Amazing Spider-Man #2

Duel to Death With the Vulture 

Villain

The Vulture

Named Characters

Aunt May, J Jonah Jameson, "Moose" (Flash Thompson), Jameson's secretary

First Appearance of

Utility Belt, Automatic Camera

Observations

When Peter is at home doing Science he does not bother to wear his glasses.

We get a very brief look at Jameson's secretary/receptionist (who appears to wear scary librarian glasses at this point.) Next month she will become "Miss Brant", and "Betty Brant" thereafter.

And so, on the first page of the second issue of Amazing Spider-Man, the original Spider-Man concept is abandoned, and the character we are familiar with comes into focus. 

Jameson, the chauvinistic tabloid editor from the previous issue, wants photographs of the Vulture, a flying bank robber with wings powered by Science. Peter Parker realizes that he could provide them. Aunt May, very conveniently, finds an automatic camera that once belonged to Uncle Ben. At a stroke, all Spider-Man’s financial worries are wiped away; the previous episodes relegated to the status of prologue; and the question “what should I do with my powers?” resolved. Peter Parker becomes Clark Kent; Jonah Jameson becomes Perry White; very soon the secretary glimpsed on page 8 will become Lois Lane. 

Close up of Vulture, Amazing Spider-Man #2

This is, I think, an interim issue: intended for an anthology comic (it’s only 14 pages long); somewhat connected to Spider-Man #1 (Peter Parker’s main objective is still financial); but focusing more on heroic action and less on character. The "realistic" setting is dropped; for the first time, Spider-Man has an enemy — a flying bank-robber. The aerial duel with the Vulture isn’t as breath-taking as the rescue of the John Jameson in issue #1, but it’s vastly more exciting than the feeble helicopter sequence in the Chameleon story. The sheer visual charisma of the Vulture carries the day. Ditko’s art is sometimes said to be scratchy and cartoony, but the close up of the Vulture on page 5 is on a level with an art-house woodcut.

Peter Parker does not see it as his duty to capture or defeat the Vulture. In their first encounter Spider-Man is following the villain at distance and setting up his camera, thinking “If these pictures come out, the ought to be worth a small fortune”. The Vulture spots him, knocks him out, and leaves him for dead; and when he recovers, he takes the pictures to Jameson. When Parker witnesses the Vulture’s jewel heist, he thinks “If I can get some new pictures of him now, I’ll be able to name my own price for them.” After the fight (in which Spider-Man deactivates the Vultures wings with some Science that he made in his laboratory earlier) he immediately thinks “this is my chance to get some exclusive pix of the capture of the Vulture”; as the police arrest him, he think “these pictures should be prize winners”. Peter is not an altruist; he is not driven by a sense of duty. He becomes embroiled with the Vulture while trying to make an honest buck taking photos.

First Appearance of Betty Brant,
Amazing Spider-Man #2

I will say that again: while trying to make an honest buck. Jameson wants photos; Parker can get photos; Jameson pays Parker what they are worth; and for the first time, everything ends well. 

Some of Stan Lee’s captions get ahead of themselves. Lee has a habit of “back-filling” stories. Once he thinks up a new plot element, he writes as if it was there from the beginning; which gives a new reader the impression that Spider-Man is a much more established character than he really is. “The most colorful superhero of all” cries the title page of Spider-Man #2 “His very name makes the underworld tremble.” So far as we know, in his entire career, Spider-Man has arrested one armed robber (without much publicity) and run out of a fight with one communist spy (also without anyone knowing). The last we saw of him, he was crying and threatening to quit being Spider-Man because he didn’t have any friends and no-one liked him. So what has the underworld got to tremble about? But Stan Lee has decided — I suspect after Ditko had completed the art — that Spider-Man is going to be a crime-fighting guy from now on, and therefore writes as if a crime-fighting guy is what he has always been. 

On page 7, Spider-Man is shown, at home in his bedroom, constructing a utility belt. I think that this is another example of words and pictures being “out of sync”. The pictures shows Spider-Man picking up his camera; looking at the front page of Now Magazine (with the camera still in his hand); making the belt; slipping it under his suit and then constructing a device out of mechanical components. The picture show that the suit can be used to store metal objects about the size and shape of cigarette lighters. They could be web shooters. They could be film canisters. The next sequence shows him selling his first photographs to J. Jonah Jameson.  But Stan Lee’s think-bubble reads “If I’m really going to be a secret adventurer I’ve got to make some changes”. Nothing in the pictures suggest that he is going to be a secret adventurer. What he is going to be is a freelance photographer. 

The episode is still all about fame. The Vulture is supplanting Spider-Man as the celeb who shifts copies of Jameson's papers. Spider-Man was a TV hit because he seemed to be more spider than human; today, the crowds are looking at the Vulture because he is “more bird of prey than human”. Jameson, who was obsessed with Spider-Man, now wants to fill whole issues of his magazine with pictures of the Vulture. The Vulture actively courts publicity, announcing in advance where his crimes are going to be committed. And so Parker makes a faustian pact to keep himself in the public eye. He is going to sell pictures of himself to Jameson, knowing full well what Jameson is will do with them.

Peter Parker is still a performer; Spider-Man is still a role he plays, but from now on, the Daily Bugle will be his stage, and his shows will consist of the dramatic capture of super villains. Jameson thinks Spider-Man is a publicity hound, but obligingly prints pictures of him on the front page of every newspaper he publishes. Parker is miserable because the Bugle tells a false story about him, but provides the very photos that ensure that story is the one that will be told. Parker can make a living only as long as he continue providing Jameson with material for his hate campaigns. Jameson can sell papers only as long as Peter Parker keeps providing photos of Spider-Man to fill them with. Jameson hates Spider-Man because he is famous; but it is Jameson who makes him famous. Spider-Man hates Jameson for making him look bad, but obliging provides the photos that allow Jameson to make him look bad. 

It’s a merry dance; a dance they both seem at some level to enjoy. They don’t seem to notice how many people — including themselves — the game is harming.

