Except we know that Ditko absolutely did intend for the Green Goblin to be someone in Jonah's circle of friends. In 2009, Ditko said...

"I knew from Day One, from the first GG story, who the GG would be. I absolutely knew because I planted him in J. Jonah Jameson’s businessmans club, it was where JJJ and the GG could be seen together. I planted them together in other stories where the GG would not appear in costume, action. I wanted JJJ’s and the GG’s lives to mix for later story drama involving more than just the two characters. I planted the GG’s son (same distinctive hair style) in the college issues for more dramatic involvement and storyline consequences."

I have to say, I believe Ditko on this. I don't see why he would lie or what would be gained from lying about that. But in addition to Ditko's comments, John Romita Sr. confirmed that this was indeed the case in a contemporary fanzine interview from 1966. There's no reason for Romita to not tell the truth regarding Ditko's intention to have always had the Green Goblin be Norman Osborn, and his intentionally planting him in Jonah's club and Harry Osborn into Peter Parker's college. Romita's memory would certainly have still been fresh then.

I know that Stan Lee reckoned that Ditko wanted the Green Goblin to be someone readers didn't know, while he wanted him to be one of the supporting cast members, but as others in this thread have said, that is likely a case of Lee getting confused or his memory letting him down (maybe Stan was thinking of the CrimeMaster, who did turn out to be an unknown). It's clear, right from his first appearance in ASM #14 that Lee and Ditko are deliberately hiding the Goblin's identity, undoubtedly for a big reveal later down the line. Why do that if he wasn't going to be someone that the readers knew?

I always liked Ditko's layouts: they were often very dynamic and rather unusually staged. But I kinda know what you mean about the lack of aerial cityscapes in his artwork. That's likely a byproduct of the tightly packed panels that he utilized. Romita was much better at depicting that kind of stuff.

But you know who I think was best at it? Ross Andru. No other artist before or since has managed to capture the precariousness of the dizzying heights that Spidey often operated at as well as Andru, as far as I'm concerned.

Not to derail the Spider-Man conversation, but this isn't really true.

Punk, in its first, late '70s explosion captured a lot of headlines and caused a lot of consternation among older folks, but outside of a relatively small group of teens on the cutting edges of the scene (usually located in big metropolitan centres like New York, London or Manchester), it's impact was actually fairly limited -- especially in terms of mainstream musical tastes. Hell, the seminal punk album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, which was released in 1977, didn't get certified Gold until 1986! The big, multi-platinum selling records of 1977-79 were things like Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, the Eagles' Hotel California, and a whole slew of Disco records.

Plus, mohawks weren't really a fashion trend associated with the first explosion of punk in the late '70s; they came later. I can well remember seeing punk and goth guys wearing mohawks in the early '80s in and around London (and even at my secondary school as late as 1987!), but you'll be hard pressed to find a photo of a punk sporting one in the late '70s. Punk had definitely stopped grabbing the headlines by the early '80s, but there was still a thriving punk and goth sub-culture running right through the '80s, even if it was never as mainstream as the New Romantic or yuppie/Miami Vice look, or the hip-hop look, for that matter.

So, while its true that not very many people wore mohawks in the early-to-mid '80s, there were more of them about than there were in the late '70s. So, I guess Marvel were fairly spot-on with what was happening in the punk sub-culture in the early '80s, but honestly, this is much more likely just artistic shorthand for making characters look edgy.


EDIT: Incidentally, I just thought of a lyric from the 1981 song "Mohawk" by Adam & the Ants: "Here we are, in the '80s/Mohicans proud and fare/Goes to show that a fashion can survive/So beware!"

OK, I'm gonna tie my colours to the mast and say that, yes, this is without doubt my favourite single issue of the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko run on Amazing Spider-Man. There's just so much of everything that made these early issues of Spider-Man great packed into one issue.





And what a great villain! Scorpion rocks! I think Mac Gargan is an interesting and genuinely threatening bad guy, as well as a somewhat tragic figure.

As I think I've said before in this thread, there were more classic Spider-Man villains introduced during the first twenty issues of Amazing Spider-Man than there were in the next hundred. That's a clear testament to Steve Ditko's powers of character design and his sheer imagination.





The panels where the shadowy stranger who has followed Peter Parker home is stood outside his house, while our hero anxiously watches him from his darkened bedroom window, are brilliantly atmospheric. This sequence has great artwork and beautifully moody colouring in both the original Stan Goldberg version and the later Andy Yanchus one.





One of the best things about this comic is how it fleshes out J. Jonah Jameson's character and makes him a much more nuanced creation. His sudden realisation that he's gone too far with his obsessive hatred of Spider-Man and created a monster in the shape of the Scorpion is a pivotal moment that transforms him into a fully three-dimensional character. As you point out, this is by far the worst thing Jameson's done up to this point and, personally, I think it does cross the line into criminal activity. The events of ASM #20 will, in much later comics, be shown to be something that haunts Jameson.





