John Dunbar re-reads AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (AF 15, ASM 1-50)

[John Dunbar]

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?

[John Dunbar]

Amazing Spider-Man 5 (October 1963)

"Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!"

Written by Stan Lee / Drawn by S. Ditko / Lettering by S. Rosen

Cover by Steve Ditko 

J. Jonah Jameson has purchased TV time to denounce Spider-Man and demand he be arrested.  Peter, Flash, and other kids are watching this at a bowling alley.  Flash is a Spidey fan: Peter decides to speak against Spider-Man to protect his secret identity.  Liz figures the man under the mask is handsome.

Also watching JJJ is Dr. Doom.  He thinks Spider-Man would be the perfect partner for him against the Fantastic Four.  He surmises that Spider-Man has the sensory powers of a spider, and creates a transmitter to contact him.  Spidey gets the message and is excited to be back in action.  He follows the signal and is shocked to see Doom sent it, and decides to find out what Doom wants.

Doom offers to make Spidey his partner, by trying to appeal to his envy and pride.  He compares the FF being loved by the public to Spidey's situation of being shunned and hunted.  Spidey pretends to consider it for a moment but quickly tells Doom to get stuffed.  Doom says that makes them enemies, so Spidey webs him up, but the real Doom appears - Spidey had been talking to a Doombot!

Doom attacks and Spidey decides there's no reason to stick around to be a target.  He jumps through a window and dives into some water..  Doom plans to learn his identity, capture him, and use him as bait to trap the FF.  Spidey emerges from the water and is about to double back to the building where Doom was, when it explodes, and Spidey realizes Doom is far away from there.  He snaps some pictures for the Daily Bugle.

Jonah buys the pics from Peter but wishes he could pin the fire on Spider-Man.  Peter decides to needle him a bit about his vendetta, and Jonah's secretary, Betty Brant, backs up Peter.  Peter thinks that he has never noticed how pretty Betty is.  Jonah says he will decide the Bugle's policies, and that he only cares that Spider-Man sells papers.  Elsewhere, Flash decides to masquerade as Spider-Man and play a prank on Peter to pay him back for bad-mouthing his hero Spidey.  At the same time, Dr. Doom has created a device that will detect spider impulses, like a geiger counter can detect uranium, that will help him find Spider-Man.

Peter walks along a street and Flash, dressed as Spider-Man hides behind a fence.  Doom is flying overhead in a helicopter and his device detects Spider-Man.  Doom assumes Flash is the real deal and knocks him out with some gas and takes him prisoner.  He later takes over all TV channels to show "Spider-Man" is his hostage, and he demands the FF disband and surrender to him within one hour.  Peter is confused until he gets a call from Liz telling him Flash is missing and was wearing a Spider-Man costume to play a joke on "someone".  He figures it all out but tells Liz there's nothing he can do.  He gloats momentarily thinking he doesn't have to do anything and his biggest tormentor won't be a problem for him again.  But he realizes he can't let anyone, even Flash, be harmed if he can help it.

Peter tells Aunt May he has to go run some errands but she forbids it as there are too many dangerous people out there, like Doom and Spider-Man.  Peter plays around with the fusebox and pulls out the master fuse, plunging the house into darkness.  Peter says he will go out and get more fuses, and May tells him to hurry right back.  He changes to Spider-Man.  Meanwhile the FF have decided they have no choice but to rescue Spider-Man as well.

Spidey figures Doom needed a lot of electrical power to take over the airwaves and crisscrosses the city to try and find him.  As he swings near an abandoned factory, his spider-sense is triggered by "hostile emanations".  Inside, Flash begs to be let go, saying he is not Spider-Man; Doom tells him to stop being a snivelling coward.  Spidey enters through an air vent and tells a startled Doom he is the real Spider-Man.  A frantic battle ensues, and Spidey holds his own, but only barely.  Doom's onslaught is relentless, keeping Spidey mostly on the defensive.  Doom nearly has him defeated when he sees the FF approaching.  He isn't ready for them as well, so he flees the scene.

