Why Is Doctor Octopus Spider-Man's Greatest Foe?

The Sinister Six establishes a canonical list of Spider-Man foes. These six baddies will continue to oppose our hero for as long as the series lasts. Only the Lizard (who is sort of kind of not really a villain at all) and the Green Goblin (who has only appeared once at this point, and is too mysterious to be part of a team) are absent. The Execrable Eight would have been a rotten name for a team, in any case.

Although the Vulture declares himself to be Spider-Man’s most dangerous foe, there is never any question that Doctor Octopus is the leader of the gang. The Vulture, Sandman and Electro are bank robbers and thugs. Mysterio is much cleverer, but even he only used his powers of illusion and misdirection in the service of a safe-cracking career. Kraven, the only one who is not a crook; is a crazy man who hunts Spider-Man for the challenge. But Doctor Octopus is a proper super-villain. He is a brilliant scientist. He lives in a gothic castle and has giant fishbowls lying around in case he ever needs to drown anyone. Granted, in issue #12 he was springing gangsters out of jail in order to raise venture capital to become King of Crime, but he is still in a different class to the other five. Clearly, he is being positioned as Spider-Man's worst enemy, or indeed, Arch-foe. (He will eventually be replaced in that role by the Green Goblin, who is at this point still only a gangster with a gimmick.)

What makes him such a dangerous antagonist? He is simply a normal human being with four extra arms. The arms are very strong; strong enough to lift three adult human beings off the ground at once. But he himself is of normal strength:  Spider-Man can easily take him out with a single punch if the arms will let him get close enough.

But he has an effect on Spider-Man out of all proportion to his actual powers. Doctor Octopus won their very first fight, and this defeat demoralized Parker sufficiently that he seriously considered giving up being Spider-Man. Spider-Man tried to prevent Doc Ock being released from prison at the end of his first sentence, which he didn't do (so far as we know) for the Enforcers or Mysterio. The second time they meet, Spider-Man weirdly under-performs due to a sprained ankle, causing the Bugle to mock him as an over-rated hero. The third and fourth times, Spider-Man inexplicably loses his powers -- due to a virus in #13, and "psychosomatically" in the annual.

The “sprained ankle” thing is a little weak. Spider-Man jumps from great heights all the time; would a coil of rope on a ship really put him out of action if he tripped over it? (And if the injury is so bad, why isn’t he still limping when he gets back to New York?) And the virus thing is obviously nonsense. How does a cold stop you sticking to walls? We might say that a virus “left you weak for a few days” but that’s not literally true. If I had to spar with [insert name of famous boxer here] while the latter had ‘flu, it is just barely possible that I would win — because my opponent fainted or threw up during the fight. If he actually punched me, well, it probably be a below par punch for him, but it would easily knock me flat. If I punched him it would be just as ineffectual as if I punched him when we were both perfectly germ free. The ghost of Spider-Man pops up in Pete Parker's dream to warn him that "virus" is to Spider-Man as Kryptonite is to Superman, a plot device which has thankfully never been mentioned again.

The explanation for the power-loss in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 is hardly any better: “it was psychosomatic, brought on by a deep rooted feeling of guilt due to Uncle Ben’s death”. What? It is possible for psychological states to have physical symptoms — a patient with severe stress might find themselves unable to see, even though there is nothing wrong with his eyes. But the idea that you can psychsomatically trip up, psychosomatically dangle from a flag poll, and then psychosomatically get better and dodge a lightening bolt doesn't even make comic book sense. 

So what is really going on?

Doctor Octopus was a Scientist. There was an explosion in his laboratory, during which he absorbed a great deal of Science. This is, of course, a lot like what happened to Peter Parker, although his exposure was indirect: he got bitten by a spider that had previously been exposed to Science. The medic at the hospital says that the Science has permanently damaged Doctor Octopus's mind. He is certainly paranoid and megalomaniacal; his first thought on waking up is "they are jealous of me" and his second is "I am stronger than any of them." Once he realizes that he can now control his mechanical arms directly he thinks “I’m the supreme human being on earth” which doesn't seem to follow. Sure, he can do some cool things with his arms: which of us has not wished he had an extra arm when lighting a cigarette or pouring tea for the old lady we have kidnapped? -- but this hardly puts him in the Galactus league.

Doctor Octopus is not a cyborg: the arms are attached to a metal harness, not welded to his body. He says after his accident that they are almost a part of him; and that “just a suggestion of a thought” causes them to move “as though they have a will of their own.” In the Sinister Six story, he is still able to control the arms after they have been detached from his body; indeed, when he confronts Spider-Man in the castle, he voluntarily removes them so he can attack his enemy from behind. That is: his power over his arms is telepathic or telekinetic. It's the power of Doctor Octopus's mind that makes them so strong.

Some of Spider-Man's other enemies -- the Green Goblin, for example -- are very probably insane. Some of them -- the Lizard, perhaps -- are powered by Magic as much as by Science. But Spider-Man's Arch-Foe is the one who was simultaneously driven mad and given telepathic powers as a result of the same kind of accident that made Spider-Man Spider-Man. 

In Turning Point, Spider-Man’s meeting with Doctor Octopus depends on a fairly improbable chain of events; and Stan Lee specifically speaks as if an external force is drawing them together…

“Our cast of characters come closer to a date with destiny…” 

“…but sometimes fate has other plans” 

“…but once again capricious fate has made the teen-aged crusader minutes too late.”

