It’s all so great! #21 with the Human Torch and the Beetle and Dorrie Evans! (By far, Dorrie’s best appearance!) And the Clown and the Masters of Menace! And all the gang bosses are named “Lucky”! And the one where Mysterio pretends to be a psychiatrist AND ALMOST GETS HIM! I don’t think there’s any run that I’ve read as often as Ditko’s Spider-Man. It’s the greatest.

Amazing Spider-Man #28-#39

So I just finished Ditko's run, "Just A Guy Named Joe" was a good story to end his run on I think. Not much to say about "The Master Planner" saga that probably hasn't been echoed before. Thought it made for a pretty darned good read. I also found time slowly looping back in itself with Peter's college class mates shunning him much like how he was in High School when in reality he was just worried about Aunt May

I was kind of hesitant to read ish 39, worrying that there would be some kind of tonal shift due to changing of the guard from Ditko to Romita, but those fears were quickly tossed aside. It was good issue. It was weird to me that they had slowly built up the "who's the green goblin?" and it turns out to be Norman Osborn who's only been in the past handful of issues. But you do kind of see his evil streak fairly early on and it makes sense. I wonder if it was Stan's idea to shoehorn Osborn in as Gobby or somebody else

This is one of those B&W "artist collections" featuring Will Elder. I bought this for two things.. the Ray Bradbury adaptations (of which there are only two), and Elder's PANIC work. I have read all of the MAD comics issues, and have several collections of various stories from them, but had never read PANIC. It's really great. Whereas MAD was written by Kurtzman, PANIC was written by Feldstein. Some of his comedic wordplay had me laughing out loud, and a LOT of the jokes, particularly in the Lil Abner and Joe Palooka parodies, were super "inside baseball", with references to the feud between them, Fisher trying to sabotage Capp's career, and Fisher trying to pick up chicks and schmooze people through messages in his strip. Really wonderful stuff. Now I need to find the Panic archives that I passed up on earlier. Stupid me.

I picked this hardcover up at Ollile's for a steal. I am a HUGE Blackhawk fan, but really only the Evanier/Spiegel run in the 80's. I had never read Chaykin's take, as I love his art, but grow weary of his stocking and garter fetishes, etc. So, for the price, I thought I would give it a go. The book contains the original Chaykin series, and all of the Blackhawk appearances from Action Comics Weekly.

I am torn. Chaykin's art is a win, just as is Burchett's art on the ACW portions. I wasn't crazy about the portrayal of Blackhawk as a Communist who fell out of favor with Stalin, and then decided to defect. I did like the story otherwise, with the American actor/Nazi sympathizer, etc. I really much preferred the more "adventure strip" ACW content. Chaykin has a way of telling a story that requires me to read and re-read to understand what's going on. Pasko and Grell's stories were more straightforward, and clear to me.

One weird thing... it was REALLY strange to be reading ACTION COMICS where there is nudity, swearing, and sexual situations... I guess when they dropped that comics code, they really dropped it. There are several instances of Blackhawk naked (from behind, usually), and once in a tub with two naked girls. Lots of innuendo. And a character who is really fond of saying "fuggin'".

The last story was an issue-long story featuring ALL of the stars of ACW... Superman, Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Blackhawk. I found it completely unreadable and pointless. I guess they were going to go out with a bang, before returning the the monthly adventures of Supes solo, but it didn't work for me.

I've always suspected Stan was misremembering, confusing the Goblin with the Crime-Master (who did turn out to be a "man nobody knew"), rather than deliberately lying about it. Like a lot of people with bad memories, he told certain stories so often he came to believe they were true. My brother's like that: you can see the cognitive dissonance on his face when you correct him and he realizes he's remembering something wrong.

Cei-U!
I summon the half-hearted defense!

Lee and Ditko didn't quarrel about the plots because early on Ditko did all the plotting and Stan first saw the story when the pages were delivered. Same with every Dr. Strange story, and same with many FF stories, where Kirby even put notes about the dialog in the margins.