Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man Origin Stories

Go, Webb, go! Hi, this is Dan Gilbazan, and you're

listening to the Geekcast Radio Network. Hey,

it's your friendly neighborhood Spider -Man here,

and I'm swinging by the Geekcast Radio Network.

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time to talk about the comics we are reading

right now here. inside the pull bag hello and

welcome to the pull bag this is episode 334 folks

we took some time off for the holidays and things

like that and things are just stressing me out

and everything else but we are recording and

releasing this on december 26th 2018 boxing day

what the hell is boxing day it's a canadian thing

folks go go find out about it there's a whole

bunch of after christmas deals it's like you

know Halloween candy on sale November 1st. Joining

me, of course, is Ryan the Uneven Flow Merkley.

Hello, sir. Shouldn't I be explaining the Canada

stuff? Sure. Go ahead. No. Come on! I don't know

what origins are. Speaking of origins... I know,

right? Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to

be covering something in this episode that I

have never, ever read before. In the five and

a half, almost six years that the podcast has

been online, I've said many times that my comic

reading did not really take off until right before

the podcast launched. I had read comics as a

kid in the 80s and 90s, but I was more into watching

the stuff with Batman the Animated Series and

Spider -Man and X -Men and, to a lesser extent,

Iron Man and the Hulk and the Fantastic Four

and all that, but... I maybe picked up a Marvel

comic here or there in the 90s, but we are going

to be covering Amazing Fantasy 15, the debut

of Spider -Man in August of 1962. I assume with

everything that you read that you've read this

before. I haven't reprinted a few different times.

The Essentials set for... Spider -Man, which

it's in there. It was reprinted in Ultimate Spider

-Man, one of the hardcover collections I've got

of that. I know I've got it other places. It's

been reprinted a bunch of times in trades that

I have. And kind of the main reason why I wanted

to cover this now is because... We're going to

be doing a lot more Spider stuff here soon. We've

covered Dan Slott's Spider -Man run every now

and then. Actually, we've covered Dan Slott's

Spider -Man run every time it ends. All of this

is really timely with Into the Spider -Verse

in theaters now, too, which is a love letter

to... So Slott came up with the Spider -Verse

concept, although it's... It sort of kicked around

before then as well, too, but he was the one

that kind of popularized it, and they used sort

of similar concepts in the movie. But also, it's

good timing to do the origins, just because End

of the Spider -Verse was a love letter to all

of that, to comic books in general as well. heavily

to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. And it's proof of...

It serves as proof of how well Spider -Man's

origins have held up over the years as the reused

heavily for Miles' story and edited somewhat.

But it's pretty much the same sort of story.

And they did it so tastefully and everything

else that Miles pretty much... instantly became

a fan favorite character and the movie does a

great job with all of that as well too uh go

see it if anyone listening to this has it i highly

recommend it yeah like the end of 2018 folks

or actually almost all of 2018 it's kind of been

the year of spider -man you had the ps4 video

game come out i thought you were going to mention

the fact in general it's been a shit show of

the year no i'm trying to save my negative negativity

for other podcasts but we had you know spider

-man the ps4 video game came out and absolutely

love that um i'll put a shout out to him at the

rad brad on twitter and on youtube i watched

his playthrough of the entire game and all the

all the um dlc content that's been released to

this point and everything else and i absolutely

love the game i I can't play modern video games

to save my life, so I don't mind watching playthroughs.

I actually enjoy doing it. So we had that. We've

got, because of that, we've got this new event

that Marvel's doing, Spidergeddon, which is a

continuation of the event previously, a couple

years ago, Spider -Verse in the Marvel Comics.

So the main reason why we're doing this, other

than to celebrate Spider -Man and for me to go

back and actually see the original story that

Stan and Steve came up with, is that we're going

to be covering the Spider -Verse comics at some

point next year here inside the pull bag. And

I wanted to see what the beginning was of it.

And just kind of curious and whatever else. All

that good stuff. And the other cool thing, I

don't know if you'll find this, because of the

game and everything else associated with that,

the fact that the comic character from the game,

let's just call him White Spider, people who

have played the game will know what that means,

he is getting his own comic. He gets a shout

-out in Spider -Verse as well, which was nice

and unexpected. I wasn't sure if they were going

to have time to include anything from it. Right.

