Steve Does Comics

This meant that, by August 1971, it was giving us such gems as The Tuffs of Terror Island, Forward From the Back Streets, Clancy Clott the Magician's Mate, Wheels Moran, Homer the Happy Ghost, Cap'n Stardust, The Menace of the Black Museum and Ringo Rides Again.

  Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.

We all know there's only one Spider-Man.

And it's me!

No it isn't. It's Peter Parker.

And we know that because, in late 1976, a brand new comic came along to tell us so.

That comic was the one whose cover is displayed to the left of this very post and it meant the wall-crawler now had three books hitting the racks each month. The other two being The Amazing Spider-Man and Marvel Team-Up.

It sat on those racks, bearing a cover that long-standing readers may have found oddly familiar, as it was basically a retread of the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #134.

Given the need to make a big splash with the readership, some of whom may never have read a Spider-Man tale before, it's hardly surprising Marvel elected to pit our hero against, not any old bum but one of the web-slinger's greatest foes of all time.

The, erm, Tarantula.

We begin with our hero in his Spider-Man guise, hanging around, taking red-hot action snaps of his college's vice-chancellor delivering a speech, to students, about budgets. Clearly, the wall-crawler knows the kinds of photos newspapers will pay big money for.

But, suddenly, it all gets even more exciting when a certain pointy-toed heel makes his arrival, abducting the vice-chancellor and scarpering with him, after teaching Spidey a lesson-or-two in how to fight.

With no clues as to his whereabouts, it seems the villain's gotten clean away but it's not long before the fickle finger of Fate leads to Peter Parker accidentally stumbling across the Tarantula's next crime.

This time, the mercenary's been ordered, by a mystery employer, to kill the mayor and make it look like a kidnapping gone wrong.

Needless to say, Spidey can't allow that to happen and rescues the mayor from his attacker but still fails to bring the wrongdoer to justice.

Now, not only is the villain gone but we're left none the wiser as to who his mystery employer is.

Well, we're not really. It's obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that he's the vice-chancellor who's faked his own kidnapping, in order to divert suspicion away from himself. We know this because it's hard to see why else he's in the story if he's not the man behind it all.

Of course, 14 years before all this, Amazing Adult Fantasy shook-up the world of comics, with the launch of Spider-Man upon the world, and things would never be the same again. Does this book do the same?

Not really. In all honesty, it's just a fairly standard-issue Spider-Man story of its era. It does set up what appears to be a story arc, involving the Tarantula and his employer but, other than that, there's little to distinguish it from anything that was happening in his main book at the time.

It's also a frustrating read because Spider-Man has ridiculous amounts of difficulty dealing with his foe who's just some bloke with stabby shoes. Time and again, our hero tells us how it'll be a miracle if he manages to survive against such a deadly opponent. At one point, we even have him dreading the thought of facing him again.

I mean, seriously, it's the Tarantula. Even I'd fancy my chances against him. If you're going to hook new readers on a book, I'm not sure having its hero be totally unable to win a fight with a non-entity is the way to do it.

There's also a major crime against logic, which has Spider-Man hanging around, in full view, taking the photos he plans to later sell as Peter Parker. I'm not sure that's the best way to maintain a secret identity.

But, speaking of Peter Parker, despite the comic being named after him, he's barely in the tale.

Still, at least while he's present, we do get a couple of scenes featuring Gloria Grant and MJ, the latter of whom is now dating Flash Thompson.

It's all written by Gerry Conway who always feels like he could knock out a competent Spidey story in his sleep, and it's drawn by Sal Buscema, about whom you could make exactly the same observation.

Personally, although I'm an admirer of Sal and his simple but clean story-telling, I've never been that big on him when it comes to Spider-Man, feeling his style lacks the idiosyncrasy the likes of Ditko, Kane and Andru brought to the strip.

So, it's OK but doesn't feel like as much effort's been put into it as could have been.

If one didn't know better, one might think the book was only launched as a way of making more money from a popular character, rather than because anyone involved believed the world desperately needed another book devoted to him.

As everyone knows, this site's drawn to controversy, like the Abomination's face is drawn to the Hulk's fists. And, just the other day, the Steve Does Comics comments section flung up one of the greatest controversies of them all; "Who's the strongest?"

