R.I.P. Stan Lee

Obviously, for a blog with such a Marvel slant (so far), I have to say a few words about Stan Lee.

It's not so easy, because Lee's a complicated figure in the whole history of the four-color world.  How does one lionize a villain?  Or criticize a hero?  Because Lee was both, depending on who you ask.  Or what your perspective is.

I've stolen a good chunk of this entry form obituaries by Douglas Wolk in Vanity Fair, and Mark Peters in Slate, in part because they said very well what I want to say, in part cause I'm lazy and wanted to get this entry up in a timely manner.  I've done this without permission, just so's ya know.  

As a kid in the 70's, like most kids in the 70's, I just figured Stan was The Man - the creative genius behind the whole madcap Marvel Universe.  I thought so, we thought so, because, basically, Marvel seemed to be telling us so.  Sort of.  Quoting from Douglas Wolk:

Stan Lee’s name appears somewhere in every superhero book Marvel Comics has published in the past 50-plus years, and in the never-ending parade of movies and TV shows that has come from them. In the 60s, it was lettered in bold type in every story’s credits, almost always giving Lee top billing—no matter whether he had written it, scripted it (there’s a difference), or edited it. Later, “Stan Lee Presents” appeared on the title page of every issue, whether it had passed in front of his eyes at any point or (more likely) not. Later still, it appeared in tiny type in each issue’s indicia; in his final years, he was listed as “Chairman Emeritus.”

Lee’s public persona was perpetually enthusiastic about Marvel’s readers, as well. To read Marvel’s comics, he insisted, was to be part of a cultural moment: he addressed readers as “effendi,“ “frantic ones,” “true believers.” The grandiosity of Lee’s tone was a gag, and one his audience was in on. He could shift from pomp to self-mockery in a heartbeat, as on the cover of 1964’s X-Men #8: “Never have the X-Men fought a foe as unstoppable as Unus! Never have the X-Men come so close to being split up! (And never have you read such a boastful blurb!)” When readers started pointing out errors in Marvel’s stories, he invented something better than a prize: the “no-prize,” awarded to fans who could explain why an apparent mistake wasn’t really a mistake. (It was an ornate envelope with nothing inside it.)

The auspicious branding made Lee his own pop-culture caricature long before he began his string of Marvel movie cameos. In the public eye, Lee, who died Monday at age 95, was generally perceived as the creator of Marvel’s best-known characters, the man who wrote the first decade’s worth of their adventures—injecting wild inventiveness and human depth into the stodgy old superhero genre. 

Or, as Mark Peters puts it:

To this day, Stan is Marvel to many people, and his charm and humor are among the reasons why Marvel is beloved. Without Stan’s style, would Marvel have proven such a durable brand? We’ll never know, but I doubt it. There have been many creators with prodigious imaginations in the history of comics, but there’s never been a salesman like Stan Lee.

True indeed.  But as Volk continues:

That’s not wrong in every way, but it’s definitely not correct. Lee’s work in his golden decade of 1961-1971 really was brilliant and groundbreaking—just not quite in the ways most people think.

Or, as Mark Peter put it in Slate:

Lee reflects misinformation about what the legend did and didn’t do back in the Marvel heyday of the 1960s. In death as in life, Lee gets too much credit for creating and not enough credit for all the other important jobs he did on behalf of Marvel and geek culture in general.

In truth, as true comix/Marvel aficionados know, and the general publik doth not, it wasn't Stan Lee who did the creative heavy lifting.  Volk again:

Most of Marvel’s best-known characters from that decade were created by those artists, with Lee or on their own. (Lee noted, for instance, that Doctor Strange was Ditko’s invention.) To imagine that what we read in Fantastic Four or Iron Man was Lee’s brainchild, illustrated to order by the artists, is flat-out wrong

Yet, Stan was not a villain, and he did contribute to this marvelous mess that is the Marvel milieu, and to comic books in general. Volk again:

...it’s also misleading to think of it as some other creator’s lone genius poured onto the page, then defaced by Lee’s corny gags.

In truth, and Lee made no particular attempt to hide this much, the comics that bore his name were increasingly, after the first couple years probably almost entirely (and certainly by the late 60's entirely) plotted and paced by the artistes, particularly Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko (who did manage to get a "plotted by" credit).  By perhaps `66 on, it's likely Lee was doing little more than making suggestions for story ideas.

Volk again:

He didn’t pretend otherwise, either. A 1966 “Bullpen Bulletins” page explains: “Many of our merry Marvel artists are also talented story men in their own right! For example, all Stan has to do with the pros like JACK ‘KING’ KIRBY, dazzling DON HECK, and darlin’ DICK AYERS is give them the germ of an idea, and they make up all the details as they go along, drawing and plotting out the story. Then, our leader simply takes the finished drawings and adds all the dialogue and captions!”

The proof is in the pudding.  Look at any issue of the FF after Kirby left, or any issue of Spidey after Ditko left. Lee simply did not have the imagination to create the wild, exciting sci-fi ideas that fueled Kirby's best stories in the FF, Thor, and Capt. America, nor the colorful villains that Ditko minted for Spidey.  Conversely, Kirby and Ditko carried their imaginations and themes forward into their subsequent work.

