Featuring: Spider-Man Release: October 8, 1964 Cover: January 1964 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Illustrated by: Steve Ditko 17 pages
The cover calls this a special “Tribute-to-Teen-Agers” issue. I don’t really appreciate the significance of that. There are teenagers in this issue, and most issues of Amazing Spider-Man, a series which stars a teenager.
Significant couple panels. Last time Peter will wear glasses. The implication is that his spider-powers fixed his eyesight, but he’s continued to wear them anyway.
On the Trail of the Tomorrow Man! Featuring: Thor Release: September 4, 1962 Cover: November 1962 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: Larry Lieber Art: Jack Kirby Inks: Dick Ayers 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 1.
There’s a pretty significant milestone here. Relatively full credits are given at the bottom of the first page. Many comics we’ve read had no credits at all. Others bore a signature here or there. The Fantastic Four have featured the signatures of Stan and Jack fairly prominently. For the first time, we see explicit credit given to Lieber and Ayers, along with a breakdown of who did what. Online sources were generally clear Lee and been doing the plotting on Thor (though it’s likely Kirby also deserves credit) and leaving the scripting to Lieber. The table of contents of the Marvel Masterworks edition simply refers to Lee and Lieber as writers. Fantastic Four #9 debuts the same day and also features similarly robust credits. We’ll cover that shortly.
Finally some credit to Dick Ayers
I’ve been noting the main credits above–writers and artists–as best I can, drawing from the credits given in the collection I’ve been reading or from online sources. I’m not trying to be a definitive source for credits, so have not been giving full credits myself. I don’t mention above the lettering of Artie Simek or the coloring of Stan Goldberg. I mean no disservice to their talents; it’s just not the focus of this blog. (Notably, I am often looking at these reprint editions, not the originals, and they have often been recolored… so I am anyway in no position to speak intelligently to Goldberg’s coloring).