In The Sinister Six story Sandman and Electro accidentally kidnap Aunt May while intending to kidnap Betty Brant. If it hadn't occurred to Aunt May to go into town to call on Betty at Peter's workplace -- if she had, for the sake of argument, made a telephone call instead -- she wouldn't have ended up as Doctor Octopus's guest. A year from now, the evil Master Planner will suddenly realize that the one bit of Science he needs for his evil Master Plan will be the exact same bit of Science that Curt Connors needs to brew a potion that will save Aunt May's life. (As the years go past, Aunt May and Doctor Octopus will get increasingly closely entwined: the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #131, which we mercifully don't have to consider, depicts them apparently getting married.) It almost starts to looks as if what Doctor Octopus controls is the power of coincidence. Not only do his and Spider-Man's paths keep crossing, but something always causes him to hurt someone Spider-Man loves, whether he consciously intends to or not. 

If you accept my theory that Spider-Man has no physical strength of his own, but is channeling some external power-source — and I think you have to accept my theory for the stories to make any sense at all — than everything falls into place. 

Doctor Octopus has been consumed by the Dark Side of the Spider-Force. He can channel the Spider-Force to give his flimsy metal arms incredible power. It may be that he is consumed with hubris and paranoia due to brain damage; but it may be that at some level he sees that his link to the Force does potentially make him the most powerful human being on earth. And if that is correct -- well, it is at all surprising that the Spider-Force keeps drawing the two of them together? And is it surprising that the Dark Side of the Spider Force draws Octopus to places and circumstances that will hurt Peter Parker? And is it in any way surprising that Doctor Octopus is completely obsessed with Spider-Man, and Spidey is equally obsessed with Doc Ock?

And it seems clear that the mere proximity of Doctor Octopus somehow disrupts or interferes with Parker’s ability to channel the Spider-Force. So that when Spider-Man is about to fight Doc Ock his powers are radically reduced, or go away altogether.

In his seminal 1982 essay “The Well Tempered Plot Device”, Nick Lowe memorably argued that coincidence, destiny and capricious fate are all devices which The Author uses to nudge the Plot in the direction he wants it to go without all that tedious mucking up with logical chains of cause and effect. He points out that Star Wars makes a good deal more sense if every time someone mentions the Force you mentally substitute the Plot. ("The Plot is what gave the Jedi their power." "I sense a great disturbance in the Plot." "You must learn about the Plot if you are to come with me to Alderaan.")

Aye: and that’s true too. 

Later continuity revealed that Doctor Octopus had an alcoholic father who beat him.

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. 

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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 Annual #1 (II)

Please Please Me is an accomplished piece of a work; a carefully crafted collection of pop songs from a band to watch out for — but not, in itself, a game-changing album. If you’d bought it from Woolworths in 1963 you would not necessarily have known you were holding a piece of history in your hands. If you'd have picked up Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band six years later, you'd have known you were holding something special. It looks like nothing that came before; it sounds like nothing that came before; it would influence everything that came after it. Of course it is possible to go overboard in praising it (decisive moment in the history of western civilization, was it?) but it’s actually irrelevant that Revolver and the White Album are better records and indeed better Beatles records. Sgt Pepper is the special one.

The first Spider-Man Annual must have been like that, is what I am saying.

Imagine buying it in a newsstand or a drugstore in the summer of '64. Imagine holding it in your hands. Amazing Fantasy #15 was a new comic. Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 is a new kind of comic.

For us in the UK, it was split over two issues (Spider-Man Comics Weekly #9 and #10) and it was still devastating. But if you were fortunate enough to have been an American kid in 1964, you’d have had something that cost twice as much as a normal comic (one quarter, two bits, 25 cents) but which contained not only a double-length story, but also 15, count them, 15 pages of pin-ups, another 15 pages of background features and a (frankly not all that funny) skit about How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Create Spider-Man.

And no ads.

The Sinister Six is the Spider-Man formula writ large: indeed, it is the Spider-Man formula shouted from the rooftops and written in letters of fire above the Statue of Liberty. It follows the “Stan Lee” pattern rather than the “Steve Ditko” pattern: a 13 page set-up, followed by an extended 24 page fight scene. Indeed, the plot is substantially a retread of Amazing Spider-Man #12. Doctor Octopus kidnaps Betty Brant in order to force Spider-Man to participate in a staged fight scene, and puts an advert in the Daily Bugle to tell him the time and the place of the showdown. ("…I can’t even swear that Spider-Man knows how to read…" blusters Jonah.) But the volume is turned up to the Nth degree. While kidnapping Betty, Doctor Octopus accidentally captures Aunt May as well. (She’s dropped in at the Bugle to see if Betty knows what’s ailing Peter.) And Spider-Man doesn't just have to fight one of his old enemies: he has to fight all of them.

This is Stan Lee is setting out his stall: offering a summa of the Spider-Man myth to date and offering a primer for new readers. It establishes the canonical baddies; it reintroduces the supporting cast; it offers a visual F.A.Q about how Spider-Man’s powers work. In the same month, Marvel published the first Marvel Tales annual, which put the the origins of Spider-Man, Ant-Man/Giant-Man, Thor, the Hulk, Sgt Fury and Iron-Man (twice) between two covers. When Spider-Man has a flashback about his origin, it is this, not the long out of print Amazing Fantasy #15 which readers are directed to. There are no less than 10 cameo appearances by other super-heroes each one of which is hyper-linked to another comic ("Doctor Strange appears each month in Strange Tales magazine”). Did I say there were no adverts? The whole comic is one massive advertisement for itself!

Take a look at page 12 and 13 — just before the big fight starts. The Vulture (flapping outside the window) tells Jameson to print Doctor Octopus’s challenge in the next issue of the Daily Bugle. Jameson telephones the Fantastic Four to see if they know how to contact Spider-man; and Reed Richards calls up the Avengers. (“Sorry” says Captain America “I never even met Spider-Man.”) There’s still a real magic to these scenes. A DC comic of the time might have featured a Superman/Batman crossover; and a Disney comic might well feature Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse — or even Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan and the Seven Dwarfs — in a single story. But there could never be any sense of them sharing a world, living in a real city, having a life that goes on outside the confines of the issue we’re currently reading. Jonah phones Reed, Reed phones Cap and nothing whatsoever comes from it. We could reasonably date the origin of the Marvel Universe from this panel.

