THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 13 (reprinted in Marvel Tales 151 )




“The Menace of… Mysterio!”

Credits (as they appear in the comic):

Stan Lee, Author
Steve Ditko, Artist
Lettered by Art Simek
Colored by Andy Yanchus


Plot Synopsis:

Spider-man has been seen committing crimes and Peter isn’t sure what’s going on, but maybe the mysterious Mysterio knows something about it




Comments:

Spider-man caught in the act, committing a crime is definitely the type of news story J.Jonah Jameson lives for. Even though the people of New York, particularly those who read the Daily Bugle, are ready to believe the worst about Spidey, I'm sure even the youngest comic book readers weren't fooled for a second. Still, we have to wait until close to the end of the story before we get any confirmation that the new villain Mysterio is behind all this, but there's a lot of fun stuff though-out, and it's worth the wait.


This is the first appearance of special effects man turned super-villain Mysterio who will return time and time again to mess with Spidey. He’s unmasked and his origin is revealed right here in this issue, but it will be quite some time before the readers learn his real name: Quintin Beck. It’s not mentioned in any of his appearances until his profile in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe in the 1980s. I think the first time it is mentioned in an actual comic story though is in the Spider-man issue of QuestProbe, which is where I first saw it used. Does anyone know where the Quentin Beck name originated? Seems like an odd thing to reveal in a Handbook profile of all places. Maybe it was intended to be used by the writers for one of Mysterio’s early 80s appearance in ASM or PPSSM, but never made it into the actual story.

It’s worth noting, that even though this wouldn’t be in-continuity with the comics, Stan Lee gave Mysterio a different name in the newspaper strip in 1978. His real name there is Hadley Harper, but clearly drawn to look like the usual Mysterio who appears in the comics.





More important than the introduction of a new super-villain, of course, and following Betty’s updated appearance last issue, it’s now Liz’s turn to show off a new hairdo. This actually happens between pages as we see her earlier in the story with her old look. I don’t think she ever gets much of a distinctive look even though she’ll continue to serve as a supporting character at various points throughout Spidey’s history.





There have been Spider-man imposters in these pages before, but this one definitely takes things to the next level. In ASM 1, the Chameleon only needed to fool the guy he was robbing, plus a few security guards and police officers. Flash Thompson was a little more convincing when he managed to fool Dr. Doom in ASM 5, and Doom's the smartest villain in the Marvel Universe! Mysterio is the only Spidey imposter who manages to fool... Peter himself! I'm not sure if this has to do with Mysterio's skill as a master manipulator, Peter's insecurities, or maybe a little of both. A humorous scene in this issue, which is referenced on the cover, has Spidey visiting a psychiatrist when he thinks he’s going crazy and committing crimes in his sleep. Not sure if Mysterio’s plan to frame Spidey in this story was intended to also make him question his sanity, but a later scheme in an upcoming appearance certainly would.

Some good action in this issue, both with Spider-man and Mysterio's first confrontation on the Brooklyn Bridge, then the big final battle at the movie studio in the middle of a sci-fi film shoot! This story was adapted fairly faithfully for the 1960s Spider-man cartoon, and again in the 1990s animated series, each with their own versions of the bridge fight and variations on the movie studio battle.


Like a few other, future Mysterio stories, there are some panels at the end after he’s caught explaining his tricks. He will of course go on to come up with new schemes and illusions time and time again. Certain things like the spider-sense jammers will occasionally get forgotten in later stories.






Notable differences in the reprint:

A significant portion of the cover gets omitted to make room for the UPC box. At least my latest copy is a direct edition with a cool pic of Spidey, but still it's sad to see any piece of Ditko art get discarded like that!




Again, there’s a Marvel Mails letters page close to the end of the story, after page 20. Tom DeFalco is still Editor, but Eliot Brown is now Assistant Editor


Personal anecdotes:

This is a very important issue for me!

It’s the first Lee/Ditko Spidey story I ever read (via the reprint in Marvel Tales 151). I was 7 years old and had encountered Spider-man before, of course in other comics, cartoons, the newspaper strip, the segments on The Electric Company and the live-action series, but something about this one really caught my interest. I didn’t understand that it was a reprint of an older story, even though I knew I was reading Spider-man’s first encounter with Mysterio whom I knew to be an established character.

Not sure what it was about the art, or the story, but I got Marvel Tales 153 soon after and it quickly became my favorite title to look out for. The similarities to the art and stories on the 60s cartoon probably played some part in this, but I’m sure there was more to it.