No, Stan's greatest creation was Stan Lee: 

But of all the characters with whom Lee is associated, his greatest—and the only one he created entirely on his own—was “Stan Lee”: an egomaniac who thought it was funny to pretend he was an egomaniac, a carnival barker who actually does have something great behind the curtain. Artist John Romita, who worked with Lee on Daredevil and Spider-Man, put it nicely in a 1998 interview: “He’s a con man, but he did deliver.”

Too, let us add something about Lee's wordsmithing.  Volk:

Word balloons and expository narration clog every page of his comics; everyone seems to be hammily speechifying all the time. The voice of Lee’s omniscient captions is weirdly overfamiliar, like a seatmate on a train who’s about to pitch you a timeshare.

... the more time I’ve spent looking at Lee’s language, the more I’ve come to admire and linger over it. It’s overwrought, over the top, in love with its own cleverness—and why shouldn’t it be? Anyone could have called the force that the Silver Surfer commands “cosmic power.” It took Lee, with his ear for grandiose, poetic speech, to invert that to “the Power Cosmic.” (Unless Kirby came up with that bit—though it sounds a lot more like Lee’s diction.)

In the end...Peters again:

In death as in life, Lee gets too much credit for creating and not enough credit for everything else he did.

But … just because the artists were doing most of the work doesn’t mean they were doing all the work. As Hellboy creator Mike Mignola put it on Twitter: “You can debate forever who really created what—Stan or Jack or Steve—but the truth is it was some magic combination of those guys.” Longtime comics writer J.M. DeMatteis voiced a similar sentiment: “And while we’re raising a glass to Stan, let’s raise a glass to the genius of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Together those three men reshaped our popular culture and fired our collective imagination. ’Nuff Said!”

The complexities of the Kirby-Lee collaboration in particular have been pored over for decades. The latest word will come in Stuf’ Said, a special book-sized edition of Jack Kirby Collector. Not even the most ardent Kirbyite or Ditkohead argues that Lee had no part in the genesis and development of Drs. Doom and Strange and the rest. 

The truth about Stan Lee—a frustrated, middle-aged, would-be novelist who, just when he was ready to quit the business, helped reshape superheroes and pop culture—really is amazing and fantastic. Lee was equally skilled at making the sausage of monthly comics and selling that sausage as sensational (which it often was). His cameos are such a treasure even DC got in on the fun. He truly was a legend and real-life superhero—and a co-creator. That should be enough.

But I'll give the last word to Mark Evanier, comics writer, expert, historian, and as much as Kirby partisan as you could hope to find:

His achievements in the world of comic books were awesome. I happen to think they're not exactly what a lot of people think but I don't doubt their size and endurance. I knew him since 1970, worked for him a few times, talked with him at length and fielded an awful lot of phone calls from him asking me questions about comic books he worked on. He really did have a bad memory, if not when he first started telling people he had a bad memory, then certainly later on as he turned more and more into the Stan Lee character he'd created for himself.

When Gods Walk the Earth

The Eternals was the last major series that Jack Kirby created for Marvel.  It made its debut in the spring/summer of 1976.  And I vividly remember pulling issue 7 off the racks at a local 7-11, and realizing "hey - this is the guy that used to draw The Fantastic Four!"

You must know - in the 70's, we were UFO-crazy. Reports of UFO sightings and encounters made the regular evening news - no lie!  Documentaries aired in Prime Time.  And UFO-related plots turned up on nearly every show - from the sitcoms to the cop shows.  At decades end, there was even a series inspired by the files of Project Blue Book, the U.S. Govs official UFO investigation department, entitled Project: UFO. UFO books poured off the shelves - my local library - which was quite small - must have had a new one at least every month!

Into this fray also came one Erich Von Daniken, a Swiss author of a best-selling book entitled Chariots of the Gods. Chariots put forth the proposition that archaeology and mythology revealed that man had come into contact with extraterrestrials in ancient times, and that they may have imparted technology and wisdom, as well as being the inspiration for gods, heroes, and demons of folklore.  Von Daniken was widely attacked and is pretty much discredited these days - though I should note the criticism actually had less to do with the basic concept of extraterrestrials visiting earth in ancient times - even uber-skeptic Carl Sagan considered that within the realm of possibility - but with sloppy research and blatantly false claims.  Nevertheless, the book (and a cheapo documentary film based on it) were widely popular in the Disco Decade.

Jack Kirby was always interested in UFOs (a friend of mine once spent an evening talking with him about them at a convention), and a voracious sci-fi reader.  Take Von Daniken and a healthy dose of Arthur C. Clarke's classic Childhood's End, and you've got the basis for The Eternals.

The Eternals tells the story of a revelation.  Somewhere in Central America, Dr. Daniel Damian, his daughter Margo, and a mysterious, studly young fellow named Ike Harris locate an ancient, secret temple full of artifacts Damian believes are proof of extraterrestrial contact in ancient times.  An important discovery - but something is amiss.  That something in particular is Ike, who seems way too familiar with the place, the artifacts, and a number of other things.  He also seems to have a purpose in being there - one to which the Damian's research is incidental.