Truthfully, the idea of an alliance of Spider-Man’s enemies is fairly lame. There is too much of a sense that the baddies know they are baddies and are forming a baddies’ club. The Vulture actually refers to the group as The Sinister Six, which is only one up from Magneto calling his club The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Perhaps they should have gone with GROSS (Get Rid of Slimy Spiders) or else followed the splash page and called themselves the Sinister, Deadly and Undefeatable Six. (I have of course spent some time studying each panel to find out if any of the group are left-handed. Sadly not.)

You might think that a pair of bank robbers like the Vulture and Electro would want to use this unprecedented coalition of criminals to pull off a really massive jewels heist. But they all agree with Doctor Octopus that the best use of their time would be to, er, organize a treasure hunt for Spider-Man.

Doctor Octopus’s scheme is simplicity itself. He will kidnap Betty Brant and imprison her in his castle; and he will give the Vulture a card with the castle’s address on it. So to rescue Betty, Spider-Man will have to fight the Vulture. But the Vulture’s address is printed on another card, and to get hold of that, he will have to fight Sandman. But to find out where Sandman is, he will have to take a card from Mysterio...and so on. Spider-Man lampshades the silliness of this idea at the end — if the villains had simply jumped him all at once, they could have beaten him easily. But the round-robin format means that Lee and Ditko don’t have to attempt a single, 25 page battle scene (which would almost certainly have been unreadable) and can instead do six little mini-fights running to about 3 pages each, with breaks in between, giving this 42 page story a really breathless pace. Some of the individual fights end up feeling a little anti-climactic — the rematch with Kraven in particular seems to be over before it has started — and we have to swallow some extreme silliness in the set-ups. The Vulture makes Spider-Man fight him at the top of a very tall tower without any web-shooters. Doctor Octopus jumps into a giant glass goldfish bowl because he wants to beat him “just as a real octopus would”. But some fabulous full page Ditko spreads lend it gravitas, as well as padding out the page count.

Ditko pin up of the Burglar:
note rat in foreground,
and Amazing Fantasy logo.
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1

Is it at all possible that Ditko drew the 6 spreads first, intending them for a portfolio or back up feature, and Lee liked them so much that he span a story around them? The comic is rounded out with a 15 page “gallery of Spider-Man’s most famous foes”, giving profiles of every villain to have appeared in the comic, even no-hopers like the Tinkerer and the Living Brain. The pin-ups of the Burglar, the Chameleon and the Lizard (who do not appear in the main story) are beautiful Ditko vignettes. (Look at the Burglar, clearly located in the old warehouse, with a broken bottle and scrap of newspaper on the floor, and a pair of rats in the foreground.) But the pin-ups of Electro, Doc Ock and Kraven are relatively simple character sketches with no background at all. Is it possible that Stan Lee purloined Ditko's detailed, kinetic spread of Kraven leaping at Spider-Man with two cheetahs leaving him to hastily trot out a stiff, one dimensional sketch of the same character for the pin-up section? Unknowable, of course. But I can believe that that Ditko drew an underwater scene as a standalone gallery entry much more easily that I can believe that the idea of the giant fish-bowl occurred to Stan Lee off the top of his head. (The next time we encounter him, Doc Ock will have a secret underwater base, like all cool villains do.)

But the emotional punch of the issue doesn’t depend on the extended fight with the bad-guys, and Stan knows it. Look at the splash page. A small panel tells us that Spider-Man is going to have to rescue his loved ones from the Deadly Sinister Six, and a large one tells us that he is going to have to find a way to defeat the Undefeatable Sinister Six. But the biggest panel asks the biggest question. “What happens now? Just when needs them most, Peter Parker seems to have mysteriously lost his amazing spider-powers.”

If one wished to be very nasty, one could say that the answer to this question is "Nothing very much" or "Spider-Man bunks off school and wanders round down being morose for a bit." Spider-Man’s powers go away, and then Spider-Man’s powers come back again, a bit like a BT Broadband connection. But Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 could easily have been a gladiatorial contest with a pretty lady as first prize. This plot device raises it to the level of a morality play.

Parker (as Spider-Man) spots Aunt May, tearfully reading Uncle Ben’s old letters. “I guess she never really got over Uncle Ben’s death at the hands of that burglar, months ago” he thinks. (What, die two years ago and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a sidekick’s memory might outlive his life half a decade!) This brings on an evasive flashback to Amazing Fantasy #15 — the first time we’ve revisited the story since issue Amazing Spider-Man #1. Anyone who had also purchased the Marvel Tales Annual had the original text before them: they know that Spider-Man is being economical with the truth. Back in Amazing Spider-Man #1, Peter claimed that his uncle had died because he, as Spider-Man, was showing off on a TV show when he should have been at home looking after his family. Here, he admits that he refused to help the police officer but claims that it was because he “didn’t want to waste his powers” — whatever that means. “Why should I butt in?” is a considerable softening of “From now on, I look out for number one, and that means, me!” And “I can never forget that I’m partially to blame for Uncle Ben’s death” is quite a lot different from “My fault! All my fault!” Either Stan Lee, or Peter Parker, can’t actually admit to themselves what happened on that fateful night.

This flashback brings Spider-Man out in a full-blown aria.

“No matter
what I do…
No matter
how great my spider-powers are...
I can never
undo that tragic mistake!
I can never
completely forgive myself!
Sometimes
I hate my Spider-Man powers!
Sometimes
I wish I were just like any normal teenager!
If only it had never happened!”

If only it had never happened. We are back to the voice of cry-baby Peter: “My Spider-Man costume! I wish there were no such thing!” “Everything I do as Spider-Man seems to turn out wrong!” “I wish I had never gotten my superpowers.” If only it had never happened. This speech is a negation of “with great power comes great responsibility”. Because of his power, cry-baby Peter feels responsible for the death of Uncle Ben; if he didn’t have those powers, he wouldn’t feel responsible. He wishes his power would go away.

