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I was holding off on reviewing this one until I got Volume 5 and 6 of this series because I wanted to read it in order but I was in my basement looking at my collection of Masterworks volumes and since I figured I’d already read (and reviewed) Vols. 10 & 11 I decided I’d just go alphabetically through my collection to read the ones I hadn’t yet read. This was the first one that I came to. So over the summer I plan on getting through a lot of the Masterworks books I’ve never read (and there’s a lot).
This is a very interesting collection just because of what is included in here. All the preivous volumes were just issues of Amaxing Spider-Man and an annual or two. This one only includes 6 issues of ASM, #’s 62-67 which spans July to December 1968. Annual #5 (from the end of 1968) is also in here. You may notice there’s still a LOT of space left in this volume and those 100+ pages are filled by Spectacular Spider-Man #’s 1 and 2. No, this isn’t the comic that came out in the 70’s, this is the short-lived magazine that was released in July and November of 1968. I’ve never read those magazines (let alone seen them) so I am looking forward to reading them now. Stan Lee and John Romita hold the co-writing duties for all issues here (except Annual #5) so you know who is responsible for this madness. Romita illustrated the Spectacular Spider-Man magazines and did the layouts for the rest of the magazines. Jazzy Jeff also writes the introduction but never goes farther than the details of each issue and the birth (and death) of the magazine. Don Heck did the final pencils for ASM #’s 62, 63, 64 and 66 while Jim Mooney finished #65. Larruy Lieber did work on Annual #5 and the back-up story of Spectacular #1. We finish up with Marie Severin pitching in some work for Annual #5.
Spoilers Ahead
-Amazing Spider-Man #62- This is just a one-off story where Spider-Man encounters Medusa. It’s the usual Marvel hero vs. hero encounter. They fight because of a misunderstanding before joining together to stop a common foe – this time it is a shampoo ad-man who used Medusa and Spider-Man. It’s not Shakespeare but things like Norman going mad and having visions of the Green Goblin make it a cool read. Still, this is the weakest issue of the bunch and the most interesting thing about was written in the introduction where Romita joked about changing Medusa’s costume and Kirby basically saying he won’t be using that costume anytime soon.
-Spectacular Spider-Man #1- This is the very first issue of the Magazine and it is entirely in black and white. This issue reminds me a lot of the Newspaper Strips Vol. 1 collection I reviewed a ways back and that collection was also a black and white Lee/Romita collaboration. This isn’t as cheery as the regular Spider-Man books and I think Stan and Co. were going for a more mature audience. So Spider-Man finds a huge man terrorizing a campaign poster of a man named Richard Raleigh who is running for office. He’s the most popular guy in town and everyone from JJJ to Aunt May to Gwen Stacy love this guy. As you know, appearances can be decieving. This guy is really a bad dude and he set the monster out to convince people that the underworld is after him. He even tries to have some light fixtures at a party crash down on some kids there for a dance! Peter happened to be there and he saves the day and now draws the ire of Raleigh. Raleigh goes mad and sends the big monster after a snooping Capt. Stacy and Spider-Man puts two and two together and brings the monster back to Raleigh’s home base where Raleigh is revealed (to Spidey at least) that he’s behind this madness. Raleigh ends up dead in the scuffle as well as the monster and none really know what Raleigh was up to. There’s a back-up story in here that shows Spidey’s origin for people who didn’t know it. I really enjoyed the main story. It was similar to the newspaper strips (like I mentioned before) but without all the repitition. I actually like it when Stan just writes a straight-up story without some of the corny dialogue he usually throws in. I was really impressed with this book.
-Amazing Spider-Man #63- The original Vulture makes his reappearance. He faked his death so he could escape and recoup. He didn’t like that a new Vulture had made his way to the public eye so he takes him out of jail and publicly defeats him, ending his reign of terror. Spider-Man shows up to stop him but he had injured his arm earlier in the day (slipping in the rain and landing on it). Their big battle will be next issue. There are smaller continuing storylines here like Gwen being pissed at Peter for hitting her father (though he did it to save him) and Peter running away during the Vulture fight to save a kid and draw the ire of JJJ for not getting good pictures.
-Amazing Spider-Man #64- A one-armed Spidey battles the Vulture in an action-packed issue. It’s literally the two squaring off the whole time. There’re other things (like MJ’s new short-lived haircut and Gwen finding out Peter didn’t hurt her father) but the meat of this is a well-illustrated and well-paced battle. Spidey uses his wits to stop the Vulture by attacking his power pack. Vulture escapes before he’s captured but Spidey isn’t. He passes out from the battle and ends up at the mercy of the public and close to being unmasked.
