I love that cover. Such an inventive use of negative space by Ditko. It's very striking and must have stood out from the other comics on the spinner rack that month.

Here's the original cover to savour…




I have to say, I think the image actually looks better flipped on the cover of Marvel Tales #166, with Spidey on the left-hand side.

Also, note that this is the first "Marvel Pop Art Productions" issue of Amazing Spider-Man…




This rebranding went across most of Marvel's superhero line and was an attempt on Stan Lee's part to move Marvel away from any childlike connotations associated with the word "comics". By aligning Marvel with the then-fashionable pop art movement and the likes of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, who were both revolutionising fine art and popular media at the time, Lee hoped to make Marvel seem like a much more serious and fashionable proposition. Apparently, reader reaction to the "pop art" rebranding experiment was extremely negative and, as a result, it only lasted four months.





I quite like the Molten Man as a character. In subsequent appearances he gets much more fleshed out and made into much more of a sympathetic figure. But here, in his first appearance, he's a pretty formidable foe for Spider-Man, even if he's decidedly C-list compared to the likes of the Green Goblin, the Vulture, Doctor Octopus etc.

Molten Man's origin always makes me roll my eyes though: the way that the chemical formula gets spilled over him absolutely evenly, so that it can adhere to his body all over – even penetrating through his suit! – stretches credibility for me. I mean, I know that utterly unbelievable things happen in these comics all the time, but for some reason I find it particularly hard to suspend disbelief enough to swallow the Molten Man's origin.





I'd kind of forgotten that Liz Allan disappears from the comic so early. I thought she hung around for most of the Lee/Ditko run. Obviously not.

Also, there's a goof here where Stan calls her Liz Hilton, instead of Allan.





Aunt May is such a bad judge of character – first Doctor Octopus, now J. Jonah Jameson! That woman is an idiot!


Overall, this is an enjoyable comic, but it's not a patch on the last few issues. Ditko's art is really good – especially during the "lights-out" fight between Spidey and the Molten Man.


EDIT: By the way, when were you planning to review Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2, jtrw2024? In terms of published order, it came out between ASM #27 and #28, but for chronological reading order, I always put it after ASM #28 (as the '80s Marvel Tales reprints do).

I think you're being a little bit harsh on those final 10 or 11 Ditko plotted issues, but I do know what you mean. I still find an awful lot to enjoy in them, personally, with maybe only the final couple of Ditko issues being less than stellar. But I do agree that the early Lee/Romita issues feel like a definite uptick in quality.

OK, finally caught up with the thread...





These are a couple of really good, intriguing covers by Steve Ditko. Both of them do a great job of making you want to find out what happens inside each comic. The cover of issue #26, with the mysterious Crime-Master gassing Spidey on the rooftop, as the Green Goblin hovers nearby, is especially good.





I always felt like this strange, slightly nonsensical title was a reference to something else…like a song or something. For me, the song that it always brings to my mind is the traditional tune "My Bonnie", with its line: "Bring back my baby to me." I have no idea whether that's where Stan Lee got the idea for the title, but the song had been recorded in a rock 'n' roll style by Tony Sheridan & the Beatles in 1962, and it was re-released once Beatlemania had hit in America and peaked at number #26 on the U.S. charts in March 1964. However, I think it unlikely that Lee was aware of Sheridan and the Beatles' recording. But that's always the song I hear in my head whenever I see the title of ASM #27.

Does anybody know if "Bring Back My Goblin to Me!" is alluding to anything in particular?





The Crime-Master is a very memorable character from this period of Spider-Man. I really like his clothing – the sharp suit and fedora – and that distinctive black and white face mask.





Peter finally snapping and lunging at Flash and the others is an example of the new, angrier Peter Parker that we've started to see in these recent Ditko-plotted issues. As I said before, an incident like Flash potentially getting his comeuppance from Peter fits right in with Ditko's Randian philosophies. Of course, Peter pulls back at the last minute, thanks to Liz's alarmed reaction breaking through his rage, but still…this seems like an angrier version of Peter than we've hitherto seen.

Also, yeah…it's a nice touch to see Flash firstly being impressed by Peter taking the rap for the fist fight, and secondly, to see him admitting to the school principal that Peter wasn't really to blame. This isn't the first time that we've seen that beneath his bullish exterior Thompson has a conscience, and it foreshadows the maturation we'll see in the character later.





Yeah, the lost costume(s) sub-plot is a fun one and, as you say, Peter having to web the mask of the store-bought replacement in place saves him from having his secret identity revealed by the bad guys at least twice.





