Before we rejoin regular programming, this brief diversion, because I’m not sure where else to put it. This first issue ran alongside ASM 516, TAC 23, MKSM 10, New Avengers 3 and so on, so it’s roughly the right time for it. But this 5-issue mini examines Spider-Man and the Human Torch’s storied friendship/rivalry down the years, so it’s mostly flashbacks. Also mostly making up all-new events, as I recall. At the helm is writer Dan Slott. Slott had been doing work here and there around the Marvel offices as far back as the early 90s. His first work on a regular series there is a Ren & Stimpy series, the 6th issue of which found their hero Powdered Toast Man meeting Spider-Man, as luck would have it. I owned this comic, but got rid of it at some point, otherwise it would have been on the blog. Slott also had stories in the 1992 X-Men and X-Force annuals, which I bought as part of a crossover (I think that X-Men one is Jim Lee’s last work on the property, doing layouts for a whole bunch of people to finish over). And we saw he had a story in Venom Super Special in 1995, tho I didn’t read that until I saw it for the blog. But he didn’t really start to become a writer of note until around this time, with much lauded but not entirely commercially successful runs on She-Hulk and the Thing, and the comedy book Great Lakes Avengers, which had a cult but devoted following (And helped popularize the previously very obscure Squirrel Girl). Sometimes it takes a while. Slott has a big future with Spider-Man, so I guess it’s only right that he gets to take a swing at him at this time, as his star is rising at the company. He’s paired here with Ty Templeton, a cartoonist mostly known for doing tie-ins to animated series for Marvel, DC and the Simpsons, which is an odd niche to fall into, but a career is a career. He’s inked by the artist Nelson, just Nelson, and colored by “Sotocolor’s F. Serrano.” Okay! I guess Chris Sotomayor was starting a studio?
So, since this is a retrospective, we begin in the 60s, and this cover by the great Paul Smith is looking suitably Ditko-esque. Inside, we’re told it’s “ten years ago,” and we find the FF engaged in battle with the Mole Man in his subterranean lair, where he’s stolen a bunch of famous paintings. Johnny says their planned worked, that hist last batch were a bunch of forgeries they planted, and trick Mole Man into removing his glasses to check, then flare sup, blinding him. Very 60s-style.
Soon, Spider-Man is swinging to Queens, worrying and so on, eager to see Aunt May, but…
So we’re pretty firmly in the 20s of ASM. I like Johnny envying Peter’s simple homelife. The next day, Peter is envying Johnny’s life as he is made to photograph Johnny’s date with Dorrie. Dorrie is busy telling Johnny he should be more like Peter, and invites him to come sit with them… just in time for Betty Brant to come around the corner and, as usual, assume Peter sharing the same sidewalk as any woman means he likes her better. I wonder if that seemed exaggerated to me in 2005. It feels pitch-perfect now. But then a bank alarm goes off. Johnny flames into action, and Peter tells Dorrie he’s got to find a better spot to get photos of the Torch. Masked robbers exit the bank, and Torch catches them in a ring of fire. As one aims a gun at him, it’s hit with a web.
The coloring in this book is weird. It’s really harsh and contrasty, light lights and dark darks and not much middle ground.
That night, Peter comes up with a new coating for his spider tracer that will resist Torch’s flame. The next day, he pins one on Torch’s back, and says he’ll be hanging back today, to get more candid shots, and will follow Johnny the way he does Spider-Man, a “trade secret.” thus, Spider-Man ends up following the Torch around taking his picture.
Johnny has been inexplicably captured by Dr. Doom. I guess outside the Latverian Embassy? He’s been hit with “subthermic cannons” and is frozen in a big block of ice. Spider-Man sets up his camera, but isn’t sure what to do, if he should go get help. He decides to go it alone, and does so by just walking in. He says he’s thought about the offer Doom made last time (In ASM 5) about being partners, and wants to take him up on it. Gets on his knee and swears allegiance and everything. But Doom says it will take more than mere words.
Having broken Johnny’s ice prison free of the ground, Spidey just swings off with it. All very appropriate Bug Bunny energy, Doom swearing Spider-Man has made an enemy this day and so on. Safely far away, Spidey begins chipping Johnny out of the ice, and Johnny swears he had a plan and had it all under control.
Pretty wacky. Slott was developing a name for a sort of retro approach. In an era that was anything but retro, it seemed refreshing. This is a natural fit for where he was at the time, career-wise. So if this is “ten years ago” and it’s mid-to-late 20s ASM, 1965, that makes modern day Peter, at youngest, 26. Probably more like 27, 28. And I’m pretty sure no one at Marvel wants him to be that “old.”