AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #4: Problems, Peter? Suck It Up!

Published: September, 1963

I’ve been somewhat disappointed in the quality of Marvel’s villains of late. Even Doctor Doom, who is on the top of my list, has seemed wimpy, always managing to run away and live to fight another day, rather than socking it to the Fantastic Four. I haven’t seen much of Spider-Man yet—can this really be only the fifth story?—but so far he’s spent more time fighting common thugs than other superhero. In fact, that’s what he’s doing at the start of this story, trying to capture some bank robbers. Previously, Dr. Octopus showed potential as a real threat. But now…! NOW we have Sandman, and at last Marvel has created a villain it will be hard to contain.

SAVVY SANDMAN
Apparently Sandman has been around for a while, since everyone seems to know all about him as we begin this story. Channel 17 News is nice enough to fill us in on the particulars: ex-con Flint Marko escaped from jail and hid at an atomic device testing center, where a nuclear test explosion caused a mutation that gives him the ability to turn himself into sand at will.

But wait! There’s more! In this first story alone, we learn that Sandman can also:

• Harden any part of his body at will
• Turn his finger into a key
• Slip under doors
• Jump from buildings and not get hurt

As questioned on the cover, “How can Spider-Man defeat a foe who cannot be injured?” With the ability to move about in places inaccessible to the average human, Sandman can basically do anything he wants and not get caught. In other words: a very powerful super-villain.

And Sandman has this going for him as well: unlike Doctor Doom, whom we recently identified as a “noble” villain, there’s no nobility clinging to Sandman. He’s a thug. Whether as Flint Marko or the nebulous Sandman, this villain is not striving for nuances of poetry and irony in his acts of evil; he’s just a bad dude, doing bad stuff.

In addition to lacking that pesky little super-villain trait of nobility, we also notice that as a common criminal, Sandman is not exceptionally bright. And from what I’ve gleaned thus far in my readings of Marvel comics, the Marvel Universe is not much different than the real world when it comes to the average IQ of your garden variety criminal.

Sandman chooses a high school, in the middle of a school day, as a good place to hide out. Seems stupid, right?? Well, that was my first thought. But then again…hold on…let’s think this through.

Does Sandman have the intelligence to reason, “Nobody would ever think I would be STUPID enough to hide out in a high school, so that’s what I’ll do”?

Is he taking a chance on “hiding in plain sight”? Is this really the height of stupidity or instead, the height of intuitive, creative thinking?

Either way, it works, because this plot development puts our superhero and super-villain in close proximity before too many pages go by.

PETER’S PROBLEMS
But before Peter goes into full scale battle mode with the Sandman, he’s got his own problems to deal with. Early in the story, before he realizes the criminal he’s chasing is Sandman, he says, “It’ll be duck soup for me to get him!” Ah! There’s that cocky attitude we’ve seen so often from Peter Parker!

But after his encounter with Sandman, troubles start to pile up. Not only does Spider-Man not secure the criminal, but his mask gets torn, and he can’t continue, since apparently the biggest tragedy that could happen to Spider-Man would be the loss of his secret identity.

One of the downfalls of having a secret identity is that when your mask gets torn, there’s no aunt or girlfriend to help you sew it back together. Peter, who’s “no cotton-pickin’ seamstress!” has to repair the mask on his own, and it takes all night.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the next morning Aunt May babies Peter and makes him carry an umbrella to school, even though it’s not raining. Flash Thompson bullies him about his galoshes.

Peter has tried repeatedly to get a date with Liz, and she finally accepts, but Spider-Man duties force him to cancel the date, and then Liz won’t even talk to him. (However, later, in the middle of all the commotion, Liz worries about Peter. So that door is still open: Does she, in fact, actually like the dorky wallflower, Peter Parker?)

In class, daydreaming about his Spider-Man duties and dilemmas gets Peter in trouble with his teachers, and he is assigned the “glamour boy” job of carrying old bottles to the boiler room.

One of those dilemmas is that he needs money for experiments to improve his webbing, but J. Jonah Jameson will not give an advance payment for his photographs. And to make matters worse, Jameson ends up lecturing Peter about “You teenagers.” Jeez! I’m sure that was not the high point of Peter’s day.

The real high point, of course, comes several hours later when Spider-Man captures Sandman in the janitor’s king-size vacuum cleaner—and incidentally, my spider sense started tingling the moment I saw that super-duper sucker-upper, didn’t yours?

Then, after Spider-Man has captured Sandman, the ever-resourceful Peter reasons “it can’t be unethical” to re-create the fight so he can get those pictures to sell to Jameson. That’s exactly what he does, but the fact that he reasons this through (“It’s like shooting a re-take of a movie!”) indicates he’s experiencing a moral dilemma about this trickery.

However, even after Spider-Man has saved the day by capturing Sandman in the industrial vacuum cleaner, Jameson is still convinced that Spider-Man’s the bad guy! There’s nothing Spider-Man or Peter Parker can do to change his mind, and unfortunately, Jameson has the power of the press behind him, so the general public remains divided on the Spider-Man love.

Poor Peter. He does everything he possibly can to help his fellow man, and is this all the thanks he gets? A neurotic with delusions of grandeur? “Give me the Human Torch any day!” Such insults!

Understandably, Peter is plunged into a crisis of faith. Why does he do it? Is he “really some sort of a crack-pot”? Should he stop being Spider-Man? Well, you know the answer to that one: a big resounding NO! He will go on, nobly, praying that some day the world will understand.

It’s easy to see why Spider-Man was such a big hit with the kids. Every teenager thinks he is misunderstood and under-appreciated. Surely a strong sense of identification existed between Spider-Man and his readers, back when the original comics appeared, and even extending into present times. But truth be told, no teenager, no person of any age or any era, is more misunderstood and under-appreciated than poor Peter Parker…the noble Spider-Man!

JAMESON’S JIBES
So this story has been a huge peek into the mind of the hapless teenage superhero, but I can’t leave here today without making at least a few passing comments about that shady journalist you love to hate, J. Jonah Jameson.

First: What a crotchety old geezer! Jameson actually says “Hrrmph!” when he arrives in his office and is bid a “Good morning!” Take a close look. Honestly: “HRRMPH!”

Then: The cops tell Jameson the school had been evacuated due to a vicious criminal on the loose, but when it’s all over, Jameson says to Peter, “So you were hiding in the school, eh? Good boy!” He shows no concern whatsoever for Peter’s safety, he’s only interested in getting the “pix,” no matter what the risk. Hard-boiled newspaperman? Or giant, self-centered SOB?

Oh! And what a great boss, right? When Peter apologizes that he didn’t have time to develop the exclusive pictures of Spider-Man and Sandman in the battle that is the biggest news story of the day, Jameson says, “Don’t worry about it! I’ll take the cost of developing out of your pay!”

I’m thinking SOB.

Finally, Jameson thinks how cool would it be if somehow Sandman and Spider-Man were the same person. He plans to run their “pix” side by side, with the words “Are they the same man?” I ask you: what kind of journalism is this???

It’s encouraging to see that the police are apparently just as aggravated with Jameson as I am. You get the sense that eventually things will sort themselves out in the Spider-Man storyline, justice will be served, and Jameson will get what’s coming to him. I don’t know how long that might take, but I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, Spider-Man will go on protecting the unappreciative public.

And next time in the Marvelous Zone, we’ll meet a new group of old favorites who, if they can’t protect the earth, you can be damned sure they’ll avenge it!