{"id":12905,"date":"2017-09-07T16:04:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T21:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=12905"},"modified":"2017-09-07T16:04:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T21:04:35","slug":"spidey-saves-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=12905","title":{"rendered":"Spidey Saves the Day!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bob Batchelor<\/p>\n

All lean muscles and tautness, a new superhero bursts from the page. Swinging right into the reader\u2019s lap, the hero is masked, only alien-like curved eyes reveal human features, no mouth or nose is visible. His power is alarming: casually holding a ghoulish-looking criminal in one hand, while simultaneously swinging from a hair-thin cord high above the city streets. In the background, tiny figures stand on rooftops, looking on and pointing in what can only be considered outright astonishment. <\/p>\n

The superhero is off-center, frozen in a moment, as if a panicked photographer snapped a series of frames. The image captures the speed, almost like flight, with the wind at his back. The hero\u2019s deltoid ripples and leg muscles flex. Some mysterious webbing extends from his elbow to waist. Is this a man or creature from another world? <\/p>\n

The answer is actually neither. Looking at the bright yellow dialogue boxes running down the left side of the page, the reader learns the shocking truth. This isn\u2019t a grown man, older and hardened, like Batman or Superman, one an existential nightmare and the other a do-gooder alien. No, this hero is just a self-professed \u201ctimid teenager\u201d named Peter Parker. The world, he exclaims, mocks the teen under the mask, but will \u201cmarvel\u201d at his newfound \u201cawesome might.\u201d <\/p>\n

It is August 1962. Spider-Man is born.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ Spider-Man\u2019s debut in a dying comic book called Amazing Fantasy happened because Stan Lee took a calculated risk. He trusted his instincts. Rolling the dice on a new character meant potentially wasting precious hours writing, penciling, and inking a title that might not sell. The business side of the industry constantly clashed with the creative, forcing fast scripting and artwork to go hand-in-hand. <\/p>\n

In more than two decades toiling as a writer and editor, Lee watched genres spring to life, and then almost as quickly, readers would turn to something else. War stories gave way to romance titles, which might then ride a wave until monster comics became popular. In an era when a small group of publishers controlled the industry, they kept close watch over each other\u2019s products in hopes of mimicking sales of hot titles or genres. <\/p>\n

Lee calls Marvel\u2019s publisher Martin Goodman, \u201cOne of the great imitators of all time.\u201d Goodman dictated what Lee wrote after ferreting out tips and leads from golf matches and long lunches with other publishers. If he heard that westerns were selling for a competitor, Goodman would visit Lee, bellowing, \u201cStan, come up with some Westerns.\u201d This versatility had been Lee\u2019s strength, swiftly writing and plotting many different titles. He often used gimmicks and wordplay, like recycling the gunslinger Rawhide Kid in 1960 and making him into an outlaw or using alliteration, as in Millie the Model.<\/p>\n

A conservative executive, Goodman rarely wanted change, which irked Lee. The writer bristled at his boss\u2019s belittling beliefs, explaining, \u201cHe felt comics were really only read by very, very young children or stupid adults,\u201d which meant \u201che didn\u2019t want me to use words of more than two syllables if I could help it\u2026Don\u2019t play up characterization, don\u2019t have too much dialogue, just have a lot of action.\u201d Given the precarious state of publishing companies, which frequently went belly-up, and his long history with Goodman, Lee admits, \u201cIt was a job; I had to do what he told me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Despite being distant relatives and longtime coworkers, the publisher and editor maintained a cool relationship. From Lee\u2019s perspective, \u201cMartin was good at what he did and made a lot of money, but he wasn\u2019t ambitious. He wanted things to stay the way they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riding the wave of critical success and extraordinary sales of The Fantastic Four, Goodman gave Lee a simple directive: \u201cCome up with some other superheroes.\u201d The Fantastic Four, however, subtly shifted the relationship. Lee wielded greater authority. He used some of the profit to pay writers and editors more money, which then offloaded some of the pressure. <\/p>\n

Launching Spider-Man, however, Lee did more than divert the energy of his staff. He actually defied Goodman. <\/p>\n

For months, Lee grappled with the idea of a new superhero with realistic challenges that someone with superpowers would face living in the modern world. The new character would be \u201ca teenager, with all the problems, hang-ups, and angst of any teenager.\u201d Lee came up with the colorful \u201cSpider-Man\u201d name and envisioned a \u201chard-luck kid\u201d both blessed and cursed by acquiring superhuman strength and the ability to cling to walls, just like a real-life spider. <\/p>\n

Lee recalls pitching Goodman, embellishing the story of Spider-Man\u2019s origin by claiming that he got the idea \u201cwatching a fly on the wall while I had been typing.\u201d He laid the character out in full: teen, orphan, angst, poor, intelligent, and other traits. Lee thought Spider-Man was a no-brainer, but to his surprise, Goodman hated it and forbade him from offering it as a standalone book. <\/p>\n