This dread debate was set off by Dangermash pointing me to the post on Marvel Comics of the 1980s which dealt with the strength chart from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15. Obviously, that chart puts The Hulk and Thor at the top of the tree but what of the others?

Looking at that illustration, the first thing that leaps out at me is that Iron Man's portrayed as being up there with the super-heavyweights, which is surely unacceptable to all traditionalists. Personally, I'd put him on a par with the Thing.

Doc Samson, meanwhile, is listed as being on the same level as the Thing, which seems too weak. I'd think of him as being stronger than the Thing but weaker than an angry Hulk.

No way should the Vision be listed as being on a par with the Thing. Being able to turn diamond hard wouldn't increase his strength, just his resilience.

Also, isn't Thundra stronger than the Thing? That was always the impression I got when she showed up.

Luke Cage is listed alongside the Valkyrie and She-Hulk, which seems like madness. I wouldn't even put him on a level with Spider-Man. I'd also assume that She-Hulk and the Valkyrie are at least comparable with the Thing when it comes to strength.

The Silver Surfer should surely be ranked alongside Thor and the Hulk, not down there with Luke Cage.

Elsewhere, shouldn't Colossus be comparable to the Thing? While there's no way Ghost Rider should be on a par with Colossus.

The medium-weights all seem correct, although I don't have a clue who the man with the beard is.

But, hold on, Ka-Zar is listed as not having super-human strength? I was under the impression that a lifetime of eating mysterious jungle herbs has given him enhanced strength and I would have thought he's on a par with Nighthawk who has the strength of two normal men. I'd also put Luke Cage on that level.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. If you have opinions of your own, please feel free to share them in the comments section below.

Hooray! Marvel have released the first official trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming. And, with skills to match any super-villain, I have, by some means, managed to steal a copy and smuggle it onto this site.

Well, OK, I admit it, I found it because Edo Bosnar pointed it out on the Back In The Bronze Age blog and I simply followed his link. Thank you, Edo.

My first thoughts are that it all looks fun and lively and it's good to see Spider-Man integrated into the Marvel Universe for the first time in cinema history.

Not only that but Aunt May manages to get through the trailer without having a heart attack. I am, though, somewhat disappointed by the shortage of Marisa Tomei in it. I hope this isn't reflective of a lack of screen time for Peter's glamorous granny in the actual film.

Spider-Man looks and sounds like he should. I especially like the underarm webbing when he, "flies." That takes me back to my early comics-reading days.

Is that person with the wings the Vulture? If so, I'm not convinced about the design for him, though I accept it must be difficult to get the Vulture right on screen. Just showing him as an weedy, old, bald bloke might, admittedly, provoke more amusement than awe amongst a theatre audience.

Liz Allen looks rather fetching (I'm assuming she is Liz Allen and just not some random girl who just happens to be called Liz).

I do worry there's a lack of angst in the trailer and that the tone might be a little too knowing and too flippant. After all, where would Peter Parker be without monumental levels of self-pity?

Most of all, I love that it uses Time to Pretend by MGMT all the way through, because I've always been a sucker for it.

Those are my thoughts. You might have others. If so, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

As I've complained before, on Twitter, it's not easy to be Spider-Man when you live in Sheffield.

Not only are radioactive spiders a bit thin on the ground but any ambition to swing from skyscrapers is somewhat muted by the fact that it doesn't have that many tall buildings to swing from in the first place.

To make it worse, the ones it does have are all at least a mile apart, meaning one needs a very good aim to be able to hit one building with webbing whilst clinging to another.

Having achieved that, you would then smash stylishly into the pavement, roughly fifteen seconds after beginning your swing.

Of course, the other reason for my lack of Spider-Man style activities is that I don't have any web shooters.

Unbelievably it's true. Despite the fact that a penniless teenager managed to whip a pair up in his bedroom, in about twenty minutes, I, a genius beyond measure, with the resources of Croesus at his disposal, have somehow failed to make a pair for myself.

