See The Avengers #92-93 to see what became of the Skrull cows and FF Annual #17 to see the unexpected consequences of that transformation.

Cei-U!
I summon the helpful hint!

He had a Skrull skull.

Around the time of the mad cow disease scare in the UK, Grant Morrison and Mark Millar wrote Skull Kill Krew, in which some of those who ate the meat from Skrull cows developed skrull-like abilities.

Amazing Spider-Man #1 “Spider-Man vs. The Chameleon"

Written by Stan Lee
Art by Steve Ditko
Letters by Johnny Duffy



Cover: No cover (it's a second story).  But the surrogate cover of the splash page works pretty well for me.  

The Story:  Peter Palmer (yep...that's a heck of a mistake.  And not just in panel one put also in panel five) decides the way to make money is to join up with the Fantastic Four, certain they'll love having a super-powered teen in the group.  I guess Johnny Storm is chopped liver.  Going to The Baxter Building he tries the elevator, but when it doesn't work he remembers you need a special electronic beam to open it...because that's something that should be public knowledge.  So he decides to tight-rope walk a webline to get to their private skyscraper headquarters.  

  Peter Palmer, yo! 

His attempt enter The Baxter Building sets off an alarm alerting the FF who all happen to be home.  The Torch wonders why he didn't phone for an appointment like everyone else.  The FF attempt to capture him in a plexi-glass cage, but he escapes, prompting concern from Reed about him damaging expensive equipment. And thus we build on the soon to be tradition of Marvel heroes fighting each other for no good reason (we had initiated this in FF #12 the same month).  At least it's a quick fight, only two pages, before Reed stops the fight and informs Spidey that all the FF's money goes in to scientific research.  



Meanwhile, we are introduced to The Chameleon, a master of disguise, who uses those wonderful comic book rubber masks that make absolutely no sense.  We see him stealing scientific information to sell to "iron curtain countries."  He also decides that Spider-Man must have tried to join the FF because he is wanted by the police and can't make "legitimate money" so he'll make the perfect fall guy.  The Chameleon is also able to deduce that Spider-Man has "spider-senses" and he figures out how to broadcast to Spidey via them to set a trap for him.  



The Chameleon is going to dress as Spidey and commit his theft then escape, leaving the real Spidey to take the blame.  The Chameleon disguises himself as an elevator operator, then as Spider-Man as he steals missile defense plans and shoots webs with a gun.  He then dashes to the roof and escapes in a helicopter as the hapless Spider-Man arrives for this "meeting."  Apparently nobody noticed there was a helicopter taking off and landing on the rooftop.  Spidey is accosted by police but webs them and then his Spidey senses give him a bead on the Chameleon.  Cham is about to land his helicopter on a "red sub" complete with hammer & sickle in a red circle on it, because you wouldn't want to be inconspicuous when you're committing spy-craft.  Of course Spidey's webs keep him out of the sub and he forces Cham and the helicopter back to the rooftop.  



Spidey starts to turn him over to the police, but of course Cham escapes because we have two pages left.  And he serendipitously has a police costume just to make things a little harder and so Spidey can again use his Spidey senses and we can have a couple more pages of conflict.  Of course he's caught in the end, but Pete is upset that nothing ever goes right and wishes he could be a real boy...I mean that he didn't have his powers.  And the FF muse about what could happen if he became a menace.  Or even a threat.  




Thoughts…

This story and FF #12 in one month are really ground zero for the Marvel Universe.  This stuff is all happening in one place...mostly in Manhattan.  And the rest is history.  

So if all the FF's money goes in to scientific research then what do they live on?  We never see any sign of them doing actual jobs.  Sue & Johnny have a separate residence and so, presumably, does Ben (though we haven't seen it yet.  How do they pay for these things?  One has to assume they receive a stipend out of the FF income (we know that there are FF funnybooks).  So why not just tell Spidey they aren't hiring at the moment?  

Can I just say that the whole rubber mask disguise thing has always driven me nuts, even as a kid.  At least the chameleon doesn't put it on over a Bat-mask with big-ass ears.  But he still has every conceivable mask, hair and costume as well as just ignoring issues of height, weight and voice.  Bah!! Dude must have a bag of holding to carry all that crap around.  

Not only that but he's a scientific genius who can figure out that Spidey has spider senses and how to broadcast to them.  Though we've seen no sign of those senses before now and he's barely appeared in public.  But sure.  

Sigh...commies.  

I'm not sure why Chameleon needed to set Spider-Man up to take the fall, other than for the story to happen.  We had already seen him as a successful industrial thief just using his costumes.  What sense does it make to insert a super-powered being into the mix, other than to make the story happen?  

I've seen some folks, including some here, complain that Peter Parker isn't stoic enough.  I actually really like that here.  He acts like a teenager.  Everything is super important and dramatic and taking one on the chin is the end of the world.  I think this is one place where Lee and Ditko are spot on.  

I wonder if these two stories and the two in ASM #2 were originally planned for Amazing Fantasy.  


The plot: The story is okay.  The bits with the FF were fine, if not great.  The fight with The Chameleon is fine, if not stellar. It's an okay story for the time period. Grade: B-

The art: Ditko's art is frequently wonky as hell. But it absolutely works for Spider-Man. Grade: B+.

The toll: Some possible damage to the Baxter Building.  A door torn off of Cham's helicopter (serves him right).  

Grade for historic importance: A.  There's a lot happening here.  It's still the first issue of a landmark series.  It's also seminal in the establishment of the Marvel Universe with a major crossover between what would become Marvel's two top titles.  And we have the first appearance of The Chameleon, who is probably a B tier villain, but is still important.  

It has been established that Reed's various patents earn them income and one would assume that a portion of it is budgeted for necessities and discretionary spending. Reed was probably just BSing Peter Palmer to get rid of him, because Sue found him icky. Beside, ben and Johnny were distraction enough without adding a third playmate to the mix.

That bottom middle panel, of the helo....pretty certain that if they were at that angle, the helo would crash. Helicopters can do a lot of maneuvers, but the only one I ever heard that could go into a loop was the CH-53 Super Stallion and it would damage the rotors enough that it wouldn't fly long after coming out of the loop. That thing is beyond 90 degrees and I am relatively certain it would stall or tear the rotors up.

I always love how the Soviet ships have big Hammer & Sickle emblems placed on them. I don't see that here.....



That's a Foxtrot-class diesel submarine, circa the Cuban Missile Crisis. You don't paint national symbols on ships...you display the national flag from a jackstaff (subs, when on the surface) As it is, the Soviet military symbol was the Red Star, not the Hammer & Sickle.

Bad enough that Stan always went for Commies, for the lack of better villains; but, neither he nor the artists seem to have any idea about Soviet weapons.

I give Ditko points for not drawing something that looked like a WW2 U-boat, which probably happened more often than not, unless the artist saw the newswire photos of the USS Nautilus, when it did its Round-The-World cruise. He did miss the fact that there are other hatches, on the deck, and not just one in the conning tower.

Landlubbers!