Category: Spider-Man

By Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, John Romita & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-78511-863-3

The second volume of chronological Spider-Man adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero begin to challenge the dominance of the Fantastic Four as Marvel’s top comic book both in sales and quality. Steve Ditko’s off-beat plots and bizarre art had gradually reached an accommodation with the slick and potent superhero house-style that Jack Kirby was developing (at least as much as such a unique talent ever could), with less line-feathering, moody backgrounds and less totemic villains.

Although still very much a Ditko baby, Spider-Man had attained a sleek pictorial gloss. Stan Lee’s scripts were comfortably in tune with the times if not his collaborator, and although his assessment of the audience was probably the correct one, the 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 thugs, hoods and mob-bosses, but those days were coming to an end too. When Ditko abruptly left the series and the company, the feared 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…

This volume (reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #21-43 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 and 3) kicks off with ‘Where Flies The Beetle’ featuring a hilarious love triangle as the Human Torch’s girlfriend uses Peter Parker to make the flaming hero jealous. Unfortunately the Beetle, a villain with a high-tech suit of insect armour (no sniggering, please) is simultaneously planning to use her as bait for a trap. As ever Spider-Man is in the wrong place at the right time, resulting in a spectacular fight-fest.

‘The Clown, and his Masters of Menace’ was a return engagement for the Circus of Crime (see Essential Spider-Man volume 1, ISBN: 978-0-7851-2192-3) and #23 was a superb thriller blending the ordinary criminals that Ditko loved to highlight 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 thriller found a delusional hero seeking psychiatric help, but there’s more to the matter than simple insanity, as an old foe made an unexpected return…

Issue #25 once again saw the obsessed Daily Bugle publisher taking 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 comprise a captivating two-part mystery featuring a deadly duel between the Green Goblin and an enigmatic new criminal. ‘The Man in the Crime-Master’s Mask!’ and ‘Bring Back my Goblin to Me!’ together form a perfect Spider-Man tale, with soap-opera melodrama and screwball comedy leavening tense thrills and all-out action. ‘The Menace of the Molten Man!’ (#28) was a tale of science gone bad and is remarkable not only for the action sequences and possibly the most striking Spider-Man cover ever produced but also as the story where Peter Parker graduated from High School.

In 1965 Steve Ditko was blowing away audiences with another oddly tangential superhero. ‘The Wondrous World of Dr. Strange!’ was the lead story in the second Spider-Man Annual, and spectacularly introduced the Web-Slinger to whole other realities when he teamed up with the Master of the Mystic Arts to battle the power-crazed wizard Xandu in a phantasmagorical, dimension-hopping masterpiece. After this story it was clear that Spider-Man could work in any milieu. Also reprinted from that impressive publication are more pin-ups of Spider-Man’s fiercest foes.

‘Never Step on a Scorpion!’ saw the return of that lab-made villain, hungry for vengeance against not just the Wall-Crawler but also Jameson for turning him into a monster. Issue #30 was another off-beat crime-thriller which laid the seeds for future masterpieces. ‘The Claws of the Cat!’ featured the 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 the mysterious Master Planner.

The sharp-eyed will note that scripter Lee mistakenly calls their boss “The Cat” in one sequence, but really, let it go. That’s the kind of nit-picking that gives us comic fans a bad name and reduces our chance of meeting girls…

‘If This Be My Destiny…!’ in #31 concentrated on the Master Planner’s high-tech robberies and led to a confrontation with Spider-Man, as well Peter in College, the introduction of Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy, and Aunt May on the edge of death. This saga is probably Ditko’s finest moment on the series – and perhaps of his entire career. ‘Man on a Rampage’ showed Parker pushed to the very edge of desperation as the Planner’s men made off with the only substance that could save Aunt May, with a berserk Spider-Man trying to locate them. Trapped in an underwater fortress, pinned under tons of machinery, the hero faced his greatest failure as the clock ticked down the seconds of May’s life…

Which in turn produced the most memorable visual sequence in Spidey history as the opening of ‘The Final Chapter!’ took five full, glorious pages to depict the ultimate triumph of will over circumstance. Freeing himself from the fallen debris Spider-Man gave his absolute all to deliver the medicine May needed, to be rewarded with a rare happy ending…