Note wads of cash in
Peter and May's hands

Amazing Fantasy # 15 ended with Parker slinking into the darkness, in shame. Spider-Man #1 ends with him cursing his powers and crying. But this story ends with a grinning Peter Parker telling an equally happy Aunt May that their financial troubles are over. There’s a trivial example of art and text being “out of sync” in this scene: we see Jameson looking at the photos; we see Peter leaving Jameson’s office with a huge pile of green dollar bills and we see a happy Peter and a happy Aunt May at home, each holding smaller piles of cash. We can clearly read what has happened: Peter Parker, like a nice little mummy’s boy, has split his first wage packet with his Auntie. But the text says something slightly different: Peter has kept the money, but is planning to spend it all on things Aunt May needs. “I paid the rent for a full year, and tomorrow I’m buying you the newest kitchen appliances you ever drooled over.”

At today's prices, a years rent on a two bedroom house wouldn’t leave you much change from $15,000, before you’ve counted in whatever a new washing machine and dishwasher costs. Parker has taken home practically a year's salary in one day. Jameson clearly doesn’t deserve his reputation as a skinflint.

In the end, the argument about who “created” Spider-Man is pointless. Ditko and Lee figured out for themselves what the comic was about, and those different idea became the first half-dozen issues of Spider-Man. This issue places a few more components into place; but we are some distance from the finished character.

The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer

Villain

Tinkerer

Named character

Dr Cobbwell, Flash Thompson

First Appearance of: 

The Parker/Spider-Man mask motif

Sarcasm. 

Observations:

Spider-Man thinks that the Tinkerer is “one of the greatest menaces I’ve ever faced” —the others, presumably, being the Chameleon and the Vulture.

The Beatles famously intended Sgt Pepper to be the world’s first concept album: a fictitious concert played by a fictitious band. After recording the introduction and the first song, they reportedly said “Oh, soddit. Let’s just do tracks.”

One is tempted to imagine Stan Lee, one issue into his rule-breaking game-changing realistic new super-hero, looking up from his typewriter and saying “Oh, soddit. Let’s just do monster stories.”

In a filler strip entirely without redeeming features, Peter Parker (having just trousered a year's wages for one afternoon’s work) takes a weekend job running errands for an electronics expert and…foils an alien invasion.

The plot has been phoned in from Amazing Adult Fantasy: a shop offers to fix radios for a dime; everyone takes them up on the offer; but the radios are being bugged by extraterrestrials to enable them to spy on the human race. The idea of a radio that listens to you while you listen to it could have been quite spooky, but isn’t.

The story follows the formula that was established in the previous episode: Spider-Man fights the baddies; Spider-Man is defeated by the baddies; Spider-Man uses his brain and beats the baddie on the second attempt. This time he is zapped by a ray-gun and imprisoned in an unbreakable glass container, oddly like the one the Fantastic Four tried to trap him last issue. (Could that be because people who don’t like spiders sometimes trap them in glasses?) I have never thought that “escaping from the water tower by jumping” or “defeating the Vulture by rustling up a special anti-Vulture-wings-zapper” were very interesting ploys, but this one is actually quite clever. There must be air-holes in the container (because he isn’t suffocating) so all Spider-Man has to do to get free is fire a tiny thin strand of webbing through one of the holes and snag the “open unbreakable glass prison” button on the aliens' control panel.

Decades later it was decided that the Tinkerer wasn’t an alien after all, but was pretending to be because of Reasons. This doesn’t retrospectively make the story less awful.

The story does have two points of interest:

On page 8, one of the aliens cries out “Look! It’s impossible! But he’s loose!” and Spider-Man, punching two aliens with one blow, retorts “Who do you think you are — the town crier?” This is, to the best of my reckoning, the first joke Spider-Man ever makes. Up to now, his dialogue has been melodramatic (”there’s no place on earth where you can hide from me”) boastful (”the sky is my element just as much as it is yours”) and arrogant (”ya big ape who do ya think you’re pushing around”) but this is the first actual wisecrack. By issue #7, telling jokes will be specifically mentioned on the cover as one of things Spider-Man is famous for.

First appearance of Peter/Spider-Man

split face.

And on page 4, we get this first occurrence of the Parker/Spider-Man split face motif. Note that on this occasion, the Spider-Man mask is coloured in a lighter shade of red than usual, as if to emphasize that it’s not really there. It has been said that Lee wanted the comic to be primarily about Spider-Man whereas Ditko wanted to give Peter Parker equal space; and the half-mask was a compromise; reminding readers that Spider-Man was present, even in long Peter-centric sequences. Certainly, the half-face mask is going to become part of iconography of the strip, so intuitive that we hardly notice it is there. But this is the first time it's been used, so Lee writes in way too much exposition. Peter Parker is working in Prof. Cowbell’s workshop, but can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. Suddenly, he thinks “Those electrical impulses. I sensed them in his shop! Now I sense them here! The part of me which is Spider-Man is reacting suspiciously to them! I’ve got to check this out!” This is a rather elaborate way of what would soon be expressed simply as “My spider-sense is tingling like crazy!” But Ditko’s visual motif has suggested to Lee that Peter Parker is not merely a kid who dresses up as Spider-Man for the benefit of the cameras, but at some level a split personality. The idea that there are two sides to Peter Parker — the side of him which is Peter Parker and the side of him which is Spider-Man —is going to be around for several issues to come; and it is by no means clear that Spider-Man is the good half.
Next issue, Lee will claim that the Doctor Octopus story is the first one to end without Parker selling pictures to Jonah Jameson; but in fact (despite a brief look at what might be a camera on panel 5 of page 2) there is no reference to photo-journalism in this episode. Stan Lee is obviously pretending it didn’t happen. I advise everyone to do the same.

Listen Bud

A Close Reading of the First Great Graphic Novel in American Literature

by

Andrew Rilstone

Andrew Rilstone is a writer and critic from Bristol, England. This essay forms part of his critical study of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original Spider-Man comic book. 

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Amazing Spider-Man was written and drawn by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is copyright Marvel Comics. All quotes and illustrations are use for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copywriter holder.

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Amazing Spider-Man #1 (cont)

Spider-Man vs The Chameleon

Villain: 
The Chameleon

Guests:
The Fantastic Four

Named characters: 
None!

Un-named characters:
Cops, guards, spies etc

First Appearance of: 
Spider-Man’s spider-sense

Observations:

Spider-Man’s mask is now separate from his shirt. 

