My smart-ass answer would be "Marvelman becoming Miracleman".

But, I'm gonna go with...

Jean Grey/Marvel Girl became Phoenix

I think this is one of the rare instances where I actually prefer the Marvel Tales cover to the original. I think having more of the wall that Rhino is breaking through visible is aesthetically more pleasing, even if, ultimately, it slightly spoils the impression that the Rhino is charging towards the reader.





Moving Peter out of Aunt May's house, so that he can get a pad with his friend Harry Osborn – which this is the first indication of – was a very smart move on Stan Lee's part. I feel like the set up of having him living at home with May and having to sneak around to conceal his identity as Spider-Man had gone as far as it could and was a little played out by this point. Peter moving out to hang with his friends in the city show how he is maturing and opens up a lot of story potential.





Concerning Anna Watson's comment about Peter's age, I'm with Cei-U! on this – I think it's a bit of an exaggeration. To be fair, this sort of thing does happen sometimes when older folks think you're too old to be acting in a certain way. My old Dad used to add a year or two to my age whenever he was admonishing me for not acting my age: "You're almost 18, for Heaven's sake!", he'd say – I was 16.





I love Peter getting a motorcycle. Again, it made him seem more grown up and gave him a degree of independence that he had not had until then. It's also nice for the reader to see Peter happy for a change and actually managing to achieve something that brings him a lot of joy.

I also like that Stan and John are careful not to give him an amazing looking motorcycle: it very much looks like a budget motorbike of the era, which makes sense when you consider that he's a student with a part-time photography job. It's only a little thing, but realistic touches like this help ground Spider-Man in a degree of real-world authenticity that you didn't tend to get quite so much in other Marvel superhero comics of the era.




Yeah, Yanchus messed up! For some reason this (relatively small) mistake of Yanchus's really annoys me. I mean, good God man…you're re-colouring one of the most popular and influential comic series of the 1960s. Do your damn research! I really don't know why this little error annoys me as much as it does…but it does!





These scenes between John Jameson and his farther are fascinating and help to reinforce JJJ's motive for hating Spider-Man, which is that he feels that he upstaged his son and stole his glory.

It's also a nice juxtaposition to have John liking Spider-Man, in complete contrast to his farther. This is an example, I feel, of Stan writing to his teenage readership and referencing the generation gap. We saw this recurring motif of the older generation being at odds with the youngsters on a few occasions in earlier issues of ASM, but it disappeared during the last part of Ditko's run – Ditko was most definitely not down with the kids! So, it's nice to have that young vs. old character dynamic popping up again; it feels very Sixties.





Ha ha! Well spotted. I'd never noticed that.

Of course, knowing what a salesman Stan was, it's just as likely to be a bit of in-story promotion for the recently launched Spider-Man pin-up poster. Maybe not though…maybe it was a subtle dig at Ditko.





I suspect the "space spores" were inspired by the mysterious flashing lights or "fireflies" that astronaut John Glenn reported seeing outside his Mercury space capsule while he was in low Earth orbit in February 1962. Certainly, the capsule John Jameson is show to be flying here (and in Amazing Spider-Man #1) is a Mercury era capsule.

In reality, the "fireflies" turned out to be nothing more than frozen droplets of water that had broken free from the surface of the capsule as it passed from the dark part of its orbit to the part in the sun. It was just sunlight illuminating the loose bits of frost floating around the ship, which gave them the appearances of twinkling lights or "fireflies". This mysterious phenomenon was widely reported in the press in the early Sixties though, with attendant speculation that the tiny glowing "creatures" could be alien. So, I'm sure that Stan and John would've heard about this.





I've always had a soft spot for the Rhino. As the first original villain that the Lee/Romita team produced, I think he's pretty good – though clearly not a patch on some of Lee and Ditko's earlier villains. Of course, Rhino will become a much more nuanced and three-dimensional character in subsequent decades, due to later writers, but even here, as a terrifyingly strong muscleman for a foreign power, he works well enough. I also like that his origin is completely shrouded in mystery at this point.


Overall, this was another fun issue. The Lee/Romita team really feels like a breath of fresh air after a year or so of Ditko-penned stories. As I say, I rather like the Rhino as a villain and the scenes with John Jameson and his dad are fun. There's also plenty of good soap opera moments, and Romita's artwork continues to look fantastic.

Actually, Romita hinted in a 1966 interview that risqué fetish artist Bill Ward had pencilled a few pages in this issue, due to deadline pressure, with Romita touching the pages up afterwards (it was probably in the big fight scene with the Rhino). That fight sequence is very well drawn, with some great dynamic poses and lots of bone-crunching action, which would've been at least partly down to Ward's input. But yeah, who would've thought that a saucy, good girl artist like Bill Ward would've worked on Spider-Man?!

*sniff* Gone, but not forgotten (sorry, there's something in my eye).

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I've never understood the love for this comic. Maybe I'm just a hard-hearted SOB, but I think it's a load of overly sentimental tosh!

Even putting aside how schmaltzy it is, ASM #248 is structurally a bit of a mess: it's half a continuation of Spidey's fight with Thunderball (which began in the previous issue) and half a recap of Spider-Man's origin – with a ladle-load of sentimentality for the eponymous "kid". I mean, yeah, it's a well-drawn and fairly well written recap, but it comes off as far too mawkish and manipulatively maudlin for my tastes. It's too eager to pull the reader's heartstrings, but it does so cheaply, layering on the fake poignancy with a trowel. It's the comic book equivalent of a song like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones.

Sorry, guys. I just don't see it.

Just a point of correction (and it's an important point): it wasn't rape. Norman Osborn seduced Gwen Stacy, and she willingly had sex with him. Later, she bitterly regretted it, of course. I get that you might find it distasteful as a story development, but making a poor choice of who to jump into bed with is not the same thing as being raped.

Yeah, issue #65 opens with a scene from the TV show where a terrified Karen is being stalked through the fog by Brother Brimstone -- the reader is led to believe that it's a real situation and Karen is in danger at first, before it is revealed that they are just shooting a TV show. All the other scenes associated with the show (which is called Strange Secrets BTW) are backstage scenes.