"THE CLAWS OF THE CAT!"
Writer: Stan Lee/Plot/Pencils: Steve Ditko/Inker: Steve Ditko/Letterer: Artie Simek/Editor: Stan Lee/Cover Art: Steve Ditko
Synopsis: J Jonah Jameson is robbed by the Cat Burglar and offers a thousand dollar reward for his capture. Meanwhile, Peter's life takes a devastating turn...
Review: ASM #30 is a truly offbeat issue. It's very oddly structured, featuring a story in which what would usually be the A plot - Spider-Man going up against a villain - is relegated to the background, so as to focus more on Peter's life as events begin to spiral out of his control. This is an approach I very much approve of; I love it when we get a story that decides to dial back the action every once in a while. It's also a bit of an end of an era, as it features the last appearance of Liz Allan for a very long time - 9 years - as well as giving us the beginning of the end of Peter and Betty's relationship.
Yes, Betty drops a bombshell on Peter this issue: Ned has asked her to marry him. Peter's response to this is slightly odd: he concludes that he'll have to tell her that he's Spider-Man and then propose to her himself; I'm not sure how he thinks this will do any good, considering Betty's known distaste for Spider-Man. His idea of a counter-proposal may seem a bit odd for modern readers as well; Marvel had a habit of treating marriage in a rather off-hand way in the Silver Age, with proposal being seen as a quick and easy solution to the character's problems, though this wasn't true of every case. When Reed proposed to Sue in the pages of Fantastic Four, it worked because they'd been a couple since the comic began, and it felt like a natural evolution, but when Matt Murdock decides he's going to propose to Karen Page in Daredevil, when he hasn't been on a single date with her, you start to question how sincere his intentions are. Here, it makes a kind of sense: Betty has at least been on several dates with Ned, and still wrote to him whilst he was in Europe, so there is a precedent for them to get engaged, and you've got to remember that this was the 60s, when people still viewed marriage as 'the done thing,' and potentially thought less about it than they might do now if someone they've been seeing proposed.
Of course, Peter's plans to reveal his secret identity and offer a proposal of his own go south, as Betty tells him that she wants someone stable and reliable, someone who will always be there to come home to her, not an adventurer like Spider-Man. We also get a nice call-back to her brother's death - the first mention of Bennett Brant since he was shot in Issue #11. With this said, Peter realises that it's hopeless, because he can never give up his responsibilities as Spider-Man, and storms out of Betty's apartment angrily; Ditko's depiction of Peter's frustration and heartbreak is absolutely beautiful throughout this scene; hell, throughout the whole issue. The dejected look on Peter's face feels so true and real, and the final panel, where Peter and Betty are separated by the ghostly image of Spider-Man, is so wonderfully, evocatively Ditko that it stands as one of the most memorable moments from his era.
The rest of the supporting cast are used well also, if not quite as prominently. Jameson is obviously seething after his apartment is robbed - I'm surprised he doesn't accuse Spider-Man of the crime - but his horror when he realises that he'll have to shell out the one thousand dollars to Spidey if he brings the Cat in is a fantastic running gag throughout the issue. We also get some nice appearances of Foswell, using his Patch disguise to track down the Cat for Jameson; I love the shady watering holes Ditko creates for these scenes. As mentioned above, this is also the last time we see Liz for nearly a decade, when she bumps into Peter in the street and asks him to get rid of Flash, who has been following her to find out where she works (so Flash is a stalker now?) It's a rather touching scene between Peter and Liz, as we see how she's getting on in life after graduating high school, and I'm glad that Gerry Conway thought to bring her back all those years later; she was one of the original core supporting cast, after all, and deserved a bit more development.
Of course, there is supposed to be a villain in all of this, but the titular Cat barely makes an appearance, only really turning up to rob Jameson at the start, and try another caper - only to get captured - at the end. Spider-Man does go up against several criminals - including a gang of masked crooks who get away with their prize - but always in little bursts; it feels as if for most of the issue that the Spider-Man action is interrupting the real focus of the story, that being Peter's personal life. The Cat himself isn't that inspiring a character, but he makes for a nice change of pace from the super-powered menaces that Spidey typically has to fight, and the moment where he blows up the base of a water tower to try and kill the web-slinger is fantastic. One thing of note is that it's actually the police, and not Spider-Man that captures the Cat; this is part of a trend of increasing police involvement during the latter half of the Ditko run - we also saw the police help Spidey out during the fight with the gangsters in Issue #27. It's clear that Ditko had a lot of respect for the police; he's even quoted as saying that he envied them the ability to go out and apprehend criminals, an indication of his staunchly black and white principles.
So, there's a lot to like about this issue, but one thing - or rather, one person - brings it down. That person is Stan Lee. We know by this point that Stan was refusing to talk to Steve after Steve demanded he receive the proper credit for the work he was doing, so whenever Stan would be given the finished artwork that Steve had done, he was basically just making up whatever story he could interpret from the pages, and nowhere is the lack of communication more evident than here. The masked gang of crooks that hijack a van delivering uranium to Tony Stark is said to be working for the Cat, when they're clearly a much more organised group, whilst the Cat is one man on his own; next issue, they'll be revealed to be working for the Master Planner. Not only this, but in a later scene, as the Cat plans his final job in his apartment, he mentions that once it's done, he'll go after Spider-Man. Why? Spidey hasn't done anything to jeopardise his robberies, and the Cat would just be stupidly putting himself in harm's way if he tried to take on someone with super-powers. It's a really lacklustre turn by Stan, a clear example of just how little he was trying to communicate with Steve at this point, and makes the issue feel a bit incoherent at times.
ASM #30 is a great issue, but it could have been even better if Stan's dialogue choices didn't leave aspects of the plot feeling messy. Steve's artwork is brilliant, as usual, boasting his love of noir-ish shadows and gorgeous cityscapes; the climactic pursuit of the Cat across the rooftops, with the police spotlights shining up from below, is incredible. There's plenty of character development to enjoy, and it's nice to occasionally take a break from all-out action, especially after the last two issues, which were almost nothing but. Lots to like here, even with some of the baffling dialogue.
Rating: 4/5
Next time, Peter not only begins his studies at Empire State University, but also his greatest adventure of all time...
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