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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 28, 2024 11:06:54 GMT -5
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Post by jtrw2024 on Jul 28, 2024 14:27:23 GMT -5
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 1 (reprinted in Marvel Tales 138)  There are “2 Great Feature Length Thrillers” in this issue 1- “Spider-man Freak! Public Menace!” (I don’t think that’s actually supposed to be the title, but that’s what it says on the first page and how I originally interpreted it, so I’m sticking with that)!  Credits (as they appear in the comic): Script: Stan Lee Art: Steve Ditko Lettering: Johnny Dee Plot Synopsis: Spider-man hasn’t even begun his crime fighting career and still hasn't decided on what to do with his powers, but Daily Bugle Publisher J.Jonah. Jameson has already got him figured out. Spider-man is a menace, and Jameson will go any lengths to prove it! Short on cash now that Uncle Ben is no longer around to support him and Aunt May, Peter briefly considers a life of crime before falling back on his showbiz gig as Spider-man. This is short-lived however, once he realizes he can't cash cheques made out to Spider-man. That coupled with the added pressure from Jameson's anti-Spider-man campaign, Peter realizes he can't continue to earn money as an entertainer. Even a daring rescue performed by Spider-man to save the life of J.J. Jameson's astronaut son cannot change the publisher's opinion of our web-headed hero 2- “Spider-man vs. The Chameleon”!  Credits (as they appear in the comic): Script: Stan Lee Art: Steve Ditko Lettering: John Duffi Coloring: Andy Yanchus Plot Synopsis: After a failed attempt to join the Fantastic Four, Spider-man is tricked and framed by the evil master of disguise called the Chameleon! In the end Spider-man manages to clear his name and help capture the villain, but he's still no better off than before. Comments on both these stories: First appearances of: -J Jonah Jameson  also, -John Jameson, JJJ’s astronaut son -The Chameleon This is the first time Spidey meets the Fantastic Four. We’ll see these guys again in these pages, and of course they’ve got their own comic. This isn’t the first time Marvel readers saw the Daily Bugle though, since it appeared in the second issue of Fantastic Four The second page quickly recaps Spidey’s origin. It leaves out the important detail that Peter had a chance to stop the Burglar, but otherwise it’s accurate. There’s also the added scene of the Burglar shooting Uncle Ben, with Aunt May watching in horror. This will be elaborated in more detail about 200 issues later though somehow gets forgotten by some later writers  Spidey’s danger warning spider-sense is first shown during his fight with the Fantastic Four. It’s not really clear if this has always been one of his powers, and maybe it’s just the first time we’re seeing it. The Chameleon certainly knows how to use it to his advantage when he contacts Spidey by broadcasting a message that only his spider-sense can pick-up. Maybe the Chameleon studied up on spiders at the same museum spider-exhibit that Peter was attending It’s interesting that even after Uncle Ben’s death, Peter still hasn’t committed himself to crime fighting in this first issue. He’s still trying to figure out ways to make money and even briefly contemplates stealing to get what he needs. He goes right back to performing as Spider-man, and would probably have continued doing so if the manager hadn't stopped paying him in cash. He does of course save John Jameson’s life when the astronaut’s capsule goes out of control, but this just seems to be a right time, right place type of situation. Stealing a jet and convincing the pilot to fly up in to the clouds to make a daring rescue isn’t really a typical job for Spider-man. Even his attempt to join the Fantastic Four is still motivated by profit as is his gullibility when it comes to the Chameleon’s trap a few pages later. Spidey only goes after the villain in the end because he wants to prove to the police he had nothing to do with Chameleon’s crime. Notable differences in the reprint: Of course the colouring is updated. Nothing too drastic. Spidey still looks like Spidey, and the FF are in their usual colours. Recent reprints seem to use a weird purple like colour instead of blue for Spidey’s costume for the first four issues, probably to match the quality of the original printing. I prefer the Marvel Tales approach, at least making it consistent with the rest of the issues. It seems like Andy Yanchus isn't necessarily trying to match the colouring of the originals, just treating it as any other comic colouring job. Of course Spider-man will be coloured like he's supposed to be, and so will the FF, but as far as things like the Chameleon's helicopter, or background characters, he's just going with what colours he thinks look good.  