The only time I remember them even being in the same comic was during the original Secret Wars 12-parter, but I don't think they had any particular interaction with one another.  An actual Hulk/Lizard story like you described would be pretty interesting, with a good creative team behind it.  There would have to be at least one scene with the two of them exchanging wardrobe tips of course.

I don't think we ever saw Dr. Stephen Strange with test tubes and a bunsen burner, did we? He's the only other surgeon in the MU I can think off.

I'm sure later writers have added all sorts of stuff to his backstory, but I don't think there's much regular medical or science work in the Lee/Ditko era stories.  We didn't see Dr. Strange doing much other than some surgery in his origin story.  When his hands were injured he wasn't really interested in any other type of work that was offered to him.  Then when he finally got started on his mystical path, I'd think stuff like regular lab work, or building robots, probably wouldn't have interested him too much. 

I'm not sure I know why these sorts of things interested Don Blake much either, other than as a plot contrivance.  


Johnny and Sue Storm's father was a surgeon but we didn't get to see much of him other than his one appearance.  When he was practicing, I suppose he could have had the same extracurricular hobbies as all the other Marvel scientists.

I think the cover of Marvel Tales #144 is a bit of a garish mess, to be honest. I really don't like the bright orange and yellow sky on the reprint; the more natural blue sky of the original cover of Amazing Spider-Man #7 is much better. I also prefer the colouring of the Vulture on the original cover, especially the yellow in his wings, which makes the feathers seem more three dimensional than they do on the reprint. In fact, the only respect in which the reprint cover scores over the original is in having the Vulture's fur collar the correct colour.








And the first time his accuracy with his web-shooters has let him down too.

This is also the first time we really get an inkling about Peter Parker's accelerated healing factor. When he initially hits the rooftop, after his fall while fighting the Vulture, he's in a lot of pain – he thinks his arm is probably broken. To be honest, for any normal human, a fall like that would have resulted in many broken bones and, in all likelihood, death. But by the time Peter reaches home, his arm is obviously feeling a bit better and seems like it's merely sprained. Later still, although it's still tender, it is healed enough that he can battle the Vulture, if he doesn't move it too much. And by next issue Peter's arm is fully healed.





Yeah, it's strange that we still know so little about the Vulture, even after his second appearance. Pretty much every other Spider-villain so far has had his backstory at least roughly laid out for the reader. Then again, I can't say that the lack of an origin story for him ever bothered me when I read this comic back in the '80s.

It's interesting that the Vulture goes back to his old hideout, which we saw in Amazing Spider-Man #2. The authorities must not have found it when he was captured last time, I guess, so why not?






Yeah, I agree that the final battle with the Vulture in The Daily Bugle offices and print room is very exciting and spectacularly drawn by Steve Ditko. I especially like the gymnastics that Ditko has Spidey perform, like leap-frogging J. Jonah Jameson to pursue the Vulture.

I also love the devil-may-care way in which Spidey webs the Vulture's wings together when they are many hundreds of feet above the New York pavement, and the Vulture goes to pieces, thinking that they are both going to plumet to their deaths. Of course, Spidey whips up a handy-dandy web parachute and the defeated Vulture lands safely on the street below. Kinda makes you wonder why Peter didn't just web up a parachute for himself earlier, when he was falling after their previous encounter. Especially as he had used a web parachute before in ASM #1. I guess he was just falling too fast in his first battle with the Vulture.





That scene at the end, with the two young lovebirds sat behind an office desk – while an irate Jameson rampages through the office, unable to talk due to Spidey having webbed his mouth shut – is one of my favourite parts of the issue. Also, it's hilarious earlier on that when Betty doesn't believe that Peter hurt his arm playing volleyball, he just tells her the truth that he hurt it battling the Vulture…and she still doesn't believe him! That's a great bit of scripting by Stan Lee.


Overall, this was another hugely enjoyable instalment of the series. It was a touch better than the previous Lizard issue, I think, with Spider-Man back in familiar territory and fighting a familiar foe. Compared to the Vulture's first appearance in ASM #2, Lee and Ditko give us a better, more exciting, and funnier story here.

As a nerdy aside, I believe that this is the first time that it's specified that Aunt May's house is in the Forest Hills area of Queens. Previously, all we knew was that Peter lived in Long Island, if memory serves.

Loving the thread so far. Revisiting these early Spidey stories is always a lot of fun.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 8 (reprinted in Marvel Tales 145)




1- “The Terrible Threat of the Living Brain!”

Credits (as they appear in the comic):

Written by Stan Lee
Illustrated by Steve Ditko
Lettered by Art Simek
Colored by Andy Yanchus


Plot Synopsis:

It’s a typical school day for Peter Parker when he has to deal with Flash Thompson, hide his secret identity and stop an out-of-control robot rampaging through the halls of Midtown High.





Comments:

Peter’s glasses get broken when he gets shoved by Flash Thompson. Pete mentions that he doesn’t need them anyway, though it’s not clear from the stories if this was due to his Spider-powers or not. Regardless, he pretty much never wears them again




The rivalry between Peter and Flash finally comes to a head when they agree to a boxing match in the gym. Flash has been teasing and/or bullying Peter since the first story, but this is the first actual fight between the two. The boxing match between Pete and Flash doesn’t really settle things. Even with Peter trying to hide his powers, but still punching Flash’s lights out, everyone watching just assumes Pete got in a lucky sucker-punch. Even Flash isn’t sure what actually happens. Not sure if this affects Flash’s opinion of Peter much, since they’re back to their usual ways in the issues that follow. There is a scene with an interesting change in Flash’s behaviour in a couple issues which I’ll discuss when I get to it.


