Spider-Man '67 - Season Three!

This is easily the weakest of the Seasons by far. As I said there's very little new here, but a whole lot of vintage stuff often squeezed into tighter timeframes and with little sense a lot of the time. Motivation for crime seems to be an afterthought as villains show up do really offbeat things, but then get captured and we get no background on them at all to explain why they adopted the method they did. That's the interesting part dang it. The first season of the series had been produced by Grantray-Lawrence, the same outfit responsible for the syndicated Marvel Super-Heroes show. But this third season as well as the one before were produced by Krantz Films, the outfit which would later bring us Bakshi's Fritz the Cat movie. 

This Season even reuses one earlier cartoon twice. The episode with the villain the Master Technician is re-worked, and he's made into a "new" villain from Atlantis (they added pointed ears and a fin on his head) who does pretty much the same thing save that instead of NYC getting lifted into the sky it gets dropped into the ocean. Later the "Master Technician" shows up again but renamed the "Radiation Specialist" he repeats his crime from before lifting the NYC skyline again. So essentially, we get the same cartoon three times in three seasons with slight variations.

Here is a list of a half-dozen things I learned watching this season (I cut it in half since the season was so short):

1. Snowmen are inherently angry, so you better not accidently bring them life. They want to kick your ass!

2. Comets have antennae.

3. Despite all aerodynamic principles, biplanes can still outfly jets and even shoot them down with rays and stuff.

4. Peter Parker will give anyone a lift, even villains.

5. Captain Stacey looks completely different, even in the same episode from scene to scene. Sheesh!

6. Mysterio is a hipster who wears glasses and though he lost his pointed ears from the First Season, his skin has gone green for the Third.

This set of cartoons also looked muddier on my DVD set. I assume that had to do with the original source materials as the rest of the disk is fine in that regard. It's only Season Three that has the slight glowing effect in the backgrounds.

I did like the episode culled from the Rocket Robin series, "Revolt from the Fifth Dimension". It was strange and had some great images, though as a Spidey tale it was pretty limited. The Mysterio story was dandy and I think is based on a classic Spidey comic though again Mysterio looks different. Mary Jane shows up but she's Captain Stacey's niece time. There is also a keen interest in the Universal Frankenstein movies, but I'll have more to say on that in a separate post.

One other thing I did notice was there was a lot of mind-gaming in these episodes. Whether it was the Swami (a somewhat pointed racial stereotype for the time) or Mysterio or Infinata of Dementia-5 or the Kingpin with his brainwashing, the human mind was getting twisted a bunch in these episodes. Surely this had nothing to do with the "high times" of that era. 

All in all, I didn't find this Season as much fun, though it had high points. After watching them all now, I have to give the nod to Season Two and despite its endless web-swinging, I still think it's the most compelling in terms of story and art.

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Ditko's Hulk!

Often overlooked is Steve Ditko's contribution to early stories featuring The Incredible Hulk. Ditko drew the sixth and final issue of the Hulk's first series featuring the menace of the alien Metal Master. 

And during that short but important time when the Hulk was being co-starred in a host of magazines to keep his profile high, Ditko took on old Jadejaws in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. 

But most significantly, when the Hulk was given a new series in the pages of Tales to Astonish, it was Ditko who was tapped as the penciller. He was inked by George Roussos, Dick Ayers and Vince Colletta on the series. This was at that point in time when it was not yet public knowledge that Bruce Banner was also the Hulk. 

Ditko stayed with the series through the first eight installments of Tales to Astonish. As expected, Jack Kirby supplied the covers for the Ditko issues. Kirby also stepped in and took over the series when Ditko left. Ditko was the first artist to draw the Hulk's arch nemesis The Leader. 

Below are the covers. 

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Steve Ditko In The 1960's!

Steve Ditko in the 1960s is a delightful tome assembled by J. Ballman. He researched and gathered most all of the surviving fanzine responses, reviews, and interviews concerning Steve Ditko and his work, most notably The Amazing Spider-Man from the decade. There is some minor coverage of Captain Atom and other work at Charlton as well as a peek at what Ditko got up to at DC after he left Marvel, but the overwhelming majority of the material is about Spidey. We begin with announcements of a new comic book character from Marvel and follow the fan response as Ditko wins over the community with his dedication and with is willingness to engage the fanzine makers on their terms. He responds to written interviews with terse but clear answers, and we see him withdraw from that practice as the decade develops. Finally, we see him reflected by the fans as the only artist for Spider-Man, the most sensational creation of the decade. 