I think Peter finding the hidden compartment in Foswell's wardrobe and deducing – incorrectly, as it turns out – that he is either the Crime-Master or the Goblin is understandable. Of course, he actually turns out to be Patch, the stool pigeon, but I think that Peter can be forgiven for getting this wrong.





It's neat to finally have a proper two-part adventure. This will become a much more common occurrence when Ditko leaves the book and John Romita takes over.





Yeah, the fight sequence at the start of issue #27 is really well handled by Ditko. I especially like the panels where Spidey pursues the Crime-Master under the waterfront pier and into the sewer system; the artwork is very atmospheric in that sequence.

Also, I want to mention that it's significant that the three brave Policemen get so much credit here and are shown to be such heroes. That is very much in line with Ditko's conservative, Randian objectivism. It's also likely significant that one of them is African-American. The writing in this sequence and its heavy-handed moralistic message really reminds me of some of Ditko's later, more extreme work, such as Mr. A or Killjoy.





In a gangster's line of work, if they haven't been killed or incarcerated, they are lucky! 😊

I kinda like the Crime-Master turning out to be no-one we've met before, but then again, it doesn't feel terribly satisfying. He goes out in a pretty anti-climactic way too, with his being gunned down by the police mostly off-panel. But then I guess that's the point! Ditko wanted more realism and less of the traditional superhero or adventure serial tropes. To hammer the point home, Spider-Man even thinks to himself that "in real life, when a villain is unmasked, he isn't always the butler, or the one you suspected", which very much reads like Ditko's heavy-handed scripting, rather than Lee's.





You're right, of course, about it being pretty much impossible to realistically suspect Foswell of being the Green Goblin. But, I like that Ditko still teases the readers with that possibility near the end of ASM #27.





Once again, I suspect this is Ditko's Randian philosophies surfacing in the comic, along with his feeling rather under-compensated by Lee when it came to his credits on Amazing Spider-Man.


Overall, these are a couple of excellent issues, full of intrigue, action and drama. The cat-and-mouse-game between the Green Goblin and the Crime-Master is hugely entertaining and the structure, pacing and story-beats in these issues are really spot on. My only slight criticism of this two-parter would be that there's an awkward jump on the first page of ASM #26, with the Goblin and the Crime-Master already knowing each other and having already revealed their secret identities to one another. It sort of feels like you've skipped an issue or something. But that aside, these are two really excellent comics.

Wow, it really does feel like longer than a month! Well done on producing such an interesting and thorough series of reviews.

Great pick! I used to have that issue and it is indeed a great fight.

((emphasis mine))

Personally, I find that a little hard to believe given Romita's proximity to Lee and the Marvel Bullpen, plus the fact that he was only remembering or repeating information from the year before. In the 1966 fanzine article, Romita cites the likes of Sol Brodsky, Marie Severin, Roy Thomas, and Stan Lee himself as people who corroborated this and told him that having the Goblin turn out to be Norman Osborn had been Ditko's intention all along. It's important to note, however, that Romita never says he heard this from Ditko's own lips, but nonetheless, enough other people in the Marvel bullpen -- including Stan -- had apparently told him that this had always been Ditko's intention to make it pretty compelling evidence.

Obviously, as the guy who ultimately had to draw the dramatic unmasking of the Green Goblin in ASM #39, after Ditko walked out, I'm sure Stan would've been very clear about the direction Ditko had intended the story to go in.

This is what Romita actually says in the fanzine: "By the way, the choice of Norman Osborn as the Green Goblin was Ditko's. Lee was going to have GG revealed to be Ned Leeds, but Ditko was too fond of Ned so he drew the mags so that Osborn HAD to be the Green Goblin."





Yeah, I knew what Stan has said decades after the fact, and thanks for posting the whole quote – it's very interesting. But like I say, I think this could very easily be down to Stan's faulty memory and he's maybe thinking of the Crime-Master? Hell, Lee even admits that his memory is terrible in that quote.

Also, just to be clear, I'm not saying in any way that the brilliant character development of the Green Goblin/Norman Osborn into such a menacing archenemy under Stan and John Romita had anything to do with Ditko. Obviously, had Steve stayed on the book things would have turned out very differently plot-wise and character development-wise. I'm not trying to take anything away from Lee and/or Romita here.

Ultimately, we can't prove anything completely one way or the other, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this. But for my money, Ditko's comments (backed up by Romita's contemporary recollections) have the ring of truth to them. And you know me: I'm certainly not a Stan-basher in any way. I firmly believe that these comics were a fusion of both Ditko and Lee's talents, even when Ditko was plotting all the stories from issue #24 until he left after issue #38, though obviously Stan's influence on those final fifteen issues was very much diminished.

Such a prude!