As for the villain of the issue, this is the first appearance of the Living Brain. The next appearance won’t be for quite a while though. Unlike some of the other villains, the Brain isn’t a real big recurring threat, but it has been used a lot more in recent years.

The Living Brain is a big thinking computer with a blocky, kinda humanoid shape, which I guess makes it ideal for use as a teaching gimmick at high schools, deducing secret identities, and/or fighting super-heroes. During this demonstration at Midtown High, Peter’s classmates get the idea to program the Brain to deduce Spider-man’s identity. Spidey’s been around quite a while and been in the public spotlight, as well as appearing on TV and as a performer for at least several weeks during the events of Amazing Fantasy 15, so there’s quite a bit of relevant (and possibly incriminating) info on him which can be fed into the computer. Luckily for all of us that Peter manages to ensure the coded print-out with results of the Brain’s analysis are lost following the action in this issue, so his identity remains secret and we get to enjoy his further adventures for years to come. I do wonder though what answer it actually came up with?



2- “Spider-man Tackles the Torch”

Credits (as they appear in the comic):

Written by Stan Lee
Drawn by Jack Kirby
Inked by Steve Ditko
Lettered by S. Rosen
Colored by A. Yanchus


Plot Synopsis:

Spider-man gets into a fight with the Human Torch and the rest of the FF (again)!




Comments:

I've said it before, but the Human Torch and the Fantastic Four are becoming as much a part of the recurring cast of characters as Aunt May, Flash, Liz, JJJ and Betty by the amount of times they appear in this series.


The Official Spider-man Index from the 80s and some other authorized chronologies place this story after ASM 21 because that’s the first time Peter meets Johnny Storm’s girlfriend Doris Evans I think it works just fine where it is and doesn’t need to be placed so far ahead of where it was published. Spidey doesn’t really have any direct interaction with Doris in this story (I’m not even sure which girl she’s supposed to be) and just because he knows who she is and where she lives now, doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll remember it months from now. Maybe he just looked her up when he found out the Torch would be visiting and decided to crash the party.




General comments :

The cover calls this a Tribute to Teenagers, but I’m not sure it’s got any more teenage content than any other issue we’ve seen so far, even with 2 stories. It's worth noting that Jameson and Aunt May are nowhere to be found in these pages. Maybe removing the two eldest recurring cast members (and even Betty) is all it takes to qualify for Teenage Tribute status

Not sure why they reverted back to the old 2 story format for this one issue. Could the backup story penciled by Kirby have been intended for Strange Tales? That doesn’t explain why the lead story would be shorter than usual. Maybe the Torch story was ready to go, and they just came up with a shorter lead story to fill up the issue.





Notable differences in the reprint:

The original cover had a bright yellow background, but this one just uses plain white, with red above the "tribute" banner. I think the yellow background on the original works better than white. I do like the hi-lights on Spidey’s costume on the re-coloured version though, since it looks like it's being cast from the Human Torch's flame. The preview from last issue's letters page teased a light blue back-ground which I think might have looked okay, but the intense yellow on the original is definitely the better choice!

No Marvel Mails letters page, but there’s note on that last page to assure us it’ll be back next issue.


Personal anecdotes:

I got this issue around late 1988, in a comic shop I only visited twice around that time and only once again 20 years later. My mother had driven me and my brother to a big children’s bookstore which we had visited a lot in past years when we lived closer to it, but I was distracted when I spotted this comic store around the corner, so the bookstore trip was cut a little shorter than planned, to make room for what my 12-year old self thought to be the more important priority of the day. I recall picking up a few new issues of comics I would have gotten eventually anyway, and maybe some back issues too, but while in line I spotted some other customer with another Marvel Tales (either the reprint of ASM 9 or 10) and realized I hadn’t browsed the MT back issues. My brother held my spot in line while I quickly ran over and picked out a random issue which I didn’t already have.


Prior to this I think I had read a story with The Living Brain from The Electric Company magazine in the 1980s, but I don’t think I had realized the character originated in the early Spider-man stories before reading this issue

Actually, I first read the story with the Torch a few years earlier when it was reprinted again in Marvel Tales 194 in late 1986 as a backup. It’s one of the few Marvel Tales issues I got new during that time, (probably because there wasn’t anything else I wanted at whichever store I bought it from). I probably recognized the art style as Kirby or Ditko (without actually paying attention to the credits, because I didn’t always do that), but didn’t necessarily know where it was from.

I'm not sure if I realized before reading this story that there was a period when the Invisible Girl and Mr. Fantastic were not yet married, since I hadn't really read any of their earlier comics, so the scene where Spidey flirts with her, and the way Sue reciprocates, came as a surprise

I still have every comic I got as a kid, even the ones that I didn't necessarily take the best care of.  Most of those have been replaced with better copies over the years, but there is a dedicated box in my collection for those ragged, coverless comics of my youth