Spidey is confused at first until he also sees the Fantasti-Car.  He is eager to tell the FF he found Doom first but remembers it has been a long time since he left Aunt May and she must be very worried, so he takes off.  The FF arrive only to find Flash; the Torch says he isn't the real Spider-Man and the Thing wants to lean on him a bit for them going to all that trouble for a nobody.  Sue talks him out of it; meanwhile, Reed finds some webbing and suspects the real Spider-Man had been there already.

Peter returns home and discovers May went to the neighbors' house.  He tells her he got scared and couldn't get the fuses.  The next day, at the Bugle, Jonah chews Peter out for not getting any pictures of Flash, Doom, and the FF, but Betty whispers to him that she thinks he's wonderful.  Later at school, Peter sees a crowd gather, and thinks at least he won't have to deal with Flash, who is probably too embarrassed to show his face.  However he is stunned to hear Flash telling everyone his version of the story - he wasn't scared, and when he escaped from being a prisoner, Doom fled from him!  Peter thinks he has nothing but luck - all bad!

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My rating: 9/10

This was just a lot of fun.  On paper, Spidey was outmatched by Dr. Doom and shouldn't have been able to hold his own, but don't tell him that.  He has that great never say die attitude all great heroes have, and remember, he was still young and inexperienced at this point.  He cracked wise throughout the whole battle.  I loved it.

I also think the portrayal of Doom was excellent here.  We got to see his genius, arrogance, and at the end, his hypocrisy and cowardice.  His way of creating a method to contact Spider-Man was similar to what the Chameleon did in issue #1 but a lot more believable coming from Doom.  He was clever enough to trick Namor into becoming his ally in FF #6 that it's no surprise he thought he could do it again.  He was so sure of himself he never consider Flash was an imposter.

We get some nice character development for Peter Parker here.  He's a little less respectful to Jonah, needling him a bit - which will turn into needling him a lot when he's Spider-Man, and we see the beginning of the Peter / Betty romance here.  He also has a very human response to Flash being in deadly danger, a sarcastic "Gee, that's a shame" moment before his heroic nature kicks in.

I like that Stan and Steve resisted the urge to make this a full-blown Spidey / FF team-up.  The FF were the rock stars of the early Marvel Silver Age, but having Spidey be the loner even among his fellow heroes was the right approach.

For the second issue in a row, I find myself underwhelmed by the cover, and wishing the splash page had been the cover instead.  It's not a bad cover but page one is so much better.  Loved the little sidebars playing up the importance of the supporting cast and the subplots.  This book was always top notch in these departments.

[John Dunbar]

That splash page I mentioned.  And that caption box at the bottom!  One of those things Marvel did so well in those days.

[Randy Jackson]

This was a really fun one. I do have to wonder if Flash and the others were looking at Peter sometimes and thinking "there's something wrong with that boy", given how frequently he seemed to flip flop during this time.

[Fred W. Hill]

Was this the first time a villain introduced in one mag strolled over into another mag in the Marvel Universe?  Dr. D would remain the big bad for the FF but by 1971 he had appeared in nearly every other Marvel strip, making the rounds like a good villainous doctor to make sure everyone got a good dose of his arrogance and nastiness!  Meanwhile, in a mere 5 and a half issues, Lee & Ditko have assembled the best supporting cast ever for a superhero mag.

[Ron M.]

Interesting Doom is winning, so he shouldn't consider Spider-Man much of a challenge, but when he sees the FF, he runs, not wanting to fight all five of them at once.

I have to go on record saying I really hate Betty's new hairdo.

[Ron M.]

There's some argument among fandom on the web about, if Marvel gets back the rights to the FF, should they use them or retire them from films and have Dr. Doom face the Avengers, since he has fought other heroes in the comics once in awhile. I think he needs to turn up in their movie first if Marvel gets the rights, but I really hope they avoid the obsession Fox has had to connect his origin to theirs. He's not the fifth person on that rocket/dimensional doorway/whatever, and shouldn't be depicted that way.

