By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-596-5
The third magnificent full-colour hardback collection of Spider-Man’s earliest adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero begin to challenge the dominance of the Fantastic Four as Marvel’s premier comicbook both in sales and quality. Steve Ditko’s off-beat plots and unconventionally inspirational art had gradually reached an accommodation with the slick and potent superhero house-style Jack Kirby was developing (at least as much as such a unique talent ever could), with less line-feathering, more controlled, moody backgrounds and fewer totemic villains.
Although still very much a Ditko vehicle, Spider-Man had by this time attained a sleek pictorial gloss. Stan Lee’s scripts were comfortably in tune with the times if not his collaborator’s tastes and, although his assessment of the audience was probably the more correct one, all disagreements with the artist over the strip’s editorial direction were still confined to the office and not the pages themselves.
Thematically, there’s still a large percentage of old-fashioned crime and gangsterism here. The dependence on costumed super-foes as antagonists was still finely balanced with ordinary thugs, hoods and mobsters, but those days were rapidly coming to an end too.
When Ditko abruptly left the series and the company, the dreaded loss in quality and sales never happened. The mere “safe pair of hands†that John Romita (senior) considered himself blossomed into a major talent in his own right, and the Wall-Crawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated pace but that’s a bridge crossed in another volume…
This terrific tome (reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #21-30 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1) kicks off with ‘Where Flies The Beetle’ featuring a hilarious love triangle as the Human Torch’s girlfriend used Peter Parker to make the flaming hero jealous. Unfortunately the Beetle, a villain with a high-tech suit of insect-themed armour, was simultaneously planning to use her as bait for a trap. As ever Spider-Man was simply in the wrong place at the right time, resulting in a spectacular fight-fest.
‘The Clown, and his Masters of Menace’ saw a return engagement for the Circus of Crime with splendidly outré action and a lot of hearty laughs provided by increasingly irreplaceable supporting stars Aunt May, Betty Brant and J. Jonah Jameson whilst #23 presented a superb thriller blending the ordinary criminals that Ditko loved to depict with the arcane threat of a super-villain attempting to take over the Mob. ‘The Goblin and the Gangsters’ was both moody and explosive, a perfect contrast to ‘Spider-Man Goes Mad!’ in #24. This psychological stunner found a clearly delusional hero seeking psychiatric help, but there was more to the matter than simple insanity, as an insidious old foe made an unexpected return…
Issue #25 once again saw the obsessed Daily Bugle publisher take matters into his own hands: ‘Captured by J. Jonah Jameson!’ introduced Professor Smythe – whose robotic Spider-Slayers would bedevil the Web-Spinner for years to come – hired by the bellicose newsman to remove Spider-Man for good.
Issues #27 and 28 comprised a captivating two-part mystery exposing a deadly duel between the Green Goblin and an enigmatic new masked criminal. ‘The Man in the Crime-Master’s Mask!’ and ‘Bring Back my Goblin to Me!’ together form a perfect Spider-Man saga, with soap-opera melodrama and screwball comedy leavening tense thrills and all-out action.
‘The Menace of the Molten Man!’ from #28 was a tale of science gone bad and remains remarkable today not only for the spectacular action sequences – and possibly the most striking Spider-Man cover ever produced – but also as the story in which Peter Parker finally graduated from High School.
‘Never Step on a Scorpion!’ saw the return of that lab-made villain, hungry for vengeance against not just the Web-Spinner but also Jameson for turning a disreputable private eye into a super-powered monster, and the chronological tales here conclude with #30’s off-beat crime-caper which cannily sowed the seeds for future masterpieces. ‘The Claws of the Cat!’ featured the city-wide hunt for an extremely capable burglar (way more exciting than it sounds, trust me!), plus the introduction of an organised mob of thieves working for mysterious new menace the Master Planner.
Out of place but never unwelcome, this volume ends with the timeless landmark and still magnificently thrilling battle against the ‘Sinister Six’ which actually first appeared between Amazing Spider-Man #16 and 17.
When a team of villains comprising Electro, Kraven, Mysterio, Sandman, Vulture and Doctor Octopus abducted Aunt May and Peter Parker’s girlfriend Betty, Spider-Man was forced to confront them without his Spider-powers. A staggeringly enthralling Fights ‘n’ Tights saga, this influential tale also featured cameos (or more likely product placement ads) by every other extant hero of the budding Marvel universe. Also included are special feature pages on ‘The Secrets of Spider-Man!’ and the comedic short ‘How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Create Spider-Man’ and a gallery of pin-up pages featuring ‘Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes!’
Full of energy, verve, pathos and laughs, gloriously short of post-modern angst and breast-beating, these fun classics are quintessential comic magic and with the Fantastic Four form the very foundation of everything Marvel became. This sturdy compendium is another unmissable opportunity for readers of all ages to celebrate the magic and myths of the modern heroic ideal in delightfully decadent luxury – and would make an ideal gift.
© 1964, 1965, 1989 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.