But, reported back on the 17th of December, Marvel's

Spider -Man gets official comic spinoff. The

Marvel's Spider -Man game is getting its own

comic series with the characters from the PlayStation

4 exclusive, returning to the hero's roots. Marvel

announced the new comic series called Marvel's

Spider -Man City of War on Monday and said the

comic would feature the same characters and stories

set up in the game that was released. Guess who's

going to be writing it? Yeah, so we have a friend

from some of our other reviews, Dennis Hopeless.

One of the more recent reviews, the WWE franchise,

Dennis Hopeless is going to be writing this series,

and the art is going to be done by Michelle Bandini.

Yeah, and I mean, good for Dennis, because we've

enjoyed his other work, and Spider -Man is obviously

pretty high profile. And hopefully people who

played the games will be interested in the comics.

I would assume so. But seeing the story from

it continue. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know,

who knows? I'm sure the game has made more than

enough money to get, obviously, a sequel. Oh,

yeah. Things like that. But so we have Amazing

Fantasy 15 here. I think for me going back to

this, what I was kind of worried about is kind

of what I worried about going back and looking

at the original Marvel U .S. run for Transformers,

where that really bled blue, black, red, white.

And I'm not a fan of that original Marvel Transformers

run comic style of art and coloring. I was not

sure what this was going to do, but surprisingly...

I really enjoyed this art in here. This is the

first time I've ever seen, in an actual comic

book, Steve Ditko's art. I've seen prints of

it and things like that and whatever, but I've

never actually seen a full comic book that the

man did until now. So keep in your mind that

there's been a bunch of versions and reprints

of this, and it's been touched up. But even if

you find a version that is not touched up, it

has held up. astoundingly well so the I don't

even know where to be it's all iconic imagery

I think at one point or another people have seen

every single panel of these books it's been reprinted

it's been redone it's been in various forms of

media but people have seen it And it all holds

up well. The entire thing holds up well. The

story, the art, the... There's no aspect of it

that hasn't withstood the test of time, which

is one of the reasons why the character's still

around after 50 -some -odd years. And maybe it's

because the version that I have is remastered

that I, you know... I'll have to look online

later. I should have done it before the recording,

but maybe it's because it is remastered that

I enjoy it more. Because I'm a modern comic reader.

We've only really gone back to older stuff every

now and then on the pull bag. That was a couple

of years ago when we did Captain America, Man

Lost in Time, and Old Man Logan, and things like

that. Honestly, for me, and I'm just being honest

about this, if it's before the year 2000, most

likely, it's not for me. Sadly. I have, we've

covered things that are, you know, from before

that time, but I like the modern stuff. I don't

know. I don't know. So, Amazing Fantasy, it's

actually very short. Yeah, well, so Amazing Fantasy

was essentially collections of five -page stories

that Stan and Steve did, and just, they were

looking for places to put them, and couldn't

necessarily find places to reveal, or reveal,

to have them printed. And, yeah, it just got

cranked out in the final issue of Amazing Fantasy.

Now, Amazing Fantasy continued many, many years

later, but I'm just going to consider the original

run here. Yeah. The Spider -Man story that debuted

in Amazing Fantasy 15 is 13 pages. Which I think

made it the longest story in Amazing Fantasy's

run. Yeah. And definitely the most important,

by the way. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you're absolutely

right. I don't know what the page counts were

like when, you know, the olden days of comics.

But I know nowadays, usually if you get a 20

or 22 page story, you usually have at least five

or six ads in there if you're buying a print

comic. um marvel and dc are more so dc than marvel

notorious for sprinkling ads throughout the story

um but i mean the story is if anyone's seen the

2002 spider -man movie um obviously you know

the uh green goblin green no green goblin not

notwithstanding The origins of how Peter got

the spider bite and whatever else are virtually

the same. I like how they have two parts to the

story in this. They basically sit there and say,

at least in this version of it, part two. And

it's basically Peter not stopping the guy, the

robber, and he's going through the wrestling.

and everything else, and then Uncle Ben, you

know, becomes rice. Oops, sorry. Yeah, spoiler

alert, Uncle Ben dies. But when I did go through

this, I did enjoy reading it. I think it's really

cool. Also included in this are two other stories.

Amazing Spider -Man number one from 1963, and

there's something else. In this as well. I think

it's the one where he fights the chameleon for

the first time maybe. I'll say this right now.