Things start to get really weird when Ike begins to explain that man was not only visited by an alien race - he was, in fact, created by one.  Man - and his cousins.  It seems, millennia ago, a powerful and unbelievably advanced race known as The Celestials dropped in, performed genetic experiments on the primates of Olde Earth, and produced not one, but three races - man, The Eternals - a race of beings who looked like men, but were gifted with immortality, near-indestructibility, and what we might term as super powers, and The Deviants - warty, reptilian humanoids who once dominated the earth but were driven below the ocean depths when they had the nerve to try and attack The Celestials.  The Eternals inspired the tales of heroes and gods of our mythology.  The Deviants - the demons, devils and monsters.

The Damians are pretty much ready to write Ike off as a nutcase - when they are suddenly attacked by a force of Deviants, led by a general named Kro.  The Deviants are there to stop Ike - whose real name is "Ikaris", from starting a beacon which will welcome a Celestial ship back to earth.  This doesn't work out for the Deviants - as Ikaris starts the beacon and fights with his superpowers - the fracas interrupted when the Celestial ship prepares to land right there before the ruin.  It seems the Celestials revisit their experiments every multi-thousand years or so.  This visit is to be a fateful one.  The Celestials are here to make a 50-year survey of the world the species they've sired has created.  If they like what they see, they will deem the experiment a success and move on.  If not - earth and everything on it is toast.

This became the canvas the story would be painted on.  The Deviants, seeking vengeance, hoped to drive The Celestials off.  The Eternals pondered how, exactly, to engage with them (this pondering, ultimately, took the form of something called The Uni-Mind; a kind of ceremony in which hundreds of Eternals essentially transformed themselves into a single entity - a giant floating brain that drifted around in space for awhile.  Seriously.  Only Kirby could have pulled this off).  And mankind - well, mankind stood around and watched in bewilderment. 

The Eternals was nothing if not controversial.  Hapless nerd Marvel-philes groused continually about how  Etermals could fit into the existing Marvel Universe, in which the Greek and Norse gods had already been established as being entirely real.  Though it was clear Kirby had no interest in continuity with said Universe (references to the FF and The Inhumans, for example, were treated as references to fictional characters), the Powers That Be insisted that The Eternals was taking place in the same milieu as the rest of the Marvel titles. It's easy enough today to shake one's head at why this was so damn important to the fans, but even moreso, it's hard to say with Marvel editorial didn't simply concede that this was a free-standing story with a free-standing setting, and not part of their regular "universe".  Stubbornness?  Shortsightedness? Regardless, the controversy raged across the letters page throughout the title's run.

The Eternals ran for 19 issues; about 2 years.  Kirby partisans (and know that I am, most assuredly, a Kirby partisan) blanch at the thought, but conspiracy theories to the contrary, the likely story is it just didn't catch on.  None of Kirby's 70's series really did.  At 19 issues, The Eternals did a little better than most.

There are many possible reasons.  The Eternals was not a superhero book - though it resembled one.  It would be better characterized as a science-fiction title.  Those looking for standard superhero action would have been disappointed. This was clearly Kirby's intent.  In issue 4, Ikaris flies into action against a Deviant invasion of NYC - and is almost immediately taken out.  It's the diplomatic intervention of Eternals Sersi, Makkari and Thena - and the NYPD - that ultimately ends the Deviant attack.  

Like the Fourth World titles, it was something of an extended novel - a tale told in monthly chapters. In this, Kirby was way ahead of his time - the only contemporary project would have been Jack Katz's First Kingdom title. Perhaps Kirby might have been better off trying to produce these sagas privately than through the Marvel/DC grist mill. As an extended tale without the simple frames of reference of the superheroes, it wasn't something you could easily drop into the middle of.



Again, like the Fourth World, The Eternals was not flawless.  Kirby's dialog was stilted and odd, out step with the verbal style of the times, and lacking Stan Lee's sometimes purple and corny but nonetheless more naturalistic ear.  Some readers couldn't and still can't stand it.  His art, too, looked different. Without the leavening of Joe Sinnot or Vince Colleta's inks, which tended to pretty things up and smooth out the rougher edges, the Mike Royer-inked pages of The Eternals et al gave us Kirby unfettered.  For some, it was too stylized, too strong.  The dynamism was unquestionable, but Kirby's big square hands and homely faces were not what Marvel-ites expected, or were used to.  To those who knew Kirby's art from the mid-60's, he seemed to have changed.  Those who'd cut their teeth on Neal Adams and Jim Steranko wondered what all the fuss was about. 

