker felt like an outsider in high school. He had girl troubles and money troubles. I think a lot of us could identify with him when we were teenagers; I know I certainly did. Those first 50 issues of Amazing, plus the Annuals and Amazing Fantasy 15, are among the cream of the Silver Age. Outstanding artwork from Steve Ditko and John Romita. Unforgettable dialogue from Stan Lee. A fantastic rogues gallery and a wonderful supporting cast. Just terrific, terrific stuff.
Join me, won't you?
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As you say John, an iconic moment in the unmasking and a powerful cover with all the questions you posed.
This kind of story, to me, showed the massive difference I felt there was between the way DC stories progressed and the way Marvel's did.
DC always seemed to have the same staus quo issue after issue, no changes in the events or the reactions of the supporting cast etc - like isolated episodes of a TV series etc - but Marvel moved their characters on and there was ongoing ramifications from events in one issue to reactions of characters in future issues.
I was intrigued how Peter would explain away his unmasking here - if at all!
I also loved the way that the fact that he did explain it away - it was still referenced in future conversations between support-characters as in 'real life'.
What I also liked is that Marvel heroes were fallible - they actually lost fights!
Classics
That's one of the reasons Ant-Man and the Human Torch lost their series. Except Ant-Man picked up a partner and became Giant-Man, and the Thing joined the Torch, their series didn't change or advance. Giant-Man's powers were limited at very end, but his series didn't continue long enough for that idea to go anywhere.
As referenced in another site I read many years ago, Lee & DItko set up an excellent story-engine for Spider-Man with so many different aspects of Peter Parker's life - home, school, a job that required him to get out and seek interesting events and which was tied in to his superhero adventures. Of the other Silver Age series starring solo characters, I think the only other one that had a comparably great supporting cast was Thor, and that only from about 1966 on, once Sif, Balder and the Warriors Three all became regulars in the modern stories. in Nova, Marv Wolfman tried to replicate Spider-Man's success but while I mostly enjoyed the series, even after Carmine Infantino took over as artist, it didn't quite work. On the other hand, Daredevil really took off under Miller in a way it hadn't before, in part, I think, because Miller more fully developed the supporting cast that already existed and expanded it, most noticeably with the introduction of Elektra.
I think the strong supporting cast elevated ASM over other Marvel books in the early 60s. The team books had few characters outside the team members, with the exception of Alicia Masters. The solo strips stuck to the tropes of "the best pal" and "the girl", and sometimes didn't even have both. Peter had Betty, but unlike most DC heroes and a few Marvel ones, he didn't have to compete with his alter-ego for Betty's attention. He lacked a Foggy Nelson or Happy Hogan, but I guess you could say, in a way, May Parker filled that role somewhat. She was a constant presence in his life and a sounding board for him, although he quite obviously did not (and felt he could not) confide everything to her. But he had a genuine affection for her that showed in all their interactions.
The most interesting thing about the supporting cast in these early days, to me, was the way Stan and Steve used Jonah and Flash. Jonah was a respected, middle-aged businessman and because he was Peter's boss and his elder, Peter had to feign respect for him. But Jonah was an awful person in many regards, and many of his employees resented him for constantly browbeating them, being a cheapskate and an egomaniac. Peter was no different, except that he could tweak Jonah's nose as Spider-Man. With Flash, here was a guy who was an athlete, popular with girls, and had lots of friends - everything Peter was not but probably wished he could be - and he still tormented Peter relentlessly. But he was Spidey's #1 fan! That must have given Peter a lot of satisfaction. And wisely, Stan and Steve allowed both Jonah and Flash to grow and be more nuanced over time.
And they got a lot of humor and pathos from Peter's situations of working for someone who hated his alter ego and being bullied by someone who idolized his alter ego and having a romance with someone who liked him but was alarmed by his mysterious connection to that alter ego and even his beloved Aunt May believed that that alter ego was a menace! And so Peter Parker had a lot of reason to stop being Spider-Man but in the end could never forget that it was his failure to stop a bad guy when he had the opportunity that enabled that same bad guy to be on the loose and wind up later murdering Peter's beloved Uncle Ben. So despite all the hardships being Spider-Man brought him, due to his own guilt complex of Ben's death he couldn't give up trying his best to do good as Spider-Man -- and besides, he found being Spider-Man was fun and enabled him to create a persona that was very different from that of the plain old Peter Parker readers were introduced to in Amazing Fantasy #15.
Thor and Spider-Man also both shook things up by dropping their original love interests for new ones, something that's happened a lot since the Silver Age but just wasn't done back in the 60s.
Seems from maybe 1940 through the late '60s, Superman comics didn't change that much and neither did Batman for most of that period, at least not until Infantino took over in the mid-60s, but most of Marvel's titles underwent significant changes just between 1963 to 1967, much like the pop music scene of the time.
