BC: GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN #1

As I’ve spoken about numerous times on this page, I was relatively limited in what I was looking for in my comic books. I was a super hero guy, and so none of the other genres which were then still readily available when I started reading the books in the 1970s were of any real interest to me. In a certain way, they felt like a squandering of resources–you could have made another super hero story with those creators and that press time. So I was a little bit put off when I found this issue of GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN among the books owned by my friend David Steckel. But I still borrowed it from him–undoubtedly due to the promise of the Human Torch in the issue. I was enough of a fanatical Fantastic Four fan at this point that I’d even put up with monster crap like Dracula in order to get my hit.

GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN was a bit of a misnomer, as what this series actually was was GIANT-SIZE MARVEL TEAM-UP. By design, each extra-length story co-starred Spidey with another stalwart from the Marvel line–often unlikely choices such as Shang-Chi or Doc Savage or the Man-Thing. This first one featured Dracula, and represented something of a challenge for creators Len Wein and Ross Andru. Because on the surface of things, a historic monster such as Dracula felt like a weird thing to exist in Spider-Man’s contemporary New York setting, whereas the wall-crawler was a cartoonish fit for the more grounded realism of the Lord of Vampire’s TOMB OF DRACULA. Len squared this circle by only having the two main characters meet in passing (and even then, Spidey was in his civilian guise as Peter Parker.) And I have to say, it worked.

The story opens with a brief skirmish between Spidey and a shadowy villain–this bit isn’t really germane to this tale, rather it’s a set-up for that month’s issue of MARVEL TEAM-UP, in which the Human Torch will follow up on this encounter. But after that little bit of action, the tale really begins with Peter visiting his ailing Aunt May, who has contracted an especially virulent new variation of the Flu. It’s resistant to regular forms of treatment, but Peter is told that reclusive Doctor A. J. Maxfield is sailing towards Manhatan with a new vaccine that he’s created that should prove effective. Impatiently, Spidey hits up the Fantastic Four for a plane (tipping the Torch off to his earlier encounter to set him up for MARVEL TEAM-UP) and flies out to the ship in the midst of the ocean, intent on securing the vaccine and saving Aunt May’s life. But Dracula has also made his way to the ship with the intent of killing A.J. Maxfield. This page above is the only point in the story where the two characters will cross paths.

It turns out, though , that Maggia crime boss Anthony “The Whisperer” Cavelli, is also after Maxfield’s vaccine, intending to use it as a bargaining chip to gain entrance back into America, from which he was deported. His gunmen scour the ship for the scientist, and make the unfortunate error of taking a shot at Dracula while he’s in the process of stalking a comely lass for the day’s meal. The Lord of Vampires makes short and gruesome work of a bunch of Maggia gunsels, then chows down on another passenger, bringing Peter Parker racing to the scene. But Peter can’t believe that an actual vampire is stalking the ship. Fortunately, Doctor Maxfield and his aide are summoned to try to save the stricken passenger, so Peter gets to find them–though only seconds before more goons break in and take the Doctor away at gunpoint. Pete goes out a porthole and switches to his Spidey togs, intent on making a fight of matters.

Spidey mops up on more Maggia goons, but he’s lost track of Maxfield and there’s an entire ship to search. The Doctor, meanwhile, has made his way down to the central ballroom, where Dracula is haunting the shadows. Cavelli makes a show of sickness, prompting the Doctor to attempt to assist him. But when the two men head for the sick bay, they’re stopped by Dracula, who finally has his prey in sight. Cavelli, a trained knife fighter, slashes away at Dracula, but that’s just not going to get the job done, and so Dracula drains him dry, discarding his lifeless corpse, then proceeds to throw Maxfield overboard. His task completed, Dracula transforms himself into his bat-form and leaves the ship–never noticing that Spider-Man had been clinging to the side of the ship coincidentally and that the web-slinger was able to prevent Maxfield’s plunge into the icy waters.

From here, we get a quick wrap-up, as Spidey clobbers the remaining Maggia guys and learns that the person everybody had been thinking was A. J. Maxfield all story long was in actuality Maxfield’s aide–the real Maxfield was the comely woman Dracula almost chowed down on at the start of the story. She agrees to accompany Spidey back to New York on his borrowed FF flying craft despite her fear of flying, and the presumption is that Aunt May gets the needed vaccine and is all right. Dracula, for his part, retires to his coffin for the evening. I wonder if he ever realized that A. J. Maxfield and her vaccine were still around? If so, it never came up again, so getting rid of it, and her, seems to have simply been a bit of busy work for the Count.

Perhaps seeing this book as an opportunity for some cross-promotion, right after the story wraps up this three-tier House Ad runs, spotlighting not any of Marvel’s assorted super hero titles but rather some of its monster and kung fu releases. In particular, Man-Wolf is called out as being the son of J. Jonah Jameson, and thus of potential interest to Spidey readers. So it was a smart play.

Thereafter follows and chatty and frank two-page text feature written by editor Roy Thomas explaining in depth both why the announced SUPER-GIANT-SPIDER-MAN, which was to have been a 100-Page 60 cent release (in the format of DC’s 100-Page Super-Spectaculars) had instead made it to press as the 64-page 35 cent GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN, as well as why Dracula was the first guest-star. Roy ducks around the issue, but the plain truth is that DC’s 100-Page books had been posting smaller and smaller returns, to the point where following up in that format was seen as a mistake. As for Dracula, Roy makes the argument that the Marvel Universe ought to include everything that the company publishes, wither Dracula or Killraven or Conan. This approach would eventually come back to bite Marvel on the rear in later years when the rights to certain properties were no longer with them, which made it impossible to reprint certain stories. But in 1975 when this piece was written, nobody was thinking about even the possibility of Trade Paperbacks and hardcovers and Omnibuses.

The back-up story in this GIANT-SIZE was really the reason why I had borrowed it, and it did not disappoint. It’s a story I’ve been meaning to take a much closer look at, as it was produced very early in the history of Spider-Man (it was published contemporary with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #4) and it represents the only time early on that Jack Kirby drew (and presumably plotted) a full-length Spider-Man adventure. As such, it gives a bit of an idea as to how he might have handled the feature had it gone ahead with his original conception (which Lee and Martin Goodman felt was too close to that of Archie’s THE FLY once Steve Ditko pointed out the similarity.) Ditko inked this story, and presumably worked to bring Spider-Man a bit more on-model, as Jack always seemed to have difficulties wrapping his head around the character and how his costume worked.

This story was the origin point of the long-running rivalry between the wall-crawler and the Human Torch, and it sets up a couple of recurring points, such as the two teens’ regular meeting place atop the Statue of Liberty. The villain here is a master of disguise called the Fox, a thief who manages to frame Spidey for his crimes, putting the Torch onto his tail. Even after the two heroes work out their differences and join forces, the crafty crook is able to stay one step ahead of them both for an almost unbelievable number of pages. You can kind of see all three creators working out stuff about the character on the fly as they work on this yarn. With Ditko’s inking, Kirby’s Spider-Man feels more like his typical self, though he doesn’t quite move in the spidery fashion that Ditko originated. But it’s a nice showcase of both artists’ talents.