And, at that exact moment, they do.

And, as if to underline the point, Spider-Man’s first reaction is to be relieved. It’s literally his first thought. “I never believed it could happen—but it has. Somehow, without warning…I’ve lost my spider powers!! Perhaps it’s all for the best! Now I can never hurt anyone again! I won’t have a secret I must always protect! I’ll be able to live a normal life!” Only then does it occur to him that he’s hanging on a flagpole with no way of getting down.

The moral hazard of the issue doesn’t depend on Spider-Man spotting that he can tangle up Doctor Octopus if he spurts out all his webbing at once; on him remembering to ground himself before fighting Electro, or on Sandman accidentally suffocating himself. It depends on Peter Parker doing the right thing.

He goes and confronts Electro (the first clue in the treasure hunt) even though he is powerless and can’t possibly win. I think he is banking on Doctor Octopus being a villain but not a psychopath: once Spider-Man is dead or helpless, he would release Aunt May and Betty as being of no further use to him. Peter is literally giving his life to save theirs. Fully expecting to die, his voice is no longer that of boastful Spider-Man or whinging Peter. It’s the voice of an adult hero: “If this is to be my finish, at least I’ll face it like a man.”

Once again, he is being moral, but not altruistic. He is going to lay down his life to save the two people he loves most in the world; not to fight evil in any generalized way. For the last half-dozen issues, he’s been involved in battles he has some personal stake in — walking into the Goblin’s trap because a film director offered him $50,000; fighting Mysterio to clear his own name. True, last month he volunteered his services for a charity gig, but that didn’t turn out too well.

There is a certain amount of waffle on page 21, in which Spider-Man says that he actually never lost his powers “I just imagined he did”. This reminds me a little of the faith healer "who said, although pain is not real/ when I sit on a pin / and it punctures my skin / I dislike what I fancy I feel". It isn’t obvious how “dangling from a flagpole on the side of a skyscraper and being unable to get down” is to be distinguished from “actually losing my powers”. But this is Stan trying to scribble in a rational explanation for something which makes perfect narrative sense. Spider-Man's powers come back because he courageously stands in front of Electro and lets him fire a deadly lightening bolt at him

Spider-Man’s powers go away because he wishes them to do so. He gets to resume the role of Spider-Man because he has proved himself worthy of it.

If Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 is Stan Lee's recapitulation of the Spider-Man myth to date, it is also a kind of valediction.  From now on, Lee is going to more or less hand control of the character over to Ditko; simple gladitorial contests will be replaced by soap opera, farce, character interplay and film noir. And it also points the character down a narrative cul de sac. If Peter Parker has proved himself worth of being Spider-Man, what else of importance can ever happen to him? 

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. 

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION: WRITE SHORT BLOG POSTS RATHER THAN LONG TWITTER CHAINS

Theresa May is sitting in the first class carriage of a train. Suddenly, she winds down the window, and throws a ten pound note out of the window. 

"What on earth did you do that for?" says one of the people in the carriage.

"Well" she said "I like to imagine that someone will find that note, and it will make them happy."

"Well on that basis, why not throw two five pound notes out, and make two people happy?"

"In fact" chips in another man "Why not throw yourself out and make everyone bloody happy?"

[NOTE, incidentally, that this is an example of the Dave Allen Rule -- any joke is funnier if you put the word "bloody" in the punchline. ]


What do you call ten Tories in the sea?
A start. 


Theresa May is rushing to an important meeting, and runs across the road into the path of a bus. Fortunately, three little boys, on the other side of the road, see what is happening and scream out to the bus to stop, and no harm is done. 

"I think you may have saved my life" says Mrs May "I would like to give you a reward. What would you like?" 

"May I have an X-Box" says the first little boy. 

"Certainly - see this child gets an X-Box and a couple of good games for it." 

"May I have an I-Pad" says the second little boy. 

"Certainly - get this lad a top of the range I-Pad....And what would you like?"

"I would like a state funeral..."

"You are awfully young to be thinking of that kind of thing!"

"But when my Dad finds out whose bloody life I saved today..."


I think that Cliff Richard should be buried in Poets Corner. Right now. 



The human race just can't get it right, can it? John Lennon -- murdered. J.F.K -- murdered. Martin Luther King -- murdered. Ghandi -- murdered. Jesus Christ -- murdered. Ronald Reagan -- wounded. 



Dear God -- In the last year, you have taken my favourite comedian, Ronnie Corbet; my favourite conjurer, Paul Daniels; my favourite singer, David Bowie; and my favourite actor, Carrie Fisher. Oh God, I want you to know that my favourite politician is Jeremy Corbyn." 


It is not in question that Jim Davison is odious little individual (or at any rate, that he plays one on the stage.) I understand that he sincerely regrets the racist "Chalkie White" material he did during the '70s. However, his "Jeremy Corbyn" remark was clearly a joke, presented as a joke, structured as a joke and indeed following a venerable joke-like formula.  (*)  He was not expressing a wish that someone would die, much less advocating political assassination.

Comedians have always told jokes about the deaths of politicians and other public figures. If you start down the path of saying "Tory comedian Jim Davidson wishes Jeremy Corbyn DEAD in sick gag" you end up saying "Well, I'm glad YOU think that the deaths of fifteen hundred people are funny, but I don't think YOU'D have found it very funny if YOU'D been in the bar of the Titanic with a Vicar and a Rabbi..."

(*)

Compare: 

"I've just been reading a fascinating survey of worldwide sexual behaviour. It says that Native Americans have the biggest cocks, but Polish men last longest. By the way, I don't think I caught your name?" 

"Tonto Pilsudski." 