Yet focusing on these ignores the many strengths.  Aside from concept, the characterization was some of the strongest of any Kirby solo title.  While the human characters were little more than passive bystanders (its worth noting that, out of a large cast, only three of the characters were humans), several strong personalities emerged from The Eternals - especially the women - the powerful and noble Thena, and the playful and frequently cruel Sersi stand out.  Likewise, there was the tricksterish Sprite, and the tragic and mysterious "hero" of issue # 13.  Possibly the strongest and most complex was the Deviant general, Kro.  Essentially a villain, yet Kro was driven by ambition, and capable of a certain flawed nobility and even love.  In issue 8, "The City of the Toads", Thena, for whom Kro clearly has a major, and not entirely unrequited, crush, accompanies him to the Deviant city of Lemuria.  There she is witness to the genocidal cleansing of mutated Deviants, accidents of birth even more monstrous than the already gloopy Deviant breed, and the gladiatorial games used to eliminate the stronger mutants.  Disgusted, Thena takes her leave, accompanied by two of the gladiatorial "mutates" - The Reject, who's mutation is that he looks like a handsome human, and Karkas, who looks something like a swollen carrot with legs and a gash of a mouth.  But the studly Reject is, in fact, a brutal killing machine, whereas Karkas is an articulate and sensitive soul.  The two of them argued constantly.  Finally, there were The Celestials themselves - towering giants who looked as much like colossi in ornamental armor as they did robots.  Never given a word or thought balloon, they remained a complete mystery, both beautiful and terrible.

Editorial pressures got the better of the series in its last days.   Forced to introduce some element of Marvel continuity - The Hulk made an appearance in the next two issues.  Sort of.  In actual point of fact, it wasn't really The Hulk, but rather a super-powered android built by a pair of Hulk-loving college students (again, The Hulk was treated as a seemingly fictional character).  This was the nadir of the series.  Things picked up a bit with the next stories, including a powerful mutant Deviant in NYC, and a duel between Ikaris' and his Loki-like cousin Druig that felt like a throwback to late-period Thor.  The Celestials, once the real center of the book, seemed to fade to the back almost entirely, and The Eternals finally became a superhero series after all.

With The Eternals laid to rest, Kirby finished out his contract with the strange but interesting Devil Dinosaur and the odd superhero Mister Machine, before moving on to animation and his even odder work at Pacific.  He would never attempt anything this ambitious again.
















Re-reading The Eternals today, I find it a bit of a shame he never got to continue.  Kirby 
was way ahead of his time in his attempt to create a long-form comics novel - such a project is commonplace today.  Conceptually, he was dealing with issues such as the origins of man and myths, man's place in the universe, and man's future - and suggesting there might not be much future for humankind, and earth.  To an kid of 11 (my age when I first read the early issues), this was heady stuff.  To a middle-aged dude with an arsenal of knowledge behind him unavailable in my youth - it's still heady stuff.  Announcing his return to Marvel in 1976, Kirby had promised that whatever he did would "electrocute you in the mind".  Still in his prime, as an artist, creator, and storyteller Kirby kept his promise. This was the kind of wild innovation that had marked the explosion of creativity that had been the Marvel Age of the 60's.  But the Marvel-philes of the day just wanted him back drawing the FF and Thor.  With Stan writing.  They didn't know what they had.

The Monster....

As the early 70's dawned, the big thing in comics at the mo' was spookery.  DC had brought in Joe Orlando to overhaul the moribund House of Mystery title, restoring it to its original format of chills.  While horror comics had never completely gone away (Charlton and Gold Key had been published mild ghost stories for a decade), it was a long way from the halcyon EC days.  HoM was revived as a somewhat watered-down version of what Jim Warren was doing with Creepy and Eerie.  It worked - sales took off, and soon DC was flooding the stands with scary stories.  Marvel, of course, took notice.  Their first response, a series of anthology titles, didn't catch fire (though there were some excellent stories, some superior to what DC and Warren were doing, including adaptations of Ted Sturgeon, Robert Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard).  Almost all were cancelled or turned into reprint books within a couple years.  Their next attempt was a slew of titles, seemingly inspired by the Universal monsters - thus, we got Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf By Night, The Living Mummy, and The Monster of Frankenstein.

Monster has to be one of the great frustrating losses of Marvel-dom.  The first half-dozen issues, written by Gary Friedrich and drawn by the great-great-great Mike Ploog, stand as one of the best horror comics ever done.  Ploog's art, heavily influenced by Will Eisner, with a touch of Ghastly Graham Ingels, never looked better.  The first three issues were a perfect adaptation of Shelley's novel, depicting a monster that was simultaneously sympathetic and frightening.  #4 picked up where Shelley left off, with the monster returning to 19th century Europe in search of surviving Frankensteins, leading into a decidedly effective werewolf story in #5 and a solid mad-scientist story in #6.  Up to this point, Monster ranks as one of the best of Marvel's horror titles.

Unfortunately, the worm turned fast.  Ploog left the title, and art reins were handed over to John Buscema, who graced it with the most phoned-in looking art I've ever seen from Big John (and I've seen my share of phoned-in Buscema jobs).  The story, with Frankie encountering Dracula in the 19th century, should've been a classic.  As it was, it was minor entertaiment - a nice 30's-40's Universal vibe, done in by Buscema's hackwork.  At least Ploog would have brought it the kind of dripping atmosphere it needed.  In this storyline, the formerly eloquent monster was robbed of his ability to speak, a major loss.

Friedrich helmed a couple more issues, with weak art by Buscema and then even weaker art by Bob Brown.  The storyline had run out of steam anyway, with the monster fighting a succession of hunchbacked brutes and yet another (albeit saner) Frankenstein descendent showing up to no apparent purpose.

