The Amazing Spider-Man

There are two different stories in this book. The first, is the story that sets up the rivalry between Spiderman, and newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Here Spiderman saves his astronaught son John as his spaceship is going to crash. JJJ feels this takes publicity away from his son, "the real hero" and goes on a crusade to stop Spiderman. The second story is Spiderman Vs. The Chameleon. Realizing Spiderman must be desperate for cash, the Chameleon, poses as Spiderman for some robberies. Both stories are written in the same simple style that was the norm for most books of that time. Sometimes the dialogue just mimics what we are looking at. " I will shoot him with my webs," and the picture shows Spiderman shooting the guy with his webs. Still, I would say the story , art, and dialogue all stand above the other books. It's easy to see how this character became so popular. Still a fun book to read.

This issue features two different story's in one that was promised back in amazing Fantasy #15. These are two great stories that are both entertaining and historically significant. The first story introduces for the very first time the Jameson Family (J. Jonah and his son John).After a full seven months later after his last appearance, Peter Parker recalls his origin on how he became Spider-Man and the capture of the Burglar that murdered his Uncle Ben. The action of the story begins later as Jameson's son begins an orbit flight in a spaceship. After liftoff, the capsule splits from the rest of the craft and begins to have problems as it is out of control.

The second story is much more historically significant then the first, it features Spider-Man's first super villain "The Chameleon" and his first meeting of the Fantastic Four as he tries to join them. His intentions was to join up with the Fantastic Four for top salary but then later learns that the FF are a non-profitable organization. The Chameleon portrays Spider-Man and commits some crimes in a building awaiting the real Spider-Man to arrive and putting the blame on him. The Chameleon would not be seen again until the Amazing Spider-Man #15. Simply put, This is one of the most important issues in Spider-mans history and its a must read.

So this is the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man and it's exactly what you would expect. Peter is just starting out as Spidey so when he goes at it with his villains it's all really cheesy and hokey. This is also the start of the a million times he fights the Human Torch. Anyone who has read ASM from issue one will know what I am talking about. There is way to many Human Torch fights. This also sets the tone for the way his books will be set up throughout and Daredevil's comic kind of follows the same format if you read Volume 1. Every issue is one or two more new villains that Spider-Man has to face and it's fun to see how he used to handle them back then as opposed to now.All in all this is a fairly good first issue. The way first issues were back then completely top what you get now. Most first issues..nothing happens but this one is split up into two different stories so that you can get the basics and then the action. 
 
I give this comic a  
4 out of 5 

Issue #1 . Following where Amazing Fantasy ened off. We get a new series on Web-head. Here we find him and his aunt May (poor old aunt May) in finacial crisis which follows him to the present. He has girl troubles and school troubles with other teens. We meet J. Jonah Jameson the main protaganist in this series.. We also get problems on topofproblems for Spidey. I believe that's the main reason we love and like him. 
We see him save John Jameson and blamed for making the mission a failure. We then see Spedey wanting to join the Fantastic 4 (which he has now wow talk about an omen of things to come). We alsomeet The Chameleon a very under-rated villian I believe. 
This book written in 1963 is set just right for the times Of course Stan Lee's writing and Steve Ditko's legendary art help shaped Spidey even now.

Found in Amazing Spider-Man #1, "The Fabulous Fantastic Four Meet Spider-Man" tells the story of how everybody's favorite web-slinger meets the World's Greatest Super Team. Unfortunately, it's kind of an inauspicious beginning. Spider-Man, intent on joining the Fantastic Four somehow thinks it's a good idea to break into the Baxter Building to show off his prowess. He does with predictable results: basically the Four attack him, and he wisecracks and evades until Mr. Fantastic puts a stop to everything and Spider-Man gets to the point. They reject him as they are a non-profit organization, and he is a wanted fugitive.
 
This all really happens in two pages, however it was expanded to a whopping 6 pages as a backup feature in Fantastic Four Annual #1. Neither are essential reading, but nor will they take much time if you feel you must.
 
For Amazing Spider-Man #1, this wraparound was tacked onto a story about Spider-Man fighting a villain called The Chameleon who wanted to frame him for stealing secret missile plans. In the expanded form, it makes for more of a real story, but still kind of a flat one - and one in which Spider-Man seems to have much more heighten senses than his later issues indicate, and a penchant for such things as web parachutes and slingshot-ing himself with his webs. 
 
Really not as strong as the nostalgia that surrounds it.

Out with the old and in with the new for 1963! Upon the huge success of Spider-Man featured in the now defunct Amazing (adult) Fantasy series, Marvel cashes in and sends the same creative team to make comic book history. Providing a neat little backstory for those who may have missed Peter’s debut around seven months prior,Amazing Spider-Man #1 mixes the pathos of the original’s origin story with an action-packed narrative that pits Spider-Man against a foe who can transform himself to look like anyone—even Spider-Man himself! In amongst Spider-Man riding on top of a jet and trying to persuade the Fantastic Four to let him join their ranks in order to make a little dough for his aunt May however, is the same old Peter Parker with his social problems and money issues, and oh yeah, the death of his uncle which he blames himself for. Heavy stuff, and this is just the first issue.