I did once make a Daredevil style billy club from Lego, a piece of string, and a metal hook from a Meccano set but, sadly, Lego isn't the strongest building material known to man and I suspect my contraption wouldn't have stood the test of supporting me as I swung majestically from the towering heights of Park Hill Flats.

But wait? What's this? All along, in the 1970s, there was a solution to my problems?

For just $2.19, I could've bought a genuine Spider-Man web shooter simply by cutting out a coupon?

Armed with this knowledge, I do find it amazing that, when  I watched American movies and TV shows, as a youngster, there were never any children in sight swinging around in the background, from their web shooters. Clearly they must have all been skillfully edited out, so as not to divert attention from Kojak or McCloud as they went about their crime-smashing business.

Now that I have that problem solved, all I need to do is find out from which issue of which Marvel comic I can find a High Evolutionary style Genetic Accelerator and I will at last have all the comics-related hardware I have ever desired.

Marisa Tomei, by David Shankbone [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

As we all know, the greatest casting decision in the history of Hollywood was the one to hire John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror.

Who better for that part than a man determined to play a medieval Mongolian warlord as if he were the sheriff of Dodge City?

But now there's an even greater casting decision been made - because the internet has informed me that Marisa Tomei is to play Aunt May in the next Spider-Man movie.

I would put it to the world that this is not only the greatest casting decision in the history of humanity. It's probably the greatest decision of any kind in the history of humanity.

Quite frankly, this is an act of perverse genius.

It's perverse because, on the face of it, it makes no sense at all to cast a woman who is sex on legs as an ailing octogenarian widow.

On the other hand, it's genius because it means we presumably won't have to endure the sight of Aunt May doddering around, clutching her chest and declaring, "My heart!" every time anything exciting happens. Something she managed to do almost every month for all the years in which I was a reader of the strip.

I can understand that having a character constantly on the verge of death does add dramatic tension to a strip but it also, like Aunt May, does tend to get old very quickly.

The casting also deals with the problem I've moaned about before on this blog. Which is, just how exactly can a boy who gets his powers in his mid-teens possibly have an aunt who appears to be in her eighties? To achieve this, she'd have to be older than her own mother. In fact, she'd probably have to be older than her own grandmother.

But of course the thing that really makes it a stroke of genius is it's Marisa Tomei. Unlike John Wayne, Marisa Tomei is a brilliant actor and should, by law, be in every film ever made.

And that's why it's a great decision.

Because, in the end, it's how good the cast are that'll make the film work. Not how old they are.

I therefore - despite the hornets' nest the casting has stirred up - give a great big Steve Does Comics thumbs-up to the greatest casting choice ever.

I always insist you can't go wrong with purple and green.

And issue #6 of The Amazing Spider-Man certainly didn't, using those colours to give us one of my favourite Steve Ditko Spidey covers of them all, as we first encountered that swamp-spawned terror of the Everglades; the Lizard.

Thus it is that I must bring you my video review of that very issue.

Can anything match the terror of Curt Connors' reptilian alter-ego?

Only my attempts at video editing, which always give the impression that I've got stuck into it with a meat cleaver.

As I roamed the historic pitch of Bramall Lane football ground today, showing the players how to do the Cruyff Turn, people often said to me, "Steve, you're clearly quite the sports maestro. Did you see the Superbowl the other night?"

"What?" I said. "Those little black round things you could get in the 1970s and you'd throw them at the floor and they'd bounce right up and hit the ceiling?"

"Not the superball, you brain-dead dolt!" they cried. "The Superbowl! It's the hip new thing among all the kids - thirteen hours of rugby interrupted by Bruno Mars."

Reader, I must confess, tempting as that sounds, I hadn't seen it. But, thanks to the Bronze Age Babies, I am now aware that, somewhere during it, they showed a trailer for the new Spider-Man 2 movie.

This of course gives me a chance to inspect it with the critical gaze that has oft-times awed the world into slack-jawed wonder.

The first thing I have to say is it's extremely long. I sort of feel like I've now seen the whole film.

The other obvious thing that strikes me is I'm not sure why the Rhino looks like a robot or why they need three villains in one tale. I'm hoping they're pulling a fast one and that the reason it's called Enemies Unite is because it sees Spidey having to team up with the trio of villains to face a bigger threat, which would at least add a surprise twist to the reasons for the movie's seeming overpopulation.