Spider-Man refers to communists as “commies”.

For the first, but not the last time, Spider-Man runs out of web-fluid at an inopportune moment.

It is hardly possible to over-emphasize the importance of the Marvel Method when reading these ancient comics. It is debatable how detailed a brief Stan Lee gave to his artists: Steve Ditko talks in terms of two page synopses; Stan Lee admits that it was sometimes not more than a one-line summary. But what is not in question is that Ditko delivered completed artwork to Lee with no writing on it; and that Lee added the speech bubbles, the captions and the sound effects after the pictures had been completed. So it is always a good rule to look at what the pictures would be saying if there were no words, and see if that is in any way different from what the text is saying (or what the text and pictures say together.) When the writing and the art are "out of sync", it doesn’t follow that Stan has done a Bad Thing; or that we should ignore the words and just look at the pretty pictures. The slight clash — as when Steve provides a dark, scary villain and Stan adds an ironic, comical commentary — is probably the biggest single thing in the early years which made Spider-Man feel like Spider-Man. But occasionally, it does give a clue as to the textual archaeology of the piece.

One such case occurs in Spider-Man #1. In the final panel of page 5, Peter moans “I don’t get it. How do other superhuman guys like Ant Man and the Fantastic Four get away with it?” In the picture, he is standing by a news-stand, with a rack of papers saying “SPIDER MAN: MENACE”. The picture is reminding us the Jonah Jameson hates Spider-Man; the words are about the Fantastic Four and Ant Man being popular. If “Spider-Man wonders why the F.F are so popular” had been part of the brief that Lee gave to Ditko, then Ditko would surely have drawn a panel showing Spider-Man thinking about the other heroes; or at least put “FANTASTIC FOUR SAVE WORLD AGAIN” on some of the papers. He didn't. So it is a good bet that when Lee briefed Ditko, and when Ditko drew this story, they didn’t know that Spider-Man was going to start meeting other Marvel Superheroes. When Lee sat down to write the dialogue, they did.

The J Jonah Jameson story, which runs to 11 pages, was clearly intended for an anthology comic: Amazing Fantasy #16. This leaves Lee and Ditko with 10 pages to fill in Amazing Spider-Man #1. So Spider-Man vs the Chameleon is a filler, the first material written with a solo Spider book in mind. It’s been a long time since Lee wrote the first four and a bit episodes of his “realistic” hero — so long that he has forgotten Peter Parker’s name! This isn’t a lettering error: he’s Peter Palmer on every page. And in those months, Lee has rethought what Spider-Man is all about.

Amazing Fantasy #15 shows no signs of taking place in something called the Marvel Universe. People would hardly be breath taken and incredulous by a wall-crawling TV star if the Fantastic Four and the Hulk were already famous, and there is no hint that Uncle Ben has regaled Petey with stories about how he saw Captain America and the Human Torch during the war. The logic of the first four and a bit chapters is that Parker is in a unique situation and doesn’t know what to do with it. But in the months between the axing of Amazing Fantasy and the launch of Amazing Spider-Man, Lee had started to think of Marvel Comics as a shared world. In Fantastic Four #4, Johnny Storm still thinks of the Hulk as a comic book character; but by issue #12 General Ross is asking the F.F to help the army capture the big green bad tempered guy. Fantastic Four #12 and Spider-Man #1 came out in the same month. The Hulk is on the cover of the F.F's comic; the F.F are on the cover of Spider-Man's. Stan Lee is establishing a brand.

The filler strip is actually two unrelated stories: one, running to four pages, is about Spider-Man trying to join the Fantastic Four; the other, running to six, is about a communist traitor trying to frame him. There’s no attempt to integrate them, and the faces of the F.F (EXTRA BONUS EXTRA!) are rather incongruously stuck over a splash page depicting Spider-Man and the Chameleon. The story is called Spider-Man vs the Chameleon rather than Spider-Man Meets the Fantastic Four; but it’s a Kirby F.F on the cover. (So, yes: the cover of the first ever Spider-Man comic advertised a sub-plot in the back-up strip.)

Both segments are about Spider-Man trying to make some money. In the first half; Spider-Man arrogantly thinks he can get paying work with the Fantastic Four; in the second he naively follows up a job offer, which turns out to be from a Soviet spy. The F.F. tell Spider-Man (truthfully) that they are a non-profit organization and don’t pay wages — fairly politely considering he’s just broken into their building unannounced: but Spider-Man chooses to think that they have turned him down because they believe in J. Jonah Jameson’s editorials. He remains appalling, horribly arrogant, telling the most famous heroes in the world that he never wanted to join their club in the first place. Once again, a door has been closed off to Spider-Man: he can’t work as an entertainer and now he’s alienated himself from the other superheroes. Stan Lee could legitimately claim that a story in which Spider-Man visits the Fantastic Four and nothing comes of it is a fairly unconventional bit of story telling. 

The Chameleon section is entirely separate  — Peter “Palmer” is rediscovered studying spiders in a museum, having completely forgotten about his visit to the Baxter Building, or, indeed, his breakfast time plans to become a super-villain. The Chameleon sends out a message offering Spider-Man a job, and Spider-Man thinks “I can’t afford to pass up any chance for profit”. One wonders why no-one thought to call the comic Peter Parker: Hero For Hire.

The idea — that the Chameleon wants to lure Spider-Man to a particular roof-top, so that it will look like the latter stole the plans that the former is running away with — is quite cool; and the ending, in which the police continue to believe that Spider-Man is the traitor despite all evidence to the contrary fits in pretty well with the rest of the issue. In between is a fairly generic run-about. It’s quite depressing to look at the sketchy artwork in which a tiny figure of Spider-Man webs himself onto the Chameleon’s helicopter, and compare them with the thrilling space capsule sequences that Ditko produced ten pages, (or looked at another way, seven months) ago. It’s a bit crap to put the helicopter sequence and the space capsule sequence in the same issue, actually: if your main movie features an aerial rescue, then your B-feature should be a car chase or a gunfight.

