Silver Age Comics

Peter finds a solution to his aunt's financial problems in this issue, which also introduces the first of the major villains in Spiderman's rogue's gallery: The Vulture. As you can see from the cover above, he falls into the category of villains who facially resemble the animal after which they're named. Some others Silver Age examples include the Shark, a Green Lantern antagonist and the Clock, a Green Arrow baddie.

As the story begins, we see the Vulture making off with a fortune in bonds. J. Jonah Jameson wants photos of him:

I believe that's the only time that NOW magazine is ever mentioned in the Silver Age Spiderman; in all other stories Jameson is a newspaper man, not a magazine publisher. Maybe Stan thought that a magazine would be more willing to pay big bucks for color photos?

At any rate, Peter borrows Uncle Ben's old miniature camera and decides to get a photo of the Vulture in action. Sure enough, he gets lucky the first time out:

But the Vulture overhears him and doubles back, knocking Peter out with a vicious kick. He puts him in a rooftop water tank, thinking that Spiderman will drown, but:

Peter develops the film and does some work upgrading his equipment:

I would argue that Marvel's Silver Age characters were not as well-designed as DC's initially. Their real strength came from the way they developed over time. They became better characters than DC due to the constant tinkering.

In the next segment, the Vulture has announced that he's going to rob a jewelry shipment. The police have sharpshooters on the rooftops and a helicopter overhead. How can he pull it off?

I thought that was really cool the first time I read it as a kid and it's still impressive.

Using his spider-sense, Peter is able to locate the Vulture, who again tries the loop around gimmick. But this time Spidey's ready:

This is another one of those "I only meant for you to die," moments that Stan seemed to enjoy scripting.

Somehow Spiderman has disabled the Vulture's wings. Peter uses his web fluid to swing to safety, while the Vulture manages to slow his plummet to a nearby rooftop by spiraling downward. He lets the cops do the actual arrest, just snapping a few more pix. As for how he stopped the crook, he explains here:

As Dr Who would say, just reverse the polarity!

The second story is definitely an oddball in the Spiderman saga, as it is the only story involving aliens. However, this fits very well with the Marvel pattern, as most of the Silver Age heroes found themselves up against other world menaces in their second issue: the FF, Iron Man and the Avengers, for example.

Peter gets an assignment to work with one of the sharpest electronics minds around, Dr Cobbwell. But his first task doesn't require a lot of brainpower:

Of course vacuum tubes in radios were about to go out with the advent of transistors. Peter senses some weird electronic emanations coming from the basement of the radio repair shop, and later he realizes that the same emanations are coming from the repaired radio at Dr Cobbwell's. So he decides to pay another visit to the Tinkerer in his costumed identity.

Eventually the aliens capture him but he escapes and foils their plans for invasion, so they leave.


Update: The aliens concept doesn't seem well-suited to Spiderman, just as it was inappropriate to Batman. Although both faced major-league criminals and super-villains, they also dealt with the low-level hoods. This is not all that surprising as both lost relatives to common street thugs.

George M. Cohan once observed that plotting a three-act play was relatively simple. In Act 1, you get the hero up in a tree. In Act 2, you throw stones at him. In Act 3, you get the hero down from the tree.

Many comic stories follow this simple formula. Where Spiderman was different, was that Stan and Steve never got him down from the tree; they just kept throwing the stones at him.

This issue offers a classic example. After a quick summary of the events in Amazing Fantasy #15, we see that Uncle Ben's death has put Peter and Aunt May in a rough situation:

Peter considers taking up crime to pay the bills, but he knows it would break his aunt's heart if he were ever arrested. So he gets the bright idea of going into show business. Problem solved? Nope, because there's another stone waiting:

Spidey indeed finds it impossible to cash his check. And things get even tougher with the first appearance of his longest-running nemesis:

The inspiration for J. Jonah Jameson is probably found in the works of Ayn Rand. In the book The Fountainhead, Howard Roark runs afoul of a character named Ellsworth Toohey, who sees it as his duty (as a socialist) to tear down heroic individuals in favor of the ordinary working man. Ditko was famously a Rand fan, and echoes of her philosophy often appeared in Spiderman and in the Question series, as I discussed here.