Kraven returned in ‘The Thrill of the Hunt!’ and so did another old foe in #35’s ‘The Molten Man Regrets…!’ a plot-light but inimitably action-packed combat classic, whilst a deranged thief calling himself the Looter proved little trouble in ‘When Falls the Meteor!’ In retrospect these brief, fight-oriented tales, coming after such an intricate and passionate tale as the Master Planner saga, should have been seen as some sort of clue that things were not going well, but the fans had no idea that ‘Once Upon a Time, There was a Robot…!’ which featured a beleaguered Norman Osborn assaulted by his disgraced ex-partner and his frankly bizarre murder machines, and the tragic comedy of ‘Just a Guy Named Joe!’ – as a hapless sad-sack gains super-strength and a bad-temper – were to be Ditko’s last arachnid adventures. When Amazing Spider-Man #39 appeared with the first of a two-part adventure that featured the ultimate victory of the Wall-Crawler’s greatest foe no reader knew what had happened – and no one told them…

In ‘How Green Was My Goblin!’ and the concluding ‘Spidey Saves the Day! (“Featuring the End of the Green Goblin!”)’ as it so facetiously and dubiously proclaimed, the arch-foes learned each other’s secret identities before the Goblin “perished” in a climactic showdown. It would have been memorable even it the tale didn’t feature the debut of a new artist and a whole new manner of story-telling…

By 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist simply resigned leaving Spider-Man without an illustrator. Romita had been lured away from DC’s romance line and given odd assignments before settling with Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. Now he was given the company’s biggest property and told to run with it.

Issues #39 and 40 (August and September 1966) were a turning point in many ways, and inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito (under the pseudonym Mickey Demeo) they still stand as one of the best Spider-Man yarns ever, heralding a run of classic tales from the Lee/Romita team that actually saw sales rise, even after the departure of the seemingly irreplaceable Ditko.

With #41, ‘The Horns of the Rhino!’ Romita began inking his own pencils and although the super-strong spy proved a mere diversion, his intended target, J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son was a far harder proposition in the next issue. Amazing Spider-Man #42 ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’, wherein John Jameson was mutated by space-spores and went on a rampage, was a solid, entertaining yarn but is only really remembered for the last panel of the final page.

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag for years, a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May that Peter had avoided – and the creators had skilfully not depicted – for the duration of time that our hero had been involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly Gwen Stacy. In that last frame the gob-smacked young man finally realised that he been ducking the hottest chick in New York for two years!

‘Rhino on the Rampage!’ gave the villain one more crack at Jameson and Spidey, but the emphasis was solidly on foreshadowing future foes and building Pete and MJ’s relationship. This volume concludes with ‘…To Become an Avenger!’ (Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 3) as the World’s Mightiest Heroes offered the Web-Spinner membership if he could capture the Hulk. As usual all is not as it seems but the action-drenched epic, courtesy of Lee, Romita (on layouts), Don Heck, and Demeo/Esposito is the kind of guest-heavy package that made these summer specials a child’s delight.

This cheap and cheerful compendium is the ideal way to introduce or reacquaint readers with the early Spider-Man. The brilliant adventures and glorious pin-ups are superb value and this series of books should be the first choice of any adult with a present to buy for an impressionable child. Or for their greedy, needy selves…

© 1965, 1966, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2376-6

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was the en masse creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing or battling (often both) with less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of this new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch. In those long-lost days editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

Nevertheless Marvel Team-Up was the second full-Spider-Man title (an abortive companion title Spectacular Spider-Man was created for the magazine market in 1968 but had died after two issues) and it launched in March 1972, with the Wall-Crawler and his friendly flaming rival reluctantly spending the holidays together as an old foe reared his gritty head in the charming ‘Have Yourself a Sandman Little Christmas!’ by Roy Thomas, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. (Merry Marvelite Maximii can award themselves a point for remembering which martial arts heroine debuted in this issue but the folk with lives can simply take my word that it was Iron Fist’s sometime squeeze Misty Knight.)

Gerry Conway assumed the writer’s role and Jim Mooney the inker’s for ‘And Spidey Makes Four!’ in the next issue as our heroes then took on the Frightful Four and Annihilus and seemingly without pause went after Morbius the Living Vampire in #3’s ‘The Power to Purge!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia).