Anyone who bought, say, Journey Into Mystery #90, Amazing Spider-Man #10, and Avengers #5 and then skipped each title until The Mighty Thor #138, ASM #58, and Avengers #53, would note very significant changes in each. Certainly, in the Silver Age at least Marvel was far less static than DC but during the Bronze Age DC became somewhat less static and Marvel a bit more so, opting more for the illusion of change rather than real change, although there would still be significant changes every so often in the best-selling titles.
John Dunbar said:
Meanwhile Doc Ock is committing crimes all over the nation, trying to draw out Spider-Man and wondering why it's not working. The answer is Peter has exams, and no money for airfare. Besides, his Aunt May thinks he's coming down with something and wouldn't allow him to go anywhere.
At this point Peter interacts with his classmates. Is this the first time Flash, reacting to the Bugle, showed his support for Spider-Man? Also, Peter thinks “it’s only the people who are inferior themselves that keep picking on others.” This sounds like Ditko suggested the phrasing.
The police take Peter to his home, and Aunt May has a doctor look at him. The doctor tells her it's a 24 hour virus that just needs to run its course.
Is this the first time a virus weakened Peter? Interesting that in addition to becoming weaker he was also having trouble sticking to walls.
Just then, they see a fireman turn a badly injured Doc Ock over to the police. Ock mutters that Spider-Man didn't beat him, and if it wasn't for the fire, things would have been different.
It was different from many other superhero stories in that Doc Ock wasn’t presumed dead in the fire.
Liz invites Peter to a party, but he declines, saying he is taking a brunette out for a date. He tells her to take Flash, even though he knows it's hard to use one syllable words all the time for Flash. He also says they deserve each other.
As character development for Liz, which pans out many years later, she tells Flash that they deserved it after the way they had treated Peter.
The unmasking scene became an iconic moment. Years later, Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy, who weren't even there, talked about it as if they were! It's a brief sequence, only a few panels, but it is amazing. Spidey is defeated so quickly, that when he is unmasked and revealed to be Peter Parker, no one - not Betty, Jonah, the police, and certainly not Doc Ock - believes he really is Spider-Man.
It’s really an effective sequence and it makes a lot of sense. There is no reason anyone would think “Peter is Spider-Man” based upon this. If it’s so well known that people who weren’t there at the time know about it, one would think that Flash Thompson would have instantly changed his mind about Peter, like Liz did.
I just started following this thread using my Amazing Spider-Man CD-ROM collection, which I find easier than fumbling with the Masterworks. Just in time, because this issue has one of the published fan letters from future pro Dave Cockrum!
Richard Mantle said:
DC always seemed to have the same staus quo issue after issue, no changes in the events or the reactions of the supporting cast etc - like isolated episodes of a TV series etc - but Marvel moved their characters on and there was ongoing ramifications from events in one issue to reactions of characters in future issues.
Returning to status quo at the end of a story was a standard technique back then. The original Star Trek TV series had the status quo returned, I think, at the end of every episode. In contrast, years later, when Peter David wrote his first Babylon 5 episode he was told he didn't have to return everything to status quo. The advantage to making no lasting changes is that there is always a jumping-on point for new readers or viewers. Storylines that continually advance can make for a richer experience over the long haul but can discourage new readers or viewers who may feel lost.
And keeping to the status quo makes it a lot easier for new writers to know what's going on without watching the most recent episodes that haven't aired yet.
Richard Willis said:
John Dunbar said:
Meanwhile Doc Ock is committing crimes all over the nation, trying to draw out Spider-Man and wondering why it's not working. The answer is Peter has exams, and no money for airfare. Besides, his Aunt May thinks he's coming down with something and wouldn't allow him to go anywhere.
At this point Peter interacts with his classmates. Is this the first time Flash, reacting to the Bugle, showed his support for Spider-Man?
At the end of ASM 3, Flash says to Peter "Now there's my idea of a hero! The Human Torch -- and a guy like Spider-Man, too!" It was the first time Flash expresses admiration for Spidey, but he's not reacting to a Daily Bugle story.
At the beginning of ASM 5, Jonah is on television, ranting against Spider-Man. Peter, Flash, Liz, and other kids are watching it at the bowling alley. A few of them react, including Flash, who says, "Personally I think that Spider-Man's the coolest!". Peter, hoping to avoid any suspicion, pretends to support Jonah. Later, this is the reason Flash masquerades as Spidey to "teach our bookworm buddy to knock Spider-Man!"
So Flash was a Spidey-booster early on, although it didn't happen every issue.
Amazing Spider-Man 13 (June 1964)
"The Menace of Mysterio!"
Presented with pride by one of the most famous teams in comics:
It would be worth anything to tell him some day -- just to watch him explode!