With number 12, Val Mayerik had taken over art, Doug Moench, trying to salvage something, the writing, and Frankie found himself frozen in ice and revived in the swingin' 1970's.  Under this creative team, Monster (the mag was now retitled The Frankenstein Monster) essentially morphed into The Hulk, with teenage loser Ralph Caccone filling the Rick Jones role.  A fairly creepy beastie known as The Jigsaw Creature turned up, and yet another descendant of Frankenstein entered the mix -Veronica von Frankenstein.  So too did a crime ring called I.C.O.N.  All of this was pretty schizophrenic, not at all in the Gothic horror mode appropriate for a Frankenstein title.  Too, Mayerik was one of the odder 70's Marvel artist - his work tended to veer from effective to grotesque, often in the same panel.  

As the series wound down, Frankie got his speech back.  But his personality seemed completely different than the one established early in the title's run (said personality had long since disappeared, and the monster had been void for some time).  Mayerik gave him a goofy look that suggested he wasn't taking the whole enterprise too seriously anyway.  Not unwisely.  The final issue (#18) featured Frankie and his new robot buddy fighting off a posse of dwarves under the command of Victoria von Frankenstein.  Yes, yet another Frankenstein.  

While this suggested a possible return to the Gothic nature of the early issues, it also suggested a schizophrenic book and an uncertain direction on Moench's part as to where he would turn next.  We'd never know - the story ended there.  A subsequent Frankenstein series, seemingly unconnected to Monster,  ran in the b&w Monsters Unleashed for another couple years, also written by Moench and drawn (mostly) by Mayerik, but the stories were unmemorable.  Moench simply didn't seem to be able to make anything interesting out of Shelley's monster.

Since then the monster has occasionally turned up, usually as a hulking, silent brute.  It seems Marvel didn't have any better idea of what to do with him than the mortal world.

The Spider or the Man?

Spider-Man is the most famous Marvel character, bar none.  Even people who’ve never paid a damn bit of attention to comics know Spidey.  Look, the guy’s been the subject of SIX big-budget Hollywood films (which means he’s at least tied with Batman and Superman), and at least half-a-dozen animated series, as well as a short-lived un-animated series in the late 70’s (even if was lousy) (PS – there was also a live-action Spidey series in Japan).  Plus toys, books, a newspaper comic strip and god knows what else.  Spidey is as close to a household word as superheroes get.

Actually, I first met Spidey not in the comics but in the Grantray-Lawrence animated series from `67, which was in re-runs c. `71 when I first saw it.  The GL series was a cheap, crude and odd beast – the first season was a simplified but pretty straightforward adaptation of the comics – most of the stories were based on issues, or if not, at least used Spidey’s established pack of villains and supporting characters.  The second season, which was helmed by Ralph Bakshi, turned into a bizarre psychedelic sci-fi fest that had little to do with the comics but was fun to watch.

In any case, Spidey was commissioned by Stan Lee but devised by Steve Ditko, one of the oddest artistes ever to grace a comics page, both in artistic style – Ditko drew odd, skinny, balletic-looking characters and the weirdest aliens and monsters imaginable – and in person – Ditko was a reclusive, anti-social, Ayn Rand-devoted oddball.  He died this year in near-total poverty.

Ditko had a bizarre and wild imagination.  His forte, pre-Spidey, had been short fantasy/sci-fi tales with weird twist endings, and really weird characters.  Even his most normal depictions had a strange, unearthly quality.  And when he let his imagination off its leash, as he did especially with his other major Marvel creation, Doctor Strange, the results were positively lysergic.

The most remarkable thing about reading through Ditko’s run on Spidey – basically the first three years – thirty-eight issues plus two annuals – is that while Ditko certainly put a unique and distinctive stamp on his run, he also established so much of what Spidey would continue to be to this day in that short, long-ago period of time.

It’s also important to note that, as with Kirby on his titles, Ditko is the one to credit.  While the initial development may have been collaborative, the stories, themes, and characters in the Ditko Spider-Mans are consistent with those he would develop in subsequent projects over the years.  One need only look at the post-Ditko Spider-Man issues to see that there’s simply no way Stan had the imagination or the inclination to have mined that territory.

Reading these issues again today, these are the things that leap out at me from Spidey's original run...

The Superhero As Prize Dork

Superheroes were generally millionaire playboys who no one thought would put their asses out there in danger.  The exceptions still didn’t stray far from a certain alpha-male-ness.  Billy Batson might’ve been a kid, but he was a cool kid.  Don’t say Clark Kent – sorry.  Even if he wore glasses, Clark was obviously manly as hell.

Peter Parker, on the other hand, was a dork.  Skinny.  Bespectacled.  He wore sweater vests and bow-ties for fuck’s sake!  Jocks picked on him and girls ignored or laughed at him.  

He was forever at the mercy of Aunt May, a mummified sweet-natured crone who mother henned the kid ad nauseum, always exerting him to wear his galoshes, watch out for wind, rain, roughneck kids, anything else she was afraid of – which seemed to be everything under the sun.  Aunt May thought Spider-Man a terrifying criminal, and expected Pete to stay away from anything that might risk a bruise.  She didn’t like slang and she expected him to dress properly, so all around Aunt May cramped Pete’s style as a high school kid and was an obstacle to work around in his superheroing (though she obviously must not have been very attentive, given how much the guy snuck out at night).

