Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: May 11, 1965
Cover: August 1965
12 cents
Edited and written by Smilin’ Stan Lee
Plotted and drawn by Scowlin’ Steve Ditko
Lettered and gift-wrapped by Swingin’ Artie Simek
20 pages
| Previous | #372 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #26 | Reading order | Strange Tales #135 |
| Amazing Spider-Man #26 | Amazing Spider-Man | Amazing Spider-Man #28 |
Spider-Man is still Green Goblin’s prisoner, as Green Goblin is trying to take over the gangs instead of Crime-Master.
Lots of mysteries left over from last issue. Who is Green Goblin? Who is Crime-Master? Who is Patch? What is Foswell’s secret connection to all this? We should answer all but one of those questions by issue’s end.
Spoilers likely follow.
One of the crooks is named Blackie. Stan’s favorite name for a crook.
Spider-Man is rescued by three police officers in quite the rumble against the mobs. Ditko seems eager to show off the heroism of these cops.
Spider-Man finds a clue in Foswell’s apartment, a closet with a false compartment, the perfect place to hide a costume. Maybe Peter Parker should look into getting one.
The next two pages are what this issue is so famous for. I think they’re pretty cool. They’re unexpectedly… ordinary.
Crime-Master is defeated by the police, not a superhero. They get help from Foswell, while Spider-Man is chasing dead ends. Spider-Man played no role in the villain’s defeat. Unusual ending for a Spider-Man comic.
Foswell had deduced the Crime-Master’s identity, a mob boss Spider-Man had never even heard of. Neither had the readers. Spider-Man feels like someone who stumbled into the middle of a movie.
This gets to a key aspect of Spider-Man. He’s not Batman. He’s not a detective. He’s a science whiz, but has no real instinct for investigation. And he’s just a kid. He’s good in a fight, but when it came to solving a mystery, he was out of his depth.
And what was the answer to the mystery? A crime boss we’d never heard of. Hardly a traditional “fair play” mystery. Instead, we got a Spidey-centric view of events. And Spider-Man was quite literally clueless. So the readers were as well.
Was this a satisfying reveal? The Green Goblin remains unmasked. Perhaps that reveal will satisfy you more if this one didn’t. I’m sure Stan and Steve have something good planned. I imagine them out at the pub talking over their plans for the Green Goblin reveal and having a jolly time.
Also note the villain was defeated on page 13 of a 20 page story. That’s a lot of pages left over for epilogue and soap opera. None of them wasted.
It should be noted there’s a very pro-police theme permeated throughout this issue, which I assume caused very few readers at the time to even bat an eye, but might be a more divisive position today. It fits in with Ditko’s core philosophies; his work often reflects an admiration for society’s upstanding citizens, the police and businessmen of the world. You would be very unlikely to find Ditko in a protest holding a “Defund the police” sign.
In typical Spider-Man fashion, when he tries to retrieve his camera from a few kids, he thinks they’ll be impressed by him, but they turn out to be Human Torch fans. Spider-Man’s most hated rival.
If Jameson is so cheap and hard to work with, and hates Spider-Man so much… and if Peter’s pictures are so good… why not take the pictures somewhere else. Peter tries that and comes to appreciate something about Jameson… he doesn’t ask too many questions.
There’s that same friend of Jameson’s again. Still unnamed.
In a cute ending scene, Peter sees Aunt May is lonely because Mrs. Watson wasn’t free to hang out. So he agrees to take her to a movie and you can see her light up. Great expressive work by Ditko.
And what’s this? Are we finally about to learn Foswell’s secret? We know he’s not the Crime-Master. Could he be… the Green Goblin?
If we turn the page, we will find out the truth. But why spoil it? Go read the comic yourselves. Enjoy the experience.
Tune in next week for the debut of a brand new feature!
Rating: ★★★★☆, 79/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
I read this story in Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus vol. 1.
Characters:
- Spider-Man
- Green Goblin
- Crime-Master/Nick “Lucky” Lewis
- Patch/Frederick Foswell
- J. Jonah Jameson
- Betty Brant
- Barney Bushkin
- Aunt May
Minor characters:
- Blackie (a gangster)
- Joe (police officer)
Story notes:
- Spider-Man accuses Foswell in Jameson’s office.
- Crime-Master killed in shoot-out with police.
- Spider-Man sells pictures to Mr. Bushkin at the Daily Globe
- Daily Globe running an article on the Merry Marvel Marching Society.
- Bushkin too nosy, so Peter decides to keep working with Jonah.
- At his club, Jonah takes credit for Foswell’s work.
- Peter searches for his costume while Aunt May out for a walk; Mrs. Watson had another appointment that night.
| Previous | #372 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #26 | Reading order | Strange Tales #135 |
| Amazing Spider-Man #26 | Amazing Spider-Man | Amazing Spider-Man #28 |
What a satisfying ending to a fantastic Peter Parker story – when the stories were about a boy growing up.
And how I was fooled when, about a year later, the Master Planner almost caused May’s death. Because I remembered that Jameson had herein admitted that HE was “the Master Planner!”
It’s possible I will shamelessly steal that Master Planner observation when we get there.
As long as it’s done shamelessly.
As much as I love this issue, I really think Ditko blew the ending by actually revealing what Foswell’s secret identity ACTUALLY was. He could’ve definitely fooled readers into thinking he was the Goblin for a couple more issues.
It’s a fair point. The reveal of Crime-Master’s identity and that Foswell was not Crime-Master made for a sufficiently satisfying conclusion. They didn’t really need one more revelation to sell this issue, and it could have benefited the larger saga.