In 1963, this didn’t make sense.
The Fantastic Four were fighting some weird character named “Spider-Man,” but the comic book wasn’t about them. It was about him!
I had to know what the heck was going on here, so I invested half my 25-cent weekly allowance and hauled Spider-Man 1 (March 1963) home from the downtown newsstand in Effingham.
I had missed Spidey’s actual debut in the last issue of Amazing Fantasy months before. Still, I was already familiar with this then-small and unnamed but distinctive line of superheroes. Only the FF, the Incredible Hulk, and the not-yet-costumed Ant-Man had preceded Spidey, and Thor debuted simultaneously with him.
And I was already familiar with the artwork of Steve Ditko, from my favorite Charlton monster titles Gorgo and Konga, and from his only previous superhero feature, Charlton’s yellow lamé Captain Atom with his contrail of little atomic symbols.
I didn’t know Ditko’s name, but even at age 8, I knew his work — unpretty and unmistakable, all those angular body positions and strained faces and unique storytelling innovations, like the half-masked face that symbolically underlined a character who had a secret identity.
Couple this with Stan Lee’s storytelling (much better than Charlton’s), and you had a finely wrought lure for a boy.
Spider-Man was a skinny kid who nevertheless had formidable superpowers. You weren’t quite sure about him. His motives for showing up unannounced at the Baxter Building were mercenary — he demanded the FF’s “top salary.” He was a mysterious-looking figure who was targeted and opposed by another who was equally mysterious, the Chameleon.
And then that final plot twist — after the superhero had risked his life to save John Jameson from certain death in his space capsule, he learned in the last panel that Jameson’s father’s newspaper still branded him a menace.
How mean!
How unfair!
How irresistible!
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