It does look better than a previous trailer I saw which made the film seem like some sort of computer game. This time, there's plenty of the kind of characterisation we all associate with Spidey - and, with its electrification antics, it certainly looks exciting.

But does Electro really get his powers from falling in a vat of eels?

Emma Stone still looks very nice as Gwen Stacy, Andrew Garfield still looks like Andy Murray, and Aunt May looks a lot more sprightly than she really should do. These, to my mind, are good things. Harry Osborn looks a bit weird but I'm hoping that's because he's going through his druggie phase and is meant to look like that.

Emma Stone by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, USA (Emma StoneUploaded by maybeMaybeMaybe)  [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, here's a random picture of Emma Stone, posted for no good reason other than that pictures of attractive women seem to lure more people to this blog than do pictures of 1970s comics.

What that fact says about the state of this world, I can only surmise.

She certainly looks very happy in the picture. I can only assume that someone's just started to demonstrate the magic of the superball to her. Look at it, Emma! See how it bounces!

PS. Thanks to Dougie for giving my post about The Horrific World of Monsters a plug on his Materioptikon site.

And here's that very post I once wrote about that very book.

This is my post about the death of Gwen Stacy.

And these are all my posts about Spider-Man.

Here's an eBook I once wrote. It's fab. Both the people who've ever read it have said so.

Thanks to Kid Robson's blog, I know that in a few days' time it'll be the 40th anniversary of the launch of Spider-Man Comics Weekly.

At the time, this was a very exciting event for me. Having been avidly reading The Mighty World of Marvel for the previous few months, to suddenly get yet another Marvel UK mag foisted upon me was indeed a special treat.

But how could it not be? Not only did it feature everyone's favourite wall-crawler, it also starred Thor. I was always a big fan of the early incarnation of Thor, with his long-handled hammer and lack of muscles. And, though his handle gradually got shorter and his muscles bigger, I remained gripped, as trolls, gods and other supernatural luminaries were added.

With issue #48, the comic adopted the glossy covers that made it and other Marvel UK mags feel so much better than their British rivals. With issue #50, Iron Man was added to the roster and the comic seemed as close to perfection as it could ever hope to be.


What tales that comic brought into my life: the death of George Stacy, the menace of Mangog, the hypno-neanderthal robot from outer space, and a whole bunch more.

Then, just as excitement hit a peak, with six-armed Spidey tangling with Morbius, the comic disappeared from my local newsagents.


Would it ever return?

Yes it would.

But when it returned, several months later, it had been magically transformed into Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes and had adopted The Titans' landscape format.


This was good. It meant I got twice as much drama for my money. It meant I got Dr Strange. It meant I got the adventures of The Thing. It meant I got even more Iron Man and even more Thor.

And, of course, it was during this era that Gwen Stacy died.


But storm clouds were looming over Marvel UK. As though to warn us of the dark days ahead, it wasn't long before Super Spider-Man merged with the comic whose format had inspired it, as it became Super Spider-Man and the Titans.

Later, the comic returned to portrait format and, after the failure of his own book, Captain Britain joined it.


This wasn't such good news, as Captain Britain in that era was terrible and he was always doing things I wasn't interested in, like rescuing the Queen or hanging around on the Ark Royal.

In 1979, Super Spider-Man became Spider-Man Comic, the glossy covers gave way to matt ones and the comic was crammed with a ludicrous six strips, meaning you'd barely started on reading a tale before you hit the words, "To be continued!"


Clearly the writing was on the wall-crawler for our once-mighty mag. Suddenly it seemed cheap, uncared for by those creating it and disposable.

As if to rub it in, it later suffered the indignity of merging with the equally clueless Hulk comic before disappearing forever from my local newsagents.


My knowledge of what happened after that is fuzzy but I do know the comic's fate from that point on was a dispiriting one, involving attempts to cash-in on a TV show that could hardly be called a rating blockbuster, and increased juvenilization.


