Amazing Spider-Man Annual #4. Mysterio, the Wizard and the Human Torch

(Cover from 1967.)

"The Web And The Flame!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Pencilled by Larry Lieber.

Inked by Mike Esposito/T Mortellaro.

Lettering by Jerry Feldmann.

Well, there's an odd thing. I came to bury Caesar but might end up having to praise him.

Having read this tale many moons ago, I was under the impression that it's quite the worst Spider-Man story I've ever read but, reading it again for the purposes of this blog, I may have to admit it's not as bad as I recalled. It's not great but it is at least more fun than it once seemed.

In truth, my antipathy came mostly from the fact it's drawn by Stan Lee's brother Larry Lieber who doesn't even get a credit. It might be a sign of my ignorance but I tend to think of Lieber as the bloke who wrote stories when Stan was too busy to do them, rather than as an artist who drew stories when John Romita was too busy to do them. Looking at his work here, you can see why. Highly simplified and kinetic, it has that Jack Kirby vibe but Kirby's style was never suited to Spider-Man. It also has that John Romita vibe and it's obvious that one or two panels have been touched up by the great man himself. So, if you've ever wanted to know what would've happened if Kirby and Romita had ever got mixed up in the Fly Machine, this comic's the place for you. Lieber's art doesn't hurt your eyes as such but it is startlingly naive in its execution and lacks the polish and slickness you'd expect of a major comics publisher.

Having seen Spider-Man and the Human Torch fighting thanks to a misunderstanding on a film set, the Wizard decides it'd be a spiffing wheeze to sign them up to make a movie and turn them against each other in the hope they'll kill each other. This has the obvious flaw that the Torch is sworn never to hurt anyone with his flame, and Spider-Man's never shown any inclination toward murder, so there's no reason to believe either of them'll be willing to kill his rival.

Such logic has no place in the world of the Wizard off and so, to enact his mighty plan, he recruits the services of ex-Hollywood special effects man Mysterio (who he contacts by putting an ad in a newspaper, complete with his address so Mysterio can find him!). Needless to say, with such a high level of intellect behind it, the scheme goes belly-up and, in due course, the good guys polish off the super-creeps.

The thing that strikes me as clever about this tale is that the Marvel approach to super-heroes meeting (especially Spidey and the Torch) is that they meet, have a fight and then team up to take on their mutual foe but what happens here is that Spidey and the Torch meet, have a fight, bury their differences... ...and then, mere pages later, they fall out again and have yet another fight. I could put this down to a desire to break the mould of reader expectation but I suspect it was done purely because the story's forty pages long and Lee and Lieber got round the problem of filling extra pages simply by having everything happen twice. In this sense, it's a cheat but it does make a change from what we're used to and it also means the first half of this tale is at least lively.

The second half's lively too as, misunderstanding finally cleared up, our heroes pursue the wrong-doers, along the way having to see off a variety of traps, including a giant gorilla that's clearly blundered in directly from the pages of Fantastic Four #53. There's a bizarre sequence where the Torch and Spider-Man are trapped in a giant cage. The only problem with the thing being that it's suspended in mid air and doesn't have a bottom, meaning they could get out of it any time they wanted. Bafflingly, this doesn't occur to our heroes who seem to think they're in some sort of life or death peril from it. The Stan Lee school of science kicks in to give us a magnetically activated fluid that Spidey incorporates into his webbing in order to reverse a magnetic field and send flying rocks hurtling away from our good guys.

Basically, it's not a classic. A more cruel reviewer than I might say it's forty pages of padding and running around and serves no purpose whatsoever. They'd be right but it is at least action-packed padding and though I have to admit I wouldn't care if I never read it again, it's not quite the car crash I once thought it was.

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1. The Sinister Six

(Cover from 1964.)

"The Sinister Six!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Drawn by Steve Ditko.

Lettered by Sam Rosen.

In the early 1960s, men were men, women were women, sheep were sheep and money was money. You could get a house for thruppence, a yacht for two-and-six, and the Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 for a mighty twenty five cents. For your money, you got a whopping 72 (BIG) pages of your favourite wall-crawler and none of that reprint rubbish.