Spider-Man's battles with the Scorpion are arguably the best fight sequences that Ditko has given us so far. The combat just feels so brutal, with Gargan's smashing tail sending huge chunks of masonry and brickwork flying about. These really are spectacular and wonderfully staged action panels.

Likewise, the panel where Dr. Stillwell clambers up a tall building in pursuit of the Scorpion and desperately hurls a bottle containing the antidote that he knows can stop the super-villain, only to miss his target and plunge to his death, is a panel that has stuck with me over the years. The desperation and tragedy there is so visceral.





I personally think it's quite funny. Stan is clearly just having fun and mocking his own sometimes over-inflated ego, but Ditko sure didn't see the funny side of it, by all accounts.





I can never decide which version of this cover I like best. They both have their strengths, I think.





Yeah, I bought this issue of Marvel Tales off the local newsagent's shelf at the time too. I can't even begin to imagine how many times I've read that comic. I still have my first copy, though it's crumpled, dog-eared, stained, and its cover is barely still attached. That doesn't matter though: this is a comic that has tremendous sentimental value to me and also one that continues to entertain and delight, regardless how many times I read it.

Like I say, this is surely my favourite issue of Amazing Spider-Man from the Lee/Ditko run. Both creators are firing on all cylinders, giving us a strong plot that unfolds at a perfect pace and some genuinely captivating character moments. There's just so much story, mystery, character development, and action crammed into these 20 short pages. Stan Lee's scripting is some of his best ever, with the development of Jonah's character in particular being very compelling. Oh, and the ending, in which Spider-Man manages to defeat the Scorpion and save Jonah's life, only to see Jonah cast as a hero in the public's eyes, is just classic Peter Parker luck.

Ditko's artwork is predictably excellent throughout and, as I said earlier, wonderfully atmospheric in places. His action sequences are also great, with the bone-crunching rooftop fight between Spider-Man and the Scorpion being a standout.

I'm gonna court controversy a little here and say that I think the sequence in ASM #20 where Spider-Man continues to fight on aginst the Scorpion, never giving up, despite the battering he's receiving, is every bit as powerful as the iconic scene from ASM #33 where he lifts the impossible weight off his back. Nuff said!

Oh, that's a neat idea. I can't believe somebody has thought of doing it before.

I don't want to seem like I'm hijacking your fantastic review thread, jtrw2024, but I wanted to just say something about the rift that had developed or was developing between Steve Ditko and Stan Lee at around this point. I also definitely do NOT want to re-ignite a heated Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko debate!


I think it's important to note that Amazing Spider-Man #18 is significant for being the first issue that is plotted entirely by Ditko. We know this from a note on the letters page of Amazing Spider-Man #17, in which Stan says, "next ish is gonna be real different! The whole plot was dreamed up by Sunny Steve and it was just nutty enough for Stan to okay it!" It's also confirmed in Sean Howe's excellent book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, among other sources.

The two creators had been butting heads at around this point in late 1964 over what Steve felt was Stan taking far too much credit for the Spider-Man stories. There were also arguments about the future direction of Spider-Man: Ditko wanted more gritty realism and more focus on Peter's private life, whereas Stan wanted more action, more guest appearances from other Marvel characters, and the option to use supernatural/mystical elements when the plot required it. Stan allowing Steve to plot a whole issue himself with ASM #18 was an attempt to smooth things over, and that's why there is more of the teen drama and soap opera elements in that issue, along with an absence of a proper superhero fight.

Unfortunately, Stan throwing Steve this bone didn't succeed in building any bridges between the pair. Ditko was, by this point, enamoured with the philosophies of novelist Ayn Rand, whose objectivist philosophy stressed self-interest, individual rights, and cold, hard logic. This made his working relationship with Stan rather difficult to put it mildly.

By the start of 1965, communication between the two men had completely broken down (this would've been around the time they were working on issues #23 or #24, I believe – certainly, ASM #25 is the first issue where Ditko was credited as the sole plotter). The way the pair worked from issue #25 until Ditko left the book in 1966, was that Steve would plot, draw and ink each issue and then drop the finished artwork off to Marvel's production manager Sol Brodsky to pass along to Lee, so that he could write the dialogue.

That said, Lee was still able to have some degree of input into the stories Ditko was creating because he could pass along general plot suggestions for future issues via Brodsky, although Ditko would often ignore them. Plus, as Howe points out, Lee was still writing the dialogue for these comics and would, in fact, often use the dialogue to change minor story elements or lessen some of Ditko's more extreme Randian objectivism. I would also contend that Stan's dialogue and characterisation were both big factors in what made those later Lee/Ditko Spider-Man stories so enjoyable. But clearly it was Ditko who was captain of the-good-ship-Spider-Man from issue #25 until he left Marvel.

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