Electrifying!
The cover: 5 stars
Another classic cover, possibly the best to date and introducing the first new villain since issue #6 … Electro. The cover says it all … how can Spider-Man fight someone he can’t touch. It’s another really colourful cover and villain on a rooftop setting; I love the way Ditko draws buildings, he has a fantastic perspective and I feel that some of his best Spider-Man covers have rooftop scenes in them.
The Man Called Electro (22 pages)
This is a very important issue as it introduces something that would plague the series for years to come … Aunt May’s ill health. It had only been hinted at in a couple of earlier issues, but now we have the full blown at “death’s door” scenario that would play over and over again, coupled with no money to pay for operations, medicine and so on. The humour we had come to expect wasn’t as obvious, this was a much more troubled and serious Peter Parker and it’s left to Jonah to provide a little comic relief. Even the scenes with Peter and Betty are serious, hinting that there is something mysterious in her past.
I like Electro as a villain, but it looks like Stan Lee wasn’t so keen, as apart from Spider-Man Annual #1, he didn’t reappear in the series again until issue #82, okay he turned up in various other comics, but I don’t feel he was fully utilised as a major super villain.
Almost a classic, great villain, great story marred by some rather stilted dialogue and the beginning of the soap opera style of this series, which was occasionally overplayed.
Trivia:
Electro first spots Spider-Man by his reflection in a mirror, however they are on a rooftop, and how many rooftops have mirrors?
Sometimes Stan’s villain dialogue leaves a lot to be desired.
Pete fakes photos yet again; he’s been at it for years!