I did not really read the chameleon story. I

was mainly focused on the origin debut of Spider

-Man. So Spider -Man number one. Basically, this

is where Spider -Man Unlimited in 1999 got their

let's send John Jameson into space thing. Because

part of this is Spider -Man trying to save John

Jameson's shuttle from crash landing. Yeah, that's

right. That's right, but I mean... Yeah. It's...

There are aspects of... these issues that haven't

held up all that well you mentioned the chameleon

storyline although that's still pretty iconic

but you mentioned it too that's not what people

remember no like the chameleon's an okay villain

but I would rather have seen like the first time

Spider -Man and Doctor Octopus had met I'll be

completely honest, folks. I don't see this Spider

-Man and the Chameleon story as a part of Amazing

Fantasy 15. And at the end of Spider -Man 1,

it even says, The End, as Peter's sitting there

reading the paper without May. So that, to me,

is the end of the original Spider -Man origin.

Chameleon story is from something else. And then,

yeah, the Jamesons, and it's, well, it would

be issue two that they introduced more, you know,

we had Vulture, Tinkerer, and that's also when

Peter got a job and started working for Daily

Bugle. Doc Ock wouldn't debut until the third

one over a year, around a year later. in 63 but

yeah they he had so spider -man is pretty much

just as iconic uh by the way norman osborn wouldn't

even appear until the 23rd issue of the series

but spider -man's villains are nearly as iconic

as spider -man himself so it's interesting that

really none None of the ones... I don't know.

Is Lizard... Sorry, is Chameleon that... Is he

one of the more iconic ones? I don't know. No,

he's not. He's not... Okay, so Chameleon is on

the level of, like... He's on the B -team, kind

of. And he hasn't appeared in film, really. Yeah,

he hasn't appeared in film at all. The only time

I found Chameleon partly compelling is in the

John... I'm going to get his name wrong and I

interviewed the guy. In the John Semper Jr. 94

Spider -Man cartoon. That was the only time I

found that character somewhat compelling because

they gave him a backstory of being Lead Skull's

son or whatever. Some sort of whatever. I've

never... Like, never really latched on to a chameleon.

And you look at Spider -Man. His rogues gallery

is almost as enormous as Batman's. Like we've

already said, Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Hobgoblin.

We all know that Daredevil is just renting out

Kingpin because he's originally Spider -Man's

villain. Which was nice to have him in Into the

Spider -Verse as well. First time he's appeared

with Spider -Man on screen. Yeah. Well, on the

big screen, I mean. Yeah. You know, there's only

a few select heroes where you look at them and

you're like, who the hell's in that guy or girl's

rogues gallery? Like, most of the superheroes

that we know and that we grew up with, I've already

said Spider -Man, Batman, Superman. So Spider

-Man's origin is one that we don't even have

to really talk about what it was and how it happened

or anything like that. People already know. And

one of the things that this was a reminder of,

and like I said before, this is really timely

for me because I just saw Into the Spider -Verse.

And one of the things that strikes me in both

is the fact that Peter, one of the reasons Spider

-Man's endured is because his origin, it could

be anybody, which was the entire point of the

origin of Miles Morales that Bendis wanted to

get across. And Miles' origin is very similar

to Peter's, and deliberately so. And like I said

before, it was used really well. But the thing

with Peter Parker is, unlike the other, whenever

you talk about the kind of trinity of comics,

it's Spider -Man, Batman, Superman. Maybe that's

changed now. I think you could put an argument

that for a lot of people it ends up being Spider

-Man, Batman. And quite possibly Iron Man now,

but whatever, that's a discussion for another

day. In any case, you look at each of their origins.

So Batman has similar tragedy to Spider -Man.

He loses family members, but the difference is

Peter Parker's an everyman. Everybody has something

in common with him. Peter was an awkward teenager.

