Amazing Spider-Man #35

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: January 11, 1966
Cover: April 1966
12 cents
Script + editing: Stan Lee
Plot + artwork: Steve Ditko
Lettering + loitering: Art Simek
20 pages

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X-Men #18	Reading order	Sgt. Fury #28
Amazing Spider-Man #34	Amazing Spider-Man	Amazing Spider-Man #36

“Once I’ve beaten you, there’ll be nobody left to stop me!”
“Don’t kid yourself! There’s always Irving Forbush!”
“Who’s he?”
“Forget it! It’s an ‘in’ joke!”

Last issue’s story was… Spider-Man fights Kraven again.

This issue… Spider-Man fights Molten Man again.

Spider-Man happens to be swinging past the jewelry store just as a disguised Molten Man is robbing it. That’s just lazy writing.

But then Peter uses his wits to solve the mystery. “Boy he sure packed a punch like iron… Iron! Iron’s a metal! And his punch felt like metal! It’s a long shot– but it could be– the Molten Man!” That’s some crackerjack reasoning, Peter.

Ditko can illustrate a competent fight scene without trying, but the magic is fading, and perhaps gone.

This is a really cool shot of Spidey though.

Aunt May doesn’t appear this issue. Neither does Jameson or Betty or Gwen or Harry.

The first 18 pages are just about Spider-Man and Molten Man, but the balancing of the narrative between Spider-Man’s life and Peter’s had been what made the series so great.

For the final 2 pages, we return to the soap opera. Peter visits the Daily Bugle to find a new secretary. He learns Ned has moved West, and that Betty has resigned. Did they leave together? Ned had proposed to her, but we never saw her accept.

Betty left a photograph behind for Peter. A photograph of him she kept on her desk. “To Betty– Forever! Peter!” He throws it in the trash.

Okay, that’s cool and sad and appropriately melodramatic. But it’s also the last 2 pages. And the beauty of the series had been the smooth interweaving of the Peter/Spidey narratives.

And in a sense this scene doesn’t add all that much to the narrative, as Peter and Betty had already dramatically ended their relationship. So this just dramatically confirms that ending.

Looks like we will get a new super-villain next issue. Stan notes they don’t yet know what his name will be. I do… the Looter.

Marvel Bullpen Bulletins

Since I actually own this issue, we can look to some things I can’t see when I read these stories in reprints, like Stan’s now regular feature called the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins, where he gives you news and generally promotes the line. It’s the enthusiasm with which he advertises for which Stan is best remembered.

Some tidbits from this one:

• Stan was interviewed on the radio show “The World Today” by Tony Marvin.
• The September ’65 issue of ESQUIRE included Hulk and Spider-Man amongst a list of 28 people who “count most on campus”.
• Stan notes the mail is overwhelmingly in favor of continuing stories, the direction Marvel has been moving.
• Millie the Model artist Stan G (Goldberg) has done an ad for a soft-drink company featured on a billboard in Times Square.
• Sub-Mariner and Daredevil creator Bill Everett will be rejoining Marvel as a regular artist.
• Roy Thomas is welcomed as an editor and staffer.
• Marvel comics are translated into many countries and lists the Spanish names for some of their characters: La MOLE (Hulk), EL COLOSO (Thing), EL DYNAMO (Daredevil), DR. CENTELLA (Dr. Strange)
• A quote about Marvel comics from Irving Forbush.

We also get the checklist of comics on sale that month, which had often been found on the letters page prior the establishing of the Bullpen Bulletins. The announcements like on this page had also been sprinkled in letters pages for a while. But now they have separated the letters and the announcements into two distinct features.

You can see a production convenience to this as now this identical page can go out in every Marvel comic this month. Whereas every comic has a distinct letters page, so the production team was having to sprinkle the announcements in differently for every title.

Now the letters pages can just have letters, plus a single announcement about the next issue of this title.

This is the 5th month now of comics featuring the Bulletins. I feel like we should have covered the last four. Oops. I was probably too excited by the contents of those comics. Whereas with this comic, I think I was hurting to reach my word count.

Let’s peek back; I must own at least one comic from each month. I have a lot of comics.

Here’s the very first one from my copy of Strange Tales #139. Note the t-shirt ad and picture were tailored to the magazine, though they’d soon be standardized. And yeah, I was too excited by the Hydra and Eternity Sagas to note this page closely.

I also have a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #32, the second month. But I was too busy talking about my all-time favorite comic story to pay attention to it then.

Here’s the third one from Sgt. Fury #26.

And tell you what, I see the fourth in Strange Tales #142 and Tales to Astonish #77, but we skipped both those issues because they are part of larger sagas. We’ll get to the Strange Tales issue first, so I’ll just make a little note to myself to cover the Bulletin page then.

What is the “bullpen”? It’s the office where all the creators hang out and work. Since most are freelance and work from home, it’s perhaps more of a myth than anything.

The Marvel in the Silver Age blog has a good coverage of the early Bulletins.

Rating: ★★★☆☆, 54/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆

In some sense, my entire objection to the issue can be found in how short the below character list is compared to most Spidey comics.

Characters:

• Raxton/Molten Man
• Spider-Man
• Jameson’s new secretary

Story notes:

• Judge suspends sentence because Molten Man was transformed by an accident, and because he will pay for damages caused.
• Madion Avenue jewelry shop robbed by Molten Man in disguise.
• Spider-Man places a tracer on Raxton’s jacket to follow him.
• Spipder-Man got pictures that prove Raxton’s guilt.
• Betty has resigned as Jameson’s secretary. Ned Leeds has moved to the West Coast. Did she move with him?
• Yogi Berra reference.
• Irving Forbush reference.

Previous	#471	Next
X-Men #18	Reading order	Sgt. Fury #28
Amazing Spider-Man #34	Amazing Spider-Man	Amazing Spider-Man #36