Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: June 8, 1965
Cover: September 1965
12 cents
Written and edited with loving care by Stan Lee
Plotted and drawn with talent rare by Steve Ditko
Lettered and bordered with a vacant stare by Sam Rosen
20 pages
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|---|---|---|
| Journey Into Mystery Annual 1 | Reading order | Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2 |
| Amazing Spider-Man #27 | Amazing Spider-Man | Amazing Spider-Man #29 |
Your Uncle Ben would have been so proud of you.
Check out that cover. It’s based on effects Ditko has used before, of letting the blue of Spider-Man’s costume blend into black shadow and disappear, but here fully realized. The negative space defines the cover.
The issue opens picking up on a subplot from last issue. Flash and Peter had a fight; Peter was in trouble until Flash went to the Principal and accepted blame. The matter resolves itself. But leads into Peter and Flash noticing that something is bothering Liz.
Weirdly, Peter calls her Liz Hilton. He knows her name is Liz Allan, but must have been momentarily confused. Mrs. Watson shows some similar confusion later in the issue, referring to her niece Mary Jane as her daughter. Weird.
Speaking of loose ends, Peter has still been without his costume since issue 25. He goes to see Smythe to attempt to resolve the issue.
For an arch-nemesis of Spider-Man, Smythe seems very good-natured. Pleasant, interested in science. Building robots to hunt Spider-Man seems to be an academic curiosity to him.
Peter has a clever explanation for why the robot attacks him this time. But Smythe should recall it’s the second time the robot has attacked Peter. Peter was holding a jar with spiders both times. There are lessons here about deduction and controlling variables.
Raxton and Smythe fight. It seems like the old fight between the businessman and the scientist. Which in turn resembles the old fight between the businessman and the artist, highly relevant to our discussions of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. I wonder if Ditko notices the parallels, and explicitly had Stan Lee in mind when creating Raxton. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Raxton becomes the newest Spider-Man villain, the Molten Man.
We’ve mentioned before Spider-Man has the best rogues gallery. Steve Ditko gave us iconic villains issue after issue. He’s slowed down some, having introduced enough; Molten Man is arguably the last iconic villain. In his last 10 issues, we’ll meet the Cat, the Looter, Robot Master, and a Guy Named Joe. None are especially memorable. The last dozen issues have introduced Scorpion, the robot not-yet named the Spider Slayer, and the Crime-Master. But those first 15 issues… Chameleon, Vulture, Dr. Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, Living Brain, Electro, Big Man and the Enforcers, Mysterio, Green Goblin, and Kraven the Hunter. A huge and almost unrivaled burst of creativity.
Spider-Man tries to reason with Raxton, noting he hasn’t yet committed serious crimes. Raxton ignores him, and we get an extended actions sequence like Ditko has been delivering of late, lasting 7 pages.
Along the way, we see the scene that inspires the cover, with Spider-Man blending into the negative space.
The final 4 pages are saved to see Peter graduate from high school.
Reflect on the Peter/Liz story. At first, he had a crush on her, but she ignored him and instead dated Flash because he was a sports star. They both grew. Peter found himself a girl in Betty, and Liz started to realize she was looking for someone smart, kind, and stable, like Peter. But by the time she came to this realization, Peter was settled with Betty. Even when things got rocky with Betty, Peter was just no longer interested in Liz. He still saw her as the ditzy blonde he’d once had a schoolboy crush on, but he’s grown. What he failed to recognize was that she’d grown too. We get a sad moment where Liz hits Peter in the face with that fact, that he doesn’t really see her, doesn’t really treat her with the respect she deserves.
I’ll try not to belabor a point made plenty of times, but think about that journey of these two characters over 28 issues, and then compare to any other romance in these superhero comics. Take say Thor and Jane to name one of the worst ones. The difference is absurd, especially for stories nominally by the same writer.
They don’t make it clear where Liz is going. She takes it for granted she and Peter won’t be seeing each other anymore. So she’s definitely not going to the same college as him, and perhaps isn’t going to college at all.
Flash and Peter will be at the same college, Empire State U. So we’re not done with Flash Thompson yet. Liz however will soon be bowing out of the series. (The Spider-Man series will continue for 60 years and thousands of comics, most of which just mine the first few dozen issues for ideas, so no character will be gone forever, but we will soon see Liz bow out for the indefinite future.)
Notes on chronology
In Fantastic Four #3, Johnny was talking to his best friends about his problems with the Fantastic Four. Later in Strange Tales #101, we learn Johnny was trying to keep his identity a secret from everybody in school. An apparent discrepancy explained by the fact that he had only confided in a few people and they had all graduated in the meantime and moved away. Notice Strange Tales #101 was published just a month after the introduction of Spider-Man, and they likely occurred close to each other in time.
We thus saw Johnny over the course of at least two different school years. We’ve seen Johnny scouting out colleges and soon enough we will see him start college. So we know he’s in his senior year now, and infer he was in his junior year during the events of Fantastic Four #3.
In Fantastic Four #35, we saw both Peter and Johnny looking at a college together, and infer they were both in their senior year at the time. Peter referenced being in his senior year in Amazing Spider-Man #14.
Given how cavalier Johnny was about being photographed as the Human Torch in Fantastic Four #7, we can deduce Strange Tales #101-105, in which he is guarding his identity, all take place prior to FF#7, despite being published after.
Spider-Man’s first meeting with the Fantastic Four in Amazing Spider-Man #1 took place around the time of Fantastic Four #12. My operating assumption is both Peter and Johnny were seniors in high school when that meeting took place.
And now Peter is graduating high school.
That’s really what we know about ages and times.
It’s important to get right because it’s the clearest evidence for how much time is passing on the page in all these titles. If Strange Tales #101 was indeed the start of Johnny’s senior year, then almost all the comics we’ve read since then have taken place over about 9 months.
It’s a pretty tumultuous 9 months. A lot of heroes have risen, a lot of menaces to the Earth; the Avengers forming then disbanding then reforming. That suggests the Fantastic Four have faced a new Earth-shattering menace almost every week.
An alternative interpretation is there was an unseen summer break in there somewhere. Maybe Johnny got his powers as a freshman, started his adventures as a sophomore, and then we saw him start his junior year in ST#101. Then maybe Peter would have gotten his powers as a sophomore, been a junior when he started his adventures, and started his senior year some time before issue 14. That allows for 21 months to have passed since Human Torch fought the Destroyer.
We’ll see what further evidence suggests.
Rating: ★★★½, 62/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
I read this story in Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus vol. 1.
Characters:
- Peter Parker/Spider-Man
- Molten Man/Raxton
- Principal Davis
- Flash Thompson
- Liz Hilton (Allan?)
- Smythe
- Aunt May
- Charlie
- J. Jonah Jameson
- Mrs. Watson
Story notes:
- Full title: The Menace of “The Molten Man!”
- Raxton and Smythe fight over liquid metal alloy.
- Accident coats Raxton in golden alloy.
- Raxton now super-strong. Strong as metal, but still flexible.
- Webbing won’t stick to molten skin.
- Betty doesn’t attend Peter’s graduation.
- Flash gets the athletic scholarship and Peter the science scholarship to Empire State U.
- Jameson guest speaker at graduation.
| Previous | #377 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Journey Into Mystery Annual 1 | Reading order | Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2 |
| Amazing Spider-Man #27 | Amazing Spider-Man | Amazing Spider-Man #29 |
At the time, being young and washing cars to pay for the many great comics being published, I was rather angry at the last panel. I had about HAD it with Marvel’s continued stories and now that panel indicated all future Spidey stories would be continued.
I couldn’t have imagined summer Crossover Events!