That's not all you got. You got a positive epic as Spider-Man takes on not one but a whole clutch of his old foes in the form of the Sinister Six. On top of that, we get cameos from Iron Man, Giant Man, the Wasp, Thor, Dr Strange, the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Captain America, each with a nice little caption beneath telling us we can read their adventures in the appropriate comic. This thing gives us the very definition of the phrase, "Pulling out all the stops."

Escaping from a jail that's conveniently stored his metal arms nearby, Dr Octopus gathers Spider-Man's five other greatest enemies (no Green Goblin) and says that together they can defeat Spider-Man. Then, showing the level of intelligence that got them all defeated in the first place, they decide the best way to beat him is to fight him one at a time!

Gang up on him, you idiots! Gang up on him!

Needless to say, given this tactic, Spidey beats them like he always beats them. I especially like the Sandman defeating himself by locking him and Spidey in an airless room and then passing out from lack of oxygen (Doh!). Aunt May shows her usual stupidity and lays the groundwork for future stupidity by totally failing to realise she's been kidnapped by Dr Octopus, and Betty Brant's in one of her liking Spider-Man moods. We also get the sight of J Jonah Jameson trying to communicate with a spider.

It's difficult to describe how great this is. The sheer level of effort that's gone into this comic's startling and we get some of the best artwork Steve Ditko ever did on the strip, including a splash page for every encounter Spider-Man has with a baddie. We also get the, "Spider-Man loses his powers," thing that got used in the second Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie. Now, as then, it's all psychosomatic and Spidey gets his mojo back once he realises he does want and need to be Spider-Man. If that's not enough, we get a multi-page gallery of Spider-Man's greatest foes, a nine page Secrets of Spider-Man feature, various bits and bobs about Peter Parker's private life and a story showing us how an issue of Spider-Man's put together, in which Stan Lee keeps annoying Steve Ditko by telling him what to do. I make no comment.

My only complaint is I'm a little worried that Spider-Man saves himself from death at the hands of Electro by grounding himself with his webbing. I'm no electrician - and I'm even less a super-hero - but isn't grounding yourself the worst thing you can do when confronted by deadly levels of electricity?

Amazing Spider-Man #24. Mysterio the psychiatrist

(Cover from May 1965.)

"Spider-Man Goes Mad!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Drawn by Steve Ditko.

Inked by Steve Ditko.

Lettered by Sam Rosen.

Madness. It can befall the best of us. For a start, here I am trying to review the whole of the first fourteen years of Spider-Man's existence.

But there are those whose grasp on sanity is even more tenuous than that, and there are those who'll tell you that all super-heroes are, at heart, madmen. Batman certainly is. I mean, what kind of billionaire decides the best way to fight crime in your city is to dress up as a bat?

Happily, a case can be made for Spider-Man being more rational than the caped crusader. After all, he has the powers of a spider and therefore good reason to adopt an arachnid identity, Plus, whatever his neuroses, he doesn't literally dress up as a spider.

However, try telling that to the man himself. One interview in the Daily Bugle, from someone claiming to be a renowned psychiatrist, and Peter Parker becomes convinced the psychiatrist (Dr Rinehart) is indeed right about his lack of marbles. Even before he starts to see things, our hero becomes convinced he must be cracking up.

It's a great idea of course, which must be why Gerry Conway recycled it lock, stock and both barrels in issues #141 and 142 of the Amazing Spider-Man. As with that story, it all turns out to be Mysterio's doing. As for his methods of doing so, it's pretty obvious how the projectors hidden inside mechanical animals are meant to work but I'm still not sure exactly how the rooms in Dr Rinehart's house are rotated to stand on their heads without Spider-Man noticing. I suppose he really must have been feeling messed up not to notice that.

I've been vaguely critical of Ditko's artwork post the Scorpion's debut tale, feeling that it seems to have become simpler, flatter and less stylish but I love his artwork here. It seems to have regained all its previous style and elegance. It's good to see Ditko could still turn it on when he was up for it. After two years on the strip, maybe the unconventionality of the tale got the naturally offbeat Ditko's juices flowing in a way that straightforward super-heroics no longer did.

Amazing Spider-Man #13. Mysterio makes his debut

(Cover from June 1964.)

The Menace Of Mysterio!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Drawn by Steve Ditko.

Inked by Steve Ditko.

Lettered by Art Simek.

Thirteen. It's unlucky for some.