Still, one has to accept that the comic, like all of us, was a victim of the reality that nothing good lasts forever, and if its ultimate decline proved to be both depressing and frustrating, at least its heyday lasted long enough to see me through a great big chunk of my youth. How would I have known of the glory of Asgard without it? How would I ever have encountered the Jackal? How would I know that Iron Man has a slide rule in his gauntlet?

The answer is I wouldn't. And, for this, and all the other things I learned about super-herodom from it, I shall be eternally grateful.

From the moment I first discovered the existence of Panini's Amazing Spider-Man 50th Anniversary Edition Vintage Annual, I knew I had no good reason for buying it. After all, thanks to the Marvel Essentials, I already have copies of every tale in it.

Did that mean I didn't want it?

Of course it didn't. Just as I must buy chocolate even though I know it's bad for me, I knew at once that I craved this book.

Why?

Because it was nearly Christmas - and I knew I would've loved to have got it for Christmas when I was ten.

Sadly, the RRP of £12.99 for just under a hundred and thirty pages put it beyond the reach of one as tight-fisted as I. But, like any good super-villain, I'm a man who knows how to bide his time and, happily, as I expected, with Christmas gone, it's now available for just £4.55 from Amazon, and with free postage.

Suddenly my Scroogelicious tendencies were being appealed to as never before and, like the Green Goblin, I knew I must strike.

How much do I love this book?

Bigly.

If ever I needed confirmation that I am indeed the centre of the universe, this tome confirms it for me because it features only stories with a special significance for me.

The first appearance of the Sinister Six was the first Spider-Man tale I ever read.

Amazing Spider-Man #1 was the first Spider-Man story I ever read in The Mighty World of Marvel.

The Lizard has always been my favourite Spider-Man villain and, so his first appearance has always grabbed me.

And I first read Spider-Man's Amazing Fantasy origin in Origins of Marvel Comics, one Christmas morning.

Not only that but it has the Secrets of Spider-Man feature that showed up in Fleetway's legendary 1972/73 Marvel Annual - the one that includes the image of our hero lifting a giant barbell as Thor, the Hulk and the Thing watch on.

It even has that tongue-in-cheek feature on how Steve Ditko and Stan Lee create an issue of Spider-Man, the one that shows Spidey flying past the Statue of Liberty, on a rocket. For many years, this feature contained the sum total of my knowledge of how a comic is created.

It also features a full-page cutaway spread of Peter Parker's house, a full-page spread of Flash Thompson flexing his muscles for his adoring high school fans and full-page spread of J Jonah Jameson haranguing Betty Brant. Maybe I have a faulty memory but I don't remember ever seeing any of these three illustrations before.

It also has a villains gallery, featuring the portraits of Spidey foes that were used in one of the text features of that Fleetway Annual.

But, for me, perhaps the most interesting thing is seeing some of these tales and features in colour for the first time. Happily, the colouring's old style rather than that new-fangled method that over-complicates and half-obscures the linework - although there's a more modern style to some of the backgrounds, making them contrast nicely with the simpler figures in the foreground.

Another plus is the chance to see Ditko's full-page splashes from the Sinister Six tale in a much bigger format than we're used to.

The book's main gimmick is that the pages have been artificially aged, with tanning around the edges, fake water rippling and even creases. Really, this shouldn't add to the book's appeal but, because I'm a total mug, it does.

Fans of Stan Lee will be pleased to see we get an intro from the man himself.

Any quibbles are minor. Given that all the stories and features within are by Steve Ditko, it seems strange that none of the illustrations on the front cover are by him. Also, I know a hundred and thirty pages is a decent count for a modern annual but, given that it's a fiftieth anniversary special - and therefore unique - even more pages would have been appreciated. I still recall those doorstop thick annuals from my childhood and dream we might see their like again someday.

So there you have it - a book that's inherently redundant to me but that already feels like a treasured possession.

Oh but if only Panini had thought of doing the same for the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and Thor's 50th Anniversaries...

All seekers of truth and justice will no doubt be delighted to know the results are in from the latest poll to hit the internet.

Because you the jury have decided just how Gwen Stacy died.

It's an issue that's vexed the world for nearly four decades but at last the truth can be revealed.