(patrons are not being charged for this post)

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1

The Sinister Six

Villains: 

Doctor Octopus, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Sandman, Mysterio, The Vulture

Supporting Cast:

J. Jonah Jameson, Betty Brant, Aunt May, Liz Allan, Flash Thompson

Guest/Cameos:

Thor, Doctor Strange, Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Thing, the Human Torch, Giant Man, the Wasp, Captain America, Iron Man, Prof. X, Marvel Girl, Iceman, the Beast, Cyclops…

Observations:

In England, an “annual” is a hardback album, published at Christmas, with comics, text features, puzzles and games in it. In America, an “annual” is a double or treble sized comic which comes out in the summer: more like what we Brits would call a “holiday special.”

Since Spider-Man last encountered them, Electro has been seen criming in Daredevil #2; Sandman escaped from prison and was recaptured by the Human Torch in Strange Tales #115; and Kraven was knocked out by Iron Man in Tales of Suspense #58.  

The features section of this issue states that Midtown High School is "3 blocks west" of Peter Parker’s house. Our working assumption has been that Midtown High is Forest Hills High School, on 110th Street. Unfortunately, if you went three block east of Midtown High, you would end up in the lake in Flushing Meadows Park. We either have to move the school, or assume that “three blocks west” is a mistake. The best I can manage is to place the Parker residence somewhere around 19 68th Avenue, where the houses don’t seem to be a bad match for Ditko’s illustration. Peter's walk to school would then be three blocks east and two blocks north. Later continuity gave the address as 20 Ingram Street (a real address, currently occupied by a presumably rather bemused family called, er, Parker); but this is a 30 minute walk from the high school.

Page 4: Flash Thompson tells Peter “you asked for it” and Peter replies “Now, there’s an imperishable bit of clever dialogue”… a rare occasion when Peter Parker allows himself to wisecrack in Spider-Man’s voice. 

Page 7: “And so, it takes the once mighty Spider-Man almost an hour to make a journey which a short time earlier he would have completed in less than 3 minutes.” The building which Spider-Man is hanging off when he loses his powers is on Madison Ave (p12), some ten miles from Queens. Spider-Man is doing pretty well to cover that distance in a hour: it would probably take most people a couple of hours to walk. On the other hand, if he can really swing from Queens to Manhattan in three minutes, he must be travelling at something 200 miles per hour. (There is also the question of how he walked along the roof tops from Forest Hills to Manhattan, and indeed, what his web is attached to on the top of page 5!)

Page 9: “Perhaps you should stay home today dear? It may be a touch of virus” Last time Spider-Man fought Doctor Octopus, an unspecified “virus” turned out to be the one thing that could remove his Spider-Powers. 

Page 13: The Human Torch uses firey skywriting to send a message to Spider-Man; a reference back to their first meeting when the message was “Spider-Man: Let’s Work Together”. All we can see of this message is “Spi.. Co.. F4”… perhaps “Spider-Man - Come to F4’s headquarters”?

Page 20: “You can’t leave yet, Gunga Din” In Kipling’s poem, Gunga Din is a punjabi Indian, so it’s an odd name to apply to Kraven, a white African. Gunga Din is a noble figure (”you’re a better man than I am…”) where Spider-Man seems to despise Kraven more than some of his other foes. 

“You never give up, do you?? I’ll bet you’re still wearin’ a Vote for Dewey button”

Thomas Dewey was an unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, losing to Roosevelt in 1944 and Truman in 1948. He was also Governor of New York until 1954. The Chicago Tribune famously called the 1948 election result incorrectly, resulting in photos of Truman holding a newspaper with a “Dewey Elected” headline: this may be why he’s connected with absurd persistence. If Peter Parker was born in 1949, this wisecrack is roughly equivalent to one of today’s 17 year old crime fighters saying “I bet you’re still wearing a Vote for Bob Dole button”. We have stopped pretending that the voice of Spider-Man is anything other than the voice of Stan Lee. 

Page 22: “Rots of ruck” Facetious, borderline racist, cod-Asian pronunciation of "lots of luck". It may have been used as a shibboleth to identify Japanese combatants during the World War II. It was also the name of a popular tune and a brand of candy.

Page 25: “Nice try, Mysterio. But did you forget that my Spider-sense enables me to find any enemy within reach, even I can’t see him.” Probably not: but he apparently has forgotten that he has a sonar device which blocks out our hero’s Spider-sense. 

Page 26: “What in Sam Hill happened to Spider-Man?”. J.J.J is not above swearing in front of his staff (usually printed as "%*!#&&" or some such). But when he is alone in his room, he is not quite able to bring himself to say "hell".

“I’ve waited a long time for this moment!” Indeed, Sandman has not been seen for more than twelve issues. 

Page 33: "You know your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is always available for weddings, barmitzvahs, and all sorts of fun things”… Confirmation, if confirmation were needed, of Peter Parker’s heritage: someone with a Christian background would have said "weddings, Christenings..."

Page 35: “Now I’ve got you, you meddlesome juvenile”. Doc Ock knows that Spider-Man is young; he knows that he has some connection with Betty Brant; he knows that Betty is dating Peter Parker and that May is Peter’s Aunt… but he can’t quite manage to put two and two together. (It’s odd to accuse Spider-Man of meddling when you’ve gone to so much trouble to arrange this confrontation.) 

Page 36: “Boy! What a movie serial this would make!! A new cliffhanger every minute!!” Stan Lee can’t resist lamp-shading his sources. Movie serials were long gone when Peter Parker was growing up (the 50s were the first golden age of TV) so once again this is Stan Lee's voice, not Peters.

Page 39: “Spider-Man! Oh thank heavens!!” It’s only five issues since Betty Brant asserted that she couldn’t bear to ever see Spider-Man again. 

Page 40: “All shook up!” Elvis recorded a song of that title in 1957, so this is hardly a new piece of slang — if anything, Peter is being a little bit old-fashioned. 

