When I started
reading this comic book, I realized that I don't think I ever read an older
version of a Spider-Man comic book in my life. I do enjoy watching the
Spider-Man movies and possibly read one or two comic books about him based off
the movie BUT I never read the actually original comic books. I realized the
movies are not even similar to the comic books as well. Since I'm used to the
movie related story of Spider-Man, I was intrigued of how it was slightly
different to the comic story.
Peter Parker is a
nerdy teenager who goes to Midtown High in Forest Hills, New York. He goes to a science exhibit
by himself and a spider came across the radiation that was being performed and
bit Peter Parker who was a bystander of the experiment. We would think being bitten by a spider would
be the worst thing on earth, but for Peter Parker, it was a gift. He was given
superpowers and with this said, he tries to make money off his abilities
because what else would he do with them. He wrestles someone in a ring, winning
off $100 and he was offered a chance to show off his skills on the Ed Sullivan
Show. One night after a match, a security guard was chasing after a burglar who
pushed Peter from his way. The guard complained to Peter about not stepping in
to stop him but Peter just didn’t seem to care. The irony of this
scene was that this same burglar was robbing from Peter’s own home the next day
and killed his Uncle Ben. From that day on, Peter actually understood the
popular phrase “With great power comes great responsibility”, aka become a
super hero. He becomes a photographer for the “Daily Bugle” since he needs to
make money to support himself and obviously his Aunt May.
The characters we
encounter in Spider-Man's adventures would be yours truly, Peter Parker as
Spider-Man, his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, his classmates: Liz Allen and Flash
Thompson, his boss at the Daily Bugle, J.Jonah Jameson and Betty Brant.
Spider-Man's enemies that come throughout this volume would be the Chameleon, the
Volture, the Tinkerer, Doctor Octopus, the Sandman, Dr.Doom, the Lizard, the
Living Brain, Electro, and the Enforcers. The Fantastic Four make a visit into
this volume a couple of times as well.
There are a couple of
themes that are in the Amazing Spider-Man that I encountered as I was reading
the comic book. Peter Parker was just a teenager who tried to fit into the
world, he had to care for his Aunt May since Uncle Ben died which was more
pressure for him, fitting into high school, his peers making fun of him
whenever they had the chance, and the stress/pressure he has working at the
Daily Bugle to have the best photos J.Jonah Jameson wanted from him.
The creators of the
Amazing Spider-Man were Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Stan Lee is the writer and
Steve Ditko is the artist of this comic book. Stan Lee has done many comic
books that include the Fantastic Four, Captain America, X-Men, the Hulk, and many more Marvel comic books.
Steve Ditko is also best known for being the artist of the comic book
"Doctor Strange" and after that, he left Marvel Studios because of
reasons never revealed.
Reading this comic
book made me realize that both the words and pictures would compete with each
other. Each page was filled with vibrant colors of the scenes about Spider-Man
and what not, but the wording would be too much on a single picture frame of a
scene. I do
believe that the art of this comic book is more towards the cartoon side of the
spectrum rather than being realistic. As the reader, I do enjoy cartoons and I love
how artists add the realistic part to the cartoons but with Spider-Man, its
different. I feel that just being its cartoon side is lacking the more
realistic side that I was looking for in this comic book.
The concept about
Spider-Man works brilliantly because who doesn’t like super heroes, especially
if they have intriguing powers that would help the human race. I do believe that
there was too much text going on in different picture frames that I would lose
track of reading, but the art was actually really splendid to look at, even
though it needed a little more realism. Another thought I had was that if the
artist stuck to the cartoon side, they would have wanted the reader to enjoy
what cartoons look like rather all of it being realistic.
Spider-Man was a new
type of hero who wasn’t your typical sidekick because he was just a teenager.
He didn’t belong to a super hero team either. He was a unique superhero who
stood out and brought many peoples’ attention back in the 60’s. The Amazing Spider-Man was the first comic
book in comic book history, which starred a simple teenager. Stan Lee created
the first team of superheroes called the “Fantastic Four’ meanwhile he worked
on the Amazing Spider-Man. The impact of these comic books I would assume was that by making superheroes become one team, why not make a teenager to be
on his own for once in the comic book world and show what he's made of.
If I understand correctly--if Ditko had been even more "cartoony" in his approach, you wouldn't have missed the realistic elelments, but because he had some elements of realism, it made you wish for more?
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible now, to realize how unique both Ditko and Lee were in 1961. Lee's dialogue was unprecedented-stylistically(in its tongue-in cheek self awareness) and content(soap-opera elements and teenage angst)--and Ditko's gangly, awkward heroes and villains were miles away in their vulnerability from the traditional "hero" images(re: DC's Superman and Batman).To understand the breakthrough these comics represent-you have to try to see them in their original context. It's impossible to quantify their influence at the time, suffice to say that nothing of comics today would be the same without them.(not to mention their impact on movies and TV).