And what an epic poll it was, with a mighty 41 votes, making it by far the most number of votes for any Steve Does Comics poll ever.

In joint fifth place, with 2 votes each, were, "The sheer speed of her fall killed her," and, "I don't know."

In fourth place, with 4 votes, was, "The impact of the Goblin glider knocking her off the bridge killed her."

In third place, with 5 votes, was, "Gwen Stacy is still alive! I refuse to accept she's not!"

In second place, with 6 votes, was, "The Goblin had already killed her before Spidey arrived at the scene."

But the runaway winner, with a walloping 22 votes, was, "Her neck broke when Spidey caught her."

Amazingly, no one voted for, "Mary Jane Watson poisoned her then framed the Goblin." How that girl gets away with it, I'll never know. I happen to know Mary Jane Watson also killed George Stacy, the Kangaroo and Uncle Ben, as I'll reveal in my Spider-Man retcon if Marvel ever have the sense to let me write the strip.

As always, thanks to all who voted - and apologies to J Jonah Jameson, who it seems was right all along; Spider-Man is indeed a menace to society.

With the sort of bad luck worthy of Peter Parker himself, I managed to miss the biggest event in Spider-History.

I must declare that the issue of Marvel UK's Super Spider-Man that reprinted The Amazing Spider-Man #121 failed to be stocked by my local newsagent.

Was he trying to spare his readership the soul-shattering horror of it all? Or was it just the delivery van having broken down?

Perhaps we shall never know but it does mean I only joined the two-parter for its second half, reprinted from The Amazing Spider-Man #122.

Fortunately, the world sometimes being a wonderful place, years later I finally got to read the first part of the tale.

So, with The Amazing Spider-Man hitting our cinema screens even as I speak and the internet abuzz with talk of Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy, it's time to do the decent thing and gawp at her death.

I do of course mean Gwen Stacy's death, not Emma Stone's. Emma Stone is alive and well and will no doubt be back to play both Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson in future instalments.

Gwen Stacy's death happens in Amazing Spider-Man #121 and it all kicks off with Norman Osborn fretting over the illness of his son Harry who's back on the drugs. Not only that but Norman's business is threatening to fail and he has a doctor who looks exactly like Bullit from Amazing Spider-Man #91.

Faced with such dilemmas, Osborn reacts as anyone normal would. He dresses up as a goblin and flies around on a metal bat, out to kill his son's best friend.

Arriving at Peter Parker's apartment, he finds not Spider-Man but Gwen Stacy and kidnaps her, setting up a confrontation with our hero on a George Washington bridge that looks remarkably like the Hudson Bridge.

In the ensuing fight, the Goblin knocks Gwen from the top of the bridge and, despite Spider-Man thinking he's saved her from guaranteed death, it turns out he hasn't.

Its certainly not a tale short of incident. Nor is it short of intensity, as we get the drama of Harry's drug relapse followed by Osborn's breakdown before topping it all with the shocking climax. Gil Kane's story-telling's as masterful as ever and Jazzy John Romita's inks help maintain the look the strip's had since Steve Ditko left way back in issue #38. We even have time for a little J Jonah Jameson amidst it all.

But, whatever else goes on in the tale, the talking point's inevitably its climax.

And it's here the tale's at its best and at its most frustrating. It's impossible to ignore the power and shock value of it all as Spider-Man thinks he's triumphantly saved Gwen, only to realise he's done nothing of the sort.

On the downside, it does get bizarrely ambiguous about how exactly she's died, suggesting no clear consensus between, writer, editor, letterer and artists as to how it's actually happened.

Gil Kane and John Romita's depiction of Gwen lying totally motionless throughout the fight suggests they may have intended her to be dead all along, killed by the Goblin before Spidey even reached the scene.

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy - alive and well. For now...

On the other hand, letterer Artie Simek's inclusion of a, “Snap!” as Spidey snags Gwen with his webbing, strongly suggests her neck breaking as the deed happens.

Then again, just one page later, writer Gerry Conway has the Goblin bafflingly declare, “Romantic idiot! She was dead before your webbing reached her! A fall from that height would kill anyone before they struck the ground!”