The whole Aunt May thing was mostly played for laughs, but Peter’s devotion to her was no joke, and several stories, plus his entire motivation for becoming a photographer, came from his attempts to support and protect her.

The Superhero As Angst-Ridden Teenager

Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch had already set Marvel’s standard for a more realistic teenage hero, but the Torch couldn’t have been more opposite to Peter Parker.  Johnny Storm was a jock, a loudmouth, and, let’s face it, was never depicted as any kind of intellectual.

Marvel may also have already given us the self-loathing, morose Ben Grimm, but Peter Parker was a much more relatable angst-ridden teen.  It’s said that Ditko researched teenage psychology as material for his stories, and that may be true.  Peter/Spidey was moody as hell, confused, prone to fits of despair and frustration.  As early as ish 3 Peter was throwing out his suit and quitting for good (something he would do many more times), after having his ass handed to him by Dr. Octopus (an inspirational talk from The Human Torch changed his mind).  In point of fact, Peter is a right ass in his debut story, a self-centered, angry jerk blowing off everyone around him, until he learns his painful lesson about great power and responsibility.

He also did share one trait with Johnny Storm – a fearsome temper.  Out of costume, he would periodically start to blow and have to pull himself back.  In costume, he didn’t always bother.  It didn’t happen often, but from time-to-time Spidey would simply lose his shit and leave even the hardest villains running in terror.  The rarity of such moments made them all the more startling.

And, while other superheroes’ secret IDs were little more than color or occasional plot points, Peter’s soap opera soon took over the comic, the foibles and frustrations of his civilian life taking up as much as a third of any given issue, and becoming increasingly intertwined with his life as a super-hero.

The Super-Hero As Social Outcast

A continued theme in Ditko’s work.  Post-Spidey, Ditko’s creations consistently operated outside of society and were often vilified for it.  The Creeper was condemned by the media and hounded by the cops.  Shade the Changing Man was a fugitive from justice.  Mr. A and The Question were crazed, loner vigilantes.  Even the more innocuous Blue Beetle was distrusted, while the super-powered Captain Atom was considered a dangerous menace.  

Peter Parker was social outcast for being a dork.  Spidey was a social outcast for being a vigilante, and hey – he was spider-y! Ick! 

Ditko jumped on this theme out the gate of ASM #1, when news publisher J. Jonah Jameson begins regularly editorializing against Spidey, even after the web-head rescues Jameson’s astronaut son from a space capsule crash (caused by Official First Spidey Villain, the otherwise forgettable Chameleon).  Jameson simply concludes that Spidey himself sabotaged the capsule in order to make himself a hero, anticipating Donald Trump by more than fifty years.

Jameson immediately became a significant supporting character, continually railing against Spider-Man no matter how many good deeds he did (including saving Jameson’s own ass on numerous occasions).  Mostly played for laughs, Jameson carried on as a lunatic crank, who eventually extended his hate to all super-heroes – but always with Spidey as Numero Uno.  He continues to be a pest to this day.

The Super-Hero As Sad Sack

As if all this weren’t enough, Spidey had the worst record for stupid things happening to him imaginable. Losing his costume and not being able to sew a replacement fast enough.  Underestimating villains and getting his ass waxed.  Even being mocked by little kids.  Not to mention sometimes just plain fucking up.  Parker’s luck was mostly all bad. 

The Superhero As Wise-Ass

Superheroes had always been prone to making quips while punching out crooks, especially Batman and Robin.  Spidey, however, was the first superhero to weaponize sarcasm and a smart mouth. Whether to cover for his own fear, to goad and piss off megalomaniacal opponents (all super-villains are megalomaniacs, but Spidey’s enemies seemed to be especially so, even by expected standards), or just cuz, Spidey always kept up a steady stream of smart-assery all through his battles.  There was also the additional fact that his mouthing off was usually pretty damn funny.

Villains

Only Batman could boast a rogue’s gallery as impressive as Spidey’s, and all of them were introduced during Ditko’s run.  Ditko throughout his career introduced odd, quirky villains.  Even the least of them had a memorable quality.  Conversely, post-Ditko, the only major villain introduced for decades was The Kingpin, an overweight mob leader.  Only Ditko could have conceived of the freakshow of baddies Spidey came up against.

Spidey’s first big foe was The Vulture, a craggy old guy with mechanical wings.  Not so impressive at face value, but Ditko gave him speed, maneuverability and smarts that made him pretty formidable.  Interestingly, The Vulture was pretty much pure criminal, primarily interested in stealing and occasionally taking revenge on people who pissed him off (namely Spidey). 