Or have I already said that?

It seems to me I have. So, instead I'll merely say that, for Spider-Man's baker's dozen, we get the debut of one of my favourite Spider-villains of them all, as Mysterio makes his first appearance.

I mean, what's not to love? The man wears a goldfish bowl over his head, has eyes on his chest and walks around in a cloud of smoke. He also talks like a prize cornball. After all, how many people have you ever met who say things like, "Bah!" and refer to themselves in the third person? Quite frankly, if there's one Spider-Man villain I'd choose to be, it has to be Mysterio.

Mysterio, oddly enough, is more interested in being Spider-Man, as he starts the tale by committing a string of crimes while disguised as the arachnid adventurer. This being The Amazing Spider-Man, our hero doesn't respond in the time honoured manner by assuming there must be an imposter on the loose. Instead, he assumes he himself must be behind the crimes and doesn't know about it because he's going mad. Cue a trip to the psychiatrist.

Happily his malaise doesn't last long as Mysterio turns up and gives him a good pounding before Spider-Man escapes, hoping to fight another day. Oddly enough, this seems to put our hero in a better mood.

The fight scene in the second half of this story's fantastic. Steve Ditko was never a conventional super-hero artist and proves it here as Spider-Man and Mysterio battle each other on a movie set. The studio's clearly playing host to a science fiction movie when they barge in, meaning the fight takes place against a whole barrage of unworldly backdrops before the menacing master of illusion gets his come-uppance. Steve Ditko's in his element with this story, his background in drawing horror and fantasy comics coming in perfectly for his handling of Mysterio who, in his early panels, really does seem like some kind of supernatural, Dr Strange type, being.

On Peter Parker's domestic front, not only does our hero have Betty Brant swooning all over him but now Liz Allan's got the hots for him too.

And this is the man who claims he's unlucky in love.

Amazing Spider-Man #142. The Mysterio imposter

(Cover from March 1975.)

"Dead Man's Bluff!"

Words by Gerry Conway.

Pencils by Ross Andru.

Inks by Giacoia and Hunt.

Lettering by Joe Rosen.

Colours by L Lessmann.

A wise man once said, One, two, three, simple as ABC - or words to that effect. Gerry Conway would no doubt have agreed, judging by the fact that, when it came to villains, he seemed to have three main missions.

One; bring them back. I've already discussed this previously, with the likes of Molten Man, Doc Ock, Kangaroo, et al returning.

Two; kill them. Over the previous couple of years, he'd polished off the Green Goblin, the Kangaroo, the Molten Man, Hammerhead, Dr Octopus and probably a whole bunch more that have completely slipped my mind right now.

And, three; replace them. Already, before this issue, he'd given us a new Green Goblin and a new Vulture. Now we have a new Mysterio. Why he did this is anyone's guess, bearing in mind that his stand-ins were never a patch on the originals and clearly were never meant to be.

But ersatz villainy aside, the tale's biggest weakness is that we see J Jonah Jameson on the phone to the fake Mysterio, talking about how he's got Spider-Man so confused he thinks he's fighting a ghost. This does somewhat destroy the impact of the climax's big reveal that Mysterio's not a ghost.

On top of that, it has to be said, the, "JJ hires a villain to defeat Spider-Man," plotline has been done to death over the years and was in no way needed here. We already have a motive for the new Mysterio to attack Spider-Man - however flimsy. We didn't need another one piled on top of it.

For that matter, how Mysterio's device projects an image of the Jackal at Spidey when the villain can't possibly have heard of the green garbed one, let alone possess images (moving or otherwise) of him, is anybody's guess.

Nice to see more Peter and Mary Jane scenes. I know you're supposed to read super hero books for the action and the derring-do but I derring don't. I have to confess my main reason for reading these tales is the glimpse into Peter Parker's private life. Maybe I'm reading the wrong comics. Maybe I should be reading romance mags instead.

I'm not sure how the new Mysterio's mask would make his head invisible, bearing in mind it only covers the front part of his head. Also, the contraption for supporting the Mysterio dummy, down at the docks, should've been easy for Spider-Man to spot, even with a bit of mist blowing around.

But, in the end, what does any of this matter? Because it all pales into insignificance besides one single panel. Who was that figure we spotted, walking away from Peter Parker as he left the Bugle?