He was picked on, he wasn't the popular kid in

school, that kind of thing. Whereas Bruce is

a rich guy. Which most of us, and probably most

of the people listening, might have trouble empathizing

with. Well, okay, but not really. If you look

at Bruce as a kid, sure, he's a rich kid, but

he's not a rich kid like Richie Rich. No, but

he's a rich kid with a butler and... But his

parents got murdered. I mean, come on. Yeah,

that's the tragic aspect. But he's not an everyman

in the same way Peter is. That's true. And Superman

is similarly... Superman's an immigrant story

of somebody being out of place or feeling out

of place. And he's got to hide who he truly is

from everybody. Which, again, there's an awful

lot of people who can... empathize with that

but the other aspect is even superman is well

he's superman i mean he is capable of things

nobody else is so again not quite the same as

peter before he's bitten by the spider he very

much in the vein of all the of a lot of the other

stanley characters is a normal person He's the

average Joe in a lot of ways who is reading comics.

Yep. And that's another reason why it's held

up so well. He has... He created a character

that anybody can see themselves as or want to

see themselves as. Absolutely. And the fact that

that origin can be redone so similarly with Miles

Morales. And really a lot of the other Spider

-Verse characters have similar backstories to

them. And the fact that all of these characters

were pulled off and all of these characters have

been accepted openly to me feels like yet another

sign that they managed to create something really

timeless with these two issues and with the origin

of Spider -Man. Absolutely they did. And again,

it's Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. It's two of the

three major Marvel heads. Obviously, Kirby is

the third. Are we going to be covering more Stan

and Steve stuff? I don't know. You talked about

it before we started that So the whole concept

of the Spider -Verse is that there are different

decisions that branch off into different pathways

or different universes, alternate dimensions,

etc., etc. Maybe there's a dimension where Amazing

Fantasy 15 didn't happen, but if it didn't, all

of comics would be completely different. No matter

what you do, when you're talking about comics,

you're very much... discussing slash referencing

stuff like these issues because comics probably

wouldn't exist or wouldn't be in the same format

without these two issues and without Stan Lee

and Steve Ditko and there are certainly others

on that list who influenced everything so heavily

that we are where we are. Yeah, we would be in

a completely different world, folks, if Stan

Lee had not come up with Spider -Man. And these

are two issues that, so I talked about it before

we went on, but we normally kind of give review

scores. It seems real silly to give a review

score to something that is responsible for so

much of the rest of the medium and really all

of pop culture. Yeah, no, I was never. Like,

after I read this, after I read the Amazing Fantasy

story, I'm like, there's no way we can rate this

because it's... It's Amazing Fantasy 15 and it's

the Amazing Spider -Man number one. And it's

the beginning of the next whatever four, five,

six, seven decades of our lives. I mean... And

the future. So a hundred years from now, these

two issues are going to be reprinted again. Oh,

of course. And they'll continue to be reprinted.

And a lot of that is because of, it's not nostalgia.

It's because there's very much a timeless classic.

So you're reading these for the first time. So

it's not a nostalgia trip. Oh no, it's not. And

so when you say you enjoy them, it's not because

you. It's not because I grew up with them. Yeah.

Yeah, and it brings up fuzzy memories. No. You

enjoy them because it's a good story that still

works today. And you look at all of the origins

that have changed. So one of my favorite characters,

the Punisher, has had to have his origin changed

just because there's a date on it. But in the

end... his origin well the origin of something

bad happening a tragedy that kind of thing's

been reused a hundred different times with a

hundred different characters but the other aspect

has had to be changed because of time this is

one that will never get changed it's It can happen

any time. Well, I guess unless we accidentally

or deliberately exterminate spiders as a race.

Yeah, true. I guess then I'm going to have to

change it. You know, like I read when I read

the Comixology description that it has been remastered

on the Comixology single -issue version that

I bought for $2. It might get remastered again.

Like you've said, it might get reprinted again

in some massive spot. The point is, folks, we

were not going back to this. I was not going

back to this. I was coming to this. I was, over

the last, my entire lifetime, over the last 38

and a half, almost 39 years, I've seen so many

other versions of Spider -Man. And everything

that's been going on with Spider -Man this year,

I wanted to see where it started. I wanted to

see Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for the first time

in the beginning. And remastered or not, I loved

it. I thought it was great. Are there a few things

in the story of Amazing Fantasy that I most definitely

think are of that time? Yeah, absolutely. But

the whole point for me going back, like, that's

like me going back to 2012 or 2014 and reading

the... new marvel or the marvel now iron man

series which we will eventually do um kind of

thing that's like me going back there and saying

oh well that doesn't matter for 2018 no you put

it in the context that it was meant to be in

you know and that's how i approach reading amazing

fantasy 15 was this happened 56 years ago this

was published that's five almost six decades

old And it's a good, cool, everyman story. It's

an interesting everyman story. It's about the

kid who got bit by the radioactive spider. He

actually learns how to use his powers. He just

doesn't, you know, get bit by the spider and

whoop. Like, we had the whole thing in here with

him building the web shooters. It's not organic

web shooters. It's not part of the damn mutation.