#1 was the first time a superhero in one mag strolled over into another mag (tying with FF#12 and the Hulk). That was only seven months ago. I think this is the first time a villain has crossed over.

Note Doom turns up in Spider-Man#5. His first appearance was in FF#5. And Daredevil meets Spider-Man in Amazing#16. Then they meet again in Daredevil#16. This is the kind of thing that stopped being possible once one person wasn't running everything. Something was really lost once Stan started passing titles on to different people.

[Richard Willis]

John Dunbar (the mod of maple) said:

Peter returns home and discovers May went to the neighbors' house. He tells her he got scared and couldn't get the fuses.

All he had to do was put back the perfectly good fuse he removed earlier.

I also think the portrayal of Doom was excellent here. We got to see his genius, arrogance, and at the end, his hypocrisy and cowardice. His way of creating a method to contact Spider-Man was similar to what the Chameleon did in issue #1 but a lot more believable coming from Doom. He was clever enough to trick Namor into becoming his ally in FF #6 that it's no surprise he thought he could do it again. He was so sure of himself he never consider Flash was an imposter.

I found the portrayal of Doom’s abilities and character spot-on. I was vaguely disappointed by Ditko’s depiction of him. I’m usually happy with his artwork but this doesn’t quite make it. At times he looked small and unimpressive.

I think it was reasonable to assume he had captured the real Spider-Man. The costumed Flash and Peter were only a few feet apart when his machine detected the “spider impulses,” so logically the guy in the spider suit must be him. Lucky for Peter that Flash was there or his secret identity would have been blown. Doom’s arrogance helped him believe that Spidey had given in to fear of him.

As he swings near an abandoned factory, his spider-sense is triggered by "hostile emanations"….

The mysterious spider sense again. He can detect this from a distance but when he was a few feet away from Doom during Flash’s kidnapping it didn’t detect him.

We get some nice character development for Peter Parker here. He's a little less respectful to Jonah, needling him a bit - which will turn into needling him a lot when he's Spider-Man, and we see the beginning of the Peter / Betty romance here. He also has a very human response to Flash being in deadly danger, a sarcastic "Gee, that's a shame" moment before his heroic nature kicks in.

Stan’s scripting is starting to hit all the right notes of what would become a more natural Peter. As it’s presented here it give the impression that Betty, already in the work force and presumed to be older, is interested in a high school boy. I wonder if somebody questioned this. They had to try to turn her from an older woman into a high school drop-out to get around this.

For the second issue in a row, I find myself underwhelmed by the cover, and wishing the splash page had been the cover instead. It's not a bad cover but page one is so much better

Like ASM #4, I agree that the splash should have been the cover.

[John Dunbar]

Amazing Spider-Man 6 (November 1963)

"Face to Face with ... The Lizard!"

Written by Stan Lee / Drawn by Steve Ditko / Lettered by Art Simek

Cover by Steve Ditko 

One day in the Florida Everglades, a creature appears.  It looks like a human lizard, but walks like a man, and talks!  Bullets cannot harm it, and it has tremendous strength.  It calls itself the Lizard.  Word gets out across Florida, and then across the nation.  When word reaches New York, Spider-Man reads about the Lizard in the Daily Bugle.  In fact, the paper challenges him to defeat the Lizard!  As Peter Parker, he tries to get J. Jonah Jameson to send him to Florida so he can find the Lizard, but is unsuccessful.  Jonah thinks the Lizard is a phony, and made the headline only to sell papers.  As Peter leaves Jonah's office, he and Betty Brant flirt a bit.

