The Spectacular Spider-Manthe magazine of Marvel of short duration
The Road to The Spectacular Spider-Man
When you have a goose that lays the golden eggs, even if you run the risk of overexploitation, the logical thing is that you get the highest possible return. In Marvelthis capacity can be attributed to Spiderman. Taking into account the benefits generated by its monthly headline, in 1968, it was decided to bring to light a second collection that would also feature the alter ego of Peter Parker.
So, in the header pages The Amazing Spider-Man nº 62written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Sr. y Don Heckalthough the readers witnessed a meeting, of little importance, between the thrower and Medusamember of the inhumanssomething much more relevant appeared.
What really stood out in this publication was the announcement that it was already for sale The Spectacular Spider-Mana new collection that came to be “The biggest event in comic book history!“as it contained”the newest… the wildest… and the most unusual spider saga of all time“, which for readers would become”an artistic treasure to be proud to own” and, in the case of Marvel,”a supreme feat“.
The Spectacular Spider-Man nº 1
The Spectacular Spider-Man It was not conceived as a comic, but as a magazine published in magazine format, which was not subject to censorship by the Comics Code Authoritywhose first issue, by Stan Lee, John Romita (who recognized the hell that his collaboration in said issue had caused him), Larry dear y Bill Everettpriced at 35 cents, came out with black and white pages.
This issue of the magazine The Spectacular Spider-man It consisted of two comics. The first of them, titled Lo, this Monster!with a duration of 52 pages, was in charge of presenting the character, his environment and his cast of secondary, as J. Jonah Jameson, Gwen Stacy, George Stacy, Miles Warren, Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn, May Parker o Anna Watson. The great threats to which Spiderman he had to face in this adventure, which dealt with the election of the new mayor of New York, they were a monster and a politician.
For his part, in the second adventure of the first issue of The Spectacular Spider-Mancall In the Beginning–the readers saw for the first time the burial of Ben Parkerin which his nephew reaffirmed his decision to fight crime.
However, to Martin Goodmanwho was then the editor-in-chief of Marvel, he was afraid of this new masthead, since it escaped the censorship of the time and had dimensions so different from the usual ones that he feared that the printers and booksellers would react negatively to the new format. In the end, Stan Lee had to yield in almost all aspects imposed by Martin Goodmanincluding the addition of color, but managed to stay the same size.
The Spectacular Spider-Man nº 2
This second issue, by Stan Lee y John Romita, it presented quite a few differences with respect to the previous one. Just by taking a look at the cover we see how it is announced that the content of the interior pages is in color. In addition, on this occasion, we can find the seal of the Comics Code, located in the upper right corner, next to the price. Another detail to highlight is that this copy, instead of two, had a single story, titled The Globin Lives!
The adventure, which, obviously, once again pitted the wall-crawler against the alter ego of Norman Osborncontinued an open plot in The Amazing Spider-Mansomething that must not have been to the liking of many followers, since the magazine was not available in all points of sale, despite the fact that the emails from readers and the advertising for the comics made it clear that it was essential reading for understand where the plot started in the original header was going.
Everything seems to indicate that Stan Lee intended to do everything humanly possible to maintain The Spectacular Spider-Man afloat, even if he had to resort to tactics like the one narrated in the previous paragraph. However, everything was useless, since Martin Goodman decided to cancel the collection when the second number had not yet hit the streets, so a third, already announced and titled as The Mystery of the TV Terrorin which Marie Severin would replace an out of stock John Romita in the drawing, never came to see the light.
The reason why Goodman decided to shelve the header was his lack of confidence in said product. However, six months later, when the sales figures were received, it was clear that they were magnificent. Even so, the publisher was not going to back down, so he claimed that The Spectacular Spider-Man It gave many production problems, which meant an excess in cost. However, John Romita He had a very clear opinion about these statements:
It didn’t matter how much money we had made. He didn’t want to change his mind because he was embarrassed.
The relocation of the content of the two magazines of The Spectacular Spider-Man
Finally, the plot of the first number was collected in the numbers 116, 117 y 118 from the collection The Amazing Spider-Man (1972), with obvious changes, such as replacing the already deceased George Stacy by Joe Robertson or divide the adventure into three installments, while part of the second was used for the Annual nº 9 (1973), adjusting the format and the number of pages.
Other uses of the title
Finally, it should be noted that Marvel returned to resort to The Spectacular Spider-Man as a way to name various titles, throughout the editorial career of the character: between 1976 and 1987 (title headed by the words Peter Parker), from 1996 to 1998 (plus a special that appeared in 2011) and between 2003 and 2005, in addition to the successful cartoon series of the same name (2008 – 2009).