The episode is most notable for introducing what is described as Spider-Man’s “spider instincts” “spider senses” or “spider’s sense”. It’s an odd idea: if you were trying to think of an additional power to give to a hero who could walk on walls and spin web, “telepathic radar” wouldn’t necessarily be the first thing that comes to mind. The spider sense is a generic bit of plot machinery, as multi-functional as a sonic screwdriver.  It warns “Palmer” that the Invisible Girl is behind him; it enables him to hear the Chameleon’s electronic message; it allows him to “tune in” on the Chameleon’s ship; it tells him that one of the police is the Chameleon in disguise; and it enables him to to find his way around a dark room. It is consistently represented, as it would be for years to come, by lines radiating from Spider-Man’s head.

When the fake Spider-Man steals the plans, the cop says “I can’t believe you have turned traitor”. The Fantastic Four seem only mildly concerned that he is wanted by the FBI. The cliffhanger at the end of the last story in which Spider-Man is a wanted felon on the point of turning bad has already been forgotten. Spider-Man is not an outlaw and a fugitive: he’s merely a do-gooder who people don’t quite trust. 

The second time the cops assume Spider-Man is a traitor he runs out of the fight ("in a fit of white hot fury”, apparently) crying “well, they can catch that spy themselves now.” So much for power and responsibility.

And in the final frame, we are right back where we started: Peter wishing for the second time in one issue that he could give up being Spider-Man. The final two frames echo the endings of Amazing Fantasy # 15 and the first strip in Spider-Man #1. In one “a lone figure looses himself in the shadows of the night” (compare with “a silent figure silently fades into the gathering darkness”) while in the other, the Invisible Girl wonders “what if Spider-Man ever turned his power against the law”? Clearly "Parker turns bad" is a storyline that Lee wants to trail, but nothing ever comes of it.

“Every time I try to help, I get into worse trouble!” whines cry-baby Peter in the final frame. “NOTHING turns out right... (SOB) I wish I had never GOTTEN my superpowers”

"Every time I try to help." Peter “Palmer” may just have inadvertently revealed the dark secret of Spider-Man.

Listen Bud

A Close Reading of the First Great Graphic Novel in American Literature

by

Andrew Rilstone

Andrew Rilstone is a writer and critic from Bristol, England. This essay forms part of his critical study of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original Spider-Man comic book. 

If you have enjoyed this essay, please consider supporting Andrew on Patreon. 

if you do not want to commit to paying on a monthly basis, please consider leaving a tip via Ko-Fi.

Pledge £1 for each essay. 

Leave a one-off tip

Amazing Spider-Man was written and drawn by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is copyright Marvel Comics. All quotes and illustrations are use for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copywriter holder.

 Please do not feed the troll. 

Coxcomb Watch (edited)

Everyone is going to tell me that I shouldn't do this kind of thing, but here goes:

*

Five times Hugo award loser John C Wright recently placed on his web log a piece of text, written in 1938 by Gene Autry, a country singer and actor now best remembered for Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It purports to be the moral code which Cowboys followed; it seems to have been sent out to children who sent him fan mail.

EDIT: Here is a link to the article: http://www.scifiwright.com/2016/04/gene-autrys-cowboy-code/

One might have expected a devout and pious Catholic like Wright to put the Singing Cowboy’s grab-bag of secular morals alongside the Ten Commandments or even the Sermon on the Mount to demonstrate how inferior the one is to the other. One might have expected him to say that if you are still thinking up rules and codes you probably haven’t understood Christianity very well.

But if you are hammer, everything looks like a snail. If you see a well-meaning set of moral precepts written by a celebrity for the edification of kids nearly a century ago, then obviously the first thing that will occur to you is "Aren’t The Left awful." The Hugo award loser wants to know how many of the Singing Cowboy's moral precepts The Left break, or encourage others to break, on a regular basis.

EDIT: His precise words were: "A question for the reader: how many of these do mainstream Leftwing politicians, pundits and speakers, routinely call for all of us to violate? And I do not mean the Leftwing speakers and leader of ten or twenty years ago. I mean those who this year, this month, this week, or this hour? For the hour is late, and it is darker than you think." Yes, I am afraid he really does write like this.

I intend to tell him. 

I do not speak on behalf of The Left. I do not even regard myself as a Socialist. (As we've seen, a Socialist thinks everyone should have the same amount of money as everyone else; a Communist thinks we should get rid of money altogether. I am merely a Reformist: I think the Rich should be a little bit poorer and the Poor should be a little bit richer.) I am a member of the British Labour Party, and a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. I have been called an SJW, although not by anyone sensible.

So. Here is how The Singing Cowboy's Code struck this particular Leftie. Next month, I promise to start writing about Spider-Man.

*

The Cowboy Code goes thus:

1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.

2. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.

3. He must always tell the truth.

4. He must be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.

5. He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.

6. He must help people in distress.

7. He must be a good worker.

8. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.

9. He must respect women, parents and his nation’s laws.

10. The Cowboy is a patriot
.
If I have counted correctly, these 10 precepts actually contain 23 different commandments; which can be grouped under eight general principles:

I: Be kind

II: Be honest

III: Be tolerant

IV: Be conscientious

V: Be polite

VI: Be chaste

VII: Be law abiding

VIII: Be patriotic

Eight out of Autry's ten rules I endorse unreservedly. One I would like to have a little more information about. One is, as it stands, positively misleading. Let's go through them one by one: 

Rules 1 and 4

I fully endorse both these rules, which are in fact, the same rule stated in different words. Don't start fights; don't fight weaker people; don't take advantage of anyone who is weak. I would call this "Kindness", and it’s a universal human virtue.

Insofar as these rules are specifically intended for the edification of Cowboys, the Singer may be thinking particularly about chivalry and honour: how men behave in fights. When soldiers are not actually fighting, they should go out of their way not to be macho and aggressive; even when they are fighting their mortal enemies, they should fight fair, accept his surrender; never kill or torture prisoners.

I have never come across anyone on The Left or The Right who was opposed to Kindness. The Left are on the whole more strongly in favour of it than The Right. It has tended to be The Left who have made laws against child beating, domestic abuse and the inhumane treatment of pets and animals: it has often been The Right who have called these rules silly and sentimental and said that if a man can’t beat his own wife and children in his own house then whose wife and children is he supposed to beat? When there are complaints about our soldiers not using Honour and Chivalry — there have been terrible allegations about the use of torture and the mistreatment of prisoners in recent wars— those complaints mainly come from The Left. It is The Right who are inclined to regard such concerns as soft, unmanly, treacherous or cowardly.

