By Gerry Conway Ross Andru, Gil Kane, John Romita, Paul Reinman & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3350-0 (TPB/Digital edition)
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding Arachnid Amazement… 9/10
Amazing Spider-Man was a comic book that matured with – or perhaps just slightly ahead of – its fan-base. This epic compendium of chronological webspinning wonderment sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero facing even greater and evermore complex challenges as he slowly recovers from the trauma of losing his true love and greatest enemy in the same horrific debacle…
Once original co-creator Stan Lee replaced himself with young author Gerry Conway, the scripts acquired a more contemporary tone (which of course often feels quite outdated from here in the 21st century): purportedly more in tune with the times whilst the emphatic use of soap opera subplots kept older readers glued to the series even when the bombastic battle sequences didn’t.
Moreover, as a sign of those times, a hint of cynical surrealism also began creeping in…
Thematically, there’s a decline in old-fashioned gangsterism and a growing dependence on outlandish villains. The long-established balance of costumed super-antagonists with thugs, hoods and mob-bosses was gradually tipping and a global resurgence in supernatural stories resulted in more monsters and uncanny happenings…
Nevertheless, the wallcrawler was still indisputably mainstream comics’ voice of youth and defined being a teen for readers of the 1970s: facing incredible hardships, fantastic foes and the most pedestrian and debilitating of frustrations.
For newcomers – or those just visiting thanks to the latest Spider-Man movies: Smart-but-alienated Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school trip. Discovering strange superhuman abilities which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius, the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.
Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally vainglorious one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.
Crazed and vengeful, Peter hunted the assailant who’d made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known. He discovered to his horror that it was the self-same felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others.
Since that night, the Wondrous Wallcrawler tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.
Now the high school nerd has grown up and gone to college. Because of his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggles there too – even developing a stress ulcer – but finds abiding love with cop’s daughter Gwen Stacy… until she is murdered by the Green Goblin. Now Parker must pick up the pieces of his life…
This stunning compilation reprints Amazing Spider-Man #124-142 and Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1: collectively covering cover-dates September 1973 to March 1975, affirming an era of astounding introspective drama and captivating creativity.
As previously stated, at this time horror was on the rise and the trend permeated all aspects of Marvel continuity. In #124, J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son John was revealed to have picked up a strange gem during a unofficial moonwalk which later transformed him into a lupine beast bearing ‘The Mark of the Man-Wolf!’ by Conway, Gil Kane & John Romita.
Deranged and deadly, the hairy horror stalks his own fiancée Kristine Saunders as well as his scandal-obsessed, newspaper-publisher father, with a gravely-traumatised, fighting-mad Spider-Man reacting in a far more brutal manner than ever before…
The conclusion marked the official debut of the title’s next star penciller as Ross Andru joined Conway and Romita to delineate the end of the Man-Wolf saga in ‘Wolfhunt!’: offering a particularly grisly cure for the ethereally-altered astronaut…
In #126, a new subplot bloomed as a marketing firm hires the astounded and unbelieving arachnid to build a “Spider-Mobile” (thanks to a budding toy-merchandising deal Marvel was then negotiating) whilst an old and extremely inept enemy returns as ‘The Kangaroo Bounces Back!’ (drawn by Andru and inked by Jim Mooney).
Short of cash and desperate, Spidey ropes in best frenemy Johnny (Human Torch) Storm to help assemble the anticipated automobile, but is totally unprepared for his Australian attacker since bouncing bounder has endured a rapid and ultimately unwelcome power upgrade from a rogue – and extremely deranged – doctor named Jonas Harrow…
Meanwhile, in the apartment Peter still shares with Harry Osborn (son of the Green Goblin), his flatmate finally succumbs to the mental illness that has been sucking him down since the death of dear old Dad…
Peter’s frivolous party-loving friend Mary Jane Watson comes under the spotlight in #127 as ‘The Dark Wings of Death!’ – inked by Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt – finds her targeted by a strangely familiar monster who believes she witnessed his last kill. The mystery concludes in ‘The Vulture Hangs High!’ wherein an incredible truth about the avian atavist is revealed. Moreover, portents of future catastrophe manifest as Parker’s biology tutor Professor Miles Warren warns that the scholarship student’s grades are slipping and his position is far from secure…
Conway, Andru, Giacoia & Hunt crafted a true landmark in comics history in Amazing Spider-Man #129 with ‘The Punisher Strikes Twice!’: introducing not only the renegade gunslinger but also nefarious manic mastermind The Jackal.
Although one of the industry’s biggest hits from the late 1980s onwards, compulsive vengeance-taker Frank Castle was always an unlikely and uncomfortable star for comic books. His methods are always excessively violent and usually permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Black Widow, Hawkeye and Wolverine immediately come to mind) The Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public simply shifted its communal perspective as the Punisher never toned down or cleaned up his act…
He was created by Conway, Romita Sr. and Andru; an understandably sanitised and muted response to popular prose anti-heroes like Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner: the cutting edge of a bloody tide of fictive Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime in the early 1970s.
In this short, sharp shocker the man with the skull on his chest is duped by his manipulative partner into hunting Spider-Man. Still a suspect in the death of Norman Osborn, the hero is easy to frame for the murder of the Punisher’s personal armourer and gunmaker…
A long-running mystery over Aunt May’s connection to Doctor Otto Octavius is at last addressed in #130 as ‘Betrayed!’ finds up-&-coming gang boss Hammerhead prodded and provoked by the Jackal, just as arch-rival Doctor Octopus resurfaces.
