Continued from 16-20.
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| Holy crap! Ditko was doing things that hadn't been done with superhero comic covers since...well, since EVER! I wonder if Ditko actually used the Torch here without nagging from management. As I said, Ditko had a way with creating some chemistry between these two heroes. |
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| There hadn't been a cover quite like this one since the days of Jack Cole at Quality's PLASTIC MAN. How does one show animation in a static 2-D image? THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE, YOU MERE MORTALS!!! |
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| "HA!" Says Ditko. "I'll have a cover for Spider-Man which doesn't even have Spider-Man IN it!" (Top that, bitches!) |
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| Teenage angst! |
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| Suck it, Lee! |
4 comments:
I remember the cover of #25 on the spinner rack, and wondering who this snarling guy was. I especially recall the prank ending as Spidey manipulates his empty costume like a puppet. Unfortunately, was I was only 9 or 10 and was flipping through the spinner rack without 12 cents in my pocket in the early 60s. I didn't buy comics yet. I have often wondered if JJJ was based upon Stan or just exagerated a bit!
Oh, my, yes, JJJ was Stan Lee. The more you read it, the more obvious it becomes. The thing that I suspect is that Stan Lee probably didn't realize this for some time--maybe even until after Ditko left his creation behind.
Ditko must have gotten a kick out of watching Lee tweak the dialogue of the Lee analog, not completely realizing that Lee was, in effect, putting more words into his own big fucking mouth.
ASM #21 -- "Ditko had a way with creating some chemistry between these two heroes." The well-to-do kid and the poor one.
ASM #22 -- The Circus of Crime-- AGAIN? Damn. Ditko must have liked them. Seems to me they usually made the rounds from series to series, but to appear TWICE withy Spidey is crazy. Of course, they kicked The Ringmaster out this time. Didn't help, did it? (heehee)
ASM #23 -- The Green Goblin, at least as done by Ditko, was far more interesting than the 3rd-rater seen on TV, who was like Cesar Romero's Joker with a flying contraption. (No real "menace".)
ASM #25 -- Adapted rather nicely for TV, though they simplified both the story and the design of the robot (simple arms instead of tentacles). One nice touch on the cartoon was Betty going to the cops to ask for help, because Spider-Man has helped THEM so many times in the past. Although they had the occasional story on TV where he was wrongly accused of something, generally, he was looked on with favor by New York's finest-- which I much preferred to the apparent status quo in the comics.
The Circus of Crime was a good way for Ditko to give in to his tendency to use normal humans as villains. That's what Ditko was all about. Subconsciously he obviously had a problem with super powered humans--it just seemed illogical to him. So he would resort to non-super villains for Spider-Man to battle.
To me, Iron Man always seemed like THE perfect hero for Ditko to write and illustrate. I think that's why Dikto's very brief tenure on the title resulted in his delivering the greatest gift to the character: the sleek, golden-red armor that has remained with him ever since.
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