The hyphens were missing from the first story in the original , but replaced in this Marvel Tales reprint Of course any mistaken references to our star as “Peter Palmer” in the second story are corrected. In the original Spidey calls Chameleon “Commie” when he catches up to his escape copter, but that’s changed for Marvel Tales 138, and now it’s just “Buddy”.  Personal anecdotes: I’m not sure when I first learned that Amazing Fantasy 15 wasn’t Amazing Spider-man number 1, and I’m tempted to just call this issue 2, but then I’d have to adjust all the other numbers going forward, and that would be confusing. I’m sure I already had it figured out by the time I picked up MT 138 sometime in August 1986 since I remembered showing it to someone the day I got it and referring to it as ASM 1(… and it says so right on the cover too) There was a time it bugged me that the Fantastic Four took up so much of the cover (even though they barely factor into the story), but now I think it’s kinda cool since Spidey’s place in the shared Marvel Universe is an aspect of these stories that I enjoy. A lot of my early exposure to the other characters in the MU came from some of their appearances in later Marvel Tales issues. |
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Post by tarkintino on Jul 28, 2024 17:26:15 GMT -5
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 1 (reprinted in Marvel Tales 138) In the original Spidey calls Chameleon “Commie” when he catches up to his escape copter, but that’s changed for Marvel Tales 138, and now it’s just “Buddy”. This type of editorial change is another way the tone of a comic--even character's perception to readers was re-shaped, whether the goal was due to internal or external (most likely) influences, such as Spider-Man not using the term, "Commie", no matter its meaning in the original script. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 28, 2024 19:57:31 GMT -5
Is Spidey doing the Funky Chicken on that first splash page?
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 29, 2024 14:27:13 GMT -5
 This is my first ever review thread, and of course it features Spider-man, my favourite character ever. I’ve seen several other threads covering these same stories, but I don’t think anyone’s ever touched on this particular format. I’ve re-read the early Spidey stories more than anything else, but this is probably the first time in decades that I’ll be re-reading the reprints in Marvel Tales which is the first place I ever encountered them. Jeez, I've been away from the forum a couple of days and I miss this review thread starting!  Spider-Man is my number 1 favourite superhero too, and like you, I first encountered the Lee/Ditko stories and early Lee/Romita stuff in mid-80s copies of Marvel Tales. As an adult, I'm not crazy about Marvel changing some of the then-current topical 60s references in some of these issues to mid-80s ones, but as a kid reading these reprints back in the day...I didn't care (or even realise, probably). Hell, I didn't even realise that these were reprints! I just thought Marvel Tales was one of the many current Spider-Man comics available at the time, though it was clearly telling stories from when Spidey was young. But with stories by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, no wonder I thought Marvel Tales was the best Spider-Man comic on the stands in the mid-80s!  As for Andy Yanchus' new colouring of these issues. I think he did a damn good job overall. Again, as an adult, I feel it's kind of a shame that they didn't preserve the original colouring of Stan Goldberg, but I didn't give a cr*p about that back when I first read these issues in Marvel Tales. Plus, as I say, I think Yanchus did a decent job with the interiors. As for the re-colouring of the covers -- and I've never been sure if that was Yanchus as well, but I assume so -- they are much more hit and miss. Sometimes the re-colouring actually does improve on the original, but not very often. For what it's worth, I prefer the colouring on the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 to how the same image looks on Marvel Tales #137. The moody grey wash of the sky in the original is way more aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. BTW, are you British? I see you spell certain words in the English manner, like wot I does!  