The publisher had three complaints: \u201cpeople hate spiders, so you can\u2019t call a hero \u2018Spider-Man\u2019\u201d; no teenager could be a hero \u201cbut only be a sidekick\u201d; and a hero had to be heroic, not a pimply, unpopular kid. Irritated, Goodman asked Lee, \u201cDidn\u2019t [he] realize that people hate spiders?\u201d Given the litany of criticisms, Lee recalled, \u201cMartin just wouldn\u2019t let me do the book.\u201d <\/p>\n

Realizing that he could not completely circumvent his boss, Lee made the executive decision to put Spider-Man on the cover of a series that had previously bombed, called Amazing Fantasy. Readers didn\u2019t like AF, which featured thriller\/fantasy stories by Lee and surreal art by Steve Ditko, Marvel\u2019s go-to artist for styling the macabre, surreal, or Dali-esque. It seemed as if there were already two strikes against the teen wonder. <\/p>\n

Despite these odds and his boss\u2019s directive, Lee says that he couldn\u2019t let the nerdy superhero go: \u201cI couldn\u2019t get Spider-Man out of my mind.\u201d He worked up a Spider-Man plot and handed it over to Marvel\u2019s top artist, Jack Kirby. Lee figured that no one would care (or maybe even notice) a new character in the last issue of a series that would soon be discontinued.<\/p>\n

With Spider-Man, however, Kirby missed the mark. His early sketches turned the teen bookworm into a mini-Superman with all-American good looks, like a budding astronaut or football star. Lee put Ditko on the title. His style was more suited for drawing an offbeat hero. <\/p>\n

Ditko nailed Spider-Man, but not the cover art, forcing Lee to commission Kirby for the task, with Ditko inking. Lee could not have been happier with Ditko. He explained: \u201cSteve did a totally brilliant job of bringing my new little arachnid hero to life.\u201d They finished the two-part story and ran it as the lead in AS #15. Revealing both the busy, all-hands state of the company and their low expectations, Lee recalled, \u201cThen, we more or less forgot about him.\u201d As happy as Lee and Ditko were with the collaboration and outcome, there is no way they could have imagined that they were about to spin the comic book world onto a different axis. <\/p>\n

The fateful day sales figures finally arrived. Goodman stormed into Lee\u2019s office, as always awash in art boards, drawings, mockups, yellow legal pads, and memos littering the desk. <\/p>\n

Goodman beamed, \u201cStan, remember that Spider-Man idea of yours that I liked so much? Why don\u2019t we turn it into a series?\u201d <\/p>\n

If that wasn\u2019t enough to knock Lee off-kilter, then came the real kicker: Spider-Man was not just a hit, the issue was in fact the fastest-selling comic book of the year, and maybe that decade. Lee recalls that AF skyrocketed to number one. <\/p>\n

The new character would be the keystone of Marvel\u2019s superhero-based lineup. More importantly, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man transformed Marvel from a company run by imitating trends into a hot commodity. In March 1963, The Amazing Spider-Man #1 burst onto newsstands.<\/p>\n

Fans could not get enough of the teen hero, so Lee and Marvel pushed the limits. Spider-Man appeared in Strange Tales Annual #2 (September 1963), a 72-page crossover between him and the Human Torch. And in Tales to Astonish, which had moved from odd, macabre stories to superheroes, Spidey guest-starred in #57 (July 1964), which focused on Giant-Man and Wasp. When The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 appeared in 1964, with Lee dubbing himself and Ditko \u201cthe most talked about team in comics today,\u201d it featured appearances by every Marvel hero, including Thor, Dr. Strange, Captain America, and the X-Men. <\/p>\n

Spider-Man now stood at the center of a comic book empire. Stan Lee could not have written a better outcome, even if given the chance. <\/p>\n

All this from a risky run in a dying comic book!<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ About Bob Batchelor:<\/strong>Batchelor, who teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, is the author of more than 25 books, including “Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel” (Rowman & Littlefield, September 2017, adult trade, retail $22.95). Amazon: http:\/\/amzn.to\/2q4lNYe<\/a><\/p>\n

A lifelong comic book fan and noted media resource, he has been an editorial consultant for numerous outlets and been quoted in or on BBC Radio World Service, Today.com, Columbus Dispatch, msnbc.com, The Miami Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Dallas Morning News, Taiwan News, Associated Press, The Guardian, and The Washington Post.<\/p>\n

Batchelor is the author of “Mad Men: A Cultural History”, “John Updike: A Critical Biography”, and “Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel”, among others. He is a noted popular culture commentator and editor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"