Rules 2 and 3

Rules 2 and 3 are also different wordings of the same rule. I fully endorse both of them. Keeping promises, keeping secrets and telling the truth are part of the universal human virtue called Honesty.

I have never come across anyone on The Left or The Right who is opposed to Honesty. It is always possible to come up with clever, exceptional cases where lying is the best thing to do, for example, when the Gestapo knock on your door and ask if you have a Jewish family hiding in your attic. But the fact that we can imagine exceptions doesn’t invalidate the general principal. The exception proves the rule, as the fellow probably didn’t say.

Rule 5

This rule is oddly worded. I don't have that much of a problem with someone "possessing intolerant ideas" or indeed "advocating intolerant ideas". I am not quite sure how you can possess and idea without advocating it. What I have a problem with is people who behave in an intolerant way.

But I think we all know what the Singing Cowboy was getting at. He wasn't saying that Unitarians (who think everybody goes to Heaven) made good Cowboys, but Baptists (who hold to the arguably less tolerant theory that only people who have been washed in the blood of the lamb can be saved) made bad ones. If anything, he probably thought that Religion and Party Politics were not the kinds of things which gentlemen ought to talk about  — certainly not when they were risking their lives together in hostile in’jun territory. I think that what he had in mind was saloons with "No Jews or Irish" written on the doors; and individual Cowboys who refused to associate with black people or who used horrible words about them behind their backs. I think he was telling the kids that they should treat everyone the same, even if they don’t look like you or use the same word for God.

I strongly endorse this rule. Tolerance is a universal human virtue. It tends to be emphasized more strongly by The Left than The Right. It is The Left who say that signs saying "No Jews" and certain kinds of bad-language shouldn’t be allowed. It is The Right who say that if a landlord wants to ban Jews from drinking in his pub, that's a matter for him. The Right have, indeed, invented a cuss-word, "Political Correctness" to refer to people who behave tolerantly. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean that The Right are personally intolerant. It may simply mean that they have an unwritten eleventh commandment "A Cowboy thinks personal freedom is more important than any of these rules".

Rule 6

Rule 6, "help people in distress" is simply another way of phrasing rules 1 and 4. The former say "Don't hurt people if you can possibly help it"; this one says "Help people if you possibly can." Of course, the Singing Cowboy is thinking mainly of the rugged, manly outdoor life. When he says "people in distress" he is thinking of people who are trapped in quicksand and being menaced by hungry wildebeests. But I am sure he means us to apply it to other kinds of distress as well. If someone is sick or hurt, you should do whatever you can do make them better; if someone is broke, you should share your dosh with them. Many of us think that Jesus Christ was an even better role-model than Gene Autry, and he said that everything turned on this point: "For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in, naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

I have never heard anyone on The Left or The Right who is against helping people. If there is a difference of opinion, here, it is usually between people on the The Left who say that we need to provide ropes, pulleys and ladders to help people out of holes; and people on The Right who say that if people fall down holes then it’s their own fault and if we keep fishing them out then no-one will ever look where they are going.

Rule 7

I strongly agree that one should be a "good worker". I think that whatever you do; you should do it to the best of your ability; and I think that everyone should do their fair share of whatever needs doing and not leave it to other people.

I have never heard anyone on either The Left or The Right say that laziness and incompetence are virtues. If anything, The Left is more inclined than The Right to say that everyone should lend a hand, and to object to rich freeloaders who sit on their trust funds and watch the money role in. That is what the "according to his ability" part means.

Rule 9

Rule 9 is confused. "Respect" means both "be polite to" and "pay attention to".

To Respect your parents and the opposite sex means to be polite to them; to use good manners and social etiquette in your interactions. I think that good manners are a good thing. I think hurting people with words is as ungentlemanly as hitting a smaller man or a man with glasses or indeed anybody. I would even go so far as to say that the old fashioned rules of etiquette were quite a good idea. If everyone agrees that the younger person should let the older person pass through the door first; and that the man should let the woman do so, then we avoid unnecessary pushing and shoving. Etiquette and manners change over time; but knowing about this is part and parcel of good manners. If Granny has good manners, then she understands that the young folk use words that she would never have used and don’t mean anything by them; if the young folk have good manners they try not to use those words in front of Granny because they hurt her feelings. (Idiots on The Left and The Right sometimes say that it is impossible to hurt people with words, or that hurting people with words doesn't matter, and that there is literally no such thing as giving offence. Cowboys know better.)

"Respect" in the sense of "Respect your nations laws" means something quite different. Calling a lady "Miss Jones" until she invites you to use her first name and refraining from parking on a double yellow even if you are in a big hurry are both good things, but they are not the same good thing. I strongly support rule 9.2. I think that you should obey laws, even silly laws, particularly in a democracy where you have the power to change them.

Sadly, the Singing Cowboy does not tell us if a Cowboys first loyalty is to the Cowboy Code or to the laws and constitution of the United States. Does the Cowboy follow the Code except where it would be against the law, or does he follow the law, except where it conflicts with the Code? If the Government says that citizens are no longer to put Bibles on the wall or flags on the table; or if the Government says that cowboys are no longer allowed to carry six-guns, does a good Cowboy cheerfully and uncomplainingly follow the law, at least until the next election? If not, what was the point of putting "respect the law" in the Code to begin with?

I think that in this case, The Right make more of manners and obedience to the law than The Left do. The Left is more likely to say that old fashioned, ceremonial codes of politeness can be dispensed with. The Left is more likely than the Right to endorse the breaking of immoral laws; or the breaking of any laws in pursuit of a laudable goal. The Left is more likely to say that the Suffragettes, for example, were heroes and martyrs; The Right is more likely to see them as a bunch of vandals. 

Rule 10

I like the country I grew up in; I think that England has good laws and a sensible constitution; I am proud of the BBC, the National Health Service and the Welfare State. With all my faults, I love my House of Peers. I feel that the Lord of the Rings, the Beatles and the Two Ronnies are mine in a way that Moby Dick, Woody Guthrie and the Marx Brothers are not.

