Art, webs and more: somewhat random thoughts connected to Spider-Man.

One thing I’ve learned rereading the Silver Age is what a mixed bag the “Marvel method” — assigning the artists the lion’s share of the plotting — turned out to be. When you pair Stan Lee with Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby, you got genius; Don Heck, not so much. Gene Colan, like Heck, seemed to struggle at times, like filling one story with Iron Man and Titanium Man flying to Washington. Tales of Suspense #87’s Iron Man tale is pure filler: Tony Stark working on his mad science, the superstitious New Yorkers worrying whether they should form a torch-wielding mob to stop him tampering with the laws of nature — the mood wouldn’t have been out of place in Tomb of Dracula.Other than a humorous moment in which a thug tries to take Iron Man down with a chair (spoiler: doesn’t work!), it does nothing but fill pages until the following issue’s clash with the Mole Man.  On the plus side, however, those are some really good-looking pages, as you can tell above.

What does this have to do with Spidey? Doing this reread it’s occurred to me that I never feel this way about John Romita’s work on Spider-Man. As far as I can tell, Romita never settles for filling space. I’m impressed.

It probably helps that Spider-Man has such a large supporting cast, which gives Romita something to work on besides the A-plot for any given issue. Consider this party scene from Amazing Spider-Man #47 —I’m not sure any other book could have filled a party with that many supporting characters (the Superman books maybe, but not with this much energy and style). Gwen. Flash. Harry. MJ. It also helps that the cast get to have their own arcs: the party is to give Flash a sendoff as he heads off to join the military. In other subplots from this era we have Aunt May moving in with Anna Watson, reformed crook Frederick Foswell becoming a Spidey ally, Jameson showing that jackass though he is, he truly loves his son … it makes for a rich satisfying book. Heck, we even have Norman Osborn reconnecting with boy.And later being kidnapped by Kraven, who’s under the impression he’s an ally of the Green Goblin. Norman, of course, has no idea what’s going on.I couldn’t leave without mentioning this bit from ASM #45. In the previous issue Peter busts up his arm fighting the Lizard and wonders how he can go out in public as himself without giving away his identity. Then he has this insight:

That’s inspired.

That’s not to say everything works. With the Ditko years fresh in my memory, seeing Peter and Flash coming to accept each other (despite the scene above) leaves me uncomfortable. Flash was a bully; when he was kidnapped by Doctor Doom Peter’s first thought was delight he’d soon be dead. I can buy them putting the past behind them, but not this quickly or easily (though it beats a later writer’s rationalization that Flash wasn’t a bully really, he just wanted to toughen Peter up).

Then there’s Gwen Stacy. After multiple Ditko issues crushing on Peter, she’s now dating Harry and showing Peter no more interest than anyone else. Part of that may be that Peter’s dating Mary Jane, but it still feels off. One reason for my reaction is that the Lee/Ditko Gwen got lots of thought balloons so we knew where she was coming from; since the change to Lee/Romita, she gets none. We have no idea if she’s after Pete, written him off or what. Perhaps that was a conscious choice to build romantic suspense, but if so it didn’t work for me.

#SFWApro.