I understand they had to do that for the time

in 2002, but still, you know, Peter Parker is

this, you know, teenage genius. And I think with

Stan's writing and Steve's amazing art, they

gave us, they gave everyone back then what they

needed and what they wanted. And that led to

where we are today with people finding a way.

to latch on to this character in any form, whether

it's comic, movie, television, animation, hell,

even music. I mean, I'm a huge soundtrack nerd.

And as soon as I realized that the Spider -Man

PS4 video game score was on Spotify, I immediately

grabbed that playlist. You know, kind of a thing.

Going back and looking at this, or for me, looking

at this in the first time, just going back all

those years ago to look at it, wow. It's, yeah,

I don't know. I don't really have much more to

add after the fact that after all that and everything

else, it's timeless. There's a number of different

ways to get a hold of it. I think it's worth

reading for anybody. Obviously, it's pretty much

required reading for... comic books in general,

there's no reason not to. It's held up perfectly

well. You can read it today and get pretty much

the same feelings I imagine somebody who picked

this up in August 1962 would feel. Absolutely.

It's interesting that things are split up. Most

people, I think, have forgotten. That not everything

Spider -Man and everything that made him a hero

and made him Spider -Man happened in that initial

issue of 15 pages. Or sorry, 13 pages. But, you

know, combined these two, he's Spider -Man by

the end of The Amazing Spider -Man number one.

And all of the things... really, that he's known

for, minus the villains, are all in place by

the end of that issue. Absolutely. The web swinging,

J. Jonah Jameson, the wall crawling, the fact

that he's going to... He goes out to the wrestling

thing to make money to try to help Aunt May,

and obviously that... There's no bone saw. It's

the only real disappointment. If we could somehow

retcon and retroactively put Macho Man Randy

Savage there. You know, maybe that would have...

No, just kidding. Bonesaw isn't ready. I think

Bonesaw would be ready for Oscar. That's another

podcast. Yeah, yeah, we're getting off topic.

Amazing Fantasy 15, folks, if you've never read

it, go back, read it. Same thing with Amazing

Spider -Man number one from 1963. Go back, read

these issues. See where Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Basically where it all started. Yeah. Yeah. I

mean, see where Spider -Man's true origins began.

And again, it's really timely. I recommend it

before. If you can, catch it before going to

see, or catch it, read it before going to see

Into the Spider -Verse and watch the, they use

so much imagery from those panels in these comics,

in that movie, and obviously deliberately so.

You're talking about books that inspired probably

every single person that worked on that movie.

And I've worked on so many others that it's just

go read it. Yep. Go read it. Coming up on the

pull bag will be our final episode of 2015. I

meant 2018. Wow. I just went three years in the

past. Unless they get their tickets punched by

their friendly neighborhood Spider -Man. Steve

Megatron's going to join me as we talk about

the Power Rangers original graphic novel, Soul

of the Dragon. So that'll be episode 335. That's

coming up on New Year's Eve, or it might actually

be January 2nd. It might be the first episode

of the 2019. I don't know. My plan was to have

it be the last episode of the year. This might

be the last episode of the year. Who knows? But

Soul of the Dragon and Power Rangers, original

graphic novel written by Kyle Higgins, will be

the next episode of The Pullback. Where can the

people reach you online, sir? At Nightbeat. Talk

to me about it. At Nightbeat on Twitter. Talk

to me about Into the Spider -Verse. I love it.

It's all I think about. I am at TFG1Mike on Twitter.

Follow at ThePullBag on Twitter. At GeekCastRadio

on Twitter as well. Go to GeekCastRadio .com.

We're going to be having an all brand new website

coming next year. So that's going to be cool

and interesting and fun. Steve and I have been

working on that non -stop. Steve has been breaking

his back to get the new website up and going

and everything else. Make your greatest game

in the comics and we will catch you next time

here inside The PullBag. New York City. If only

everything down there was really as peaceful

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