I think that I am in some sense a good person because I don’t punch smaller men, am polite to my elders and have (so far as I remember) never shot first in a duel. I don’t think that I am in any sense a good person because I love England; any more than I think that I am a good person because I love jaffa cakes. That is to say: I am a Patriot, but I do not think being a patriot is a moral virtue. Some of my friends on The Left would certainly say that patriotism is a vice or a temptation; that Loving England can too easily turn into Hating France and even Being Nasty To French People. Some of them would say that we should stop thinking of ourselves as English and see everyone as citizens of the world and members of the human race. A very great man once assured me that it isn’t hard to do.

I am not exactly sure how the Patriotism of the Cowboy Code is meant to play out in practice. Does a Cowboy simply go around thinking that the Yosemite valley is the most beautiful place on earth? Or is obliged to love the Constitution as well? Does he have to love it with "a love that asks no questions", or can he patriotically acknowledge its faults? He is entitled to think that the present, democratically elected Commander in Chief is an idiot, or does he have to say "my President, right or wrong." Or are we going to smuggle in some idea that Patriotism involves loving "the real America", and that certain places, people, institutions and points of view don't count?

A brief survey of Gene Autry’s music suggests that he was one of those who conflated Christianity with America and who had an instrumental attitude to religion. The Bible on the table and the flag on the wall are the backbone of our nation. Rely on both God and bullets. Pray to God, not because it's a good thing in itself, but because otherwise Santa might not bring you any presents. 

Rule 8

Rule 8 is about cleanliness, which is, it will be recalled, next to godliness. (*)  I do not think that the Singing Cowboy is telling me that I should take a shower every day and make sure that I have a supply of lavatory paper in my saddle bag. I think that "clean" and "dirty" are euphemisms for "chaste" and "unchaste". I think that when the Singing Cowboy tells children to have "clean thoughts" he is telling them not to think about sex. When he tells boys to have "clean actions" he is telling them not to get too close to girls. When he tells them to have "clean personal habits" he is telling them not to masturbate.

I don’t think it’s a great idea to look at too much pornographic material; and I definitely think that young people ought to be careful how far they go on a first date; and I am a fan of marriage as only a bachelor can be. But I think that looking at sexy pictures and having sexy thoughts and yes indeed playing with yourself in a sexy way is a perfectly normal part of being a human being, and that it is a very bad idea to tell children to associated their sexuality with dirt.

Chastity — total abstinence before marriage, total fidelity within marriage — is a Christian virtue; but I don’t know why this is the only Christian virtue that a Cowboy needs to worry about. Why not include "going to church on Sundays"; "only worshiping one God"; "not worshiping idols" or, for that matter "not coveting your neighbors ox"?

I don't think that there is any particular split between The Left and The Right over this rule. The Right have been known to prohibit things like pornography and sex-clubs on moral and decency grounds. The Left have also been known to campaign against pornography and sex-clubs on the grounds that they are degrading and insulting to women. Both sides have also said that grown-ups should be allowed to look at pictures of other grown-ups with no clothes on if they really want to.

*

In summary: this particular member of The Left is in favour of kindness, honesty, toleration, conscientiousness, politeness, law-abidingness and (depending on what you mean) patriotism. I think that The Left, on the whole, places more emphasis on kindness and toleration, while The Right, on the whole, places more emphasis on politeness and law-abidingness. I reject only one of the Singing Cowboy's precepts outright: it is pernicious to teach children that ordinary sexual feelings are dirty.

I know, of course, what five times Hugo Award losing author J C Wright will say at this point. He will say that The Left (on the whole) support a woman’s right to choose, and therefore approve of cruelty to foetuses; that The Left (on the whole) believe that two males who love each other should be treated exactly the same as a male and a female who love each other, and therefore disapprove of chastity; and that The Left support such things as a legal minimum wage and welfare payments for the unemployed and therefore disapprove of hard work. In fact, I think he would say that The Left approve of legal abortion because they positively disprove of kindness and want to encourage as much cruelty as possible; that The Left approve of civil partnerships and equal marriage because they positively hate chastity and want to encourage as much sexual immorality as possible; and that The Left came up with the idea that everyone should be paid enough to live on because they positively hate work and want to encourage everyone to be layabouts and bums.

There difference between The Left and The Right isn’t anything to do with their adherence to the Singing Cowboy Code. We all believe in kindness, honesty, tolerance and good manners in the same way we all believe in oxygen and gravity. We disagree about the extent to which kindness, honesty, tolerance and good manners are matters of individual responsibility; and the degree to which we all have to get together and make a kind, honest, tolerant and well-mannered world. We all agree that big people shouldn’t hit little people. We disagree about whether there need to be laws preventing grown ups from hitting children; or whether we should stop poking our noses into people's domestic affairs. We all agree that you should help people in distress; we disagree about whether the government needs to set up a big anti-distress fund or leave it to individuals to help each other. We all agree that if you see a lady in a burning building, you should try and get her out. We disagree about whether there need to be building regulations that stop ladies living in houses which are constructed of flamable materials; or whether that kind of thing is health and safety gone mad.

There are nasty, immoral people on both sides. We have recently had pundits on The Right saying that they positively hope refugees will drown; and newspapers of The Right positively comparing immigrants with vermin and infections. That goes against the Golden Rule, and the Sermon on the Mount and point 6 of the Cowboy Code. It is wicked, plain and simple. But we on The Left may be tempted to say that anyone who doesn't agree with our particular approach to immigration and asylum is a monster who thinks that foreigners are no better than rats. And that isn't true: only some of them are.

I support the National Health Service: like most British People, it is practically a religion to me. "The collective principle asserts that... no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means." But I couldn't quote you facts or figures to show why the British tax-payer funded system provides better outcomes to say, the German insurance based model; or demonstrate what the optimum balance between standard of health care and tax burden lies. Those sorts of debates are difficult, boring, and once you start looking up facts there is a terrible risk that it will turn out that there are good points on the other side. So the temptation is to say that The Right positively want poor people to get sick and die. And that isn't true. Only some of them do.