The new horror-star was still the villain in MTU #4 as the Torch was replaced by most of the mutant team (The Beast having gone all hairy – and solo) in ‘And Then… the X-Men!’ a pacy thriller illustrated by the magnificent Gil Kane at the top of his form and inked by Steve Mitchell. Kane became a semi-regular penciller, and his dynamic style and extreme anatomy lifted many quite ordinary tales such as #5’s ‘A Passion of the Mind!’, (Conway script and Esposito inks) pitting Spidey and The Vision against Puppet Master and robotic assassin the Monstroid and its follow-up ‘…As Those Who Will Not See!’ (with the Thing against the Mad Thinker) that most other pencillers could only dream of…

‘A Hitch in Time!’ by Conway, Andru and Mooney guest-starred Thor as Trolls froze Earth’s time-line as a prerequisite step to conquering Asgard, whilst issue #8 is a perfect example of the team-up comic’s other function – to promote and popularise new characters.

‘Man-Killer Moves at Midnight!’ was most fans first exposure to The Cat, (later retooled as Tigra) in a painfully worthy if ham-fisted attempt to address feminist issues from Conway and Jim Mooney. Iron Man began the three-part tale ‘The Tomorrow War!’ (Conway, Andru & Frank Bolle) as he and Spidey were kidnapped by Zarkko the Tomorrow Man to battle Kang the Conqueror; the Torch returned to help deal with the intermediate threat of ‘Time Bomb!’ (Conway, Mooney & Giacoia) but it took the entire race of Black Bolt’s Inhumans to help Spidey stop history unravelling in ‘The Doomsday Gambit!’ – with Len Wein scripting Conway’s plot for Mooney and Esposito to illustrate.

The same writing team produced ‘Wolf at Bay!’ from MTU #12 as the Wall-Crawler met the Werewolf (By Night) and the malevolent Moondark in foggy San Francisco, drawn by Andru and Don Perlin, and Kane and Giacoia returned for ‘The Granite Sky!’ where Wein pitted Spider-Man and Captain America against Hydra and the Grey Gargoyle. ‘Mayhem is… the Men-Fish!’ (inked by Wayne Howard) matched him with the savage Sub-Mariner against Tiger Shark and Doctor Dorcas as well as mutant sea-beasts.

Wein, Andru and Perlin created The Orb to bedevil Spidey and the Ghost Rider in ‘If an Eye Offend Thee!’ in #15 whilst Kane and Mooney illustrated ‘Beware the Basilisk my Son!’, a gripping romp featuring Captain Marvel, which concluded in ‘Chaos at the Earth’s Core!’ (inked by “everybody”!) as Mister Fantastic joined the fracas to stop the Mole Man from inadvertently blowing up the world.

The Human Torch teamed with the Hulk in MTU #18 to stop Blastaar in ‘Where Bursts the Bomb!’ inked by Giacoia & Esposito, but Spidey was back with Ka-Zar to witness ‘The Coming of… Stegron, the Dinosaur Man!’ (Wein, Kane & Giacoia) whose plans to flatten New York by releasing ‘Dinosaurs on Broadway!’ was foiled with the Black Panther’s help – as well as the artistic skills of Sal Buscema, Giacoia and Esposito.

Dave Hunt replaced Esposito for ‘The Spider and the Sorcerer!’ in #21 as Spidey and Doctor Strange once more battles Xandu, a wizard first seen in Spider-Man Annual #2, whilst ‘The Messiah Machine!’ pitted Hawkeye and Spidey against Quasimodo and a mechanoid invasion. The Torch and Iceman teamed to stop Equinox, the Thermo-Dynamic Man on ‘The Night of the Frozen Inferno!’ (Wein, Kane & Esposito) and the first two dozen tales conclude with the defiantly quirky ‘Moondog is another Name for Murder!’– illustrated by Mooney and Sal Trapani – as the web-spinner met the decidedly offbeat Brother Voodoo to quash a Manhattan murder cult.

These stories are of variable quality but nonetheless all have an honest drive to entertain and please whilst artistically the work is superb, and most fans of the genre would find little to complain about. Although not really a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers there’s lots of fun on hand and young readers will have a blast, so there’s no real reason not to add this tome to your library…

© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2192-3

Marvel is often termed “the House that Jack Built” and King Kirby’s contributions are undeniable and inescapable in the creation of a new kind of comic book story-telling, but there was another unique visionary at Atlas-Comics-as-was; one whose creativity and even philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to the bludgeoning power, vast imaginative scope and clean, broad lines of Kirby’s ever-expanding search for gods and the infinite.

Steve Ditko was quiet and unassuming, voluntarily diffident to the point of invisibility though his work was both subtle and striking: innovative, meticulously polished, always questing for detail he ever explored the man within. He found heroism – and humour and ultimate evil – all contained within the frail but noble confines of human scope and consciousness. His drawing could be oddly disquieting… and, when he wanted, almost creepy.