Peter goes to the Natural History Museum to learn more about lizards "just in case".  Flash and Liz are also there.  Peter's spider-sense is triggered by two men, and he thinks to himself he can sense they've stolen something.  He goes to change to Spider-Man, and the two crooks take Liz hostage.  A guard had seen them steal, but they use Liz to keep him back.  Spidey knocks both of them out, saving Liz, and she is completely smitten.  She acts like she doesn't even know Flash, and he's so frustrated he asks Peter for advice.  Peter can barely keep a straight face.

Peter hears on the radio that all of the nation is wondering why Spider-Man isn't going after the Lizard, and decides he has to get Jonah to send him to Florida somehow.  He visits Jonah in his office as Spider-Man and webs his so that he's suspended from the ceiling.  He taunts Jonah about the publisher not liking him and then tells him he accepts the Bugle's challenge, so he better send a photographer to Florida to cover the story.  He teases him that "As for my web, it will loosen in a minute and you'll come down ... boy, will you come down!"  He leaves and Jonah yells for Betty to find Peter and get him some soft cushions, but he crashes to the floor before she can.  Five minutes later, Peter arrives at the Bugle.  He's about to ask Betty out on a date, when Jonah interrupts.  He tells Peter he is sending him to Florida, but Jonah is also coming along since it's such a big story.

They leave the next day, and Peter brings along news clippings about the Lizard, and maps of the area where he's been seen.  Reviewing the stories, Peter comes across info about Dr. Curtis Connors, a reptile expert who lives in the area.  When they arrive in Florida, Peter makes an excuse about needing to buy film and equipment so he can change to Spider-Man.  He explores the area where the Lizard has been seen, unaware the creature is watching him.  Not long after, the Lizard attacks him.  Peter soon realizes it's not a man in a disguise, but some kind of monster, and a very strong one, sending him flying half a mile with one swing of his tail.  After he lands, he sees a house in the distance that he says belongs to Dr. Connors.

When he arrives, he sees no sign of Connors, just a woman sitting and crying.  She is Dr. Connors' wife.  She reveals her husband is the Lizard and explains how he became the creature.  He had lost an arm in the war, and wanted to duplicate for humans the way lizard regrow limbs.  He successfully regrew a leg on a rabbit, and then decided to test his formula on himself,  His arm regrew, but then turned scaly, as did the rest of his body.  He ran away and tried to change himself back, but his brain was too clouded to succeed.  He left a good-bye note for his wife, and son Billy.

Just then, Spidey and Mrs. Connors hear Billy scream.  The Lizard is there, and although he means Billy no harm, the young boy is terrified.  He runs from the Lizard but right into the path of a snake.  Spider-Man saves Billy, which enrages the Lizard.  They have a brief fight, but when the Lizard hears his wife's voice, he flees.  Spidey asks to see Dr. Connors' notes so he can work on an antidote to change him back to human.  It takes several hours but he concocts a formula that will cure Connors.  Just then, the Lizard returns, and attacks Spidey.  He gives Mrs. Connors the test tube holding the cure and tells her to run.  In the enclosed space, the Lizard's strength is too much for Spidey.  He drops an oak desk on top of Spidey, and leaves, saying he will inject his serum into other lizards and build a reptile army.  Luckily, Spider-Man only had the wind knocked out of him.

Spidey takes the antidote and goes looking for the Lizard.  He finds him at an old abandoned Spanish fort.  He takes some pictures of the Lizards talking to some alligators as if they were his pets.  The Lizard discovers he is there when an old piece of mortar crumbles under Spidey's weight.  He tells the gators to attack.  Spidey avoids them by climbing a wall but the Lizard crawls up he other side and Spidey is trapped between the gators and the Lizard.  Spidey escapes by swinging into the fort and soon he and the Lizard are in the same room.  Spidey bolts the door to keep the alligators out, and then uses his speed to avoid the Lizard.  Eventually he gets the Lizard in position so he can pour the antidote down his throat.  It takes a few very tense minutes but eventually the works and Curtis Connors is back to normal; his regrown arm is gone. Spidey takes him back home.  Connors decides he tampered with things that should be left alone, and burns his notes.  He wonders what price he will pay for what he has done, but Spidey suggests he, Connors, and his wife keep it between them, as Connors broke no laws and really did no harm.

