aunt may – Page 4 – Coke & Comics

Amazing Spider-Man #4

Nothing can stop… the Sandman!

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: June 11, 1963
Cover: September 1963
12 cents
By: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
21 pages

Previous	#85	Next
Tales of Suspense #45	Reading order	Fantastic Four #18
Amazing Spider-Man #3	Amazing Spider-Man	Amazing Spider-Man #5

You teen-agers are all alike– You think the world owes you a living! Now go out and get me some shots of Spider-Man, and don’t come back till you do!

The covers so far have mostly been single images. Here, the cover is itself a comic. It’s not a common artistic choice, perhaps because it forces the images to be smaller. But it effectively shows off the range of Sandman’s powers.

Lee and Ditko share the credits for this issue with a simple “By”, rather than breaking up who did the story and who did the art.

In 4 issues, this series has introduced:

Chameleon
Vulture
Tinkerer
Dr. Octopus
Sandman

That’s 5 enduring villains, and at least 3 iconic ones.

Amazing Spider-Man #3

The Strangest Foe of all Time… Doctor Octopus

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: April 9, 1963
Cover: July 1963
12 cents
Story: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
21 pages

Previous	#70	Next
Tales to Astonish #45	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #43
Amazing Spider-Man #2, Story B	Amazing Spider-Man	Amazing Spider-Man #4

What do I do now? I’ve never been beaten before! But this time my spider powers were not enough! Is this the end of Spider-Man?

I read this story in Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection vol. 1: Great Power.

I’m going to go ahead and confess that I don’t know what the title of this comic is. I often don’t. Many times, the title is in quotes to make it clear. Even though what’s in quotes is often preceded by the name of the title hero with a “versus” or a “battles” after.

For example, Fantastic Four #15 had the opening text: “The Fantastic Four Battle… The Mad Thinker and His Awesome Android!” With the latter part in a much bigger font. Online sources vary.

This is even more confusing because the arrangement of the different pieces make the order unclear.

Possible titles:

Doctor Octopus
Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus
The Strangest Foe of All Time… Doctor Octopus
Spider-Man Versus the Stranges Foe of All Time… Doctor Octopus

The internet generally doesn’t agree on which of the above makes sense. For my part, I’m trusting the table of contents in the collection I’m reading this in.

The title page describes Doctor Octopus as “the only enemy ever to defeat Spider-Man!” Not sure that’s accurate. Vulture and Tinkerer both handed Spider-Man initial defeats last issue before Spider-Man was able to come back and win in round 2. Which is basically what’s going to happen in this issue.

Amazing Spider-Man #2

Duel to the death with the Vulture!

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
14 pages

Previous	#59	Next
Strange Tales #108, Story C	Reading order	Amazing Spider-Man #2, Story B
Amazing Spider-Man #1, Story B	Amazing Spider-Man	Amazing Spider-Man #2, Story B

He thinks I’m just a typical teen-age kid! Good! That’s the way I like it!

So I am going to try something new with this blog. I have mostly been stealing pictures I could find on the internet, but I now have a large nifty scanner working and want to try to make my own scans. Now, for various reasons related to my lack of independent wealth, I don’t own Amazing Spider-Man #2, but I have many reprints.

I’ve largely been reading comics in thick collections, which can be hard to scan with my flatbed scanner. But I have smaller reprints from this story. It was reprinted in Amazing Spider-Man Annual 7, but that is still a bit thick for optimal scanning, and the binding isn’t entirely perfect. I also have it reprinted in Marvel Tales #139. Let me try a few scans for comparison.

Amazing Spider-Man #1

Spider-Man
Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: December 10, 1962
Cover: March 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
14 pages

Previous	#46	Next
Tales of Suspense #39, Story C	Reading order	Amazing Spider-Man #1, Story B
	Amazing Spider-Man	Amazing Spider-Man #1, Story B

I say that Spider-Man must be outlawed! There is no place for such a dangerous creature in our fair city!

Spider-Man is back! He appeared briefly, set to be a recurring star in Amazing Fantasy, a comic which was cancelled immediately after he appeared. Sometime between making that decision and now, we learn the publisher received lots of letters and postcards, so now Spider-Man gets his own comic. Probably good they brought him back, as he’ll go on to become Marvel’s most enduringly popular character.

We are still on December 10, 1962. A day with four major Marvel superhero milestones. The first was the crossover between the Fantastic Four and the Hulk. The second was the debut of Iron Man. The third of these is Spider-Man getting his own series.

Milestone #1 of December 10, 1962:
Fantastic Four meet the Hulk!
Milestone #2:
Iron Man
Miletone #3:
Amazing Spider-Man #1

The tale begins with a 2-panel recap of his origin from Amazing Fantasy #15. But, strangely, they leave out what most today would consider the most pivotal part, Peter’s culpability in Ben’s murder by letting the burglar run past him. True, it’s only two panels, but they seem to go out of their way to not mention it. He instead uses phrases like, “All because I was too late to save him!” and “…while I was busy showing off…”; so they keep Peter’s feelings of guilt but leave off the reason he feels so guilty. It seems like a rather intentional and conscious decision. But I don’t know why they made it.

