Saturday, October 20, 2012

Amazing Fantasy #15

To truly start from the beginning for Spider-Man, you have to go back before Amazing Spider-Man even started, to Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962).


Written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this is the origin story. It's been retold and adapted time and time again, but only because Lee and Ditko nailed it the first time around, in only 11 pages.

The idea was completely original at the time. Nobody had done a teenage superhero before. Sidekicks, but not heroes. On top of that, to make him unpopular, with home troubles, job troubles, money troubles, etc. was a stroke of genius. When we get to some of the best Spider-Man stories, they come out of Peter's personal problems, and the conflict between those problems and his responsibilities. Despite the larger-than-life situations he finds himself in, most everyone can identify with the fact he'd rather be on a date, or that he's worried about how much his next paycheck will be.

A few things of note - The hyphen only appears in "Spider-Man" on the opening splash page. As you can see, on the cover the name is printed on two lines - "Spider Man" - and every time it appears in the captions or dialogue, it's "Spiderman." The other thing is that, in the original telling, the burglar doesn't kill Uncle Ben until days after Peter lets him get away. Most re-tellings (movies, Ultimate, etc.) have it happen the same night.

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