The Amazing Spider-Man
Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Ben Saunders (editor)
I was not much of a comic-book reader when I was a kid. (In a world where free public libraries were abundant, a fiscally responsible kid concentrated reading on what they contained.) But every now and then I would find a left-behind issue in some place I stayed, or come across one in the home of a friend. Even to someone as ignorant as me, it was obvious that there was something special about Spider-Man. Peter Parker was a real person with realistic problems: an orphan whose uncle died tragically, an aunt with health problems for which money had to be found. (He was also a grad student in the late 1970s, a time when I myself was a Biochemistry grad student.) His spider-powers only made his problems worse. In the 1960s and 1970s Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne didn't have ordinary life problems. They would later develop some -- the Spider-Man formula was so successful that eventually all super-heroes became Spider-Man.
After reading What If . . . Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? I thought the time had come to learn more about this new canon of American culture. I quickly discovered the Penguin Classics Marvel Collection and bought the first one, which concerns Spider-Man.
Penguin Classics produces carefully curated editions of classic literature. "Curated" means selection and explanation. This particular one covers the story of Spider-Man from his appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 through The Amazing Spider-Man #19. Not every one of the those 20 issues is included. The editors cherry-picked the best and most important, filling in gaps with 2-3 page text summaries of missing issues. They also explain the "Marvel Method" -- the way in which an artist (Steve Ditko for the early Spider-Man) and a writer (Stan Lee) worked together to produce the story.
At this point Lee and Ditko sort of knew what they were doing and sort-of didn't. They made conscious decisions to make their heroes real people with real problems, to tell a cumulative story that grew over the years, and to place them in a wider world with other Marvel heroes. They got the big stuff right. But, familiar with the modern Marvel Comics, since 2009 a subsidiary of Disney, with all the slick production values that implies, I was taken aback at how sloppy and amateurish the early issues are. For instance, in an early issue Peter is misnamed as Peter Palmer. The name of Peter's eventual lover, Mary Jane Watson, appears in these issues, except that she is Mary Jane Watson the first time she's mentioned and Mary Jane Watkins the second time. Steve Ditko's drawings of Spider-Man are dynamic and detailed, but his drawings of ordinary people are often crude, with literally crooked faces.
Still, even in these first 20 issues there is obvious progress -- the later issues are better than the earliest ones. I would be tempted to read more -- I'd love to at least get through the story of Gwen Stacy, who doesn't appear in these first 20 issues at all. But that's a job without end. Amazon has a 67-volume series called The Amazing Spider-Man -- it costs about $1000 on kindle. I will not be reading it. However, if Penguin Classics continue their Marvel Collection with a curated selection of later Spider-Man issues, I'd be delighted.
I have ordered and intend to read the remaining five volumes of the Penguin Classics Marvel Collection.
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