The heart of this package though is a piece titled "Steve Ditko and Memories of Another Day" by Bernie Bubnis who shares with the reader his earliest contacts with Ditko in those bygone days of 1962 and after when the artist shared a studio with Eric Stanton. Bubnis became a regular visitor to the studio, finding in the somber and quiet Ditko a man he could respect, more than he could respect his gangster father. Ditko's fiery sense of injustice is seen ablaze when he learns that Bubnis has been beaten, but that fire is tempered by the streetwise advice of Stanton who knows that it will only be worse for Bubnis if they intercede. Not only does Bubnis share these recollections of early days, but he also frames those tales with a visit he made to Ditko's studio in 2017 with his wife. Great stuff and for someone who has been a Ditko fan as long as I have been, it's fantastic to finally get a glimpse of the real flawed man beneath the reputation. 

 

This volume is an absolute treasure trove for any Marvel fan of the era when comics were more important than movies, and Steve Ditko was an idol. 

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The Amazing Neighborhood Spider-Pillow!

I'd imagine most comic book fans of any era not only have burned into their memories the artwork and stories of their golden era but the ads of that time as well. I know that for me comics were such treasures, discovered and acquired at great cost of money, time and energy that these glorious four-color pamphlets were sucked dry of their entertainment content almost completely, and that included the wonky ads they might contain.

One of the weirdest in my time was the ad above for inflatable plastic pillows starring some of Marvel's mightiest.  What struck me at the time and still does is the absolute randomness of the images used in this merchandising effort. I'd imagine when the Stan and the others at Marvel realized the success they'd tapped into with their new comics, they were eager to cash in. Certainly riding trends until they bust, had long been the working model for Martin Goodman.  Now Marvel seemed to be ladling out merchandising rights all around and some of it was profoundly strange.

These pillows for instance.

We have a dynamic Thor portrait by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta. I don't recognize the exact source for this one but I'm sure someone can tell me.

Likewise this Ditko image for Spider-Man, which is a bit more subtle in how it integrates the artwork onto the total pillow for a clever effect. 

Here's a look at another version of this ad, this time with newcomer Captain Marvel thrown in for no discernible reason save to jazz up the image.

Weirdly I found this product starring Sub-Mariner as rendered by Gene Colan and Vince Colletta. It looks like it ought to be part of the same merchandising push, it certainly has that random art quality.

These are two handsome plastic pillows with proper Jack Kirby imagery and seem a bit more classically composed. I doubt they are part of the same push, but are delightful in their own way.

I think I've seen the Thor pillow in real life somewhere, but I forget now where that would've been. I don't remember ever really wanting these items, but I sure remember seeing that delicious ad.

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man!

There are some great pin-ups Steve Ditko contributed of "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man". The poster above was a six-foot wonder delivered to fans in a handy-dandy tube. 

Some amazing art for a set of posters. Getting remuneration for jobs like this was just one of the sticking points for both Ditko and Kirby in Marvel's early years. Despite that injustice, they are great to look at nonetheless. 

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Marvel Masterwork Pin-Ups!

Marvel Masterworks Pin-Ups is one of my absolute favorite Yoe Books. It gathers between its pages most if not all of superhero pin-up pages which appeared in Marvel's comics over the course of about two decades or so beginning with the very first Fab 4 pin-ups from Fantastic Four #2 and ending with John Byrne's pin-ups for Fantastic Four Special Edition from 1984. In between there are scuds of images of both heroes and villains by the likes of Kirby,  John Buscema, Gene Colan, Dicky Ayers, Don Heck, Larry Lieber, John Romita, Bill Everett, and Barry (Not-Yet-Windsor) Smith. Most of them are by the "King", but coming in second is "Sturdy" Steve Ditko. Below I've gathered his Spidey images from the book. 

The oddball grace of Ditko's early version of Spidey is neatly showcases in this image  Amazing Spider-Man #3. 

It is a more muscular Spider we see here from the first Amazing Spider-Man Annual. 

This pin-up from Amazing Spider-Man #20  has always been a favorite of mine as it shows Peter Parker, a figure no less important to the success of the early Spidey stories.  

This a grand image from Amazing  Spider-Man #21, which of course served as the cover this Yoe collection. The way the light frames Spidey is outstanding. 

And this image from Amazing Spider-Man #23  might well be my favorite of the lot. There's not only the entirety of the Spider-verse cast represented with headshots, but we have a very mysterious and threatening image of Spider-Man himself. He's become so common that it's easy to forget that Spider-Man would be downright scary if you met him in one of those dim Ditko alleys. 

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The Amazing Spider-Man - Great Responsibility!

