The Amazing Spider-Man...
... respects posted instructions.
Signs, signs, everywhere signs... SING IT WITH ME!
Okay, enough of that. Time for some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue(tm!):
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAA!
That's awesome. It really is.
Let's take a look at Amazing Spider-Man #170:
If we hadn't learned it already it's that mental health professionals in comics are always evil, and Doctor Faustus is no exception. His main ability appears to be causing his cigarette holder to appear and disappear whenever the situation calls for it:
As we might expect the good evil doctor is using his psychiatric training for evil, causing Spidey to think he's gone wakka-wakka and getting attacked by his some of his greatest foes. Well, his greatest foes and Man-Wolf. Thusly:
I'm not sure why seeing all of his enemies coming out of nowhere to attack him is surprising. It seems like he's dealt with that before...
Oh yes:
Wow. They didn't even get through two years of issues before they recycled that plot device. They used different characters (for the most part, because you see the Vulture in both issues), but after my first go-round of seeing bad guys who aren't there and learning it was a sham, I'd be pretty skeptical the second time. Especially so soon after the first time.
But Pete's questioning his sanity on both covers. I guess since Dr. Faustus used hallucinations in #170 and Smythe used robots in #150, we're supposed to think this is all a fresh idea or something. Hey, comics were only 30 cents back then. We took what they gave us.
See you Monday!
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6 comments:
You should also check out the cover of issue #141, a tale in which, thanks to Mysterio, old Spidey foes appear from thin air to attack Spidey, making him think he's going mad. There was clearly a lot of it about: http://www.comics.org/issue/28240/cover/4/
I seem to recall Mysterio doing the same thing in a story from the 1960s. You could probably do a blog called "Comics Are Unoriginal".
You guys are absolutely correct! You'd think Pete would be used to seeing his rogues gallery popping in and out like that by issue #170...
To be fair, in the second image the Past Bad Guys are coming right through the walls, which might lead Spidey to doubt his sanity.
However another matter nags at me. Why did Marvel characters always wonder whether they were "going mad"? Nobody in the US had "gone mad" for decades. Why didn't they wonder if they were "going crazy"?
Comic book dialogue has always been rather formal. I, for one, have never called an old friend "old friend."
Great Jove, Ross Andru SUCKED as a Spider-Man artist. I had to stop reading the book because of his art. I never went back to it.
The idea of the Spider-Man being suckered by a psychiatrist goes back to a very early story written and illustrated by the character's creator, Steve Ditko. Ditko's plots and stories were stolen by others scores of times after he left the book.
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