-Amazing Spider-Man #65- Spidey ends up in jail but his mask stays on thanks to Capt. Stacy not wanting to infringe on his rights. Spidey’s there when a group of criminals take Stacy hostage and Spidey realizes the only way to save Stacy is by joining with them and pretending he’s on their side! It works and eventually Spidey’s able to save Stacy. Stacy wants to keep Spidey but Spidey bails out into the night. I enjoyed this one.
-Amazing Spider-Man #66- Mysterio makes his return and he wants revenge on Spider-Man. He lures him into a trap but not before Peter gets a stern talking to by JJJ thanks to running away from the Vulture fight and Gwen reunites with Pete after her father told her that Pete was on the up and up. Meanwhile, Harry is worried about his father’s descent into madness and he’s even in a panel wearing the Goblin outfit! Spider-Man finds Mysterio but Mysterio gasses him and Spidey is now six inches small!
-Amazing Spider-Man #67- Spidey must battle Mysterio as he’s six-inches tall and he battles all sorts of crazy things, like a room of mirrors, huge lizards and everything inbetween. Spidey’s a smart kid and he soon realizes that he’s not small but Mysterio was using a post-hypnotic effect on him. Spidey finds Mysterio and that’s all she wrote for the former stunt coordinator. Spidey flies by a student protest but he won’t get involved, right? I guess I’ll have to wait for next volume.
-Spectacular Spider-Man #2- This, for me, is the highlight of the whole book. All through the volume Norman’s been teetering on the brink of madness and here he finally cracks. He remembers EVERYTHING, including the identity of Spider-Man. The first 12 pages or so really just go over the Spidey/Goblin saga before we get to the meat of the story. Peter is getting paranoid about the whole thing and even has nightmares about May finding out his identity. This back and forth leads to Norman throwing a party and inviting Harry, MJ, Gwen and Peter, a scene reminicent of the movie. Norman wants to spring his trap and Peter soon realizes that Norman knows who he is! So Peter throws a fireproof ball of web on the fire to lure Norman out in the open and soon they’re having an epic battle. I mean, it is pages long. You can do that when you’re magazine is an astonishing 58-pages long! Norman uses a psychedelic pumpkin and induce images of Peter but he’s too mentally strong and he overcomes its effect. Peter uses the same pumpkin on Norman and this time the mentally fragile Norman loses his memory once again and Peter’s identity is safe – for now. I wonder if this was used in the magazine because the psychedelic pumpkins wouldn’t have been allowed to pass the Comics Code Authority. This was a great story and it had everything you’d need from action to storyline elements to great art. Without a doubt one of the best single-issue Spidey books I’ve read.
-Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5- Peter learns about his parents through a newspaper clipping May had in a locker box. He is dismayed to learn his parents were traitors to the US! Spidey heads to Algeria to find out the truth and all signs point to the fact that they are traitors. He digs deeper and finds that the Red Skull was behind their death. After a little scuffle Peter finds out that his parents were double agents and were actually pretending to work for the Skull to steal information and Skull had them killed because he knew about their true intentions. Spidey leaves content that his parents name were cleared. The annual ends with some pin-ups (a Day at the Daily Bugle, Peter Parker as a sports star, a map of NYC and Peter’s favorite places, Spidey as seen through other publications like Charlie Brown, Superman, Archie, Mickey Mouse and Dick Tracy) and a story of Jazzy John, Stan the Man and Larrupin’ Larry plotting an issue of Spider-Man in true zany fashion. This was a fun annual.
-The Bottom Line- There are a bunch of extras including original pencils for the last story in the annual and it seemed to be going in a completely different direction. There’re other original pencilled pages, too. I am sorry now that I waited so long to read this. This was fantastic. The two issues of Spectacular were well-named. They were spectacular. They were both very different, too. The first reminded me of the Newspaper Strips because it was in black and white and had a great noir-ish type feel. The second one was in-continuity and at 60 pages was almost like reading a three-issue arc that doesn’t take any breaths or have any obvious cliff-hanger moments thrown in at the end of the first two issues. The other stuff in here was good. It wasn’t memorable like the magazines were but it had Lee and Romita in their prime for this book and the book was moving and going places and never stayed stagnant on a storyline plot for long. Highest Recommendation.
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