Drawing monster and mystery tales for Stan Lee, Ditko had been given his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler brand of yarn than Furry Underpants Monsters, invading aliens and the ilk which, though individually entertaining, were slowly losing traction in the world of comics since National/DC had reintroduced costumed heroes. Lee and Kirby had responded with Fantastic Four (and the ahead-of-its-time Incredible Hulk) but there was no indication of the renaissance to come when Amazing Fantasy #15 (the last issue) cover featured a brand new adventure character: Spider-Man.

In 11 captivating pages ‘Spider-Man!’ told the parable of Peter Parker, a smart but aloof High School kid who was bitten by a radioactive spider. Discovering his body had developed arachnid abilities which he augmented with his own natural engineering genius, he did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a gift – he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity secret in case he made a fool of himself, Parker/ Spider-Man became a minor celebrity – and a self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find a burglar had murdered his uncle Ben when he returned home.

Crazy for revenge Parker hunted the thief who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, only to find that it was the felon he couldn’t be bothered with. His social irresponsibility had led to the death of the man who raised him and the boy swore to use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was one familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, giant monsters and flying cars- this stuff could happen to anybody… Amazing Fantasy #15 came out the same month as Tales to Astonish #35 (cover-dated September 1962) which was the first to feature the Astonishing Ant-Man in costumed capers, but it was the last issue of Ditko’s Amazing playground.

However the tragic last-ditch tale had struck a chord with the reading public and by Christmas a new comicbook superstar was ready to launch in his own title, with Ditko eager to show what he could do with his first returning character since the demise of the Charlton hero Captain Atom (see Action Heroes Archive volume 1, ISBN 1-4012-0302-7). Holding on to the “Amazing” prefix to help jog reader’s memories, the bi-monthly Amazing Spider-Man #1 had a March cover-date and two stories. It prominently featured the Fantastic Four and took the readers by storm. The first tale, again simply entitled ‘Spider-Man!’ recapitulated the origin whilst adding a brilliant twist to the conventional mix.

The wall-crawling hero was feared and reviled by the general public thanks in no small part to J. Jonah Jameson, a newspaper magnate who pilloried the adventurer from spite and for profit. With typical comic book irony, Spider-Man then had to save Jameson’s astronaut son John from a faulty space capsule… The second story ‘Vs the Chameleon!’ found the cash-strapped kid trying to force his way onto the roster of the Fantastic Four whilst a spy impersonated the web-spinner to steal military secrets, in a perfect example of the high-strung, antagonistic crossovers and cameos that so startled the jaded kids of 1963. Heroes just didn’t act like that…

With the second issue our new kind of hero began a meteoric rise in quality and innovative storytelling. ‘Duel to the Death with the Vulture!’ found Peter Parker chasing after a flying thief as much for profit as justice. Desperate to help his widowed Aunt make ends meet, the hero began to take photos of his cases to sell to Jameson’s Daily Bugle, making his personal gadfly his sole means of support. Along with comedy and soap-operatic melodrama Ditko’s action sequences were imaginative and magnificently visceral, with odd angle shots and quirky, mis-balanced poses adding a vertiginous sense of unease to the fight scenes. But crime wasn’t the only threat to the world and Spider-Man was just as (un)comfortable battling science-fictional menaces like ‘The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer!’

Amazing Spider-Man #3 introduced one of the young hero’s greatest enemies in ‘Versus Doctor Octopus’, a full-length epic wherein a dedicated scientist survived an atomic accident which grafted mechanical tentacles to his body. Power-mad, Otto Octavius even thrashed Spider-Man, sending the lad into a depression until an impromptu pep-talk from the Human Torch galvanized Spider-Man to one of his greatest victories.

‘Nothing Can Stop… the Sandman!’ was another instant classic as a common thug gained the power to transform to sand (another pesky nuclear cock-up) and invaded Parker’s school, whilst issue #5 found the web-spinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ and not so much winning as surviving his battle against the deadliest man on Earth. Presumably he didn’t mind too much as this marked the transition from bi-monthly to monthly status for the series.

Sometime mentor Curtis Connors debuted in #6 when Spidey came ‘Face-to-face with… The Lizard!’ as the hero fought his battle away from the concrete canyons of New York – specifically in the murky Florida Everglades, but he was back in the Big Apple in #7 to tackle ‘The Return of the Vulture’. Fun and youthful hi-jinks were a signature feature of the series, as was Parker’s budding romance with “older woman” Betty Brant.