The Sandman was a brutal thug who could turn his body into various consistencies of sand.  For a dumb guy, he could be pretty inventive with his powers, and gave Spidey a run for his money (he later became a major menace to the FF) when he showed up, though he often came to ignominious defeats (sucked into a vacuum cleaner, et al).  Unlike in the films, Sandman was a pure brute with no redeeming qualities.  The Lizard was Curt Connors, a scientist experimenting with formulas to cause new limb growth, whose experiments transformed him into a lizard-humanoid bent on leading the reptiles of the world against the human race.  The Lizard was savage and homicidal.  Spidey managed to find a cure and made himself a permanent ally in Dr. Connors and his family.  Connor would re-appear later in Ditko’s run, though not as The Lizard.  Electro was an electrified electrician (say that three times fast) who could throw lightning bolts and give off massive electrical charges.  Like The Vulture, he was mostly in it for the money.  Mysterio has to be the classic, ultimate Ditko super-villain – a guy 

wrapped in a flowing green cloak, with an opaque inverted fishbowl for a head, surrounded in a cloud of fog.  Mysterio seemed to have unlimited supernatural powers, particularly his habit of raising that cloud of fog and disappearing.  It turned out all his powers were clever tricks, but Mysterio was a rare super-villain whose gambits involved fucking with Peter’s mind far more than fighting him.  Added to Mysterio’s own innate bizarreness was the surreal nature of his escapades.  He was rarely used, even after Ditko left, but the decidedly weird storylines that accompanied him during and after Ditko were always memorable.  Curiously, there’s a bunch of online polls showing him as one of Spidey’s least respected villains, but every Spidy-phile I know loves Mysterio.  Kraven the Hunter was a wildly-constumed super big-game hunter whose goal was to hunt Spidey down like an animal, in the urban jungle.  He made a couple appearances, but one was little more than a re-take of the first.  It took Mike Zeck and J.M. DeMatteis to figure out what do with Kraven.  The Scorpion was one of several baddies (Kraven was another, and Mysterio too, for that matter) whom Jameson paid to stomp Spidey.  In this case, however, he also paid for the guy’s costume and powers (a green suit and transformation allowed him to climb walls, have super-strength possibly a match for Spidey’s, and a tail that he could club things with). 

Oh, and the Green Goblin.  Well, despite his rep over the years, Gobby wasn’t all that much of a big deal in the Ditko era.  Except that he was always treated as a big deal.  He bowed in ish 14, tricking Spidey into a battle with The Enforcers, a crime trio who’d previously tangled with the web-slinger a few issues prior.  He was odd, of course (all Ditko villains were), with his Halloween-ish appearance and weapons.  But its clear from this first story that Stan/Steve had big plans for the Gob – he gets away clean at the end, leaving his intentions and his identity a mystery.  This trend continued in his second appearance, and his third.  And fourth.  And fifth.  Norman Osborn didn’t get formally introduced until issue 37, but even then he’s clearly being set up for something important, paying off crooks to off Spidey, and he’s revealed to be quite corrupt, and hiding a sinister secret.  It might be noted that for years, Stan claimed Ditko left Marvel because of the decision to have Gobby turn out to be Norm.  I call bullshit, since Ditko was known to be plotting those late issues, and clearly Norm’s mystery was building. (Actually, Ditko left over money issues – Spidey had become a big moneymaker and he wanted a piece of the action).

Most importantly, there was Otto Octavius, aka Dr. Octopus, aka Doc Ock.  Ock bowed in in

issue 3 and remains a menace to this day.  Ock was a creep nuclear scientist who ended up with 4 robotic arms fused to his torso after an atomic accident.  It also made him a bit crazy (though there were suggestions he wasn’t exactly Joe Normal to begin with).  Ock was continually committing showy crimes in order to get his hands/etc on scientific equipment and money, all to the purpose of some kind of experiment or research that was never defined or explained – quite possibly Ock didn’t know himself.  After his initial appearance, he also hung out with shady underworld types.  Those extra arms were fearsome weapons and he wasn’t exactly easy to beat.  Almost all of his appearances under Ditko were in major storyline or plot points, and he was and is Spidey’s arch-foe, no matter how often Stan argues for The Goblin.

All of the above builds to the “Master Planner” storyline in issues 30-32, which features Aunt May falling ill due to radioactive elements in her blood (a side-effect of a blood transfusion she got from Peter early on) (why she didn’t become Old Spider Lady I can’t say)(given how many other supporting characters have become Spider-powered over the years, maybe I shouldn’t go giving Marvel any ideas).  A criminal called The Master Planner is sending out teams to steal scientific equipment – Spidey has several inconclusive run-ins with them.  When they steal a serum that can save Aunt May, Spidey loses it and runs all over NYC, terrorizing criminals for information.  All of this leads him to the lair of the Master Planner, who turns out to be Doc Ock.  After a brief battle, Ock, realizing that Spidey’s out of control, pulls the ceiling down and escapes, leaving Spidey trapped under tons of steel.  Spidey, trapped and helpless, works himself up from defeat and despair to determination, and throws off the debris in a spectacular panel that ranks with Ditko’s best work anywhere.  It was a hell of a story.

After issue 15, Ditko, like Kirby during his final phase, seems to have been holding back on new characters.   Most issues were filled with either retuning villains, or second-rate new ones.  This is not the same as saying these later stories were bad (some of them were among the best the series would offer).

Supporting Cast

Over time, Peter Parker's personal life, and the people in it, became every bit, if not more, important than the superheroics.

