10 June 2021

Spider-Man by Steve Ditko with Stan Lee (No. 35)

Amazing Fantasy #15 (alternate cover, 1962)
The Amazing Spider-Man #1-38, Annual #1-2 (1963-66)
by Steve Ditko (with Stan Lee)

REVIEW BY KENT WORCESTER:
(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century! in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)
The early Spider-Man comics offered a punch-drunk blend of domestic soap opera, workplace comedy, futuristic technology and superhero fisticuffs. Stan Lee was in his element in writing about the tightly-wound teen science whiz who stumbles his way into the Marvel Universe. Steve Ditko generated a storehouse of revelatory images - from the playful dance of Spidey's webbing to faces of hard-nosed criminal underlings. Today, the Spider-Man franchise has become a life support system for some of the most annoying compulsions of the comics industry. But that is no reason for turning our backs on what is surely one of the creative highlights of the Silver Age.

One way of approaching these comics is through the inexpensive black-and-white editions, which bring out Ditko's brooding faces, his euphoric bodies, and his increasingly bold but always controlled lines. Admittedly, these editions obscure the carnival aspect of the original 12-cent comics. But their illusion of transparency calls attention to the visual grammar that structures Spider-Man's movements as he uncoils across a room filled with dangerous men. They also lend an appealing intimacy to Lee's intricate secondary story arcs and his justly famous romance courtship scenes.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the whole enterprise is that Ditko's maturing artistic aspirations and Lee's preference for light melodrama managed to achieve some sort of ecstatic transcendence on the printed page. While their fundamental sensibilities may have been at odds they were both energised by the lesson that Spider-Man embodied - that "with great power comes great responsibility". No doubt Marvel's corporate owners kept this in mind as they cleaved mainstream comics into a thousand pieces.


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