The Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #1

 "LO, THIS MONSTER!"

Writer: Stan Lee/Penciller: John Romita Sr./Inker: Jim Mooney/Letterer: Sam Rosen/Editor: Stan Lee/Cover Art: Harry Rosenbaum and John Romita Sr.

Synopsis: Mayoral candidate Richard Raleigh has become the target of every mob in the city, and now he's also got a giant minster after him, but is everything as it appears...?

Review: The first of only two issues of The Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine is in many ways the one that stands out more strongly, even if I consider it the weaker of the two. The lush, gorgeous artwork may be provided by John Romita, but the monochrome look is totally unlike anything we've seen in a Spidey comic before; the usually bright, vibrant, colourful world feels just a little bit more grown-up, and that's reflected in the story as well.

I will applaud Stan for trying something rather different with this plot, as it can't have been the kind of thing that was going to appeal to kids back in the day, but then, SSM was always intended to be geared more towards adults - that's the impression I have, anyway. Here we get a plot involving a corrupt, deceitful politician, the gullibility of the masses, and the bias of the media, with a fair bit of political satire thrown in for good measure. It's pretty weighty stuff for a kid to get their head around, but as an adult, I appreciate what Stan was trying to do here in aging up Spider-Man just that little bit whilst retaining the exciting adventures the character is known for. This wouldn't be the last time Stan tackled social issues in the pages of Spidey either, as pretty soon we'll start to see more politically aware stories turning up in the pages of ASM as well, but it all started here. We get some of Stan's most profound dialogue in this story; Captain Stacy's cutting admonishment of Jameson - "May heaven protect us from those who know all they need to know...about anything" - has always stuck with me, and I use this quote on a pretty regular basis in today's politically divided world.

Contrasting with the more grounded and grown-up political content is the incredibly cartoony giant monster, who smashes and crashes his way through Romita's huge panels on a supposed quest to destroy Raleigh. The monster isn't really the most inspiring of villains, despite some nice allusions to Frankenstein's monster, and he doesn't even get a proper name - we'll have to wait until Gerry Conway's retelling of this story for that - but I can't fault Romita's dynamic action scenes, which are full of power and impact; really exciting stuff. I particularly enjoy the sequence where Peter webs up a cracked ceiling that is about to collapse on the crowd at a Raleigh event; everything happens so quickly that he doesn't have time to change to Spider-Man, and I always get a kick out of seeing Peter swinging into action without his costume. Raleigh himself is also a little on the cartoony side, what with his plan of taking over the world with an army of monsters, but once again, I admire Stan picking a completely non-powered character to be the big villain of the story - and that's no spoiler, Raleigh outs himself as a psychotic madman in the first scene he appears in - and the type of villain that the reading public was more likely to be affected by in the real world.

It also seems to me that this story was intended for people who had never read a Spider-Man comic before - although obviously seasoned veterans can dive right in as well - as Stan and John take the time to introduce every single major supporting character with the exception of Flash, who presumably is away in Vietnam during the events of this story. Speaking of continuity, where exactly is this story placed? It can't fit into the current events over in ASM, because Peter and Gwen are like two lovebirds in this, a stark contrast to Gwen's anger with Pete in the wake of the Brainwasher Saga. The Marvel Wiki doesn't have any answer - they posit that this issue takes place in-between ASM #59 and #60, which is completely impossible - so I'm going to say that it takes place between Issues #67 and #68, as there isn't a more convenient spot to put it, and once we get to Conway's revamp of the tale: boy, oh boy, that's going to be a continuity headache.

The first attempt at a spin-off book for Spider-Man is a pretty resounding success, on the whole. It's never going to be an all-time great story, and it's a bit tonally inconsistent what with it's political commentary clashing with cartoony villains, but it's a minor classic in its own right, simply for taking the wall-crawler into territory that he hadn't been before, and the black and white artwork is absolutely beautiful, leaps and bounds above what was being put out in ASM every month at the same time. Romita's pencils are as strong as ever, but Jim Mooney's inks work real wonders here and make everything pop. But, for me, I think the true hero of this story is Stan, who gives us a more adult take on the character, without sacrificing the tone and spirit that we've come to know and love.

Rating: 4/5

"IN THE BEGINNING--"

Writer: Stan Lee/Penciller: Larry Lieber/Inker: Bill Everett/Letterer: Artie Simek/Editor: Stan Lee

Synopsis: A retelling of the origin of the Amazing - sorry, Spectacular - Spider-Man...

Review: And, in addition to the main event, we also get a brief, very truncated retelling of the origin story - Stan even admits that this new version doesn't exactly cover the original beat for beat. It's understandable why this is here, as back in 1968, not everybody and their dog knew the origin of Spider-Man, and so a recap would have been necessary, especially if Stan was banking on this first issue being picked up by a lot of new readers.

There are a few additions that I quite like: I enjoy the scenes of Uncle Ben's funeral acting as a bookend to the origin itself, and the moment where Peter discovers his spider strength after some tough guys hassle him on the street is a welcome inclusion, but the whole thing can't help but just feel like a lesser version of the original. We lose the wrestling scene with Crusher Hogan, the burglar running past Spider-Man happens before the web-head makes his TV debut; it's nice that it's a little bit different, but that doesn't make it better, or even a tenth as good as the Lee/Ditko classic. Lieber's art is solid, but he's no Steve Ditko, and some of Stan's revisions to the iconic dialogue of the original are genuinely kind of painful: the chilling, "There's no place on earth where you can hide from me!" becomes, "There's no place on earth you can run--to escape me!"

This will be a common complaint I make whenever they do a retelling of the origin story over the years, and you'll probably all get sick of hearing it, but no matter how many revisions and adjustments they make to the story, no matter how strong the retelling may be, it's never going to be as good as Amazing Fantasy #15. The concise but effective storytelling that Lee and Ditko managed in just 11 pages can never be matched, not even when Lee himself is still on dialogue duties.

Rating: 3/5

Next time, we're journeying back to ASM with Issue #63, where a figure we all thought we'd seen the last of takes to the skies once again to reclaim them as his own...