It's in this second Epic Collection volume that The Amazing Spider-Man by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee finds its purest expression. Ditko had been taking an ever-increasing role in plotting the series, and he had even pried repeated credit for doing so. As the creative relationship between Lee and his master artist dissolved, Spider-Man became increasingly a completed work that Ditko delivered to Marvel's doorstep for mere dialogue. Even though I was not there when all this was unfolding, I still regard these issues as the finest ever produced on the long series and the ones which made the character the juggernaut he has become for the corporate masters who now control his fate like so many J. Jonah Jamesons.  

While Peter Parker is desperate to get money for the sick Aunt May, he is forced by circumstance to ignore threats, and this gives rise to the rumor that he's become a coward. 

But things get better at home and so our hero is able to rejuvenate his reputation by taking the battle to his enemies, giving hope to those who stood by him. That iconic image of Spider-Man by Ditko swung through all the episodes of the cartoon show. 

J. Jonah Jameson's hatred of Spidey gets out of control yet again when he funds the creation of The Scorpion. When his home-grown super-villain turns on him, it's up to our hero to swallow hard and save the day, proving yet again that no good deed goes unpunished. 

Marvel really seemed to want to make a big deal out of the friendly rivalry of its two teen heroes Spider-Man and the Human Torch. No issue does it better than this one, and the Beetle was a great baddie, ideal for Ditko's artistry. 

The Circus of Crime turn on the Ringmaster and elect the enigmatic Clown as their leader as they go about committing crime in the NYC area. 

This is the single oldest issue of the run I own and I have no memory of how I chanced upon it. I love this cover, a perfect one featuring an upside-down Spidey battling a vicious Green Goblin. Marvel was slowly setting up the Goblin as Spidery's main nemesis, though Doc Ock might have something to say about that. 

Spidey lies down on the psychiatrist's couch in this one when he thinks he might be going gaga. But as we all knew it was merely an old enemy returning to wreak vengeance on our hero. 

J.J.J. never learns his lesson and hires another scientist to build a machine to capture Spidey. It's a close call nonetheless, though our hero has to sacrifice his costume to survive the day. 

This is my favorite Spidey cover by Ditko. It's got amazing perspective and loads of mystery, even if the Crime-Master wasn't a heavy hitter. Spider-Man is still without his original costume and must make do with a store-bought replacement, one that doesn't fit very well. The Crime-Master is pure Ditko. 

Some will argue with me, but I think the series peaks with this two-part tale of the Crime-Master. Spider-Man never looked better than when he was battling gangsters and these two issues were loaded with that kind of action. Ditko got, to some degree, the kind of ending he wanted as a precursor to the reveal of the Goblin. 

Molten Man is a great menace, and one with a tie to our hero. Peter Parker's graduation marks well how the series has been moving along in pretty much real time. A more adult hero gives the storytellers advantages, but it does rob the hero of some of his most remarkable aspects. Time will slow down greatly after this issue. 

The "Ditkoverse" crosses over in the second Annual and the team-up between Spider-Man and Doctor Strange is a doozy! 

The Scorpion returns and proves to be one of our heroes most blood-thirsty villains. Ditko gets another winner with this cover and how it shows both what's above and below the water. 

This is a neat small story of a humble second-story criminal. The glaring error in this one is that Lee doesn't realize that Ditko was setting up his magnum opus with the appearance of the Master Planner's henchmen in this one and the captions indicate the baddies belong to the Cat, when that makes no sense. The creators are not talking by this time and it shows. 

As Aunt May is again stricken by illness, Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man goes on his most significant quest when he seeks a radical new medicine. When the henchmen of the Master Planner take that crucial cure, the stage is set. 

Our hero is desperate to save his beloved Aunt and the baddies need to get out of his way. It's a bold image Ditko gives us here to showcase Spidey's fury. 

Some say this is the finest issue of the series ever. I don't quiet agree, but it's a mighty one indeed. The end of the only three-part storyline in Ditko's tenure on the series, it comes to a magnificent climax in an artistic tour de force. 

Kraven the Hunter comes back for more from our hero and finds it. Ditko's artwork is moving past its prime on the series and shifting toward a new more robust look. 

The Molten Man is back and it's all Spidey can do to corral him. We get a glimpse of a villain who is struggling against his new nature. 

The Looter is on the loose and he is the evidence that Ditko's new Objectivist philosophy has taken firm control of his creative direction. 

Some nifty robots are on the scene as Spider-Man tries to survive a desperate baddy's attempt at a comeback to crime. 

By the time of the arriveal of a "a guy named Joe" Ditko has said what he wanted to say and moves on from Mighty Marvel. So many villains, so little time. By the end of Ditko's run on the book, Peter Parker had graduated and is an adult. Perhaps Ditko imagines the story he wanted to tell is done. But now he moves on to to other pastures. As the cover suggests it was "Nuff Said!". 

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