One thing's for sure. Whatever it might seem, it can't be Gwen,.

Can it...?

Amazing Spider-Man #141. Mysterio

(Cover from February 1975.)

"The Man's Name Appears to be... Mysterio!"

Words by Gerry Conway.

Pencils by Ross Andru.

Inks by Giacoia and Hunt.

Lettering by Artie Simek.

Colours by Petra G.

You'd have thought that, by now, Peter Parker would've realised that, when it comes to villains, death's a mere inconvenience.

But then, for Peter Parker, cars are an inconvenience.

That's right, true believer, the Spider-Mobile's back and as unworkable as ever.

Granted it isn't back for long and, while it's here, its limitations become all too apparent as it effectively paints a huge target on Spider-Man for the police to chase. But, as I've said before, I've always had a soft spot for the thing. I think it's just the look of it. Somehow it looks like a car Spider-Man should be driving. None of that sleekness or hi-tech for him, just an awkward, ungainly, useless buggy. Exactly where he's been keeping it the last few months is anyone's guess but pretty soon he's keeping it at the bottom of the river where he, no doubt, would feel it belongs.

But now it all gets worse because it's not just his car he's having problems with, it's his marbles.

And that's the thing. How many times has he come up against Mysterio and how many times has the menacing master of illusion had a plot to make him think he's gone mad? And still, after all these times, he falls for it again, thinking he must have lost his mind just because he's told the villain died in jail a year ago. Hey, Petey, the Vulture died in jail years back and that never stopped him from coming back. Come to think of it, Doc Ock's died on more occasions than he's tried to marry Aunt May and he always come back.

On the art front, highlight of the issue has to be the truck driving along the wall, to almost run our hero over.

Highlight after that has to be MJ out of hospital and, in some nicely rendered scenes, getting to reacquaint herself with our hero, not to mention finally drawing the Charlie Brown analogy the strip's been crying out for for years. You can't get away from it, under all that show, and on top of those heels, Miss Watson's a bright girl.

Amazing Spider-Man #67. Mysterio

(You need hands. John Romita's third consecutive classic cover, this time from December 1968.)

"To Squash A Spider!"

Written by Stan Lee
Layouts by John Romita
Pencilled by Jim Mooney
Inked by Jim Mooney
Lettering by Artie Simek

Bam, a giant fist crashes down, seeking to smash Spider-Man to the pulp that all super-villains want him to be. He's still trapped in the model amusement park, still only six inches tall and still stuck with Mysterio out to get him.

The rest of the issue's made up of Spidey trying to survive a series of amusement-park-style traps while striving to work out what's going on. He knows something's not quite right (apart from him only being six inches tall) but can't work out what. He quickly realises that Mysterio's desperately trying to keep him moving, trying to stop him finding the time to think.

But why's he doing that, when he seemingly no longer has anything to fear from his doll-sized opponent?

Spider-Man decides to risk it. Knowing his foe's history of illusion, he flings himself at the giant figure of his enemy, who promptly vanishes to avoid contact. Why does he do that? After all, the impact would have hurt Spider-Man more than him. It confirms Spidey's suspicions. However it may seem, he's not six inches tall and Mysterio's not gigantic.

Then he spots it - a tower at the heart of the park. It's the only building there with a light on. He heads for it, rips the roof off...

...and there he is, the villain of the piece, sat in his control room, the same size as Spider-Man and suddenly in trouble. Spidey knocks him out, relieves him of his boots and helmet, and that's that all sorted.

Well, it's not really. Maybe it's just me but it's not altogether clear what Mysterio's been doing. They appear to be in a real amusement park, which begs the question of how they got there, as Mysterio and Spider-Man were in a warehouse when the villain fired the gun that "shrunk" him, and Spidey at no point lost consciousness. So, how did Mysterio get him to an amusement park without him noticing? For that matter, how come a real life amusement park happens to have Mysterio's control tower in it? Did the staff and management never notice it was being built? As for the giant figure of Mysterio, what was it? Was it a giant robot? Was it an illusion? The same goes for the deadly attractions. Were they real or just illusion?