She was Jameson’s secretary at the Bugle and youthful exuberance was the underlying drive in #8’s lead tale ‘The Living Brain!’ a robot calculator that threatened to expose Spider-Man’s secret identity before running amok at beleaguered Midtown High, just as Parker was finally beating the stuffings out of school bully Flash Thompson. This 17 page joy was accompanied by ‘Spiderman Tackles the Torch!’ (a 6 page vignette drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Ditko) wherein a boisterous wall-crawler gate-crashed a beach part thrown by the flaming hero’s girlfriend with explosive consequences.

Amazing Spider-Man #9 was a qualitative step-up in dramatic terms as Aunt May was revealed to be chronically ill – adding to Parker’s financial woes – and the action was supplied by ‘The Man Called Electro!’ a super-criminal with grand aspirations. Spider-Man was always a loner, never far from the streets and small-scale-crime, and with this tale wherein he also quells a prison riot single handed, Ditko’s preference for tales of gangersterism began to show through; a predilection confirmed in #10’s ‘The Enforcers!’ a classy mystery where a masked mastermind known as the Big Man used a position of trust at the Bugle to organize all the New York mobs into one unbeatable army against decency. Longer plot-strands are also introduced as Betty Brant disappears, but most fans remember this one for the spectacularly climactic seven-page fight scene in an underworld chop-shop that has still never been topped for action-choreography.

‘Turning Point’ and ‘Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!’ saw the return of the deadly scientist and the revelation of Betty’s dark secret in a tragedy-filled tale of extortion and non-stop that stretched from Philadelphia to the Bronx Zoo and again tempered the melodrama with spectacular fight scenes in unusual and exotic locations.

A new super-foe premiered in #13 with ‘The Menace of Mysterio!’ hired by Jameson to capture Spider-Man but with his own dark agenda, whilst the next issue was a true landmark as a criminal mastermind manipulated a Hollywood studio into making a movie about the wall-crawler. With guest-stars the Enforcers and the Incredible Hulk ‘The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin’ is most notable for introducing Spider-Man’s most perfidious and flamboyant enemy.

Jungle superman and thrill-junkie ‘Kraven the Hunter!’ made Spider-Man his intended prey at the behest of the Chameleon in #15, whilst the Ringmaster and his Circus of Evil prompted #16’s dazzling ‘Duel with Daredevil’ but separating those two classics here are the varied and captivating contents of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (Summer 1964), starting with a 41 page epic peppered with guest-stars from the burgeoning Marvel Universe as the Web-Spinner battled Doctor Octopus, Kraven, Sandman, Mysterio, Electro and the Vulture, collectively known as ‘The Sinister Six!‘ This bombastic clash was augmented by a pin-up gallery of Famous Foes, fact-features ‘The Secrets of Spider-Man’, ‘Spidey’s Super Senses’, ‘Secrets of Spider-Man’s Mask’, a selection of posters and the legendary comedy short ‘How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Create Spider-Man!’

An ambitious three-part saga began in Amazing Spider-Man #17, which saw the hero touch emotional bottom before rising to triumphant victory over all manner of enemies. ‘The Return of the Green Goblin!’ saw the hero endure renewed print assaults from the Daily Bugle as the Goblin began a war of nerves using the Enforcers, Sandman and a host of thugs to publicly humiliate the hero, just as Aunt May’s health took a drastic downward turn.

Continued in ‘The End of Spider-Man!’ and concluded in ‘Spidey Strikes Back!’ featuring a telling team-up with friendly rival the Human Torch, this extended tale proved that the fans were ready for every kind of narrative experiment (single issue and even two stories per issue were still the norm in 1964) and Stan and Steve were prepared to try it.

The book closes with ‘The Coming of the Scorpion!’ wherein Jameson let his obsessive hatred for the arachnid hero get the better of him, hiring scientist Farley Stillwell to give a private detective Scorpion-based superpowers. Unfortunately the process drove the subject mad before he could capture Spidey, leaving the wall-crawler with yet another super-nutcase to deal with…

Such was the life of comic’s most misunderstood hero and this gloriously economical collection is especially welcome because of a secret I can now reveal:

Colour printing has never really been Steve Ditko’s friend.

His wealth of line variety, his blend of moody blacks and nuanced shading as well as his simplified, almost “big-foot” style of design and drawing is most powerful as dark against light – Black on White. These landmark tales still resonate with power and creativity and they’re at their very best without the pretty tints and hues – although don’t let me stop you from buying other versions of these oft-reprinted gems – just read this book first!

© 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.