Jameson's son is an astronaut (note: astronauts were huge celebrities in 1963), and is being launched into space shortly after Spiderman is basically drubbed out of the entertainment biz. But his space capsule develops a problem and he appears to be doomed until Spiderman steps in:

He commandeers a plane and a pilot from a nearby base and:

He rescues Jameson's son and emerges a hero to all, right? Well, yes to the former, but Stan and Steve haven't finished off their pile of stones:

Jameson has trumped up a patently ridiculous charge that Spidey had caused the problems with the capsule in the first place, so that he could look like the savior. So our friendly neighborhood Spiderman remains treed:


In the backup story, Spiderman tries to join the Fantastic Four, figuring that he ought to command a good salary with them. But:

The remainder of the story features Spiderman's first battle with the Chameleon, a quick-change artist. At one point, the Chameleon impersonates Spiderman himself. Peter captures him but the Chameleon gets away and does another makeover. We see the first appearance of Spider-Sense here:

The Spider-Sense is an ingenious gimmick that would become an important weapon in Spiderman's arsenal. But when he catches the phony cop, the Chameleon claims loudly that Spiderman is really the Chameleon in disguise again. This results in Peter fleeing, angry and hurt:

Like I said, the stones never stopped coming.

The Hawk and the Dove were only one of the two new projects that Steve Ditko brought to DC in 1968; the other was Beware the Creeper. But in a lot of ways, the Creeper is simply Ditko's Charlton hero, The Question. Consider:

Both Jack Ryder and Vic Sage are both TV talk show hosts who don't care if they offend one of their sponsors:

Both gain their powers from a "professor":

Both are capable of changing identities in a flash:

And both are subjected to the attentions of a gal they cannot stand:

Of the two, I'd say the Question is more interesting, as his character is even more uncompromising than the Creeper, and more of an exemplar of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. Ditko was allowed to script his Charlton tales, while at DC his scripters included Don Segall (in the Showcase debut) and Denny O'Neill (in the ongoing series).

The plot in this issue is one of the most common in the Silver Age: Professor has invented something that the communists want. The underworld has kidnapped the prof and are about to deliver him to the reds, but... well, they're going to have a costume party as well at the house where he's being hidden. Because the leader of the mob is also a pillar of the community, the anti-violence crusader and Ryder's sponsor are also at the party:

So Ryder cobbles together the Creeper's costum--a green wig, yellow body paint and a sheepskin rug along with the Sub-Mariner's trunks, and crashes the party. But as he tries to search the house, some guards spot him, and he has to make a dash for it. He's wounded, but discovers a secret room behind a sliding panel where Professor Yatz is hidden. The professor decides to use the Creeper as his guinea pig for a serum that heals people quickly and gives them extra strength. He also implants in Ryder's arm a device that:

Hence Ryder's ability to make the quick costume change. The professor is killed when the guards burst through the sliding panel, and so the Creeper's secret is safe. The Creeper beats up the hoodlums and the cops catch the prof's killer. But all's not well:

The Creeper had only a short run at DC (six issues), although he made several guest appearances in the 1970s and has been a background character (as TV host Jack Ryder) for decades since. He had another short series in the mid-1990s. In 2003, Vertigo put out a mini-series with a female version of the Creeper set in 1930s France.

The cultural and historical significance of this issue is pretty obvious. Back in 1968, the battle over the Vietnam War was raging in America. Dick Giordano had just arrived at DC, bringing with him some of the talent he'd had at Charlton, including two guys named Steve: Ditko and Skeates. With Ditko handling the art chores and Skeates the dialogue, the concept of the Hawk and the Dove was born.

