Featuring: Human Torch Release: September 10, 1963 Cover: December 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Dick Ayers 13 pages
Stan really doesn’t know what he has. Strange Tales #115 includes one of Marvel’s all-time greatest stories, yet the cover shows not a hint of that. It focuses entirely on a mediocre Human Torch tale.
We get another villain crossover. We haven’t seen too many yet. Dr. Doom has shown up in the pages of Spider-Man. That’s pretty much the only one unless you want to count Loki showing up in the Avengers.
But now, Spider-Man’s foe Sandman will menace the Human Torch. Spider-Man himself might pop in to say hello. (Actually, he’ll pop in to express that he’s upset Human Torch took on his villain.)
Featuring: Spider-Man Release: September 10, 1963 Cover: December 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Illustrated by: Steve Ditko 21 pages
Spider-Man gets his first repeat villain. Stan claims readers demanded his return. But, well, Stan always says that.
Spider-Man is overconfident his same gadget will work, but Vulture had modified his wings to nullify Spider-Man’s gadget. Spider-Man is defeated in their first encounter and sprains his arm. He’ll have to fight Vulture again one-handed.
Featuring: Avengers Release: September 29, 1999 Cover: October 1999 250 cents Written by: Roger Stern (filling in for Stan Lee) Art by: Bruce Timm (filling in for Jack Kirby) 24 pages
The cover promised us a mystery villain, but I feel like the opening page spoils the surprise a bit by putting his name in the title. Even if I missed that clue, the villain would be revealed by page 3. Spoiler: It’s Doctor Doom.
Sorry, Tom. Nobody can really replace Irving Forbush.
Roger Stern is a nerd who grew up reading and obsessing over these same comics we have been reading, so the comic of course slides perfectly neatly into our continuity. It references stories we’ve recently read, and has all the characters right where they should be in their various arcs.
Featuring: Spider-Man Release: July 9, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Steve Ditko 21 pages
The opening page tells us the names of many characters, two named for the first time. We learned last issue that Peter’s blonde classmate was named Liz. We now get the full name: Liz Allan. Last issue, we met Jameson’s secretary Miss Brant. We learn on that first page her name is Betty.
We’ve now seen plenty of crossover amongst the heroes of the titles; now they’re starting to share villains. One week earlier, Thor brought his archfoe Loki along with him for Avengers #1. Now, the Fantastic Four will lend their favorite villain to Spider-Man. Of course, they’ll also be showing up to lend a hand.
Because they’re borrowing a villain, this is the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man where Ditko doesn’t create a timeless villain. He’ll get back to that practice next issue.
Perhaps for that reason or others, this is one of the weaker Spider-Man stories yet. Of course, a weak Spider-Man story is still on par with the best of the other titles.
They summarize Doom’s most recent appearance in Fantastic Four, showing tight continuity. Also taken from Doom’s previous appearance is his use of robot doubles.
Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: July 2, 1963 Cover: 1963 25 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inking: Steve Ditko 6 pages
This is a very odd story. Something of a remake. It takes pages 2-4 of the second story from Amazing Spider-Man #1 and redraws them, expanding the story to 6 pages. This time, drawn by Kirby and inked by Ditko.
I don’t know why. The opening editor’s note claims it’s because fans demanded it, but Stan Lee always claimed that fans demanded everything. In the original, each member takes one go at Spidey. This time, each gets two.
Sue has a different haircut and each artist renders her invisibility differently. Ditko makes her shape clearer. In contrast, it’s Kirby who more clearly renders Johnny’s outline when he’s aflame.
Rather than offer any commentary of possible general interest to a story we’ve already talked about, I’m going to focus on the academic, and just give a full comparison of the stories. Some dialogue is copied, some slightly changed, some original. Some panels are new, while others closely match original panels. All seem redrawn from scratch.
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.
See my initial post for the context. Suffice to say that I will be sharing my entries to the Classic Comics Forum tradition, “ Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas“. This is a cross-post of my eleventh entry, representing #2 on my list of favorite comic book Crossovers.
2. Spider-Man and Gargoyle “Time, run like a freight train…” from Marvel Team-Up #119 (Marvel, 1982)
by J.M. DeMatteis, Kerry Gammill, and Mike Esposito
The general consensus is that the high point of Marvel Team-Up is the work of Claremont and Byrne. A position I don’t disagree with. But it’s often overlooked that there is another great run, that of DeMatteis and Gammill.
They may not have the slickness of Byrne, but they make up for it with strong character work and stories that break out of the established Marvel Team-Up formula. Most of the series had allowed very little time for Spider-Man to be Peter Parker. As they have like 20 pages for him to meet up with some other hero, get up to speed on a threat and deal with that threat together. Throw in an initial misunderstanding or fight between the heroes and you see why you’re out of pages.
