Abso-f***ing-lutely! It's more than a little obscene that someone would spend that money on a drawing when you consider how may homeless folk or families struggling to feed their kids it could help.

I wasn't aware of Stan's comments on this (in issue #12 or wherever it was), but the in-story evidence doesn't support that at all.

As I noted in my comments on issue #9, New York had compulsory education laws that required people to stay in school until they were at least 16 in the 1960s. That was the earliest you could legally leave back then. So, given that Betty says she left high school last year, she must be 17 or maybe even 18. We know that Peter is 15-years-old at this point (that was established as canon at some point in the '80s and reiterated in Civil War in the 2000s), so there is definitely a 2 or 3 year age gap between them. Even if we disregard later writers, there's no way Peter is being written as 17 or 18 at this point in the comics: he's still at high school, for one thing, and if he was Betty's age, he'd have been at university (and that doesn't happen until ASM #31).

Carrying on with my Top 10 favourite box sets...



#6 - Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys by The Beach Boys (1993)




I outed myself as a bit of a Beach Boys obsessive in the favourite albums of 1964 discussion, so it's probably no surprise that I've chosen a box set by the group for this run down.

This 5x CD set has a whopping 142 tracks on it, including a very generous selection of previously unreleased demos and outtakes, including over 30 minutes of music from the legendary unreleased album SMiLE. This "lost" album was Brian Wilson's 1966/67 magnum opus and the first official release of some of the material intended for it was a major selling point for this box set among Beach Boys fans. It was certainly the main reason why I purchased the set.

Discs 1–4 chart the band's entire career from 1961 through to 1989 in chronological order. The first 3 discs are mostly great, with all the band's big hits and stand-out album tracks making an appearance, along with plenty of rarities for the hardcore fan. And of course, the SMiLE material on disc 2 is essential – I absolutely cannot be objective about that at all: this is some of the greatest music I've ever heard in my life. Unfortunately, things get decidedly patchier on disc 4, as the band's music from the mid-70s to the late '80s makes an appearance. The fifth disc is comprised entirely of studio session tracks, demos, complete vocal/instrumental tracks, and rare live performances from the '60s.

If you're not into the Beach Boys or only have a passing interesting their hits, this set is almost certainly overkill. But if, like me, you are a big fan of their '60s and early '70s output, then this set is a must.


Here's an early mini-masterpiece from the pen of Brian Wilson, the achingly sensitive "In My Room"…





And here's "Wonderful", a gorgeous slice of baroque pop from the SMiLE sessions…

OK, another of my favourite box sets...



#7 - Dust on the Nettles: A Journey Through the British Underground Folk Scene 1967-72 by Various Artists (2015)




Beware, there's witchcraft and faerie magic in this box!

This 3x CD set charts the period in the late '60s and early '70s when some British folk musicians began to dabble in psychedelics and subvert the homegrown folk tradition into a sub-genre that is today known as "acid folk". It was The Incredible String Band who kick-started this movement, and they are of course represented here, along with other flagship acts, such as Pentangle, Fairport Convention, and Steeleye Span. But the most interesting music on this set is often the stuff made by much more obscure acts like Comus, Trees, Bridget St John, Synanthesia, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Anne Briggs, Agincourt, Oberon, and Vashti Bunyan. The names of some of those acts alone will tell you a lot about what kind of music this is.

Surprisingly, most of the tracks from these obscurities or cult acts are excellent and quite staggering in their quality. It's mostly acoustic-based, folky music and, while it's sometimes playful and twee, it's more often than not dark and elemental, with flashes of psychedelic weirdness. There's a Pagen strangeness to this music that hints at nasty, supernatural things happening in nasty, overgrown places.

If you've ever felt like you needed more of a Wicker Man vibe in your life, then this is the box set for you!


Here is Pentangle with the traditional "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme"…





Here's Comus with the magical, but rather sinister-sounding "Winter is a Coloured Bird"...





And here's the band Magnet with "Willow's Song", which was written for The Wicker Man and featured in the scene where Britt Ekland memorably dances naked in her room…

Boom-tish!!

Here's here all week, folks. Try the chicken.


Very droll.