The Far, Far Right go much further than this. They don't just say that The Left is incorrect about the degree of collectivization that is possible or desirable. They affect to think that The Left -- not just Kim Jong Un and Tony Blair but you and me and Jeremy Corbyn are actually evil -- zombies and moorlocks with funny hats and bad breath who actively reject the basic moral values of humanity. When they see a confused list of watered down Christian morals, written decades ago by a well-meaning celeb, their first reaction is to say "Here is someone who dares to come right out and say that he is in favour of kindness, tolerance, honesty, good manners and chastity — UNLIKE THE LEFT WHO ARE IN FAVOUR OF CRUELTY, BIGOTRY, LYING, RUDENESS AND FORNICATION!!!

I don't think that The Right are, on the whole, wicked and amoral. I do think that one or two of them are very, very stupid.

*

"Why are you printing this on your blog, Andrew, rather than contributing to the discussion on Wright's own page."

"Because Wright says that he will only publish contributions if they contain offensive, derogatory and intolerant language."

APPENDIX

Illustrations of the Tao, taken from the works of the Singing Cowboy.

I: BE KIND

Negative

1.1 Never shoot first,
1.2 Never hit a smaller man,
1.3 Never take unfair advantage.
4.1 Be gentle with children
4.2 Be gentle with animals
4.3 Be gentle with old people.

Positive

6. Help people in distress.

II: BE HONEST

2.1 Never go back on your word.
2.2 Never go back on a trust
3: Always tell the truth.

III: BE TOLERANT

5.1 Do not advocate racially intolerant ideas
5.2 Do not advocated religiously intolerant ideas
5.3 Do not possess racially intolerant ideas
5.4 Do not possess religious intolerant ideas

IV: BE CONSCIENTIOUS

7. Work hard

V: BE POLITE

8.2 Keep clean in speech
9.1 Show respect to women
9.2 Show respect to your parents

VI: BE CHASTE

8.1 Have clean thoughts (ie Don’t think about sex)
8.2 Have clean actions (ie Don’t have sex outside of marriage)
8.3 Have clean personal habits (ie Don’t masturbate)

VII: BE LAW ABIDING

9.3 Show respect to the laws of your nation.

VII: BE PATRIOTIC

10: A Cowboy is a patriot


(*) "But only in an Irish dictionary." R.I.P Ronnie Corbett.

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Amazing Spider-Man #1

Spider-Man
Spider-Man part 2
Spider-Man part 3

Named Characters: 

Aunt May, J Jonah Jameson, John Jameson

Unnamed characters: 

Landlord, TV producer, Bank teller, News Vendor, Diner Man, Pawn Broker

Observations:

The whole top half of Spider-Man’s costume, including gloves, is a single piece.

Peter Parker and Aunt May live in a rented house. They evidently relied on Uncle Ben for their income.

Flash Thompson, the blond boy with the T on his shirt appears to have morphed in a dark haired boy with an O on his shirt. None of the other schoolkids are named.

first appearance of JJJ
Amazing Spider-Man #1

A hero’s enemy needs to be the opposite of that hero. It might be that the hero is strong, but not-too-bright, so the villain is weak but brilliant. It might be that the hero is a brilliant scientist so the villain pursues the occult and magic with equal genius. The editor of Harvey Comics told Joe Simon that his character the Silver Spider (who Joe had briefly considered calling Spider-Man) should have a nemesis who was the natural enemy of a Spider. “Either The Fly or Mr D.D.T”.

Steve Ditko and Stan Lee came up with something better.

They left us, maybe eight months ago with the message that “with great power there must also come, great responsibility”. That is the moral core of Spider-Man; so his enemy must be the opposite of that: someone powerful but irresponsible. 

In a speech given in March 1929, British Prime Minister Sir Stanley Baldwin (arguably quoting Rudyard Kipling) attacked the growing power of the press. 

The newspapers attacking me are not newspapers in the ordinary sense. They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal vices, personal likes and dislikes of (the editors). What are their methods? Their methods are direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker's meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context...What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

Power without responsibility. Spider-Man's nemesis, his moral opposite was not a supervillain, but a tabloid editor. 

Did Stan Lee know from the beginning that the relationship between Peter Parker and J Jonah Jameson would define his comic for at least the first decade? I doubt it. Why launch a comic which has at its heart the feud between a superhero who tries to do good and a newsman who represents him as doing evil, but leave the newsman out of the first installment? It would have been a good pitch: better than “a kid who climbs walls” or “a comic which breaks the rules.” But J Jonah Jameson never features in Stan Lee’s myths about how his wonderful idea was rejected by an uncomprehending publisher.

The rent collector: another Ditko Stereotype
Amazing Spider-Man #1

When "Mr Jameson" came on stage, for the first time, on the third page of Spidey's first issue, did Lee and Ditko know that he was going to appear in every issue from now on -- one of only five regular supporting characters? It seems unlikely. In Amazing Spider-Man #1, Ditko makes more use than usual of stereotypes and caricatures — characters who appear for single panels and embody particular types. He’s rather good at them. We have the evil capitalist landlord, come to kick the old lady out of her home, with a bald head, bow tie and cigar; the snooty bank teller with fussy suit and little round glasses; the cook who won’t even give Peter a dish-washing job, with bare arms, apron and paper hat; and the man to whom Aunt May pawns her jewelry… Ditko had a thing about bald men and cigars. Jameson could easily have been one more vignette — the nasty journalist in his shirt-sleeves, long fingers ready to start hammering on a big old manual typewriter, and a toothbrush mustache in case we were in any doubt as to whether he was a goody or baddie. He gets fleshed out a bit in the second half; but for all anyone knew, the next chapter might have introduced a different opponent — an F.B.I agent, perhaps?

Amazing Fantasy # 15 began with a crowd of kids gesturing at Peter Parker — the kid in the checked coat stabbing a forefinger at him, the blond girl gesturing with her thumb, “Flash” pushing him away with his hand. On the first page of issue  #1, we have nothing but hand gestures: hostile fingers and fists, waving and jabbing at Spider-Man; and one human face, with shout lines coming out of his mouth. We know now that the shouty-man is is Jameson, but the foul temper, the meanness, the awful grin, even the cigar will come later. Here he is just the spokesman for the mob, and the person who controls it. (Flash Thompson has a similar function, giving a face and voice to the undifferentiated mob of high school students, not one of whom has so much as a name.) 