“Do you realize we missed the Beverly Hillbillies” The Beverley Hillbillies was at this point the highest rated TV show in the US. Season 2 ended in June 1964 and Season 3 began in the September of the same year, so when Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 came out lots of Americans, like Aunt May, would have been eagerly anticipating its return.

Appendix: Spider-Man Comics Weekly

The myriad cameos, and the brace of topical references provided more than usually problematic for the UK reprint:

Page 3: When Thor whooshes past, Spider-Man’s “either he’s on his way to a meeting of the Avengers or he’s late for his barber…” becomes “Either he’s on his way to a Carpenters convention...” — presumably a reference to singer Richard Carpenters long(ish) hair, but possibly simply to Thor’s hammer. 

Page 4: The whole scene with Doctor Strange is redrawn so it is the Thing who walks past the school when Thompson tries to punch Parker. (”That’s the second time he’s almost clobbered me.”) 

Page 10: The whole scene of Giant Man and the Wasp arresting the hoods is redrawn and replaced with one involving Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Girl (meaning that Sue uncharacteristically blames Reed for not paying him back for their phone calls). 

Page 12: Reed Richards calls up Major Talbot (from the Hulk) rather than Captain America.

Page 13: The X-Men panel is removed altogether, panel 2 is moved to the left, and a new frame is added with Spider-Man saying “This is it Parker. No superpowers to back you up. You’ve got to do it all by yourself. I can’t kid myself. This could be my last battle.” Page 17: The Stark Electrical Building becomes the Decker Electrical building; Spider-Man is approached by a night-watchman, not Iron Man. 

Page 20: “Vote for Dewey button” becomes “Beatles Forever button.” (NOTE: We don’t call them buttons in the UK.) Oddly, “Why don’t you see a barber” becomes “Why don’t you see a veterinary surgeon”? This is the last page of SMCW # 9.

Page 21: This is first page of SMCW #10. The “psychosomatic” explanation for loss of powers is replaced with a brief summary of the the previous issue. ("Boy what a workout! First Electro attacks me, then Kraven the Hunter shows up! I'm one tired Spider-Man...")

Page 22/23: Mysterio’s robot X-Men are just robots: “Cyclops is blasting my web” becomes “The guy with the visor is blasting my web”; “the Cyclops robot’s power beam” becomes “that blasted robot’s power beam.” 

Page 40: “Missed the Beverly Hillbillies” becomes “Missed the re-run of Love Story”.




continues....

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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Happy Christmas To All Our Readers...

for those feeling less merry

Shooting In the Dark Too Long

People who believe what I believe sometimes get called Trotskyites. I used to say that I didn't really know what Trotskyite meant, but I think I have worked it out.

*

Andy Burnham’s essay in Saturday’s Guardian disturbed me. 

Let’s not put it any more strongly than that. I was disturbed by it. I found it disturbing.

Andy Burnham is a Labour Politician. He wanted to be leader of the Labour Party, but we Trotskyites stopped him. He is probably, understandably, still a bit cross with us over that.

Last June there was a Referendum. Every one in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was allowed to vote, except the ones who weren’t. A third of us said that Britain should withdraw from Europe; a third of us said that it shouldn’t; and a third said they didn’t care either way. As a result of this overwhelming vote, we have decided to spend the next 10 years arguing about the definition of “withdraw”. 

During the referendum, the position of the Labour Party was that although the E.U is in some ways a flawed organization, Britain should remain a member and work to improve it. Since the referendum, the position of the Labour Party has been that since withdrawal is now inevitable we should concentrate on finding a definition of “withdraw” that doesn’t involve crashing the country’s economy. Free trade — access to the single market — is regarded as the Biggie.

Andy Burnham takes a different view. He thinks that the Biggie is not free trade, but Immigrants. The party leadership thinks that we should maintain free trade with Europe, even if that means continuing to allow other Europeans to live and work in the UK. Burnham thinks that we should abolish the right of other Europeans to live and work in the UK, even if that means that we can no longer have free trade. 

He has, of course, a perfect right to his opinion. What bothered me was the way in which he chose to make his case. 

I put it no stronger than that. It bothered me. Here are some of things which bothered me about it. 

1: “We need a plan to bring this divided country back together again.” 

I agree. The referendum really only told us what everyone already knew: the country is split down the middle over the question of Europe. (So, by coincidence, are the Conservative party and the Labour party.) We need a way of going forward that the 37% of secessionists and the 35% of anti-secessionists would be equally happy with or — as is usually the case with compromises — which the 37% and 35% would be equally annoyed by. The 28% will be equally indifferent whatever happens. 

2: “We can all debate what the referendum vote meant beyond the decision to leave the EU. Above all, I am clear it was a majority vote for an end to the current system of free movement.”

It is a strange world where you have a referendum, and wait until after the votes are counted to decide what the referendum means. Like going off to hunt a snark and realizing that you have no idea at all what a snark is. The Prime Minister (who campaigned for us to Stay but now wants us to Go) says that “Brexit means Brexit”, which I think means that the snark was a boojum all along. 

The ballot paper I ticked looked like this:

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

• Remain a member of the European Union
• Leave the European Union

I think that most of the people who ticked the “leave” box assumed that they were voting to tear up all the agreements which have been made over the last 40 years and wind the clock back to where the country was before it joined the Common Market. In status quo res erant ante anno MCMLXXII as it were. I think this is what a Texan would assume he was doing if he ever found himself ticking a box which said “leave the United States”. But everyone agrees that whatever “leave” means, it definitely doesn’t mean that. So we are left in the charming position where politicians can pick any position they like and claim a massive (37/35) popular mandate for it.

Andy Burnham “is clear” that the vote to secede from Europe was, in fact, a vote against European immigration. I am happy that he is clear, although I don't know what constitutional status his clarity has. But I don't think that being clear and being right are necessarily the same. 