Hank and Don Hall are about as different as two brothers can be. Don is a man of peace, while his brother believes that might makes right. The story starts with them on opposite sides of a demonstration at the local college:

Meanwhile, their father, a local judge, is sentencing a hoodlum to jail. The crook vows revenge and it is not long in coming:

The three survive the attempted murder, but the judge is injured enough to require hospitalization. The next day, Hank spots the bomb thrower. Don wants to call a cop, but his brother insists on following the man. They trail him to an old warehouse, but get trapped inside a locked room, where they overhear the plans to kill their father in his sickbed. They try to open the door, or a window, but their efforts come to naught. In desperation Don wishes that they had super-powers and:

As superhero origins go it's not terribly credible, but you know how that is; credible is being bitten by a radioactive spider. It's certainly a desirable origin; all you had to do was wish for it hard enough and if you were one of the chosen ones, you'd be turned into a powerful being. They confront the villains at the hospital:

Well, you can probably guess the problem with being the "Dove" of this duo; you're not going to get much respect from crooks by telling them that they should give up. Indeed, Don is quickly defenestrated:

Fortunately a convenient flagpole saves him and he returns to the hospital room in time to save his dad. But he has his hands full:

But they are stunned to hear their father's reaction to their super-deeds:

Hank still wants to fight criminals with their new abilities, but Don wants no part of fighting and is dismayed by his dad's words.

Their solo series lasted for only six issues, but they managed to jump over to Teen Titans for a year or so.

No, not that kind of fantasy. As you can see, Stan was already attempting to shed the image of comic books as trash entertainment for kids; it was an attempt that would fail for most of the rest of the 1960s, but would prove successful years later.

As you can see, the cover advertises five stories, and therefore the tales are quite compact. The opener is a pretty standard sci-fi plot about the man who discovers an alien ship has landed and that the alien is loose among us. As is typical in such stories, the man has trouble convincing people:

But when he shows a professor the alien log book, the academic is convinced:

But that's not the case, as the final page reveals:

Comments: A superb twist ending.

The second story concerns a wealthy man who's worried that Earth will end in a nuclear war, so he builds an underground bomb shelter. Sure enough, his sensitive instruments detect heavy blasts above ground. Eventually, he ventures out to
Comments: I don't know how popular these bomb shelters actually were in the late 1950s and early 1960s; I grew up during that era and I've never seen one. They certainly were commonly encountered in popular fiction and on TV, and one thing was very constant. The people who owned them were invariably portrayed as narrow and small-minded idiots.

The third story concerns a young woman in Salem during the witch trials. She is suspected of practicing the dark arts. But her boyfriend Ben believes in her innocence and manages to convince the judges that she is not guilty. As they ride to be married, their horse is startled and the girl is injured. If she does not get treatment quickly she will be crippled for life. Fortunately Ben can get help:

Comments: Short (three pages), and now that we are expecting the twist ending, a bit predictable.

Story four is a time travel paradox tale. A crook kills a security guard while fleeing from a robbery and finds himself on the front page of the newspaper. But he notices a story about a professor inventing a time travel device. As in the DC stories of the time, the machine is encased in a glass bubble. He goes back in time. It's the perfect escape. But a man back there seems to recognize him, so he kills the man, and suddenly finds himself back in 1961. It turns out he killed the professor, back before the time machine was invented:

Comments: Cute story, although it really makes no sense that the professor would recognize him.

In the finale, a spaceship lands on Earth. Are the aliens friendly or evil? Men try communicating with them, but are unable to make sense of their customs or language, and it looks like things will end badly. But a boy in the crowd wants to exchange toys:

Comments: Popular fiction regarding aliens seemed to vary between the horrible alien invaders, and the horrible humans who suspected our alien friends-to-be; compare and contrast the first story in this issue and the last one.

Overall the comic is quite entertaining and of course the Steve Ditko art is scrumptious. Incidentally, this comic would have appeared on the newsstands at about the same time as Fantastic Four #1, and of course a later issue of Amazing Adult Fantasy (rechristened Amazing Fantasy) would be the launching pad for Spiderman.

In addition to launching the THUNDER Agents as a group, Tower also published a few solo books for Dynamo (four issues) and NoMan (two issues).