Leaving aside the fact that a fall from that height clearly wouldn't kill someone before they hit the ground, the declaration leaves the waters disappointingly muddy.

Personally I take the view that Gwen should've been revealed to have been dead all along; with the, “snap,” and the Goblin's bizarre claim being left out. I suspect though that others may disagree.

Whatever the truth of it, the death of Gwen Stacy sent a shock-wave through the world of comics and may have signalled the end of the Silver Age and the start of a grimmer Bronze Age.

In all honesty, despite this issue's many merits, I do prefer the second part of the tale - for its sheer intensity and Peter Parker's seething anger - but issue #121's certainly a more-than-capable set-up for that classic issue.

It's hard to believe but, sometimes in life, even Christmas can let you down.

The Christmas of 1978 was one such occasion because, although the rest of that festive period might've been fine (I think Blake's 7 was launched that very Christmas), that year's Spider-Man Annual was a thing of genuine disappointment to my youthful mind.

For one thing, it only featured one story - which wouldn't have been too bad had it been a classic.

But it wasn't.

It was the tale where our hero and the Human Torch go off to co-star in a Hollywood movie before teaming up to fight Mysterio and the Wizard.

The first and biggest problem with it was how it looked. After years of Steve Ditko, John Romita, Gil Kane, Jim Mooney, John Buscema and Ross Andru on the strip, the art on this tale seemed a remarkably basic and juvenile thing. The artist's not credited anywhere in the book but my Spider-Sense tingles whenever I think of the name, "Larry Lieber." I must therefore conclude it was indeed Stanley's brother who was responsible.

There was also the problem that, with Spidey and the Torch going to Tinseltown, the regular cast were nowhere in sight, meaning the human drama that'd made the strip great was absent. Instead we got a tale that was, at heart, Spider-Man and the Human Torch fighting each other for thirty-odd pages before joining together to finish off Mysterio and the Wizard who'd had a vague plan to trick our heroes into battling and killing each other.

This was the other problem. Leaving aside that their plan made no sense (since when do Spider-Man and the Human Torch set out to kill their foes?) Mysterio and the Wizard just came across as a pair of idiots.

I didn't really care about the Wizard seeming like a fool. In my book, outside the Frightful Four, he'd never been anything but a minor leaguer, but Mysterio had always been one of my favourites. OK, so he was just a fraud but at least he was a stylish fraud.

The rest of the annual was taken up by pin-ups, reproductions of classic covers and a Marie Severin cartoon. All of which were very nice but, let's face it, no one ever picked up a Spider-Man annual hoping it'd be full of pin-ups.

Sadly, it was the last Marvel Annual I ever read and it was a shame therefore that the grand tradition of Christmas super-herodom would bow out of my life on such a low.

Still, as one hero leaves, another set enter and at least the BBC ensured I had Blake's 7 to keep me company.

Ah-ah-ah-ah-augh-yodel-odel-odel-aug-yodel-augh-ah-argh!

That's right! That awesome jungle call can mean just one thing!

I'm fixating on Ron Ely!

As we all know, for any sane human being, there can only be two Tarzans in this world - Johnny Weissmuller and Ron Ely.

But the man they didn't call, "Rocket Ron," had another claim to fame. He wasn't just Tarzan. He was Doc Savage, Man of Bronze. And Doc Savage makes an appearance in Marvel UK's 1977 Spider-Man Annual, as Spider-Man teams up with the archaic adventurer.

In fact it's not really a team-up because they never meet. Instead, in the modern age, Spider-Man finds himself having to finish off a 1930s' case that involved Doc Savage, when a woman from another world shows up at a building site and complains she's being bothered by a giant monster.

Savage had helped her trap the beast but Spider-Man, being more worldly-wise than his predecessor, soon realises that women can lie and that she's the bad guy.

It does seem odd that a seasoned crime-fighter like Savage would be unaware that women can lie but the most unlikely revelation is that, thanks to having done a quick course in languages, Peter Parker can understand alien tongues. Building his own web-shooters, creating spider-shaped bugging devices, understanding alien languages - is there nothing the lad can't do?