The next day, Peter returns to the hotel where Jonah stayed.  Jonah had brought in the police to look for Peter and loses his cool when Peter said "Hi, Mr. Jameson!  I've been lookin' for you!"  Peter shows him pictures of the Lizard, and when Jonah asks where the pictures came from, Peter says he bought them from an old Indian guide who lived at the edge of the Everglades.  Jonah calls the pictures fake and rips them up; he says the Lizard was not real and probably just a publicity stunt.  When peter asks about the money Jonah promised, he says he figures Peter owes him for the airfare and half the hotel bill!  When Peter gets back to New York, he calls Betty for a date but then remembers she is working that evening.  He calls Liz instead, and she tells him what she said she told Flash - don't tie up her phone line as she's waiting for a call from Spider-Man.  Peter is bemused that he is his own competition.  Meanwhile at the Daily Bugle, Betty reads Jonah a letter from Spider-Man:

Roses are red, violets are blue ... I'm still at large, so phooey to you!

Jonah vows: "I'll get that masked menace if it's the last thing I do!"

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My rating: 9/10

Another really fun issue.  Bonus points to a great cover after a couple of so-so ones.  Nothing wrong with the splash page but they went with the right image to use on the cover.

The Lizard is not one of my favorite villains.  He's a nod to Marvel's recent monster past here, and his origin is strikingly unoriginal.  There must have been dozens of villains and heroes who have a specialty and invented a formula around it; Ant-Man and Mr. Hyde come to mind right away.  Not to mention subsequent Lizard appearances followed the same formula of "I can't hurt my friend Curt Connors but I have to stop him" and Spidey (temporarily) curing him, ending with the happy reunited Connors family.  But since this was his debut I'll cut some slack.  The Lizard was also one of the few early villains that was only in one Ditko story.  I think his next appearance was issue 44, which was early in the Romita era.

The thing I really liked about this issue was the character development for the cast.  It really stands out against other books of the era with solo stars - Thor, Iron Man, Human Torch, and Ant-Man all had little to no supporting casts, and were pretty bland and one dimensional as leads.  Meanwhile we have Peter becoming more confident with Betty and Liz, Betty and Peter flirting and on the verge of becoming a couple, Peter as Spidey being somewhat of a jerk to Jonah, and Jonah becoming more less likable - issuing a challenge to Spider-Man in a headline just to sell papers.  JJJ isn't the guy you love to hate just yet, but he's getting there.  Poor Flash is still comic relief though.  I think Stan and Steve forgot they made him Spidey's biggest fan when Liz gets smitten with Spidey - "What do I do about Spider-Man?" doesn't sound like he's a fan of Spidey at all.  Also, again I'm surprised how little they use Aunt May.  I think she shows up in all of two panels here.  But overall good use of the cast.

[John Dunbar]

Some things I found odd that I didn't let stop me from enjoying the story:

- Flash and Liz were at a museum, learning things, on their own time, not made to go as part of a school trip

- Peter's spider-sense allowed him to "sense" the two guys who triggered it stole something?  I think you mean you guessed that, not "sensed" it, right Peter?

- This happens all the time in comics, tv, and movies, but just think for a minute about going to a place for the first time and how easy it was or wasn't to find your way around.  I think someone from a city would be lost in the Everglades pretty quick.

- How did Spidey know that a house he sees in the distance is the Connors' home?

- If the Lizard's brain is so muddled he can't cure himself, how was he going to duplicate his formula and create super-lizards?  Didn't he seem to be becoming, well, dumber by the hour?

- After Connors is cured, why does it take Spidey until the next day to get back to Jonah?

[Ron M.]

