{"id":19605,"date":"2024-01-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=19605"},"modified":"2022-07-16T02:18:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T06:18:44","slug":"asm-021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/01\/04\/asm-021\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are back to the tail end of 1964! Given there\u2019s only 1 title in this period, this block will take us almost to the end of 1966 and close out the period. This block will feature several issues from the classic era I\u2019ve never read as well as some pretty big moments, so this will be fun. This issue is firmly in the \u201cStan Lee wants Spider-Man and Human Torch to be bros and it\u2019s against Steve Ditko\u2019s religion\u201d phase of their relationship. Handling really delicate old comics always makes me nervous, here we go! After a splash of Spidey vs. The Beetle\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Everyone knows the expression \u201cthis sure beats ___,\u201d but I\u2019ve never understood the \u201call hollow\u201d part from olden times. Still don\u2019t. Later, Spider-Man is spotted on a building, making people run in fear, and then he watches as The Torch is spotted nearby and everyone\u2019s excited, neatly summing up the Spider-Man experience. While Johnny stops to do tricks for his fans, we see The Beetle is on a nearby roof and ready for revenge. But he decides to follow Johnny until he can decide what to do with him. The respective heroes call it a night without ever speaking, and Beetle follows Johnny home to an irritated Doris. She says Johnny has to spend a full 24 hours without lighting on fire or they\u2019re through. Beetle decides Doris will be the key to his revenge, as elsewhere, Spider-Man stops to ask some guys if they need help loading heavy crates and they want to call the cops on him, so he just goes home. I\u2019m not sure why we needed that. It kinda seems like Ditko just needed 2 more panels for the top 3rd of this page. Next day, Doris is shopping when some kids run by and knock all her stuff out of her hands, and it\u2019s returned to her by one Peter Parker. She thinks he\u2019s a sweet boy as she goes on her way, but then Peter notices her wallet on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Well, Peter was within 500 feet of another girl, so you know what has to happen now\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Betty is the worst! Everyone goes their separate ways. Peter would like to at least tell Betty what happened, but she won\u2019t hear it. He is so mad at Johnny he crushes some bricks. Then he decides to become Spider-Man and go chat up Doris to get a rise out of Johnny. No one\u2019s coming out of this one looking good. But those plans are probably going to be cut short by the fact that The Beetle is once again skulking around outside Doris\u2019 house. Real creepy, buddy! So now it\u2019s time for Spider-Man and Beetle to meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is no one hearing this? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s funny, Sandman started out as a Spidey villain, and then they tried him as an FF guy for a long time before he was brought back to the Spider-fold. Beetle started out as a Torch villain, but by now everyone who\u2019s worn a Beetle costume is associated with Spider-Man. You never know. Speaking of The Torch, Doris finally notices there\u2019s a war going on outside and frantically calls Johnny, begging him to save her. But he assumes she\u2019s just trying to trick him into breaking their deal, and won\u2019t take the bait. Solid material. So it\u2019s up to Spider-Man to beat Torch\u2019s old foe. Her situation does not improve as Spider-Man tackles Beetle through a window and into her living room. Beetle is furious, Spidey\u2019s having a great time, and Doris is terrified. Johnny Storm decides to go see Doris (Without flying so as not to break the deal), thinking about how great she is, as Beetle suddenly realizes he can just take her hostage and fly away, which he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Look at Spidey’s backwards hands! Whoops! Definitely not pals. Typically wacky and inventive fighting from Ditko. As Spidey lures Johnny closer and closer to Beetle, we cut to The Daily Bugle, where JJJ is ranting about how he hasn\u2019t seen Peter in days, and Betty is thinking maybe she was unfair to him earlier. So she calls the house to try to let him explain himself, but Aunt May says he\u2019s not home, which fully confirms her suspicions about him. The worst! Meanwhile, Johnny finally sees Beetle with Doris, and Beetle sees The Torch and Spider-Man chasing him and assumes they\u2019ve teamed up. He drops Doris on a roof so he\u2019ll be able to fight better and ducks into a building under construction. He hopes to catch Johnny as he flies in, but Spider-Man is already there, ready for action. But, as usual, the 2 heroes quickly get in each other\u2019s way, resulting in Johnny getting hit with a big chunk Beetle ripped out of a wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Spidey formula at work! One thing that\u2019s really hard to believe about this era of comics is, Stan Lee was absolutely listening to the mail they got. This superhero resurgence kind of caught him off guard, and he routinely solicited opinions from fans, and acted on them. Here\u2019s a bit from this issue\u2019s letter column addressing that kind of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I just think it\u2019s kind of crazy that, like, if enough people wrote in and said Spider-Man\u2019s costume should be purple, there was a real chance Stan might try it. Not gonna get that level of involvement from most entertainment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are back to the tail end of 1964! Given there\u2019s only 1 title in this period, this block will take us almost to the end of 1966 and close out the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[9,35,33,11,12,72,13,172,2,6,8],"class_list":["post-19605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1960s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-aunt-may","tag-beetle","tag-betty-brant","tag-flash-thompson","tag-human-torch","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-liz-allen","tag-spider-man","tag-stan-lee","tag-steve-ditko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20029,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19605\/revisions\/20029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}