Illusions shattered! Well, next you’ll be saying there aren’t space rocket launches near upstate New York, I mean we saw that in a Spidey comic once, right? 

This is one of my two all-time favourite issues from the Lee/Ditko run (it ties in 1st place with issue #20 for me).

I first encountered it in Marvel Tales #142 and, as a kid, I read and re-read that comic until the cover fell off! I just loved this issue soooo much. I still have my original dog-eared, coverless copy of Marvel Tales #142, just for sentimental reasons. Amazing Spider-Man #5 is a comic that is very dear to my heart, and I would love to one day own an original copy of it. Maybe if I win the lottery!

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I had absolutely no idea in the mid-80s that this story was some 20 years old by that point. That goes to show, I think, just how little the world had really changed between 1963 and 1983 (at least in my sleepy hometown in the English home counties); I saw nothing unusual about the clothes worn by the characters in this comic or the technology on display.


As for comparing the cover of ASM #5 to Marvel Tales #142 (which I seem to have got into the habit of doing), there are lots of changes to the background colouring on the reprint. That, along with the removal of the murky shadowing on the figure of Spider-Man makes the Marvel Tales cover the better of the two, I think. It's a great cover either way though.







Why do you say that? Why would it be expected that Dr. Doom would turn up at this point? Not sure I understand, sorry.





Good point and good catch! That had never occurred to me. This use by villains of "the sensory powers of a spider" to contact Spider-Man wasn't retained for long: too much like Ant-Man, I guess?





I know that Cei-U! has already answered that this is Doom's first appearance following Fantastic Four #23 – and far be it from me to think I know better than Kurt – but surely this is actually Doom's first appearance since Fantastic Four #17, not #23? There's even a flashback in this issue showing Doom jumping out of his laboratory airship to escape the Fantastic Four the last time he encountered them, just as he did at the end of FF #17.




While we're on the subject of Dr. Doom, the Marvel Tales reprint of this issue was my first encounter with him, and he's a villain who I've since always regarded as just as much of a Spider-Man foe, as he is a Fantastic Four one.





Yeah, the soap opera elements of Spider-Man are really coming to the fore in this issue. I've always been a big fan of Peter Parker's civilian life, just as must as I am his exploits as Spider-Man, so I definitely view this as a good thing.

This is the first issue where we really see Flash Thompson picking on Peter Parker in a very direct manner. I mean, sure, Flash had been one of Peter's many tormentors in recent issues, but this is the issue where he becomes his main tormentor. It's also the issue that really illustrates what a big fan of Spider-Man Flash is (ooh, the irony!).





"Dating" was a much more casual affair back in the '50s and early '60s than it became in more recent decades. High school age girls and guys dated regularly back then, often with many different partners, but it was mostly all very innocent and often a date wouldn't even involve a kiss. So, it's not necessarily that Liz is Flash's girlfriend, as such – they weren't necessarily "going steady" – he's just someone that she's clearly dated a number of times. But that said, yes, Flash obviously feels that Liz is his girl and Peter flirting with her and trying to get a date with her himself would naturally rub Thompson up the wrong way.






I really love the whole "Flash Thompson dressing up as Spider-Man, only to get kidnapped by Doom" plot element in this issue. It's so much fun. In particular, Steve Ditko's artwork (in the panels you posted above) showing Peter walking on one side of the fence, while Flash waits to jump out on Parker on the other side, only to get gassed and kidnapped by Doom, as Peter walks by unawares is excellent. Really great staging and panel composition in this sequence.

As an aside, why didn't Peter's spider-sense go off, with Doom just the other side of the fence to him?

I also love how Peter initially sees Flash's kidnapping by Doom as a handy way to get rid of Flash forever! But, of course, being the hero he is, he reconsiders and realises that he must rescue Flash.





I agree. The fight between Doom and Spidey at the end of this issue is amazingly good. Right from Spidey's dramatic entrance – hanging upside-down from the ceiling, shining his spider-signal onto the wall in front of a startled Doom – through to Doom getting ready to bludgeon Spidey to death with a stray lump of machinery he's picked up, it's just a tour de force. I love all of Doom's dastardly traps that Spidey has to evade too – this is just great comics!

As an aside, I think that the editor's note regarding Doom's last encounter with the Fantastic Four, and then the FF actually turning up at the end of the story, was the first time that I realised that Marvel's superheroes all shared the same fictional world.

That was supposed to be a joke, which in retrospect, was probably too subtle, and not really as funny as I thought.  It was in reference to Dr. Doom's first encounter with the Fantastic Four being in the fifth issue of their own series!

I'm not too sure if I have an actual favourite Lee/Ditko Spider-man issue, or at least, I don't think I could narrow it down to just one.  Obviously I love the whole run and I've got a bunch of favourites, but you could probably ask me a dozen times and I'd give you a different answer every time, changing my mind depending on the day of the week, my mood or any other random factor.  For the longest time though I did consider ASM 20 to be my favourite and it's the only actual issue from the period that I own in original format.  

Also, I'd been meaning to thank you for the original cover comparisons you've been doing.  I had initially meant to do that for every issue as part of the reviews, but didn't carry through, other than the occasional comments on some colour changes, or text alterations.  There are some upcoming issues with some more drastic changes to the covers where I'll definitely make a point of going into more detail.


As for your assessment on dating in the 50s and 60s, that was before my time, but the way it's presented in these stories is consistent with what I'd seen in older TV and movies, I just had no idea how it actually worked in real-life in those days.  As with most things in these comics, what we get on the page is probably the usual mix of realism, what the creators thought was realistic, or just whatever they felt like putting on the page for whatever dramatic, humorous or plot-driven reason they wanted.

Issue 20 is probably my fave Lee-Ditko as well. The final battle in the Daily Bugle is so epic

There's been plenty of explanations over the years when Spidey's spider-sense doesn't work the way it's supposed to, so that's as good a guess as any.  Also, the caption does note that Peter is "wrapped in his own deep thoughts", so maybe there could have been a slight tingle, but he just shrugged it off because he had other things on his mind.  

I got the joke right away. I noticed long ago that Doom was in FF #5 and Spidey #5. He should have been in Avengers #5, X-Men #5 and Daredevil #5!