I often see this story cited as one of the best origin stories ever, and it definitely is. There’s so much packed in to these few pages. Absolutely agree. They didn't mess about "writing for the trade" back then: this half-issue length origin story packs soooo much info and characterisation into its scant 11 pages. It's a tour de force of comic storytelling. That's such a great splash page by Ditko. Just from a visual perspective alone, it imparts so much information about the character of young Peter Parker and the events of the story to come. Utterly brilliant work! Of course, the story ends with that classic line “In this world, With Great Power, there must also come --Great Responsibility”. Sheer profundity. And poetry, for that matter! I've said it before in the forum and I'll say it again, there was a lot more philosophical depth in some of Stan Lee's writing than many people give him credit for. It’s interesting that even after Uncle Ben’s death, Peter still hasn’t committed himself to crime fighting in this first issue. He’s still trying to figure out ways to make money and even briefly contemplates stealing to get what he needs. He goes right back to performing as Spider-man, and would probably have continued doing so if the manager hadn't stopped paying him in cash. He does of course save John Jameson’s life when the astronaut’s capsule goes out of control, but this just seems to be a right time, right place type of situation. Stealing a jet and convincing the pilot to fly up in to the clouds to make a daring rescue isn’t really a typical job for Spider-man. Yeah, I think Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were definitely still trying to figure out what makes Spider-Man tick as a comic. There's lots of stuff being thrown at the wall here that ultimately won't stick-- such as Peter picking up messages encoded in frequency waves via his Spider-Sense -- but there's also a lot of stuff they get right straight away. I think that both of the stories in this issue are still very much routed in the oddball/weird Amazing Adult Fantasy tradition. I also think (and there are at least a few others in the forum who agree with me) that these two stories and the pair from next issue were originally intended for publication in Amazing Fantasy, rather than in a stand-alone headline Spider-Man comic. In the original Spidey calls Chameleon “Commie” when he catches up to his escape copter, but that’s changed for Marvel Tales 138, and now it’s just “Buddy”. Fascinating. I had never clocked that small, but important change. |
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Post by jtrw2024 on Jul 29, 2024 17:32:45 GMT -5
Jeez, I've been away from the forum a couple of days and I miss this review thread starting! Spider-Man is my number 1 favourite superhero too, and like you, I first encountered the Lee/Ditko stories and early Lee/Romita stuff in mid-80s copies of Marvel Tales. As an adult, I'm not crazy about Marvel changing some of the then-current topical 60s references in some of these issues to mid-80s ones, but as a kid reading these reprints back in the day...I didn't care (or even realise, probably). Hell, I didn't even realise that these were reprints! I just thought Marvel Tales was one of the many current Spider-Man comics available at the time, though it was clearly telling stories from when Spidey was young. But with stories by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, no wonder I thought Marvel Tales was the best Spider-Man comic on the stands in the mid-80s! As for Andy Yanchus' new colouring of these issues. I think he did a damn good job overall. Again, as an adult, I feel it's kind of a shame that they didn't preserve the original colouring of Stan Goldberg, but I didn't give a cr*p about that back when I first read these issues in Marvel Tales. Plus, as I say, I think Yanchus did a decent job with the interiors. As for the re-colouring of the covers -- and I've never been sure if that was Yanchus as well, but I assume so -- they are much more hit and miss. Sometimes the re-colouring actually does improve on the original, but not very often. For what it's worth, I prefer the colouring on the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 to how the same image looks on Marvel Tales #137. The moody grey wash of the sky in the original is way more aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. BTW, are you British? I see you spell certain words in the English manner, like wot I does! When I first read your comments, I had to double-check to make sure I didn't accidentally post one of my upcoming reviews out of sequence. Your remarks about not realizing Marvel Tales were reprints and some of your other comments, are extremely similar to something I've typed up for my personal comments on the first Lee/Ditko issue I ever read. Like you, I definitely prefer the originals as they are, which is probably why any time I've re-read the stories in the past 25 years or so, I've stuck to the original versions, or at least as close as I could get. At some point I filled in all the gaps in my Marvel Tales back issues, but up until now these comics have pretty much gone untouched, and unread! Even though I enjoyed these comics so much as a kid, once I became aware of the changes to the originals and had access to them, I probably dismissed Marvel Tales as some inferior copy, which is really unfair since there definitely was a sincere effort to put out a quality product here! For the record, I'm actually Canadian, eh, not British, but we use a lot of the same spellings. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 29, 2024 18:19:13 GMT -5
