Customer Reviews
A Star is Born - By: J. Crawford, 25 Sep 2007 
What is the secret of Spider-Man's success? Why has he continued to generate comics, fans, & lucrative movie deals when so many of his contemporaries in early-60s Marvel, such as Ant-Man, The Human Torch, & Dr Strange, have vanished into relative obscurity? The answer can be given in one word: context.
Context is what Spider-Man has & most of the others lack. He has a social context: his high-school peer group. He has a family context: his Aunt May, & the ever-present shadow of his dead Uncle Ben. He has an economic context: his work for J. Jonah Jameson, his struggle to pay the bills & buy the medicines Aunt May needs to live. Each of these adds an additional dimension to his crime-fighting antics, keeping them grounded in reality no matter how fantastical they get. When Dr Strange says 'I must defeat Dormammu or the entire cosmos is doomed!', it doesn't reallly mean anything to us; we can't comprehend a threat that big. When Spider-Man says 'I have to get some pitures of this fight or Aunt May won't be able to pay the rent!' - that we can alll empathise with.
All the ground-work was laid out in these first issues of Spider-Man. Lee & Ditko could have made him yet another unattached adventurer; instead these first issues positively shower him with supporting characters, creating a social web which has sustained him ever since. (Compare & contrast to the contemporary Human Torch stories, which never have any human interest whatsoever.) Ditko's clear, slightly stylised artwork brilliantly communicates Spider-Man's angular world of webs & rooftops; he didn't quite have Kirby's knack for creating memorable-looking villains - it would take other artists to make the likes of The Scorpion, The Ox, & The Green Goblin look threatening - but his Doctor Octopus is a sinister masterpiece. Lee's dialogue is engaging, although it gets repetitive if you read too much of it at once. But the real stars here are the supporting cast members: cigar-chomping, over-acting J. Jonah Jameson; Flash Thompson, who hates Peter Parker but stands up for his alter-ego Spider-Man even when everyone else abandons him; Betty Brant, who loves Peter Parker but hates the danger that seems to follow him everywhere; & the rest. This volume shows how it alll began, & laid the foundations for everything that was to come over the next 40+ years. It's a milestone in comics history, engaging, exciting, well-drawn, well-plotted, & occasionallly even well-written, & deserves to be read by anyone with the slightest interest in Spider-Man.
The classic early Stan Lee & Steve Ditko years. - By: I. R. Kerr, 24 Sep 2006 I have been slowly making my way through the Marvel Essential's series, trying to stay to the actual timelines. Eventuallly I hit what is almost the mother lode of Marvel's original years, the early Spider-Man tales.
Stan Lee's writing is at his best here, both jocular & entertaining, with plenty of adventure & Steve Ditko's artwork is first class, especiallly in the Sinister Six tale from Spider-man Annual # 1, the full page spreads are still effective in black&white.
Stan Lee skilfully mixes Peter Parker's coming to terms with his new radioactive spider powers with being a 17 year old with alll the problems, both financial & in relationships that entails. Marvel have never been afraid to show their leading characters as having flaws. Indeed in his origin tale Spider-Man is shown to be indirectly responsible for the death of his Uncle Ben so feels a special responsibilty for looking after his ailing Aunt May.
Lee also has a knack for introducing characters who stand the test of time, especiallly J Jonah Jameson, Parker's boss at the Daily Bugle who admits he hates Spider-man as he is jealous of the attention. We meet JJJ's son John who will play a memorable role in later Spider-man tales. We meet Flash Thompson, & Liz Allen from his school. We meet Betty Brant, Parker's first girlfriend & we get a hint of the arrival of Mary Jane Watson.
A superhero needs super villains & Lee dishes them up here big style, beautifully drawn by Ditko. They were so well based & well written they would serve Marvel well down the decades in various magazines. We meet The Chameleon, the Vulture, Doctor Octopus, the Sandman, the Lizard (similar to the movie The Alligator People), Electro, Mysterio, the Green Goblin (who would be involved in so many memorable story arcs through the decades), the Enforcers, Kraven the Hunter, & the Scorpion, The real sting in the Scorpion's tale is that he was created by JJJ to finish Spider-Man but developed psychotic behaviour & turned against JJJ.
Spider-Man also gets a chance to fight Doctor Doom as well as an alien radio repair-man. He also gets to meet the Fantastic Four as well as the Human Torch individuallly, Marvel's teen heroes had plenty chances to bump into each other through school/college events. Daredevil also puts in a memorable show against the Ringmaster & his dodgy circus performers.
These tales are the fore-runners of several classic Spidey story lines to follow & re-reading them brings back many happy memories. I have now got the Essential Daredevil #1 ready.