Flash Thompson was a knuckle-dragging jock who taunted Pete endlessly for daring to do things like read books and be interested in science.  For amusement’s sake, he was also Spidey’s biggest fan and continually defended his hero’s rep whenever anyone suggested that Jameson might be right about him.  After Pete finally breaks down and fights him in issue 8, knocking him cold, Flash starts occasionally showing a microbial fraction of respect for his rival – and avoids ever fighting him again, despite boasting that he’d destroy him if he did.  

Harry Osborn got introduced in issue 31, as a loud-mouthed little pipsqueak with bad hair and a penchant for bow-ties.  He quickly became Flash Thompson’s wingman and spent his time taunting Peter and trying to impress Gwen Stacy, the University’s icy beauty.  Harry later inexplicably became Peter’s best friend, though it was hard to see why Peter, friendless though he mostly was, would want to hang out with Harry even after he started acting semi-human.

Frederick Foswell was a wimpy Don Knotts-looking reporter who set himself up as a crime-lord, but was taken down in issue 10.  He reappeared much later with a more dignified appearance, working undercover in disguise as a crime reporter.  Not exactly an ally of Spidey but sometimes useful, Foswell was a significant presence during Ditko’s final year on the title.













Luv Interest

Superman might have had Lois Lane, and the female hanger-on was a steady of superhero titles.  It took the complex Reed-Sue relationship, the relatively realistic but light-hearted Barry-Iris in The Flash, and finally, Spidey, to bring some realism to romance in superhero comics.  

Liz Allan started off as the unobtainable gf of Flash Thompson.  But starting with ish 4, she accepts a sympathy date (which ends up not happening anyway) with poor Peter.  None of this goes anywhere, but in ish 12, after becoming impressed with Peter’s courage in standing up to Doc Ock to protect Betty, she dumps Flash and starts making a play for Parker. Liz never did appear to be anything but air-headed and shallow, but all this did point to a major series development that I’ll get to shortly.

Peter’s chick-luck turns at the end of issue 5, when Jameson’s secretary, Betty Brant, starts openly flirting with him.  By the end of issue 7, Pete is aggressively coming on to her (pretty damn smoothly, for a teenage dork, too!)  Despite the sweetness of their relationship, Betty became a problem right quick.  As early as issue 9, she was expressing her desire to not become involved with a thrill-seeking, danger-courting guy.  Maybe not the best choice for a superhero.  All this only got more complicated when Betty comes to blame Spider-Man for the accidental death of her brother in a gunfight in issue 11.  Soon, Betty began displaying decidedly unlikeable traits, such as possessiveness and insane jealousy,  mainly directed towards Liz Allan but soon to nearly every female short of Aunt May who comes within 10 feet of Pete.  This trend soon went over the top, with absurd drama-queenish moments any time he wasn’t giving her his undivided attention.  She began dating Ned Leeds, a young reporter for Jameson’s paper, and rubbing Peter’s nose in it (while still ostensibly being his girlfriend).  When Pete finally dumps her for good after she’s been playing him off Ned Leeds for months, it made a certain amount of sense.  With issue 34, she bailed and wasn’t much missed.  Betty was a neurotic weakling, but she was admittedly very human and believable.

Betty and Liz were pushed off the stage by Gwen Stacy come ish 31. An icy beauty with a brain, who was fascinated by Pete’s academic record and challenged by his perceived standoffish-ness.  Despite her striking appearance, Gwen in her Ditko incarnation was, well, complicated.  She seemed feisty and prone to manipulative and devious means to get Peter’s attention, and prone to fits of temper when he disappointed her.  But she didn’t lack confidence, that’s for sure.

In case you think we missed her, Mary Jane Watson began to appear with issue 25, after hanging around as a joke, mentioned, but never seen.  She was the niece of a friend of Aunt May’s friend Anna May Watson, and Aunts was determined to fix her and Peter up.  Pete, meanwhile, thwarted every attempt, convinced she must be ugly.  Pete never did lay eyes on her during Ditko’s run, nor did we.  But Liz and Betty did…

The Super-Hero As A Work In Progress

All of this leads me to the most interesting and unexpected part of this whole tale.  Because over the course of these 37+ issues, Peter becomes less and less of an angst-ridden teen, and less-and-less and more less-and-less of a dork.  The hapless guy who can’t get a girl to look at him twice forwardly (and smoothly) flirts back with his first crush (and gets her!), is pursued by the Prettiest Girl in School (High School Edition)and later by the Prettiest Girl in School (College Edition).  The bully magnet gives notice that he can only be pushed so far – and proves it.  Look – a guy who fights for his life against high-tech-weaponed and super-powered villains (including Doctor Doom) on a regular basis just isn’t going to be intimidated by schoolgirls or loudmouthed jocks.  Ditko and Stan both got it, and worked it into the stories, as Peter’s growing self-confidence and inner strength began to show whether he intended them to or not.  This was no accident – Betty and Gwen both notice it.  This was something that had never happened in a super-hero series before.  

Ditko’s Spider-Man was the best title in Marvel’s early galaxy.  Much of that is due to Ditko’s bizarre imagination, iconoclastic themes, and humor.  But much of that also is due to the fact that, reading through his run, you realize that you aren’t just reading about a young superhero – you’re also reading about a boy becoming a young man.