POSTLUDE: Ultimate Spider-Man #5

Life Lessons
Release: January 3, 2001
Cover: March 2001
$2.25
Story: Bill Jemas and Brian Michael Bendis
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert
21 pages

They have lowered the price by a quarter. Maybe that will sell the comic better than the awful cover.

This concludes our look at the first 5 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. This final issue sticks pretty closely to the last 3 pages of the original Spider-Man story. Although it does open with 3 irrelevant pages about Green Goblin.

This really has nothing to do with anything.

We then get 4 pages at the crime scene, including a double-page spread.

POSTLUDE: Ultimate Spider-Man #4

With Great Power
Release: December 6, 2000
Cover: February 2001
$2.50
Story: Bill Jemas and Brian Michael Bendis
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert and Dan Panosian
22 pages

Continuing to read the adaptation of the Spider-Man story from Amazing Fantasy #15 into Ultimate Spider-Man #1-5. This issue covers the events of page 8 and the first two panels of page 9 in the original story.

It dedicates 4 pages to Norman Osborn, finally becoming Green Goblin. His assistant, Justin, appears dead. Harry and Dr. Octavius look quite wounded.

This big scary monster has literally nothing to do with the story yet.

4 pages are dedicated to Spider-Man’s wrestling career, including its end. The analogue in the original was his television career, which didn’t explicitly end in the original story. Perhaps it will be addressed later on. The previous issue had explained the mask/anonymity thing in terms of him being a kid who wouldn’t be allowed to wrestle otherwise. But now that schtick has gotten him into trouble. Somebody has stolen the petty cash and he gets the blame.

POSTLUDE: Ultimate Spider-Man #3

Wannabe
Release: November 1, 2000
Cover: January, 2001
$2.50
Story: Brian Michael Bendis and Bill Jemas
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert
22 pages

So we’re working our way through Ultimate Spider-Man #1-5 and contrasting with the origin of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15, with particular emphasis on why one story is 12 times longer than the other. This issue covers the ground of pages 5-7 of the original story.

Part of the reason the story is longer is that other things happen. This issue dedicates 4 pages to the story of Norman Osborn on the path to becoming Green Goblin. And along the way is setting up Dr. Octopus. We had previously met Dr. Octavius, but first see his metal arms here.

POSTLUDE: Ultimate Spider-Man #2

Growing Pains
Release: October 4, 2000
Cover: December 2000
$2.50
Story: Brian Michael Bendis and Bill Jemas
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert
22 pages

I’m reading Ultimate Spider-Man #1-5, a modern telling of the story of Spider-Man, originally told in Amazing Fantasy #15; a focus is figuring out why the same story takes 12x as many pages to tell. This issue in particular covers the same ground as about 4 panels on page 4 of the original, where Peter Parker starts to understand his powers.

Part of the answer for the page count lies in layout. This issue favors bigger panels, less per page, more varied layouts. The original adheres pretty rigidly to 3 rows of panels per page, with 2-3 panels per row. The only exceptions it make are for the first page splash page, and a larger panel to open chapter 2.

POSTLUDE: Ultimate Spider-Man #1

Powerless
Release: September 6, 2000
Cover: November 2000
$2.99
Story: Bill Jemas and Brian Michael Bendis
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert
48 pages

I want to pause our main reading to jump forward into the future again, to the year 2000 and a new modern take on Spider-Man’s origin called Ultimate Spider-Man. This takes an 11 page story and spreads it over 135 pages and 5 issues. I’d like to look at exactly where that factor of 12 in the page count comes from. And also consider what changes the writers felt they need to make and why they made them. I agree the original story skimped on some details, but 124 pages worth of details?!?

This first issue is 48 pages long and covers the ground of about 3 pages of the original Spider-Man story. Why so much longer?

Part of the answer lies in focus. The original story was Peter Parker’s story and his story alone. Any characters we met, we met in relation to Peter. Peter was in every scene and most panels. Peter’s story never paused to make way for another character’s plot.

Amazing Fantasy #15

Spider-Man!

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: June 5, 1962
Cover: August 1962
12 cents
Credits: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
11 pages

Previous	#12	Next
	POSTLUDE	Ultimate Spider-Man #1
Incredible Hulk #2	Reading order	Journey Into Mystery #83

In this world, with great power there must also come– great responsibility!

I’ll just go ahead and let you know up front that I think this is the single best story in the history of comics.

It suffers only from being too often imitated. It has been retold so many times over the years in comic books and other media that many feel they know the story too well before ever picking up this comic. It can lose something in the repetition. But imagine coming to this story fresh, having never heard of Spider-Man, having never heard the phrase, “With great power there must also come– great responsibility!”

The story is this. Peter Parker is a nerd, loved by Aunt and Uncle, but ostracized by his high school classmates. When a bite from a radioactive spider gives him super powers, he tests them by entering a wrestling contest. An agent spots him and helps make him a celebrity. Caught up in his interest in fame and money, the self-absorbed Spider-Man doesn’t try to help a police officer chasing a burglar. In a twist of fate, the burglar he allowed to escape kills his Uncle Ben. He learns a valuable lesson about responsibility.