For the record, I'm actually Canadian, eh, not British, but we use a lot of the same spellings. Ahh...gotcha! Well, welcome to the forum my Commonwealth brother.  Really looking forward to seeing this thread grow. |
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Post by jtrw2024 on Jul 29, 2024 18:30:20 GMT -5
I think the first time I noticed the line was when I read this story reprinted in the Essential Spider-man collection, and thought it really stood out because it's so unlike Spidey to say that! I actually didn't even pick up on the fact that Marvel Tales had changed it until this recent re-read. It's really early on in Spider-man's history and they were still figuring things out and of course the Communist villains would be even more prevalent in other Marvel titles from this time. I don't think Spidey's ever called anyone a Commie in any other story since, though this line does get referenced in a Chameleon story from around the late 90s. |
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Post by jtrw2024 on Jul 30, 2024 16:18:09 GMT -5
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (reprinted in Marvel Tales 139)  “2 Great Spider-man Thrillers! 2 Great Super Villains!” 1- “Duel to the Death with the Vulture” Credits (as they appear in the comic): Script: Stan Lee Art: Steve Ditko Lettering: John Duffy Coloring: Andy Yanchus Plot Synopsis: Spider-man decides to use his powers to make money selling action photos to J Jonah Jameson’s NOW magazine and ends up facing the Vulture!  2- “The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer” Credits (as they appear in the comic): Story: Stan Lee Art: Steve Ditko Lettering: Art Simek Coloring: Andy Yanchus Plot Synopsis: Spider-man uncovers an evil alien plot involving the Terrible Tinkerer! Comments on both stories: Selling photos to Jameson will become a regular part of the status quo for many years to come. Last issue Jameson was publisher of the Daily Bugle, now he’s publisher of… um, well Now! Eventually they’ll just settle on the Daily Bugle. Jameson appears to have his hand in several different media ventures since he not only publishes a newspaper and a magazine, but regularly appears on TV. The things he’ll do to destroy Spider-man’s reputation The secretary who greets Peter outside Jameson’s office is probably supposed to be Betty Brant who will become a major cast member soon enough.  At first Spidey is just taking pictures of the villains. Eventually he’ll rig his camera to take automatic pictures of himself in action. I’ll have to see if I can pinpoint when he actually starts doing this because I can't really remember offhand. Peter adds a few final touches to his costume, with the hidden utility belt that stores extra web-fluid cartridges. He’s already planning to add a miniature camera soon as he can afford it. The belt buckle will become a spotlight that looks like Spidey’s face, but we won’t see that till next issue (just in case I forget to point that out later). The Vulture is Spidey’s first real foe with a super power or gimmick who can pose a physical challenge. He’ll be back soon. The Tinkerer not for a while. Peter assists Dr. Cobbwell in the second story. I don’t think he appears again though , at least not for a long awhile and certainly not in anything worth remembering Still no actual crime fighting (at least as far as normal crime goes), but he’s getting there. Spidey only tracks down the Vulture originally so he can take pictures of him, not to catch him. Once he sells his first photos, though, Spidey does go back out to finish the job, even going so far as to develop a way to neutralize the Vulture’s flying power. Peter stumbles on to the Tinkerer by accident, but once his suspicions are aroused, he does go to investigate.  The implication at the end with Peter holding the Tinkerer’s mask is that the Tinkerer was actually an alien, probably the same as the ones he was working with. I’ll admit this went totally over my head the first time I read it . I just assumed that the Tinkerer was just a regular guy wearing a disguise (similar to other characters we’ll meet in these pages soon enough). I actually suspected the Tinkerer was really Dr. Cobbwell . The Tinkerer’s secret and also that of the aliens would eventually be revealed, but not for a long while, so I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t read those stories. Okay, maybe I’ll spoil the Tinkerer’s secret. Underneath that mask, the Tinkerer was actually… the Tinkerer. No kidding! He was wearing a disguise that made him look exactly