Back then I didn’t really get the difference between the various Spider-man titles. I could read well enough, and knew that the different titles used different looking logos, but probably didn’t pay much attention to the actual title names. I don’t even think I knew this was called Marvel Tales, even though it’s right there on the cover. I just called it "the Spider-man book with the picture of his head in the top corner".

I do think I noticed that Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-man used his real name on the cover and that Marvel Team-up had different guest stars each issue, but I just assumed that book was called “Spider-man and…”

I do remember feeling quite proud of myself a year or so later, after I had a bunch of Marvel Tales comics and was able to deduce from references in the letters page and by comparing the issues they were talking about with ones I had that comic books were numbered. For some reason I had never really noticed this before and if anyone else I knew was aware that comics had issue numbers, they never thought to mention it to me, so I had to figure things out for myself!

I still have the original copy my dad bought me, as I do with mostly every comic from when I was a kid but the cover and some of the pages went missing decades ago. Like a lot of my old comics that weren’t properly cared for, it was eventually replaced with a better condition copy.

Just for the heck of it, I tried to figure out what the other comic I got at the same time as this one. I seem to think it was something with Superman, so I tried looking around to see what else might have been on the shelf at the same time as MT 151. I’ve got both World’s Finest #290 and 292, so either one (or both of these) could be it!

That issue, with the fight on the set of a scifi film, was one of the best things Ditko did on the book.

What a coincidence! This was my second Lee/Ditko Spidey story, and I too read it when I was 7 (in March 1964). This one still has its cover.

I'm also not a fan of the names first revealed in the Handbook. As I mentioned in a recent Classic Comics Christmas, I refuse to refer to Enchantress and Executioner as "Amora" and "Skurge". Those aren't the names I know them by.

Mysterio's one of favourites of Spidey's rogues gallery. I think he was used quite well throughout the Ditko/Romita era, beginning with this issue.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 14 (reprinted in Marvel Tales 152)


“The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin”

Credits (as they appear in the comic):

Written by Stan Lee (the poor man’s Shakespeare)
Illustrated by Steve Ditko (the poor man’s Da Vinci)
Lettered by Art Simek (the poor man’s rich man)
Colored by Andy Yanchus (the rich man’s poor man)


Plot Synopsis:

Spidey’s (real) arch enemy is here! Enter… the Green Goblin!




Comments:

This is the first appearance of the Green Goblin. His true identity will continue to be a mystery for some time, and he’ll go on to become one of Spider-man’s deadliest foes.

This early issue offers barely any clues to who the Goblin is, other than the fact he’s a guy in a mask, and has some type of mechanical expertise, since he’s shown working on his “Flying Broomstick” himself. Eventually the Broomstick will be replaced by his more famous Bat Glider for later appearances, and though he’s shown hurling stun bombs, it’s not clear if they’re shaped like pumpkins at this point.


Though Spidey learns that the Goblin is an actual villain out to get him, it’s not really revealed to the general public that he’s a criminal. Technically he hasn’t done anything too illegal at this point. Sure he’s consorting with known criminals like the Enforcers, and he tries to kill Spider-man, but that doesn’t really seem to be illegal in the Marvel Universe, since Jameson will do that sort of thing regularly for the next 60 years! At this point, as far as anyone else knows, the Goblin is just a masked character with some sort of gimmick who wants to be a movie star. That’s a common thing in the Marvel Universe and not too different from what Spidey wanted to do when he started out.




This is the second issue in a row where Spidey messes up the filming of a movie. Not really his fault though that Mysterio was using the studio as his HQ last issue, or that the Goblin came up with an elaborate scheme to trick Spider-man into starring in a movie about himself. Actually now that I think about it, it’s pretty clever of him to lure Spidey out into the desert where he’s outside his element and doesn’t have the same advantages he’d have in New York. The fight scene in the cave is pretty cool, and Ditko does some interesting work with the shadows to establish the mood.




This issue, of course features a guest appearance by the Incredible Hulk because two green and purple Marvel characters are better than one! Spidey and Hulk are my favorite Marvel characters, and the Green Goblin is my favorite villain, so having them all in one place is awesome! The Hulk’s guest-appearance occurs in the brief time between when his own title was cancelled, and before he gained his own feature in Tales to Astonish. I usually prefer Jack Kirby's Hulk to Ditko's, but the character comes off pretty well in this issue.







This issue has the usual mix of sub-plots with the usual cast of characters. (it still amazes me how much story gets packed into these pages). Betty mentions seeing Peter walking home with Liz lately. Not sure if the two girls have met before, but Betty does know Liz’s full name and she is becoming increasingly jealous of other girls. Not only of Liz, but also any potential starlets that Peter might run into during his trip to Hollywood.


It’s not too clear from the story, but the trip to Hollywood is probably intended to take place over a period of a few days, or weeks because Liz is expecting to get mail from Peter, and Aunt May is shown to be writing him a letter. I assume postal mail didn’t get delivered back then any quicker than it does now. The Goblin’s Flying Broomstick is shown to be capable of making a cross-country trip from California to New York several hours faster than the bus Peter takes. Obviously the Green Goblin was really intended to be Pete’s postman under that mask.





Notable differences in the reprint:

The cover gets flipped, and the Hulk’s picture is omitted, to make room for the UPC box. There's also some missing stalactites which gives us a better, clearer view of the Green Goblin.




Another splash page with a whole caption missing. Not sure why they removed this. The original text contained a reference to the price, but it could easily have been updated to adjust for inflation. This is around the time Marvel Tales was making changes to the text, updating topical references to make it seem like it takes place in the 80s. When I was originally reading a lot of these issues, I probably was still too young to get the references at all, so my preference is with the originals.  




In one scene, a reference to “Tony Curtis” becomes “Tom Sellick”, and a whole line about the Beatles gets removed completely from the same word balloon. The first issue I noticed this was Marvel Tales 149. There were some similar types of changes in MT 150 as well, but since I re-arranged these stories to their proper reading order I haven’t get to that one yet. Tom Sellick would have been popular at the time, so this change might make sense, since it seemed like they were trying to appeal to a younger audience than the ones who were around the first time these stories were released. Not sure why the Beatles had to be removed though. I'm sure 1980s readers would have been familiar with their music, but of course the band was no longer together at that time, which is probably why the change was decided on.




Also, "Krushchev" is updated to "Arafat" and "J. Edgar Hoover" is updated to "Begin". I recognize the first three names, but don't really know who "Begin" was? I tried searching the name and found Wikipedia's page for famous people named "Begin", but couldn't figure out which one they may have been referring to. Anyone know?




Marvel Mails is still here, printing letters about issues from a few months back. Tom DeFalco Editor. Eliot Brown, Assistant Editor


Personal anecdotes:

Even though I got Marvel Tales 151 and 153 when they first came out, I didn’t get this one till much later. I was in vacation in Germany and Greece in the summer of 1983 with my family and after reading MT 151 and 153 I’d already decided that this was the series I was going to keep an eye out. Somehow I missed MT 152 when I picked up the other two. I just assumed 153 was the next issue after 151 because I hadn't yet realized comics were numbered. You can imagine my excitement when I spotted this issue hanging at a Greek newsstand in the middle of whatever city we were visiting. I’d probably seen other Spidey comics around while on this trip, but they were local German or Greek versions. This one was an actual Marvel Tales issue, in English, just like the other two I enjoyed so much. My Mom was looking for something to read for herself, and I kept pointing to the Spider-man comic, but unfortunately my cries went unheard at the time. Somehow though everything about the cover was burned into my brain. There was Spider-man and the Green Goblin of course, and there were those guys in the background. The caption mentioned the Hulk, but where was he? Maybe he was one of those background characters.

Anyway, after our vacation was done, when I got back home, my Dad took me to the newsstand where he usually bought me comics and I was determined to get a Marvel Tales issue, hopefully that one with the Green Goblin that I missed out on. By pure coincidence, what I ended up getting was the next Green Goblin appearance from a few issues later. I someone convinced myself it was the same issue I’d seen even though I knew it had a different cover. I probably assumed that it just had some sort of variant cover for Greek newsstands (with English writing) even though it would be decades before I knew what a variant cover was or that they would ever become a common thing.

I finally got this issue sometime in the summer of 1986 when I was picking up the other back issues I’ve talked about in earlier posts. It was at the same store of course, which I seem to have made quite a few trips to that summer even though it wasn’t any where close to where my family was living. My Dad worked close by to it, so I assume we were meeting him for visits to his office whenever we could.

As I recall, sometime that same summer I’d also watch a rerun of the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes which I’d never seen, where the original ASM 14 played an important role in the story. Obviously my reprint copy wasn’t as valuable as the comic in the show, but still just as important to me!