For most of these earliest issues, I have these. Some newspaper, I have now forgotten which, ran these reprints of the earliest Spider-Man stories in 2006. Each full-length issue of Amazing Spider-Man was broken up into 2 books, and the 2nd of each had a new cover by a contemporary artist, even. These 24 issues collected AF15 and the first 11 issues of ASM. It’s a strange promotion. A full set of them can get surprisingly expensive on eBay, but I managed to score one for less than $1 an issue. So we’ll see a lot of those, starting today. Note that Spider-Man comes out every other month right now due to the publishing restrictions mentioned last post. And it’s another issue with 2 stories. So, AF15 was cover dated August, 1962, ASM, March 1963. Comics are obviously made months in advance of their publication. If we assume the four stories in ASM 1 & 2 were to be Spider-Man features in AF 16-19, that would’ve taken them to the December issue of Amazing Fantasy. And Spider-Man is publishing every 2nd month starting in March, so it’s really not hard to imagine they saw the reaction to 15 and just started banking stories to switch to a solo title. Anyway. No more rambling about that. The Vulture! And, to a lesser extent, The Tinkerer. Spider-Man, the epitome of youth in superhero comics, up against 2 cartoonishly old guys. Kind of on the nose.
The opening splash page in the oldest Marvel Comics are weird to me. An opening splash was tradition for decades after this, but they would at least start having the opening splash be part of the story instead of essentially another cover. We begin being told that a new and ominous menace has been on a crime spree for days, swooping around stealing dudes’ briefcases off the street and such. Interestingly, in these early days JJJ is publisher of NOW Magazine, rather than The Daily Bugle. And in the 90s, they brought NOW back once they made Robbie E-i-C. JJ is furious because everyone wants to read about The Vulture but he can’t get a good picture of him. Meanwhile, at Midtown High, Flash and the gang are discussing how much they’d like to see The Vulture, and how a picture of him would be worth a fortune since no one can get close to him. Which gives Peter Parker an idea.
We see Vulture take off from is secret base in the same silo Roger Stern will bring back in ASM 241, on his way to the heist. Spider-Man is waiting around in the city and happens to see the old bird zoom past. His first item of business is to throw rocks through the windows of NOW Magazine, a radio station and the police station with notes attached boasting he’s gonna steal the diamonds. As he lands on a roof after, Spider-Man catches up with him, snapping some photos, but The Vulture hears him, swoops around behind him and kicks him in the head. He picks up the dazed hero and dumps him into a water tower to drown.
Spidey being an inventor early on is something I wish had been maintained. Various people have tried to bring it back, including, as we’ve seen, having Ben Reilly develop some new gadgets to prove he’s the real Spider-Man, but it always feels awkward that he doesn’t use his science at all for years at a time and then suddenly does.
The momentous beginning of Peter’s employment for JJJ. I wonder if it’s ever explicitly stated when he starts letting them print his name. I can’t recall offhand. The kids reach the area, but find it cordoned off with cops and news crews everywhere and even a police helicopter. Peter leaves to go be Spider-Man, Flash giving him trouble as he does, and then the armored car pulls up.
What a cliffhanger! I guess there’s going to be awkward cuts for all of these since they split each issue in 2. Comic Sans. How classy. Anyway, we continue. Spider-Man saves himself with his web as Vulture glides helplessly down to a nearby roof. The police chopper catches up to them, and Spider-Man is able to get some pictures of Vulture being arrested.
A rare happy ending for our hero. It’s so funny Vultch is in his prison cell in his full outfit. But, as the cover said, there’s still the matter of The Tinkerer. He gets his own action splash before we get into it. I love that Marvel in its infancy, still not sure how and what do to with its growing library o superheroes, is like “This month, Spider-Man fights a 70-year old man with wings and a REGULAR 70-year old man with a ray gun!” We begin with Peter Parker in his favorite place, science class, which is ending. As the other students are eager to leave, the teacher keeps Peter back to introduce him to a Professor Cobbwell, to whom Peter has been recommended as an assistant. Peter’s heard of him, “the most famous electronics expert in town!,” and is delighted. The Proff asks him to come by this weekend, but first, to stop at a repair shop and pick up a radio for him. Flash gives Peter trouble for going, Peter gives back some sass, and then it’s Saturday, and Peter is approaching The Tinkerer’s Repair Shop…
Egads, aliens!
The ol’ split face gag for the first time. Peter opens the radio and finds it full of strange mechanisms, and so Spider-Man is soon dropping in on The Tinkerer’s place, through a skylight. He descends into a heavily fortified basement, where Tink and the gang are telling each other the plan they already know: that by hiding their stuff in the radios of various important people, they’ve been gathering intel before a full-scale alien invasion. Lucky for Spider-Man, he hears them explaining this and knows there’s serious trouble. He’s also remarkably cool headed about the whole “aliens” thing. But one of them spots him, and he has to leap into action to avoid a swarming mob of green guys.
Has it been tried before? I mean, those retcon 90s Amazing Fantasy issues notwithstanding, this is his first time fighting a bunch of people that we know of. A first taste of that weird, awkward, but nevertheless compelling Ditko fight choreography. He really had a unique approach.
“Spider’s Web Launcher” doesn’t quite roll of the tongue like “webshooter,” but it’s nice of Ditko to give you a quick tour of it. The aliens book out of there immediately, saying it would take them months to recover from losing that control panel (Word?), and leaving Tink to Spider-Man’s wrath. As the place fills with smoke from the growing fire, our man pounces on the old grandpa, saying he’s a traitor to the human race, but he soon realizes the smoke and fire are so bad they have to get out of there. Tink refuses to be saved, and Spider-Man climbs out the skylight from whence he came not a moment too soon. He hears sirens and decides to flee the scene, but onlookers see him and wonder if he started the fire.
A strange, strange adventure. In these early days, the line between the previous monster/alien/scifi stuff and the superheroes was thin. The FF fought monsters in their first issue and aliens in their 2nd. Hulk’s 2nd issue saw a battle with aliens, too. Thor’s first fight was against aliens. Spidey had to have a turn, as well. Tink would not reappear until ASM 160! By then, we saw he was just a regular old guy, and then, of course, Roger Stern just couldn’t let this alien business stand, and retconned those aliens into just guys in suits in TAC 50. They sure were putting on a show for people who had no reason to think they’d be seen! Wacky stuff. Next post: the most important issue since AF 15 by far. Below is the 2nd cover for ASM 2 from this series, and while I’m at it, #1 as well, since I didn’t show it last post. These new covers aren’t credited. I feel like I should know them, but I can’t say.
