The Fantastic Four were fighting some weird character named
“Spider-Man,” but the comic book wasn’t about them. It was about him!
I had to know what the heck was going on here, so I invested
half my 25-cent weekly allowance and hauled Spider-Man No. 1 home from the
downtown newsstand in Effingham.
I had missed Spidey’s actual debut in the last issue of
Amazing Fantasy months before, but I was already familiar with this then-small and
unnamed but distinctive line of superheroes. Only the FF, the Incredible Hulk
and the not-yet-costumed Ant-Man had preceded Spidey, and Thor debuted
simultaneously with him.
And I was already familiar with the artwork of Steve Ditko,
from my favorite Charlton monster titles Gorgo and Konga and from his only
previous superhero feature, Charlton’s yellow lamé Captain Atom with his contrail
of little atomic symbols.
I didn’t know Ditko’s name, but even at age 8, I knew his
work — unpretty and unmistakable, all those angular body positions and strained
faces and unique storytelling innovations, like the half-masked face that
symbolically underlined a character who had a secret identity.
Couple this with Stan Lee’s storytelling (much better than
Charlton’s), and you had a finely wrought lure for a boy. Spider-Man was a
skinny kid who nevertheless had formidable super powers. His motives for
showing up unannounced at the Baxter Building were mercenary — he demanded the
FF’s “top salary.” He was a mysterious-looking figure who was targeted and
opposed by another who was equally mysterious, the Chameleon.
And then there was that final plot twist — after the
superhero had risked his life to save John Jameson from certain death in his
space capsule, he learned in the last panel that Jameson’s father’s newspaper still branded him a menace.
How mean! How unfair! How irresistible!
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