But DeMatteis wanted time to show Spidey out of uniform and to develop the supporting cast. Now, the “main” books were already developing most of the supporting cast, so DeMatteis took what he was allowed to play with: the people at Aunt May’s nursing home. He developed the character of Nathan Lubensky, Aunt May’s love interest and reflected on aging in our society.
The apex of this reflection came in two issues #119-120. Issue 120 teams Spider-Man with an aging Dominic Fortune. I wasn’t sure [the event moderator] would buy them together as a two-parter based on tenuous thematic links, so I decided to focus this entry on the best issue of the run.
This story spins out of Defenders #109 and focuses on the new friendship between Spider-Man and Gargoyle. Gargoyle is notable for being a rare old-man superhero, and Spider-Man is notable for being a particular young not-sidekick superhero. Now, Spider-Man has aged since his early teenage appearances, but he’s still only recently out of college, so probably about 23 or so.
An attempted mugging leads Spider-Man and Gargoyle down parallel tracks, which try to tackle the difficult question of when it’s time to fight to keep living and when to accept it’s time to go.
The title of the comic seems to reference an Eric Andersen song. I don’t really know Eric Andersen outside of looking up the title to this song.
“Time, run like a freight train, won’t you take me down the line; there’s so much I can never say of the ruins left behind.”
See my initial post for the context. Suffice to say that I will be sharing my entries to the Classic Comics Forum tradition, “ Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas“. This is a cross-post of my seventh entry, representing #6 on my list of favorite comic book Crossovers.
6. Spider-Man and Punisher and Daredevil from Ultimate Spider-Man #6-8
by Brian Michael Bendis and Bill Sienkiewicz
I could have made 12 choices just out of this series. Bendis brings great artists to draw Spider-Man teaming up with various heroes. Wagner for Wolverine. Allred for Iron Man. Mahfood for Fantastic Four. Totleben for Man-Thing (seems like a no-brainer).
I decided I would pick just one. This seemed to work. After all, it’s the great Bill Sienkiewicz. Sienkiewicz of course famously worked on Daredevil before, teaming with Frank Miller for the Love & War graphic novel. It’s good to see his return to the character.
Now, it stretches the rules of its own series. The Spider-Man part. The first issue bills itself as a Spider-Man/Punisher crossover, but it’s really a Punisher story. Spider-Man shows up on the last page, just kind of swinging around. The next part bills itself as Spider-Man/Punisher/Daredevil. But it’s really only got Daredevil in it. Spider-Man’s not even there, and Punisher finally meets Daredevil right at the end. They do all come together at the end, but Spider-Man provides only a twist by swinging blindly into a situation he doesn’t understand and messing things up. Spider-Man’s just a kid. He’s trying to do the right thing, but doesn’t know how. Daredevil has to be the adult in the room.
Mostly this is a Punisher story, introducing us to the Ultimate version of Punisher, which looks a lot like regular Punisher. This is his origin. He was a cop, the only incorruptible one on the force. So some corrupt cops murdered his family trying to kill him. Now he’s out for revenge.
Daredevil shows up to try to convince him that the best path for justice is through the legal system. And Spider-Man shows up to make a mess out of things.
Seventh entry. Seventh Spider-Man story. But they don’t HAVE to be Spider-Man crossovers…
7. Spider-Man and Red Sonja “Sword of the She-Devil” from Marvel Team-Up #79 (Marvel, 1979)
by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin
The team is most famous for their work on Uncanny X-Men, but they delivered a perhaps even more impressive run on Marvel Team-Up. I could have picked a lot of stories from this era, but we only get 12 entries. So let’s focus on the best one. Prior to Claremont and Byrne taking over, Marvel Team-Up was a generally good book, but not necessarily of the highest quality storytelling. Claremont and Byrne brought a better sensibility to the series and told some great little tales.
Somehow, Spider-Man teams up with Conan’s sometimes ally to battle Conan’s arch-nemesis. Various mystic stuff brought Kulan Gath to the present, but had Red Sonja take over Mary Jane’s body to do battle with him. A whirlwind of a story that moves too fast for you to stop to wonder whether any of this makes sense. You just have to hang on.
Similar to Karl Kesel’s World’s Finest miniseries (which you bet would have been an entry if Superman/Batman team-ups weren’t ruled ineligible because of their ongoing team-up series), this is a through-the-years look at the friendship between Human Torch and Spider-Man. It tells 5 new team-up stories at different stages of their history, from their earliest days to the present, with each issue reflecting on their friendship to that point.
It ends in the modern day, when Human Torch finally learns Spider-Man’s secret identity, and Johnny has Peter’s family over for dinner to meet his family.
It’s darn touching, and occasionally insightful. Like, why is their regular meeting place the Statue of Liberty? How does Spider-Man get there?
(SIDE NOTE: The flashback below refers to Strange Tales Annual 2. We’ll be getting there soon in our regular reading of the Marvel Universe.