Here's the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #9 for comparison…




I think the original cover is much, much better than the reprint. Much subtler and moodier colouring, for one thing, which I like.






Sorry, but I'm gonna disagree with you here – I think Electro's original costume sucks! Not only is it horribly garish, but it looks really silly too.

That said, I'm not sure the later costume redesigns have necessarily been a big improvement either. I guess maybe the best of the lot was the mid-90s version, designed by Joe Bennet, which is very similar to the original '60s version, but just missing the ridiculously impractical head cowl. Also, Paul Azaceta's late 2000s redesign, where he has blue lightning bolts tattooed onto his face, was kinda nifty, but his "costume" consisted of nothing more than cargo pants and a t-shirt, which was a bit unimaginative.

But my dislike of his costume aside, I think his powers are very cool and he's certainly a memorable bad guy. He became quite a complex and nuanced character in his '90s appearances and I think I'm right in saying that these days he's openly bi-sexual.

As an aside, although Max Dillon is clearly a jerk in this issue, I think it's interesting that he expresses regret when he thinks he's accidentally killed Spider-Man. He clearly never wanted to actually kill anybody while on his crime spree.





Yeah, it's strange that the high-tech harness he's wearing under his costume is never explained. Even weirder that Dillon is wearing it as soon as he gets home after the accident that gave him his powers, meaning that he hadn't had time to design and build it. This smacks of a miscommunication between Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, I think…like Steve drew the harness and either didn't explain it to Stan or Stan forgot about it when he was scripting the issue.





Yep, this is the first time that Aunt May is at death's door…but it certainly won't be the last!

It's never specified what is wrong with her in this issue…she just needs to go into hospital for an operation. I suspect its heart trouble, because that's what it is in later issues, if memory serves. However, I'm not sure how much '60s medical science could've done for a dodgy ticker?

EDIT: Looking it up, fitting pacemakers and heart bypass surgery had both been pioneered in 1958 and 1960 respectively, but I'm not sure if these operations were commonplace in city hospitals by 1963. I'm guessing probably not.





Yeah, this is pretty shocking behaviour and a severe lapse in journalistic standards on Peter's part, but then again, he is really desperate for the money and he does feel pretty guilty about it. But at least it all comes good in the end when Peter delivers the real pictures and doesn't receive any more money for them.

As for J. Jonah Jameson concluding that Spider-Man and Electro are the same person, that's actually a pretty logical deduction to make – especially after he sees Electro climbing up a sheer building wall. Not that it's proof, of course, and in no way should Jameson have run it on the front page of The Bugle, but it's not the worst leap of logic Jameson will make.





Yep, this is another element of the Spider-Man we all know and love slotting into place.





These panels are uncharacteristically clunky for Ditko. The "electrical wires as whip" thing just comes out of nowhere: in one panel Electro doesn't have a weapon and in the very next he has the electrified wires (which the narration boxes tell us he ripped off the wall). It would've been better if Ditko could've shown Electro doing that. It's not a big thing, but given how excellent Ditko's artwork normally is, I expect better.





Great ending and another great example of Peter using his science-smarts to defeat a villain.





I think you're right about having Spidey be able to recognise Electro's face and name again later, but I also think this is Stan and/or Ditko subverting the trope of the hero unmasking the bad guy to reveal somebody he interacted with earlier in the story. This was a common trope in Westerns of the era and later became a recurring element of the Scooby-Doo cartoons, of course. I think the inference here is that Spider-Man ain't your usual comic book fare, dear readers.





Yeah, I spotted that myself on this re-read. As I pointed out in my comments for ASM #4, New York had compulsory education laws that required people to stay in school until they were at least 16 in the 1960s. That was the earliest you could legally leave back then. So, given that Betty says she left high school last year, she must be 17 or at a push 18. I guessed she was around 18 or so earlier in this thread, so I was about right. We know that Peter is 15 at this point, so there is definitely a 2 or 3 year age gap between them.





Yeah, Betty visiting Aunt May and just being there for Peter is a nice illustration of how close they are growing. As you mentioned, we also learn little hints about Betty's past life and that somebody in her past began to enjoy danger and took unnecessary risks, which resulted in her being emotionally hurt. As you say, this will be expanded on in future issues.

Big Stilt-Man fan here as well.