Oh well, maybe we just have to accept there's some things we'll never know. Like we'll never know why Mysterio turned to crime when he was supposedly the greatest special effects man Hollywood had ever seen. You'd have thought, with a talent like that, making a highly lucrative but honest living would be well within his capabilites.

On the art front, after a one issue absence, Jim Mooney's back and produces some lovely work, especially a sequence in a deadly hall of mirrors and another in a house of horrors.

On the supporting cast front, we may have lost Mary Jane but we've gained a new character, Randy Robertson, introduced as Joe Robertson's son and revealed to be a student at ESU, which, of course, means he's going to be meeting Peter Parker before long. And what's that we see at the very end of the story? A student protest? How will that affect the life of our hero?

Sob Watch, Gwen Stacy gets through a whole issue without crying. Well done, Gwendolyne, we knew you could do it if you tried.

Amazing Spider-Man #66. Mysterio

(Cover from November 1968.)

"The Madness Of Mysterio!"

Words by Stan Lee

Layouts by John Romita

Pencilling by Don Heck

Inks by Mickey Demeo

Lettering by Artie Simek

So, after finding a new artist last issue, this month it's back to Don Heck. Actually, this reversion to confusion doesn't matter that much; one, because Jim Mooney's back next month and, two, because there's something pleasingly cartoony about Heck's art in this tale.

As for the story, it's another of my favourites, as the perennially under-used Mysterio makes his return. We can tell he's made his return because he tells us so. Clearly suffering from the same affliction that struck Kraven the Hunter in his last appearance, he spends the first few pages talking to himself. He tells us how vital a model amusement park is to his plans and how he escaped captivity by using chemicals stolen from the prison pharmacy. Presumably, this is the same prison where the Shocker garnered the tools to create his first vibro-blaster. The regime at that place just never learn do they? Anyway, he's out for revenge on Spider-Man.

But first he has to get Spider-Man's attention.

To do this, he appears in a street, emerging from a cloud of smoke, and then vanishes. Now, with the class that only a criminal mastermind could muster, he hides down a drain, wondering why Spider-Man's not shown up. Probably because it's only seconds since you appeared, and what're the chances that he'd just happen to be in a street you randomly selected?

Well, plenty, as it turns out, because Peter Parker just happened to be right there in that street at that moment. Not that Myserio has any way of knowing this and not that he had any reason to expect it. Anyway, for once, Peter shows some kind of sense and can't be bothered to go after him. He's got better geese to cook, like having to sell his bike to pay the bills and the fact that Gwen's still not speaking to him.

Then it turns out she is. Coming across him, she tells him her dad's cleared up the whole, "Peter attacking Capt Stacy" thing of a few issues ago. At this point, she does the usual and bursts into tears. This is the fourth consecutive issue that Gwen Stacy has burst into tears. I've heard of hormones but really.

Elsewhere, Mysterio doesn't care about the failure of his previous master plan. He can always get attention another way.

He can do it by appearing on TV and declaring that he's going to destroy New York unless the arachnid adventurer meets him at the scene of their first battle. Happily, unlike me, Spider-Man remembers where the pair first fought and heads there. Seeing no need for subtlety - as the goldfish bowl wearing menace is expecting him - he tears his way in and confronts the villain who uses his smoke of mystery to bamboozle Spidey while he rains blows on him.

There's a pretty obvious point here which is that Mysterio could just shoot Spider-Man while he's disoriented. But, of course, Mysterio isn't a common-or-garden crook, he's a criminal mastermind and so is determined to do the deed with ridiculous amounts of extravagance.

Having annoyed Spidey a bit, he now reveals his master weapon, a big gun gizmo. Before Spider-Man can get out of the way, he fires it at him. The thing clearly hits our hero full on, although in the next panel, Mysterio says that Spider-Man's jumped out of the way of it.

Not that it matters because the gun's fired some kind of gas and therefore it makes no odds whether the thing was on target or not, merely whether our hero has the sense to hold his breath.

He doesn't.

Now, as the world goes all swirly on him, he starts to feel weird, telling us that he simultaneously feels like he's dying, and being born.

And then he finds out why.

Because, when the smoke clears, he finds himself a changed man. Where once he could look his foe straight in the goldfish bowl, now he's a mere six inches tall and in the model amusement park Mysterio was so proudly showing us earlier.

Now, at last, his foe can crush him like the bug he's named after.