At this point, Spider-Man is little more than a character that Peter Parker plays on television. Jonah Jameson is going to take control of Spider-Man’s celebrity and tell a different story for his own ends. Parker cares a great deal about what other people think of him, and from on now people will think -- to quote another fictional tabloid editor -- what J.J.J. tells them to think.

The three chapters which appear in Amazing Spider-Man #1 each has its own title and logo “Spider-Man”, “Spider-Man part 2” and “Spider-Man part 3”. Each chapter could very easily have been presented as a single item in an anthology comic. Part 1, in particular, would have worked nicely as a stand alone: a superhero story without a villain, long before the justly famous Amazing Spider-Man #18. It begins and ends with Peter Parker having a temper tantrum; and covers a lot of ground in between. Aunt May is poor; she is going to be kicked out of her home. Peter Parker briefly considers turning to crime; but instead, he resumes his show-business career -- until Jameson terminates it by printing lies in his paper. The final page in particular is wonderfully immersive; we feel Parker’s desperation as Stan Lee gradually closes off all his options. He can’t cash his cheque; he can’t work on TV; he can’t even get a job washing dishes…and then he sees Aunt May pawning her jewelry. This breaks Peter Parker, and the final panel shows him pounding the wall in anger.

It must, incidentally, have been a very strong wall. 

Stan Lee is very proud of the cheque-cashing scene, citing it over and over again as example of Spider-Man’s realism, of the kind of thing that wouldn’t have happened to any other super powered character.  The voice of the snooty bank teller is rather fun ("don’t be silly, anyone can wear a costume") but the scene doesn’t actually make a lot of sense. Spider-Man is, at this point, basically a stage persona, so there is no reason not to reveal his true name to his agent; and his agent warns him that a cheque made out to Spider-Man will be uncashable. The scene is really there to get us over a plot difficulty: if Spider-Man is a huge celebrity, why isn’t Peter Parker rich? Jameson is also, at this point, a narrative answer to the question "if Spider-Man could have a lucrative stage career, why does he get involved in dangerous adventures?"

Chapter 2 goes off in a different direction. Ironically, J Jonah Jameson's son John is an astronaut; ironically, his rocket-launch goes horribly wrong; and ironically the person who saves his life is Spider-Man. Up to now, we have seen crowds of people looking at and reacting to Spider-Man: this section begins with Peter as part of the crowd watching John Jameson launched into space. Page 11 and 12 are some of the most dramatic and kinetic scenes in the early years of the comic; Spider-Man leaping from an army jet to the out of control space capsule and changing its direction with his physical strength and web.

This is the first time Spider-Man acts altruistically: the guy who told the police officer that catching criminals was not his job leaps into action to save his enemy's son just because he can, and because he is the only person who can. (If he thinks that he has a responsibility to do so, he doesn’t say so, and he certainly doesn’t think that he’s doing it for Uncle Ben.) But it is a very public act, and Peter Parker is still thinking in terms of celebrity. He doesn’t think that he has done a good thing for its own sake, or to partly atone for the bad thing he did a few weeks ago. He thinks that he has restored his reputation; taken his story back from Jameson, and (most importantly) that he can now resume his career as a TV celebrity.

Of course, it doesn’t turn out like that.

Why does Jameson hate Spider-Man? Lots of reasons will be given over the next few issues: that he's a bad man bringing down a good one; that it sells papers; that he honestly believe vigilantes are a public menace. But today, his motivation is simple enough. Jameson resents Spider-Man getting the publicity that he feels should go to his son John. On page 1 of this comic, Spider-Man is literally shown with a spotlight shining on him. On the final page Jameson says that Spider-Man engineered the disaster and the rescue in order to “steal the spotlight” from his son.  Publicity, fame and celebrity are what this comic is all about.

The final page is genuinely shocking; turning the agony up a notch. The mob turns against Spider-Man. He has no way of making money, and May has no more jewels. The FBI put out a warrant and issue a reward for his capture, and even Aunt May thinks Spider-Man is evil.

And so we are left pretty much where we started, with Peter Parker being tempted to turn to crime:

“What do I do now? How can I prove I’m not dangerous? How can I convince people I wasn’t responsible for the failure of that capsule? Everything I do as Spider-Man seems to turn out wrong. What good is my fantastic power is I cannot use it. Or must I be forced to become what they accuse me of being and really become a menace. Perhaps that is only course left for me!”

And there, tragically, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s experimental graphic novel comes to an end. It has clearly been left unfinished: parts 1 and 2 are six and five pages long, respectively where chapter 3 stops after only three. The “the end” box has clearly been stuck onto the art after the fact.

So, nothing comes of this dilemma. Peter Parker doesn’t stalk the city by night, whatever that means. The FBI make no attempt to arrest him, and within a month or two, everyone will have forgotten that he's an outlaw. Next month, Spider-Man will solve all his financial problems at a stroke, foil an alien invasion, and the comic will reboot with Spider-Man as a professional crime fighter. 

There is no point in mourning unmade films and unwritten books. Spider-Man, the Spider-Man we fell in love with, is a crime-fighting superhero with a lack of self-confidence and a tendency to over-worry. But still. I wish there were some way of knowing what Ditko and Lee, in the absence of editors and sales figures and pesky readers, would have put into Amazing Fantasy #17.

Listen Bud

A Close Reading of the First Great Graphic Novel in American Literature

by

Andrew Rilstone

Andrew Rilstone is a writer and critic from Bristol, England. This essay forms part of his critical study of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original Spider-Man comic book. 

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Amazing Spider-Man was written and drawn by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is copyright Marvel Comics. All quotes and illustrations are use for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copywriter holder.

 Please do not feed the troll. 

From Trowbridge last year, a few seconds caught on my phone of the best musician I imagine I'll ever see live. So pleased that I went to see them three times last year. (On the final occasion, Swarb had to more or less be lifted onto the stage, and couldn't tell his story about "Unst" because of massive dental problems...but it didn't seem to affect his fiddle playing at all.) I heard him do a solo set at the Folk House a couple of years ago, and he described collecting fiddle tunes off an old fiddler and recording them on a primitive reel-to-reel tape recorded. "The same kind we recorded Liege and Lief on..." It suddenly hits you: genuine legend.