It is clear to me that some of those who voted to leave did so because they had been promised that the £350,000,000 a week we currently spend on EU membership would be spent on public health instead. This turned out to be a lie — the figure is nothing like £350,000,000 and there is no chance of it all being spent on the health service. But it is one of those lies that was so bold and so barefaced that one feels reticent about even mentioning it. “Oh, yes, I know we lied about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; isn’t it cute the way you funny little Trots keep going on about it.” 

It is clear to me that some of those who voted "leave" did so because they were sick of only being allowed to buy straight bananas and being forbidden from buying eggs in six packs. These were also lies, but they were lies on a level with the one told to the famous emperor about his famous cloak: the kind which becomes true if you believe it hard enough. Boris Johnson appeared to have some self-imposed cognitive dissonance that genuinely made him think that he hadn't seen any half-dozen boxes of eggs since 1972. It's very much the same kind of trick which allows a man to look at a huge Christmas tree in the town square and say "Of course, you and allowed to put up huge Christmas trees in the town square any more."  

And it is very clear to me that some of the people who voted “leave” did so because of a deep, religious belief in something called “sovereignty”. They didn’t necessarily have any problem with any specific “European” law, but they objected on spiritual grounds to people in Belgium having a say about what happens in England. Since June some of these people have been entertaining fantasies about abolishing metric measurements, restoring pre-decimal currency, playing God Save the Queen on the wireless and getting the Queen a smart new boat to play with.

(Some people have told me that the people who voted "leave" did so because they were jolly cross about everything in the world and nothing in particular and thought that a leave vote would jolly give politicians a kick up the backside, so it's my fault for not listening. I am not very clear about that one at all.)

It seems that the dirty campaign fought by some of the secessionists is deemed to affect the result retrospectively. It is true that fascist politicians stuck up posters depicting scary brown-skinned people flooding across our borders; this makes it clear to center left politicians that a vote to leave the EU was really a vote against scary brown people.

But even if it were clear that the 37% voted against immigration, wouldn’t it be equally clear that the 35% voted in favour of it? And wouldn’t it follow that if your objective were “to bring the divided country back together” you would be looking for a compromise position which the 37% who are nativists and the 35% who are multiculturalists would be equally happy with (or equally irritated by)?

3:  “For at least a decade, Labour activists have been hearing concerns on doorsteps about free movement and immigration.”

British parliamentary constituencies are sufficiently small that MPs get to meet a significant number of the people who voted for them face to face. This the only argument in favour of our voting system: it forces MPs to campaign at a local level, which gives voters a direct line to the center of government. If Mrs Miggins tells her MP that she is concerned about the state of paving stones on Stapleton Road, there is a chance that her MP might pass her concerns on to the Prime Minister — or, at any rate, the Minister With Responsibility for Paving Stones. 

I am sure that some of the people who MPs meet do have "concerns" about immigration; and I am sure that some of those concerns are sensible. "When I am not standing on the doorstep talking to you, I am a school teacher," a concerned person might say "and I am concerned that we have had 37 children from immigrant families join our school this year. I am concerned because some of them do not speak English and none of their parents do. I am also concerned because some of them have been brought up to think that it is dirty to get changed for P.E and have no idea what Christmas is." And the MP might go away and talk to the Minister for Education, and come up a solution — a specialist ESOL teacher in the school, interpreters for parents evenings, a trained mediator to deal with cultural differences about decency and modesty and religious festivals. And that would pretty much deal with all the sensible concerns. Hooray for democracy!

But I do hope that my MP would only pay attention to sensible concerns. If I am concerned about foxes in the dustbins, I hope my MP might do something about it. If I am concerned about alligators in the sewers, not so much. If I am concerned about old people tripping over paving stones, my MP should probably pay attention to me. If I am concerned about immigrants coming out at the dead of night and tripping up old ladies, he probably shouldn't.

4: “There will be those who argue that any changes [to immigration] we make must be minimal so as to maximize access to the single market. They may well be right, and it could be that this is where the national interest lies. But the test will be whether the changes to free movement meet public concerns.”

Pause, for a moment, and take that in. 

Some people think that we should allow, or mostly allow, European immigration to continue in return for us being allowed to continue to trade with Europe. Some people think it is worth losing our free trade agreements with Europe in order to stop European immigrants coming here. 

Andy Burnham thinks that it doesn’t matter who is right and who is wrong. What matters is meeting public concerns whether or not those concerns are sensible.

Extremists tend to think that there is right and there is wrong; there is a black, and there is white; and there is nothing — nothing — in between,

[Insert Diagram]

Moderates, on the other hand, think that there is black and there is white but there are also at least fifty shades of grey ranging from “slightly less right” to “almost completely wrong”. There’s also a pretty big “we don’t know” space in the middle. 

[Insert diagram]

Extremists can’t compromise (even in the face of Armageddon) but moderates compromise all the time. If I agree to do something which I think is a bit wrong, and you agree to do something which you think is a bit wrong, then we’ll be doing something that we both think is at least a bit right, which is better than doing nothing at all. (Probably.)

Andy Burnham proposes a new model. 

[Insert diagram]

On one side is “right” and “wrong” (with gradations and don’t knows and the need for compromise taken for granted.) But on the other side is “public concerns” and “what the people on the doorstep say”. The latter always overrides the former. What matters is not what is right but what the man on the doorstep thinks is right. Vox populum super limen vox deus if I might put it like that.

This is what post-truth politics looks like. It doesn’t look like Donald Trump denying climate change and inventing millions of fraudulent votes. It doesn’t even look like the Sun doctoring an image to make it look like the leader of the opposition was dancing a jig on the cenotaph. It looks like a sensible, liberal politician saying “they may well be right…but…” 

The person on the doorstep is not stupid. But he is ignorant. So am I. So are you. So is everybody. 

