Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug 62): Spider-Man!
Creative Team: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
Synopsis: Meet Peter Parker, the most unpopular student at Midtown High. He lives with his loving Uncle Ben and Aunt May, is science wiz a school, and just doesn't have any luck with girls. They're more interested in Flash Thompson. One afternoon, Peter goes to an exhibit in radiation. During the course of the experiment, a small spider descends into a radioactive ray. In it's last living seconds, it falls on Peter and bites him. So that's how it happens. Peter becomes light headed and leave the experiment, walking into the street, a car nearly misses him, but Peter jumps into the air and onto a wall... and sticks! He discovers he can now climb walls and has super strength and agility. The first thing he does with his new powers? He goes to a pro wrestling show. He puts on some old sweats and a mesh mask and gets in the ring with Crusher Hogan (no relation). Hogan has an open challenge for anyone to last five minutes with him. Peter completely embarasses Hogan with his powers. A talent agent watches on and offers Peter a chance to showcase his talents on TV. That night, Peter creates some webshooters, a red & blue costume, and dons the name Spider-Man!
Spider-Man wows the crowds at the TV studio. Magazines, television, movies... they all make him offers. As he's leaving the studio, a crook runs by him while a cop asks him to stop the man. Spidey lets him go, feeling himself too important to bother with anyone else... except his aunt and uncle, whom he feels are the only ones who have ever cared for him. Over the next few days, Spider-Man continues to wow people the world over. But then one fateful night, he returns home to find cop cars. An officer explains to him that a burgler snuck into the house and shot his Uncle Ben. The cop tells Peter the burgler is hiding out at the old Acme warehouse. Peter takes off into the house and puts on his Spider-Man costume. He figures the burgler could hold off an army in the old warehouse. Spidey sneaks into the warehouse and apprehends the criminal. Only then does he realise that the burgler who shot his uncle is the same men he let run past him at the TV studio. Peter delivers the criminal to the police, but learned an important lesson that day - With great power comes great responsibility. And the world will never be the same.
Yeah, but is it good? So there it is. The first ever Spider-Man story. I doubt it needed to be retold as everyone knows it by now. It is truly a classic, and actually holds up surprisingly well compared to most Silver Age comics. I guess there's just something timeless about the old tale of poor decisions coming back to haunt us. What doesn't really hold up is the actual origin. A spider gets caught in a radioactive ray and bites someone. So he becomes like a spider? More like he'd get a massively infected wound and maybe cancer if any radiation was transfered. But it was the 60s. At this point in time, Marvel only had a few other super heroes. The Fantastic Four and the Hulk has their own titles (Hulk's would be cancelled soon enough), Ant Man had had his origin story told, but it was in the form of the typical monster of the months / weird science stories that made up the bulk of Marvel's line up, and Thor made his debut the same month as this issue. So Spider-Man came very early on in the super rebirth era of the 60s. Many people have wondered what the burgler was trying to steal from the Parker home. My guess is a rice recipe. Get it?
Significata: Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man. He becomes a TV sensation. He lets a burgler get away and said burgler later kills his uncle. First ever Spider-Man story. Comic sold for 12 cents. Final issue of Amazing Fantasy.
