I've threatened to do this before (or did I menace?) and now seems to be a good time to do it. This is my personal list of the 10 best fights in Marvel Comics during the Silver Age.
A few thoughts:
* This is my list. You can disagree if you want. Better still, start your own thread.
* I'm focusing on one-on-one fights here. While there are members of teams involved, the focus will be on individual battles.
* Yes, that fight will be listed. So will that one. Maybe not that one though. And that one is right out.
* Sorry, no Hulk vs. Boomerang, even though I know you all want to see that one. Same with anything involving Paste-Pot Pete. Too glorious for this list.
* I'm setting an endpoint of 1968 for the Silver Age for this particular discussion. If it happened afterwards, I'm not counting it.
Replies
Issue(s): Amazing Spider-man #41,#43
Creative Team: Stan Lee and John Romita
Publish Date: October, December 1966
You would think it would be easy to pick a Spider-Man entry for this list, but it actually wasn't. There were a number of good candidates, including fights with Kraven the Hunter, the Green Goblin and the Sandman. However, ultimately I picked this classic sequence over two separate issues.
To get into the story, John Jameson is visiting his father at the Daily Bugle. The Rhino has been dispatched to kidnap young Jameson and does so, smashing through pretty much everything in order to get him. Small arms fire has no effect on him, so the kidnapping is pretty easy--except Spider-Man has taken an interest.
So now it's on:
So, Spidey has defeated the Rhino and everyone's happy, right? Not so fast. Seems the police don't have much except tranquilizers to deal with the Rhino, and he easily escapes. He decides that the best thing for his career will be to defeat Spider-Man. A rampage ensues, noticed by Peter and Mary Jane on television. This part of Rhino's plan is working. Spider-Man arrives at the street where the Rhino is wreaking havoc, and the two of them square off:
After melting his hide, the Rhino folds like a house of cards.
One of the reasons I love this particular fight is that spider-Man wins using both his physical power and more importantly, his brain power. One of the things I think was really well thought out here was using Curt Connors as a regular member of the supporting cast, as it only made sense, and only made his subsequent appearances as the Lizard more poignant.
The other thing I love about this fight is that it actually gives Spider-Man an opponent in his weight class for a change. Most of his antagonists he's had to pull his punches with to avoid injuring them, but here he has to pull out all the stops.
Great choice to start off the list, Randy! These two issues (reprinted in Marvel Tales #30 and #32) were my second and third Spider-Man comics ever. They have nostalgiac value for me, sure, but they still hold up. Look at the blend of dialogue/narration, sound effects and art. Even the placement of the word balloons is part of the composition of each panel. Today's comics are tame in comparison.
There are some really good comics being made these days, but one of my laments is that it seems very few of today's artists know how to draw a good, coherent fight. Many are lacking in the dynamism from the Silver Age, others are obscured by (IMO) excessive use of millions of colors, or in some instances I think the artists plan for chaos over good visual storytelling. It's a shame, as one would hope the advances in technology would have made things better in these respects.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
Randy Jackson said
The Rhino, the second new villain from the John Romita era, was a bruiser that could go one on one with the Wall-Crawler but soon he was battling the Hulk so they had to boost his strength level like they had to with Sandman when he clashed with the Thing.
I've always felt that the Rhino was significantly stronger--maybe Doc Samson level--than Spider-Man, but that Spider-Man's speed, agility and smarts gave him a slight advantage. At that level, it's conceivable that he could survive a fight with the Hulk.
Philip Portelli said:
Second? Who was the first one?
Nick Caputo argues here that Bill Ward assisted Romita on the fight sequence in #41. (This may sound familiar: I've posted the link before.)
I think Rhino was the first Romita contribution, followed by the Shocker (2nd) and the Kingpin (3rd).
One could count the Masked Marauder, introduced in Daredevil #16. He solely appeared in Daredevil in the 60s, but the issue established that he'd previously fought Spider-Man. I owe this point to the Supermegamonkey review.
Sorry, I got the timeline wrong and forgot a couple of words.
I meant that the Rhino was the second-most memorable new villain from the John Romita era.
The first is, of course, the Kingpin.
John Dunbar (the mod of maple) said:
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