Giant Size Spider-Man # 1:
Spider-Man and Dracula! (Except not really.)
Cover Date: July, 1974. Cost: 50 c.
Contents:
One
30 page Lead Story featuring Spider-Man and Dracula.
One
18 page back-up story, reprinting Spider-Man's first guest appearance in the Human Torch strip, from Strange Tales Annual # 2. (Wrongly credited as # 3)
One
2 page illustrated text feature "An Illuminating Introduction to Giant-Size Spider-Man # 1 Or Whatever Happened to Super-Giant Spider-Man # 1, Anyhow?" credited to "Roy Thomas, Editor and Explainer of Foul-Ups."
Two 1 Page "Bullpen Bulletins" text pages, sub-titled "Monumental Memoranda about Monster Size Mags" and "Another Bombshell Bullpen Bonus Page." The "Another" page is positioned first in the magazine.
Two 1 Page House Ads for Marvel Comics. One is triple tiered, and advertises
the Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu Magazine:
Creatures on the Loose Featuring Man-Wolf, (Tagline "My Son, the MAN-WOLF"), and issue # 1 of the
Monsters of the Movies Magazine. The other is a full page ad for Giant-Size Spider-Man # 2, featuring Shang Chi.
Twelve 1 Page Ads for Non-Marvel products and services, plus 3 more pages on the inside front, inside back, and back covers.
Sample Ad:
(Note: All the ads in this comic are for fake facial hair, or products that might as well be fake facial hair.)
Total - 64 pages, the 2 covers. Counting the covers as a part of "68 big pages" seems like a cheat to me.
I'm fine tooth combing this issue for a couple reasons - It occurs to me that a lot of younger folks will only have read Classic Comics in reprints, so I want to cover all the content in this issue to give some historical content. And, man, '70s Marvel was kind of a mess, and these non-story pieces really drive that home. So let's start with the
Bullpen Bulletins page, because it it hillarious -
A note on the Bullpen Bulletins: These were text pages designed to give Marvel related news and (especially!) to promote Marvel products. Former Marvel Editor/writer-of-damn-near everything and then-current publisher wrote the "Stan's Soapbox" column, and well, someone else wrote various other features, each starting with "Item!" For instance:
Item! So you thought the biggest new to hit the comic-mag scene was our dramatic new line-up of 35 c Giant-Size mags, eh? Well close - but no cigar! Cause, starting now, we're adding still another species of monster-size masterworks to bedazzle you! Yep, we're talking about our sensational new 60 c SUPER-GIANTS - a terific trio of 100 page extravaganzas, each sporting a new novel-length epic.... As Spidey encounters the one and only COUNT DRACULA! How's THAT for openers?
60 cents. 100 pages. So. The text about Giant-Size Spider-Man # 1, that was printed in Giant-Size Spider-Man # 1, is wrong about both the the SIZE and the PRICE and the TITLE of Super-Giant Spider.. excuse me , Giant-Size Spider-Man #1. This is highly indicative of the cheerfully bass-ackward corporate environment we're dealing with. This will explain a lot about the design and presentation of these books as we progress through the series. Marvel was a company that, after having been restricted to publishing a set number of comics for well over a decade, finally had the capacity to expand. They just didn't know where to grow
too. Other stuff advertised/discussed:
Item! FOOM (Friends Of Old Marvel), the Marvel fan club has 25,000 members.
Item! Rich Buckler and Dough Monech are launching a feature called
Deathlok. Item: Dave Tigra the Were-Woman will debut and co-star with the Werewolf by Night in Giant-Size Creatures!
Item! Dave Cockrum is the (permanent) Avengers penciller.
Item! A complete set of Marvel Value Stamps will get you into the New York Comic Art Convention for free.
Aaaand then there's the two page text feature by Roy Thomas which starts by explaining
why this comic is not 60 cents and 100 pages like it says in the Bullpen Bulletins feature. A: Confusing titles, a need for uniform pricing. Trust me, it's not very interesting.
But the second part of this section is fascinating. It deals with the question "Do Marvel's superhero magazines and horror magazines occupy the same universe?" and why this issue of Giant-Size Spider-man answers this question with a resounding "Sorta." Apparently - Rot sez - there were two camps of Marvel fans. Those that really, really wanted horror/hero crossovers, and those that really, really didn't. Roy goes on to say
"If there is to BE a Marvel Universe, the answer has to be yes.... Thus the history of the Sub-Mariner's Atlantis goes back in time - to embrace Conan's Hyborian Age, Kull's Savage Atlantis, Lin Carter's Lemuria... Thus Reed Richards and Ben Grimm shake hands with Sgt. Nick Fury in the darkest days of World War 2. And thus - Spidey meets Dracula. At least, almost."
So the Spidey/Dracula story were gonna look at was emblematic of Marvel's approach to combining it's burgeoning horror line with it's superhero line. They CAN cross over, because they occupy the same universe - and 'cause shared-universe/cross over style continuity is an effective tool for getting folks who like Comic A to sample Comic B.
But TOO much of this cross-polinization waters the horror stuff down, and makes the superhero stuff too dark. So what happens in our lead story? Spider-man meets Dracula! Sorta.
Ship of Fiends/The Masque of the Black Death: Len Wein (writer), Ross Andru (artist), Don Heck (inker), Glynis Wein (colorist), John Costanza (letterer), Roy Thomas (editor.)
The basic set-up is this: Spider-man is on an ocean liner which contains (A) a serum which can save the life of his sickly Aunt May, and (B) A.J. Maxfeld the inventor of the serum, (C) Dracula, who wants to do away with the serum and kill it's creator because it can rather nebulously "interfere with my well laid plans" and (D) a bunch of (presumably Italian) gangsters who want to hold the serum and the doctor hostage in exchange for US passports.
And the whole thing takes place during a costume party...
But first... here it is... Spider-Man meets Dracula!