Distracted by his now-completed Spider-Mobile, the webslinger is slow to react …until he finally discovers why May Parker is so important to the villain, but by then she’s in the process of becoming Mrs. Otto Octavius…
Spider-Man is just about to bust up the wedding in ‘My Uncle… My Enemy?’ when Hammerhead beats him to it. As the three-way war escalates, the truth comes out. May has inexplicably inherited a desolate Canadian island which just happens to be teeming with uranium deposit, and its own Fast Breeder Atomic Reactor, which both Ock and Hammerhead want to secure as the means to becoming an independent nuclear power. When the rival rogues furiously clash, it’s all Peter can do to get May out before the entire place becomes an atomic inferno…
Illustrated by John Romita Sr., Paul Reinman & Tony Mortellaro, fresh moody mystery welcomes the weary Spider-Man back to New York after saving Aunt May from becoming a collateral casualty of atomic armageddon as he stumbles into ‘The Master Plan of the Molten Man!’ It begins when old school flame Liz Allen resurfaces needing help. Peter has no idea she is secretly trying to help her criminal stepbrother…
As a super-strong metal-skinned bandit Mark Raxton was only a minor inconvenience to the wallcrawler, but now his chemically induced condition has worsened and he is swiftly turning into an incandescent human fireball. However, by the time ‘The Molten Man Breaks Out!’ in #133 – illustrated by new regular creative team Andru and inkers Giacoia & Hunt – there’s nothing the hero can do but fight until one of them is dead…
Slightly adrift of publishing chronology, next comes a classic monster action yarn from Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1. With the monster boom in full swing, Marvel during this period flooded newsstands with horror-themed heroes and antiheroes and cannily teamed two of the Amazing Arachnid’s eeriest enemies in a double-length epic as ‘Man-Wolf at Midnight!’ – by Conway, Kane & Mike Esposito – finds John Jameson again gripped by murderous moon-madness. This time, however, the tormented former astronaut has been enthralled by Living Vampire Morbius and used to help that bloodsucker secure a possible cure for his own appalling condition in ‘When Strikes the Vampire!’
That dynamic dust-up led directly into a flurry of over-sized Giant-Size Spider-Man editions, but as none of them are included in this volume we return to Amazing Spider-Man #134 (July 1974) wherein the webspinner again crosses paths with The Punisher after a South American bandit – trained to be his oppressive regime’s Captain America before going freelance – attempts to pirate, pillage and ransom a Manhattan tour boat in ‘Danger is a Man Named… Tarantula!’ (Conway, Andru, Giacoia & Hunt).
Once again unwilling allies, the ethically-estranged duo dutifully dismantle the villain’s larcenous schemes leading to a ‘Shoot-Out in Central Park!’ but the real danger is building elsewhere as Parker’s roommate Harry Osborn accepts at last the infamous inheritance of his devilish, recently departed dad…
The compelling, long-brewing clash of former friends kicks off with completely crazy Harry attempting to blow up Peter and Mary Jane in ‘The Green Goblin Lives Again!’…
Privy to his best friend’s secrets, the maniac then targets all Parker’s loved ones, precipitating a desperate, deadly duel as ‘The Green Goblin Strikes!’ resulting in doom, destruction, shocking revelations and another tragedy for Peter to feel forever responsible for…
‘Madness Means… the Mindworm!’ finds a still-reeling Parker evicted from his apartment and relocating downmarket to Queens, just in time to encounter a macabre psychic parasite feeding off the denizens of the district.
Issue #139 then introduces a bludgeoning brute with a grudge against J. Jonah Jameson on the ‘Day of the Grizzly!’ When Spidey intervenes, he is soundly thrashed and handed over to the costumed crazy’s silent partner the Jackal who melodramatically reveals he knows the hero’s true identity…
Even though Peter escapes his diabolical trap in ‘And One Will Fall!’ the major maniac flees and remains at large…
A long-running comedy thread ends as the ridiculous Spider-Mobile ends up in the river, but the wallcrawler barely has time to care as an apparently dead enemy returns in #141’s ‘The Man’s Name Appears to be… Mysterio!’ Despite aggressively escalating psychological assaults and our hero questioning his own sanity, the mystery is smartly resolved in ‘Dead Man’s Bluff!’, wrapping up this transitional period in the life of Peter Parker and setting the scene for another shocking epic, life-changing encounter next time…
These narrative delights are supplemented by Romita’s cover, frontispiece, contents page and back cover from the 1974 debut tabloid edition Marvel Treasury Edition #1: The Spectacular Spider-Man as well as a faux Daily Bugle feature by Conway & Marie Severin; plus House ads; Kane page and cover layouts; the original Punisher design sketch by Romita and original art covers and interior pages by Kane, Romita &Andru.
Also on show are the Romita-rendered entry from Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975, and a text & photo feature on the first live action Spider-Man film.
Blending cultural veracity with superb art, and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and imputed powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily always resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, especially when delivered in addictive soap-styled instalments, but none of that would be relevant if Spider-Man’s stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining.
This action-packed collection relives many momentous periods in the wallcrawler’s astounding life and is one every Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic must see…
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