Your Friendly Fighting Neighborhood Spider-Man!

(The dates for 1975 and 2025 are identical.)

The month kicks things off with the Amazing Spider-Man and the rather expansive cast of characters which shared his book in the 70's. Spider-Man was and is a powerhouse character who has developed a popularity out of all reason really. In a decade in which superheroes were only starting to regain their footing in the comic format, he came charging to the fore, becoming Marvel's flagship character and more. Today I want to take a look the character and how he interacted with other Marvel heroes over the decades and maybe discover the secret sauce that made Marvel so attractive to readers in those years. 

Unexpectedly this volume of Marvel's Decades series has proven to be my favorite. Documenting as it does one of the most elegant aspects of the Marvel Universe, that it is indeed a universe, a mostly coherent environment in which heroes and villains live and fight on a landscape very similar to our actual reality. The linchpin in this tome is Spidey, the teenage hero who was incredibly successful and soon became the "Mickey Mouse" of the Marvel Universe.

Spidey meets the Fantastic Four in the very first issue of his very own comic. But after a brief tussle in which he showcases his powers to the team, he loses interest when he learns there is no paycheck for the gig. Steve Ditko drew that first meeting, but Jack Kirby did the cover with Ditko inks. 

Spidey then meets the Fab 4 for the first time again in the pages of the first Fantastic Four Annual. Apparently, Stan didn't think the meeting in the pages of Spider-Man sufficient to tell the story, so we get a fuller tale with art by Jack Kirby this time. 

We get to see that happen as Spidey drops in here and there and seemingly everywhere to add his obnoxious observations to the struggles against evil. It's a trope that Marvel heroes always fight when they encounter one another and in these hallowed pages, we see that's actually mostly true. Since both  Spidey and the Human Torch were youthful, Marvel wasted little time getting the two together, both as antagonists and allies. The first time was on the Human Torch's territory in the second Strange Tales Annual. 

They hook up again in the eighth issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Kirby and Ditko had drawn the Strange Tales encounter, and they likewise do the honors on this one. Spidey is developing a jealousy of the Torch, because as a public hero with ready access to money he's living the life Peter Parker can only dream about. 

We are also treated to a few pages from the important fourteenth issue of Spider-Man when he tumbles across the Hulk of all people. This is in a period when the Hulk is without a regular feature and Stan is trying to keep him in the public eye by guest-starring him all over the place. 

It seemed a natural to have Marvel's two insect-inspired characters duke it out. Spider-Man was a hero on the rise, and sadly Giant-Man was on the wane. As was unfortunately true of most of Giant-Man's stories from this period this one lacks a bit of luster. 

Spidey for his part had a natural rivalry with the Human Torch from his earliest days and later he finds Daredevil more a man of his liking. This is one of Ditko's best and it gave DD some much needed exposure. It would be years before Daredevil began to approach Spidey's popularity. The duo battle against the always entertaining Circus of Crime in that outfit's second outing, after they got their big top butts beat by the Hulk. 

The Avengers and Spidey never blended well I always thought and that is showcased as well. These days he's a key part of their success, but when I was reading comics, he was not a public hero in such a way as to make assembling a real possibility.

Steve Ditko's two creations mixed it up in the second Spider-Man King-Size Annual in a bizarre little story. The cover is a classic, but it doesn't do justice to the way-out story inside where Doc Strange and Spidey take on Xandu over the ultra-magical Wand of Watoomb.  

Doffing his yellow tights and putting on his iconic red suit, Daredevil proved a worthy ally and opponent for the Wall-Crawler time and again. This time out they take on the Masked Marauder, one of Marvel's lesser creations. 

Spidey gets disappointed in his bid to join the Avengers, first by the Hulk who gets into the mix and then later when he learns there's no salary for being an Avenger. (Years later they did start getting stipends or something, so it worked out in the end.) This one is fun and I'm always up to seeing Goliath in his yellow and blue costume, perhaps my favorite all-time. 

Spidey joins DD once again when the Masked Marauder creates more trouble over in Daredevil's book. The art this time is by Gene Colan and might be his first try at the Web-Slinger. 

Spider-Man has a hard time with the X-Men, at the time quite a mysterious group, operating in the shadows thanks to the machinations of Professor X. As usual a misunderstanding creates friction. 

And this is a wonderful image, as the Fab 3 face off against the combined might of Thor, Daredevil and Spidey. They make for a great cover, but not so great a team. This gem by Kirby and Sinnott really showcases that pugnaciousness which defined early Marvel and which I feel was the strain that attracted so many readers. 

On Saturday there will be more about what to expect this year as the Dojo takes a very spiritual turn. 

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A Mighty Marvel New Year!

Let kick off the year with this beauty. It's the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975. What's significant about this gem is that this year of 2025 we get to enjoy it all over again as the days will repeat in total. Marvel and Abrams have reissued this lovely item for us all to share again. 1975 was an important year in my life, the year I graduated high school and stumbled off to college. There I met my beloved wife of forty years who blessed me with two terrific daughters. So, reliving this year will be a dream come true. As an old man now, looking back is what I do best. 

My scheme is to use these nifty calendar pages to kick off each month. We'll see how that goes later today with the Amazing Spider-Man. Now in the past, the first day of the month always gave you guys a tip about what was coming in any given month. It won't work that way this year. More on that this weekend. 

Here's a look at the original from those halcyon days. 

This marvelous calendar will make that easy. Look for a post at the beginning of each month devoted to the calendar focus for that particular month. I'll start a little later today with the Amazing Spider-Man. 

And as the year trundles along, I will celebrate the birthdays of some of my favorite artists and writers by putting the focus on some one of their key contributions to the field comic books. I might venture further afield from time to time as well to include some of my favorite writers from other formats. All that and the usual kind of stuff you've expected here at the Dojo. 

As the calendar says -- Make Mine Marvel...One More Time. 

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Classics Illustrated - A Cultural History!

I have been trying to fit this post in all year. It's been kicked forward month after month, ever since January. I thought it apt that finally I close out 2024 with this reflection on some great vintage comic books. 

Classics Illustrated was once upon a time a noble staple of comics. They were comics you could read in public without drawing down the scorn of the adult class, books that while dry and often dull were nonetheless comics in a world which was not overripe in such bounty. In Classics Illustrated - A Cultural History we get a rigorous telling of the origins and of the development of this distinguished brand even down to the modern day. I have to confess, much more went into the development of these vintage classics than I imagined, and they were held in high regard by those who produced them. Unlike many comics produced for the mass market quickly and cheaply, these were husbanded into creation by some stern editors over the decades. 

Some of the Classics Illustrated books were exceedingly well drawn (The Three Musketeers for instance) and others hold up less well over the decades. But behind their staid painted covers, all had the cache of being acceptable to the general populace, but still with the slight aroma of cheating the system. Enjoy some of my favorite covers from this venerable run. (I've also included when available the original non-painted covers for many of these.)

That wraps up 2024. See you tomorrow in 2025!

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