When he appears again during the Romita era, Mrs. Connors is shocked that Billy (who's aged real time) knows that his father is the Lizard, despite the fact he knows here. I'd say Ditko realized reusing the Lizard would just be a repeat of this story. The regrowing body parts from reptiles comes from the 1959 movie The Alligator People. The subjects become more and more reptilian until their minds are affected, at which point they're beyond help. The main victim is subjected to strong radiation treatments that might help him, but Lon Chaney breaks in just then and destroys the control panel, turning him into an alligator headed monster that drowns himself in the swamp when he realizes what's happened to him.

"Argh! Miss Brant! Never mind those @%$# cushions!"

[Richard Willis]

John Dunbar said:

One day in the Florida Everglades, a creature appears. It looks like a human lizard, but walks like a man, and talks! Bullets cannot harm it, and it has tremendous strength. It calls itself the Lizard.

And he has Bruce Banner’s wardrobe! I don’t get the bullet-proof part. If you shoot even the largest reptile it won’t do well. The later “facts” about dinosaurs sound like they came from watching a Godzilla movie.

Spidey knocks both of them out, saving Liz, and she is completely smitten. She acts like she doesn't even know Flash, and he's so frustrated he asks Peter for advice. Peter can barely keep a straight face.

A nice piece of business.

Five minutes later, Peter arrives at the Bugle. He's about to ask Betty out on a date, when Jonah interrupts. He tells Peter he is sending him to Florida, but Jonah is also coming along since it's such a big story.

It’s interesting that Peter tells Jonah that he has to get permission from Aunt May. We tend to forget that at this point he’s still in minor.

He had lost an arm in the war, and wanted to duplicate for humans the way lizard regrow limbs.

This being 1963, the expression “the war” was still understood to mean WWII. Connors could be about 40 and still be a veteran of that war.

Spidey asks to see Dr. Connors' notes so he can work on an antidote to change him back to human. It takes several hours but he concocts a formula that will cure Connors.

Try not to think about Peter, a high school science whiz, being knowledgeable enough to be on Connors’ level as a chemist.

Spidey takes the antidote and goes looking for the Lizard.

Ditko has him navigate the swamp using webbed-up mini-boats/snowshoes on his feet and a web-pole. Very clever. Never repeated?

The Lizard is not one of my favorite villains.

He never was a favorite of mine either. Too savage and increasingly mindless. A mindless villain is, to me, an uninteresting one.

The thing I really liked about this issue was the character development for the cast. It really stands out against other books of the era with solo stars - Thor, Iron Man, Human Torch, and Ant-Man all had little to no supporting casts, and were pretty bland and one dimensional as leads.

I bought this as a back issue within a year of its debut. My first off-the-rack Spidey was ASM #9. I believe at that point the supporting cast had jelled even more. As was said elsewhere, the Iron Man stories improved a lot when he gained a supporting cast.

How did Spidey know that a house he sees in the distance is the Connors' home?

I wondered about that, but perhaps the article he read indicated that Connors was one of few living in the swamp.

If the Lizard's brain is so muddled he can't cure himself, how was he going to duplicate his formula and create super-lizards? Didn't he seem to be becoming, well, dumber by the hour?

Just because he thought it would work doesn’t mean it really would work. They never show us an example of a super-lizard.

[Randy Jackson]

Richard Willis said:

He had lost an arm in the war, and wanted to duplicate for humans the way lizard regrow limbs.

This being 1963, the expression “the war” was still understood to mean WWII. Connors could be about 40 and still be a veteran of that war.

Or Korea. Even more plausible.

Spidey asks to see Dr. Connors' notes so he can work on an antidote to change him back to human. It takes several hours but he concocts a formula that will cure Connors.

Try not to think about Peter, a high school science whiz, being knowledgeable enough to be on Connors’ level as a chemist.

I don't find this that far-fetched.  Peter's supposed to be quite the genius, and it's entirely possible that Connors' research made tons of sense to him and he was able to deduce an antidote fairly quickly.