like himself just in case someone tried to unmask him?! I’m just going to stick with my Dr. Cobbwell theory! Starting next issue, the format changes to full length stories. The split two-story per issue format does re-appear a few months from now for a special "Tribute to Teenagers" issue. I guess that would make this issue the "Tribute to Senior Citizens"! Notable differences in the reprint: Nothing really notable, other than the colouring. I think they’d finally straightened out the hyphen situation by this issue which means I don’t have to keep paying attention to these. Personal anecdotes: I probably bought this Marvel Tales issue around 1988. I’d never heard of the Tinkerer before reading this story, but seem to remember seeing him soon after in a current issue of Amazing Spider-man, so the timing was good. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 31, 2024 7:50:54 GMT -5
Enjoying the thread jtrw. Like Confessor is about to do, I recently re-read these in the XXL Taschen book. The nature of the stories and the timeline of publication indicate that these two issues were intended for AAF. And I agree that they were trying things to see what Spider-Man was about. The fun is just beginning! |
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Post by Calidore on Jul 31, 2024 9:05:05 GMT -5
The hyphens were missing from the first story in the original , but replaced in this Marvel Tales reprint This made me wonder, when did Batman lose the hyphen? |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 31, 2024 9:17:46 GMT -5
The hyphens were missing from the first story in the original , but replaced in this Marvel Tales reprint This made me wonder, when did Batman lose the hyphen? The hyphen was gone as of Detective #29, his third appearance.
Cei-U! I summon the answer!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
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Post by Confessor on Jul 31, 2024 11:22:28 GMT -5
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (reprinted in Marvel Tales 139) There's not too much to choose between the original Stan Goldberg colouring on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #2 and the '80s Marvel Tales reprint, as the colours are mostly the same...  That said, I do think the inset panel of Spidey encountering the Tinkerer does "pop" a bit more on the Marvel Tales cover. Selling photos to Jameson will become a regular part of the status quo for many years to come. Last issue Jameson was publisher of the Daily Bugle, now he’s publisher of… um, well Now! Eventually they’ll just settle on the Daily Bugle. Jameson appears to have his hand in several different media ventures since he not only publishes a newspaper and a magazine, but regularly appears on TV. One of the captions here refers to "Jameson Publications", so I always interpreted it as J. Jonah Jameson still being the editor of The Daily Bugle, but Now! was the Bugle's new magazine supplement. American newspapers like The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post had been publishing glossy magazine supplements for years by this point. Even in dreary old Britain, The Sunday Times began publishing a magazine supplement in 1962. That said, the fact that Now! is emblazoned on the office building in which Jameson works is probably an artistic goof or an example of Stan Lee just forgetting about the Daily Bugle momentarily (shades of "Peter Palmer" perhaps?). But yes, having Peter sell hard to get photographs (unless you're Spider-Man) to Jameson is an example of something that Stan was throwing at the wall in these early issues which stuck. This issue also shows us Peter whipping up a handy pseudo-scientific doohickey in order to defeat the villain for the first time. That's another Spider-Man trope that will be retained in future issues. The secretary who greets Peter outside Jameson’s office is probably supposed to be Betty Brant who will become a major cast member soon enough. Hmmm….maybe. Jameson likely has more than one secretary or receptionist though. Maybe this is his receptionist in the Now! magazine offices, whereas Betty Brant works in the Daily Bugle offices? Of course, I'm almost positive that Stan wouldn't have known that he was going to introduce a regularly recurring secretary and future love interest of Peter's at this point. The Vulture is Spidey’s first real foe with a super power or gimmick who can pose a physical challenge. He’ll be back soon. I like the Vulture as a Spider-Man villain in this initial appearance. He seems like a genuine threat and quite a nasty, grumpy old man. On a related subject, it's interesting that almost all of Spider-Man's villains in the early part of the series – the Vulture, the Tinkerer, Doctor Octopus, Doctor Doom, and even J. Jonah Jameson – are old men or at least middle-aged. This is the '60s generation gap writ large! This is a representation of the old white men in authority who were always keeping the kids down, telling them to stop listening to rock 'n' roll or wasting their time with comics, and later on sending them to die in Vietnam. This is Stan Lee tapping directly into the feelings of young teenagers in the early-to-mid '60s and that's one of the reasons why Amazing Spider-Man resonated with them so much. It's also kind of interesting that Spidey gets beaten quite often in these early issues – memorably so, in fact, by Doctor Octopus in ASM #3. And here, the Vulture dumps Spidey's semi-conscious body into a rooftop water tower and leaves him to drown. Again, I feel as if these defeats by the likes of the Vulture and Doc Ock are examples of Stan tapping into that familiar feeling among the readers of grumpy, disciplinarian older folks always having the upper hand and always seemingly "winning". The young readers of these comics would've known that feeling from their own life all too well, I think. The implication at the end with Peter holding the Tinkerer’s mask is that the Tinkerer was actually an alien, probably the same as the ones he was working with. I’ll admit this went totally over my head the first time I read it . I just assumed that the Tinkerer was just a regular guy wearing a disguise (similar to other characters we’ll meet in these pages soon enough). I definitely picked up on the implication that the Tinkerer was an alien when I first read this comic back in the late-80s; he says to an alien in the story that Spider-Man is the "only mortal on Earth who suspects our presence here." The use of the word "our" being key – Tinker is an alien too. Really though, this is without doubt the most Amazing Adult Fantasy-esque story we get in these early issues of Amazing Spider-Man, with its thinly veiled "Reds under the bed" use of aliens. I think Lee and Ditko realised pretty quickly that using space aliens in a Spider-Man story wasn't really a good fit, given that Spidey is a much more down-to-earth, street level character than the likes of the Fantastic Four. But again, these were very early says in Spider-Man's development and they were just trying out lots of different stuff. The Tinkerer’s secret and also that of the aliens would eventually be revealed, but not for a long while, so I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t read those stories. Okay, maybe I’ll spoil the Tinkerer’s secret. Underneath that mask, the Tinkerer was actually… the Tinkerer. No kidding! He was wearing a disguise that made him look exactly like himself just in case someone tried to unmask him?! As revealed in Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #50, right? That's a great issue and it's also revealed in that comic that the Tinkerer was employed by the future Mysterio, Quentin Beck, to masquerade as an alien, with hired actors playing the other aliens. Ridiculous, obviously…but still a lot of fun. By the way, just as an aside, I think it's a nice touch that we see a bystander on the street blaming Spider-Man for starting a fire for the first time in this story. J. Jonah Jameson's anti-Spider-Man propaganda is definitely starting to have results! |
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 31, 2024 13:21:29 GMT -5
Listen, we all know that these were co plotted by Stan and Steve. And depending on how much of the plot they discussed (until they stopped talking and Ditko did all the story) there is no way to know which of them thought of it or if theycame up with it together. We should say Stan and Steve when bringing up things that are introduced. There are plenty of times Stan saw something for the first time when the art was done and the stories were not intricate page by page synopses just roughed out for Steve to plot.
All those ideas that are attributed to Stan were not his alone. Ditko was an equal creator in all of it.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 31, 2024 14:08:29 GMT -5
As revealed in Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #50, right? That's a great issue and it's also revealed in that comic that the Tinkerer was employed by the future Mysterio, Quentin Beck, to masquerade as an alien, with hired actors playing the other aliens. Ridiculous, obviously…but still a lot of fun. A quick correction here: It was the Tinkerer who hired Beck, not the other way around. It was SFX master Beck, however, who turned an ordinary helicopter into a "spaceship."
Incidentally, Tinkerer apparently modeled his faux aliens after a real extraterrestrial race, some of whom Jim Starlin would depict in Captain Marvel as members of Thanos' army of renegades. How, when, and where Tink encountered this species remains a mystery.
Cei-U! I summon the close encounter!
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Really looking forward to seeing this thread grow.