After this opener, our hero finds himself teaming up with the Punisher to stop Moses Magnum from gassing people to death in a South American death camp. With its images of people being dissolved by nerve gas, it's a lot more gruesome than you'd expect of a Spider-Man tale from this era but that's the Punisher for you, dragging everything and everyone down to his own level. The tale's most memorable moment has to be when Magnum pulls off the captive Spider-Man's mask to reveal a face which - thanks to a cunning disguise that seems to consist of two gob-stoppers - looks nothing like Peter Parker.

But the best tale of the book - and I'd say the one that feels most like Spider-Man - is the final one, when our hero has to help an ex-footballing scientist rescue his daughter from kidnappers, leading him to re-enact a failed run in a game he played at the same venue years earlier. Unfortunately, thanks to the need to fit the story into the annual, it's heavily edited here. The loss of the opening few pages is no great loss but a later scene with Peter Parker and MJ at a university shindig ends up making no sense at all. This is a shame, as MJ's wearing a rather nice dress.

To be honest, what matters most to me about all these stories is they're drawn by Ross Andru, and I'll fight to the death to defend my claim that Ross Andru's my favourite Spider-Man artist of them all, occupying that stylistic middle ground, as he does, between Gil Kane and John Romita.

So there you have it; Spider-Man Annual 1977. All the fun you could want for a mere £1.10. Now to leap off this conveniently placed waterfall, wrestle with a crocodile and then punch a lion in the face.

I don't have to do such things.

I just like to.

Fate is a magnificent thing. Just as I was wondering what I should write about tonight, R.W. Watkins has come to my rescue by suggesting I throw out a question.

That question is; when did Spider-Man's "Classic" era end and the adventures of everyone's favourite web-spinner become just another comic strip?

Of course, it could be that Spider-Man was never special for you.

Alternatively, it might be that Spideyness is the gift that keeps on giving and, for you, it's never stopped being 20 pages of Purest Awesome every month since it first started.

For myself, it's an easy question to answer.

For me, Spider-Man's Classic era ended with Amazing Spider-Man #185, when Peter Parker graduated from university. I'm sure there were plenty of perfectly good Spider stories after that date but somehow it doesn't feel like real Spider-Man to me if Peter Parker's not a student.

Of course, this is only my ten pence worth and you may well be tearing your hair out at such ludicrous opinions - knowing, as you do, that Peter Parker graduation was only the start of the strip's goldenest ever Golden Age.

Or perhaps you think it lost its pizazz somewhere halfway through issue #2.

Or perhaps a little part of you died when the Clone Saga finally ended and you had to live with the knowledge that never more would clones be traipsing through your favourite mag.

If so, here's where you can get it all off your chest. It's practically psycho-therapy but, unlike a visit to Dr Bart Hamilton, it won't charge you a fortune and won't turn into the Green Goblin and try to kill you when you've finished.

Walloping Websnappers, the results are in from the first stage in Steve Does Comics' epic quest to find the greatest super-villain of all time.

 And the vote for who's Spider-Man's greatest foe has given a resounding victory to that boggle-eyed bounder of badness the Green Goblin. It might be unlucky for some but not for Norman Osborn's worse half who gained a pumpkintastic thirteen votes.

Second was J Jonah Jameson with six votes.

Doc Ock managed five votes.

"Himself," and the Kingpin both managed two votes, while the Shocker, the Scorpion  and my own personal favourite the Lizard managed just one.

Thanks to everyone who voted, and my condolences to all those super-villains who had to walk away empty-handed.

With thirty one votes, it was this site's most responded-to poll so far and, here, at a glance, is how it all went:

Doc Ock	5 (16%)
Green Goblin	13 (41%)
The Rhino	0 (0%)
The Scorpion	1 (3%)
J Jonah Jameson	6 (19%)
Himself	2 (6%)
The Lizard	1 (3%)
The Sandman	0 (0%)
The Kangaroo	0 (0%)
The Gibbon	0 (0%)
Molten Man	0 (0%)
Kingpin	2 (6%)
Electro	0 (0%)
The Chameleon	0 (0%)
The Looter	0 (0%)
Mysterio	0 (0%)
The Vulture	0 (0%)
The Shocker	1 (3%)