For full reviews complete with digitally recovered covers and art work, visit http://manicmarvel.tumblr.com/

Spider-Man is my favorite super hero, and growing up as a child I was fortunate enough to have a father who had collected Marvel Tales reprints of most of the early Amazing Spider-Man issues, as well as the original issues that came out while growing up. Recently I decided to revisit them for the first time in years, and thought it might be nice to do some grouped together overviews.

I don’t want to spend too much time on his origin story in Amazing Fantasy #15, as I’m sure most of you know it. But I’ll quickly recount it just in case. Spider-Man first appeared in the last issue of a failing title which ended up selling well enough to warrant the character his own series. It gave us a character who learned that he needed to use his powers responsibly in the hardest way possible, with his Uncle Ben dying as a result of his own selfishness, in a Twilight Zone-like twist.

The Amazing Spider-Man attempts to pick up where Amazing Fantasy left off. And these first five issues contain an explosion of new ideas from Lee and Ditko that, at the time, redefined what superhero comics could do. It presented a superhero who wasn’t just imperfect, but unlucky. When one thing went right, three other things would go wrong.

The plot of the very first story in the title is a very sympathetic one. It focuses on the fact that since Uncle Ben’s death, Peter and Aunt May have been struggling financially and can’t pay for their house. And Peter needs to find a way to make money to support his Aunt. This leads him to attempt another shot at fame, and he makes an appearance on live television as Spider-Man. But he soon realizes that he can’t cash a check without giving away his identity, and ends up making nothing from it. He even contemplates stealing money at one point, but knows extinguishes the thought very quickly. On top of this, J. Jonah Jameson starts throwing fiery darts of libel at him and not even the rescue of his own Astronaut son can convince him that Spider-Man isn’t a menace.

One thing I found really interesting about the scene where JJJ first starts to criticize Spider-Man, the accusations mirror almost exactly the accusations being made at the Senate hearings that resulted in the Comics Code Authority. I’ve been wondering ever since if this was intentional, and I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. J. Jonah Jameson is essentially the face of anyone who’s ever said that video games and heavy metal are corrupting our children.

The cover story within that first issue involving the Fantastic Four and Chameleon goes through pretty much the same beats, just with a more superhero-esque story with a villain. Spider-Man’s motivations for wanting to join the Fantastic Four are purely financial, but it comes to naught when they inform him that the FF is a non-profit organization.

The second issue sees the first time Peter Parker takes and sells pictures to the Daily Bugle. The fun thing about this is that the first time he sells them to JJJ, Peter is actually extremely confident and gets the high price for the photos that he wants, whereas later JJJ would get more accustomed to the quality of his pictures and Peter would have to settle for whatever JJJ was willing to shell out.

In fact I think something about being Spider-Man in the beginning helped Peter stand a little more firmly in general. He’s not brooding and meek as much as he’s just reserved. And he often even comes off as confrontational. He’s routinely teased, but usually considers himself superior to his peers, and reminds himself that he is probably as a way with just coping day to day.

One of the great things about this period in Spider-Man’s history is that he’s a teenager who, while being a scientific prodigy, definitely has the mind of teenager. He thinks about teenager-y things and is still only at a teenager level of maturity. He’s gained his superpower and his sense of responsibility just at a time where he’s still discovering who he is and where he fits in the world. He tends to be quick to action which causes him to make mistakes, he gets caught up in what he’s doing and forgets to refill his web cartridges. There’s a scene where he tries to stop criminals before they’d begun to start a crime, which ends up in the thugs trying to call on a nearby cop to charge Spidey with unaggravated assault. Lee and Ditko were always trying to throw out new ideas and do whatever they could to ground him into the real world.

Nowhere is this more true than in issue four which introduces the Sandman, where little things continually get in Spider-Man’s way. In his first confrontation, his mask gets torn off and he has to run away to keep his identity concealed. Realizing he can’t take it to someone else to repair it, he starts sewing the mask up himself, pricking his fingers and realizing he’ll probably have to do this more often. On top of this, Aunt May nearly walks on in on me and he rushes on his robe, and since he’s clutching it so tightly May assumes he must have a fever and puts him in bed for the night. Then Sandman ends up arriving at his school the following day!

This is the best thing about the 5 first issues, the constant barrage of ideas that were used to try and make the character more and more interesting at the time. The dialog in action itself is very typical Silver Age style, so that may or may not hinder your enjoyment of the stories depending on what you prefer. I personally think it moves a bit like a small story book, the action/dialog is very simple and to the point while at the same time being very verbose. It can be stiltiing at times, but for the most part it’s easy to get used to.

Issue #5 with Doctor Doom was a pleasant surprise for me, I wasn’t expecting very much out of it but ended up having a lot of fun with it. The action gets wonderfully ridiculous towards the end, and it throws in the twist of having Peter’s bully, Flash Thompson, dress up in a Spider-Man suit and captured by Doom for ransom. Peter briefly contemplates letting Doom do away with him, but quickly comes to grips with the fact that no, that’s not the right thing to do, he has responsibility to save him.

Which is a major theme through out. The internal battle of Selfishness versus Selflessness, and as a teenager Peter can indeed be quite selfish. But being Spider-Man meant having to put others first, to take others over his shoulder, and to take the first steps into becoming the best, most nobly human example of a Superhero in comics.

Of the five, I’d definitely most recommend issues 1 and 4 equally, though the rest do have quite a lot to offer and feature the first appearances of the Vulture, The Tinkerer and Dr. Octopus.