I, for example, am almost entirely ignorant about Science. I don’t have a head for figures or logic or the patience to do something over and over again and make detailed notes of tiny changes. I have some general sense that Schrodinger had a cat that was in two states at once, and that this illustrates that there is something in Quantum Physics (some kind of particle, I suppose)  which can be in two states at once, and that this has something to do with why my I-Phone works, but that's honestly the best I can do. I could read a book, if I wanted to, but I can’t really be bothered. On the other hand, I can be bothered to work my way through text books that tell me, for example, roughly what page historians are on with regard to The Historical Jesus and laugh (ha!) when biologists say that everyone now agrees he’s a myth. Because that stuff does interest me. And it goes without saying that I have to send for a plumber to fix the simplest dripping tap or leaky washing machine. 

Why on earth would you ask me about physics or football or plumbling when there are people out there who know about this stuff? 

Experts, if you will.

O.K: knowledge isn't everything. Facts aren't everything. Evidence isn't everything. Many of our strongest beliefs come down to sentiment and aesthetics. It is often a good idea (and a powerful rhetorical tool) to admit this. It’s not a great idea to claim that history proves that tyrants are never defeated by armies if the real reason you don't like war is that your Uncle Ben was killed in the Falklands. I myself am very reluctant to allow evidence to intrude into any argument about capital punishment. Actually I think the evidence is mostly on my side, but that's a fortunate coincidence;  I'd be on the same side even if the evidence were mostly against me. There is no point in talking about whether your state has a higher murder rate than my state and how many innocent people your country executed last year and whether "deterrent" even means anything. The only reason I am against the death penalty is because I am emotionally and aesthetically against ritually asphyxiating helpless prisoners (irrespective of what they have probably done). To argue otherwise is to argue fraudulently. 

I imagine that many of the people on the doorstep know as little about economics as I do about Schrodinger’s cat, or washing machines, or, come to that, economics. I imagine many of them are concerned about immigration at an emotional, gut level. I imagine they aesthetically and sentimentally dislike hearing languages that they do not understand in the doctor’s waiting room. I imagine they sentimentally and aesthetically dislike shops selling food they don’t recognize on the high street. I imagine they sentimentally and aesthetically dislike it when people with a different word for God start saying their prayers in what used to be a cinema. I imagine they have a sentimental and aesthetic hankering for the days when nearly everyone they met looked the same as him and there were hardly any black or brown people in his part of town. 

Call this racism or nativism or perfectly understandable old-fogeyism. You don’t have to be old to be an old fogey. Call it alt-right or call it "genuine concerns". It's a faith position, a gut feeling, an intuition. Don't mistake it for an argument. 

As has been noted, Tony Blair thought that a state of mind he called “sincerity” (“just happening to believe”) was sufficient basis to start a war. David Cameron thought that a fairly technical question about voting reform depended on ineffable emotional feelings that could not be put into words. Michael Gove say that he doesn’t care about the opinions of experts — or, rather more subtly, that he doesn’t think that the populum super limen do. And Jacob Rees-Mogg has said, literally and in so many words that great political and economic questions could as well be settled by consulting horoscopes or the entrails of chickens as by consulting people who know about politics and economics. 

Not that Jacob Rees-Mogg actually consults the entrails of chickens to decide on economic questions. At least, I assume he doesn't. Presumably he just follows his gut instinct; does the first thing which comes into his head. Or at least, the first thing which comes into the head of the person on the doorstep.

I suppose most of us voted in the referendum according to our hearts, rather than according to our heads. But the starting point of this discussion is that while the heads are more or less unanimous — leaving the European single market would be an act of reckless insanity — the hearts are deeply divided. 37% of our hearts hankered for mono-racial, mono-cultural, olde fashionede Englande; 34% of our hearts had an idealistic belief that there is only one race, the human race, and that countries made up of different kinds of people were nicer and more interesting places to live than countries where every one was the same. 37% of us want a land with a wall around it and 34% of us have a faith in our fellow man, as the bard said.

What happened to seeking a unity between those two positions? 

“The people on the doorstep” doesn’t just mean “people”, does it? Any more than “the real America” just means “Americans”? It means the people on the doorstep as opposed to the people anywhere else — in cafes or universities or at political meanings? And I am not on the doorstep. There I times when I sincerely doubt that I am person. I am one of the 35%. I am a metropolitian elite, an expert, a luvvie, a moaner, a Trot, a Guardianista. I am also a member of a trade union, and we learned this week that the Prime Minister does not regard members of trade unions as people. 

My shaky knowledge of science isn’t written into my genes. I picked it up somewhere; very possibly from Star Trek. The opinions of the people on the doorstep didn’t drop out of the sky, either. They picked them up from somewhere. Very possibly from a newspaper. And I sometimes suspect that some of the newspapers have a political agenda. I sometimes think that they are deliberately trying to create the impression that there are floods and hoards of terrifying immigrants who want to steal your job, take down your Union Jack, ban your Christmas tree and force you eat straight bananas and 5-packs of eggs. I sometimes think that this reflects what their editor sincerely believes in his heart, or more likely, what would be in the owner's economic interests. 

If we are going to make it a general rule that the opinions of the people on the doorstep are automatically right, then you might just as will cut out the middle-man and ask the two or three zillionaires who own the press directly. Which is what you might expect a Tory to believe; but rather a surprising position for a Labour man.

Vox populi super limen vox domini de ephemerides if you absolutely insist. 

*

I know, of course, what my Labour friends will say about this. They will say “It is the person on the doorstep (right or wrong) who votes in elections; if you want to win an election you have to meet their concerns (right or wrong); there is no point in a political party existing if it can’t win elections.”

So I think that is what Trotskyite must mean. The opposite of that. 

Have you seen the new Star Wars movie Andrew...

Yes. Yes as a matter of fact I have.