In a completely selfish hope that Marvel Comics' new high end collectible Wolverine Adamantium Edition may be followed by a Spider-man Web Slinging Edition I’m taking the opportunity to highlight the stories that I think are representative of what makes Peter Parker “Amazing”. I’m sticking exclusively with the mainstream Spider-man most people know of and worked hard to keep the page count as close to 720 as possible. I’m also working in publication order so that we can see the character growth and development as it happened. Last week I chose Amazing Spider-man #50, "Spider-man No More!"
This week I’m jumping ahead to November 1970’s Amazing Spider-man #90, "And Death Shall Come!" Now Peter’s had seven years of growth and experience and at this moment we land smack dab in the middle of a momentous battle with (again) Doctor Octopus. Spider-man manages to elude his nemesis long enough to earn a brief respite, managing to place one of his Spider-tracers onto the mechanical arms so that he can find him later. Skip a little bit of story and catch up with Peter who devises his own plan and attempts to put it into motion. Following the signal from his tracker, he finds himself ambushed by Dr. Octopus, who found the device and laid his own trap for Spider-man. Beaten fairly well, Spider-man relies on his incredible stamina and strength of will to break free and make his move. Unfortunately, his plan is the cause of Octopus’ arms flailing wildly about as they topple a chimney onto the crowd in the streets below.
Among the onlookers is police captain George Stacy, the father of Peter’s girlfriend Gwen, who, despite needing a cane, jumps to push a child out of the way of the falling debris. A distraught Spider-man jumps to his aide too late. Captain Stacy calls him by name, Peter, and asks that he look after Gwen.
This had to be included. Doctor Octopus may be a coincidence but at this point in his career Peter’s confident, never wavering in the idea that he can’t be Spider-man. It stresses again that Peter develops the plan and the means to implement it and uses Spider-man as the actual delivery system. More importantly, we’ve got the well respected police captain who has apparently known for some time that Peter Parker is the Amazing Spider-man and has chosen to respect Peter’s choices and trust that he’s doing the right thing. He even uses his dying wish to ask Peter to take care of his only daughter. Peter meanwhile is already wracked with guilt over the fact that he had any part in the death of this great man further bolstering his commitment as Spider-man to his memory of Uncle Ben.
Michael R. Murray has been buying and collecting comics for over 35 years. At one point his collection included two copies of Amazing Spider-man #1, and one copy each of Amazing Fantasy #15, Fantastic Four #2, Avengers #4, Showcase #22, and dozens more high grade and key issues. The collection has grown to include original art pages, as well as statues and busts, with the current emphasis on collecting original drawings from appropriate artists on the inside of his hard covers. His personal collection of graphic novels consists of over 2,000 hard covers and trade paperbacks. He has attended all of the Boston and New York Comic Cons and experienced Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Diego. He has championed comic books in the local schools and was very proud that both of his children read at least three years above their grade levels, due nearly exclusively to comics. He’s quick to point out that none of this makes him an expert, but that his love of comics is most enjoyable when he can share it. Follow on Twitter at mycomicstore001 or like his Facebook page.