Enter Sandman
How do you beat a villain that feels no pain, that can reshape himself into any form he chooses? How do you stop the unstoppable? That is the question Spider-Man must answer in this feature length issue as he battles the latest greatest villain from Marvel The Sandman!
This book felt too long to me. The increased length of the issue seemed to come at the expense of decent pace. Almost every scene took a couple of panels more than it needed to, and in the sixties the writers were very keen to fill those panels with words. It kind of made the story drag a little here and there. That said the plot was pretty good if a little bit of a repeat of last month’s classic featuring Doc Ock. We are introduced to The Sandman, a man whose entire body is made of sand as a result of his hiding on a nuclear testing range. In Sandman we have a villain against whom simple brawn will not do, he defeats Spider-Man handily in their first fight. It is Parker’s wit that prevails in the end almost directly in contrast to last month were Spider-Man relied on his reactions and strength to exploit a physical weakness.
Lee and Ditko were clearly onto a winner, this is obvious even three issues in. His powers are fairly low key, strong but not super strength and really fast reaction times along with his mind. This means Spider-Man has to create opportunities for victory, he can’t just pull new powers out of his ass. I think it is this which has made him such an enduring character, he forces his writers to get creative.
I think Ditko’s art is decent in this issue. He continues to nail Spider-Man’s look, bringing a level of detail to his body and costume that his contemporaries often failed to do (see most Thor issues). I think he is less successful at drawing emotive faces, the eyes in particular are narrow, removing a lot of emotion from the characters on display. I would be remiss to not mention the battles between Sandman and Spider-Man which are as creative as they are long, the one part of the book which is served well by the greater page count. The final fight against Sandman feels exhausting as Spider-Man leads him around a school seeking an opportunity to finally dispatch him. Here Ditko is creative albeit lacking the eye for detail that Don Heck often brings to action scenes and this shows particularly in the background panels many of which are plain, possibly a cost again of the larger page count.
All in all this is a decent showing for Spider-Man. It’s certainly better than the first two issues, bolstered by the presence of a decent villain in The Sandman. I just can’t help feeling that the pacing of the book was harmed by the longer page count. I think more story could have been told, we could have gotten more character development from Peter Parker here. Instead we get scenes that feel a bit longer than necessary which makes the first half of the issue drag a bit. Nevertheless this is an issue worth checking out, for the final fight against Sandman, and some of Parker’s interactions with Jonah Jameson.
What in the Dod-Blamed Ding-Busted Sam Hill Is On My Chair??!!
J. Jonah Jameson
The lengths Marvel went to just to avoid cursing or anything close to it were incredible.