This one starts out with a Wally Wood-illustrated story. Somebody is bombing radar installations and space observatories. We can rule out the commies:

So it appears to be coming from space. They decide to send NoMan on a one-way trip to the moon, as he can always beam his mind back to another android body on earth. This is an imaginative use for NoMan's powers. They've even planned for the possibility of the rocket crashing early:

However, he does not report back immediately, and so Dynamo volunteers to go on a second rocket:

Just after he blasts off, NoMan returns. He radios Dynamo to land on the light side of the moon, as the dark side is crawling with aliens. However, even on the exposed side there's a welcoming committee:

Using his strength, he hurls a boulder at the alien ship. When robotic tanks arrive, he hops into one of them and gets a ride to the alien HQ. But he is captured and imprisoned in a glass tank without a helmet, so he can't escape. But NoMan pops back up to his android body that is already on the moon and gives him a helmet. Dynamo defeats the aliens and rides back to earth on one of their flying saucers.

Comments: An entertaining story featuring good use of the NoMan character.

The second story is A Day in the Life of Dynamo, drawn by Mike Sekowsky. Len Brown wakes up and decides to ask for a raise due to all the risks he's taking as Dynamo. His boss sends him via a teleporter to Hong Kong, where the local THUNDER office turns out to have been taken over by a communist hero:

The reds have planned this so that Dynamo will be unable to prevent a giant robot from running amok in New York City. But then some apparent THUNDER Agents come up through the floor and chase off the communists. Unfortunately for Dynamo, they're not really with his group:

They have an old acquaintance of his with them:

But when she learns that the Subterraneans' plan is to start a global thermonuclear war, the Iron Maiden frees him. She sends him back to New York via a missile, and he defeats the robot to save the city.
Here's a little cultural reference that non-Boomer readers might miss:

In the 1950s and 1960s, "Made in Japan" meant that the product was shoddy and of inferior workmanship. Of course, ironically in the intervening years it became synonymous with high quality and dependability.

But he gets little respect from his boss:

Comments: Clearly intended to be an off-beat tale. Len never does ask his boss for that raise.

We get a super-villain team-up by Crandall and Wood in the next story, as Demo and Dr Sparta meet:

Dr Sparta's assistant has an interesting way of springing them from jail:

The villains manage to send Dynamo to a valley that time forgot, with cavemen and dinosaurs. But he convinces the cavemen that he's a legitimate god with the strength he gets from his belt and they show him the way out of the valley to where Demo and Dr Sparta are.
Comments: Solid, entertaining story and Crandall and Wood work well together.

The fourth story came as a bit of a surprise. Here's the splash:

I have to admit, I was unaware that Ditko worked for Tower. What a treat the art is in this story! We learn that 20 years earlier, the Subterraneans had captured a human orphan, and raised it to have incredible strength and mental abilities:

But despite his supposed cold-hearted nature, he reacts instinctively to save a young woman:

Who just happens to be a THUNDER agent, getting him into the headquarters, where he attacks Dynamo:

And Dynamo looks doomed until:

Andor returns to the Subterraneans, where he kills the scientist responsible for raising him.

Comments: Beautiful art and an entertaining story. There are hints that Andor might return, but if he did, it was not during the 1960s run, according to the GCD. Correction: As pointed out in the comments by Earth-Two, Andor does return in Thunder Agents #9 in a Lightning story. Discussion here.

The final story is another offbeat tale about Weed, a THUNDER agent with no special powers. He senses this is causing him trouble with the ladies:

Fortunately for him, it's an urgent call requiring the services of Lightning, who was just about to drive away with his "beautiful chick". She decides to go out with Weed instead, and they stop at a nightclub for a magic act:

The magician is a hypnotist, and convinces Weed that he has super-powers like flying and enormous strength. Obeying the comic book law of delusions, the other THUNDER agents humor him:

They follow him back to the hypnotist, but a caught off guard by a sleeping gas.
Meanwhile, Weed has discovered that he doesn't really have super-powers. But:

He rescues Dynamo and Lightning, and in the end he even gets the gal:

Comments: Amusing ending. Weed must surely be one of the very few heroes to smoke cigarettes.