I continued to pick up MARVEL TALES every month to help fill in the gaps in my knowledge of Spider-Man’s history. By this point, the series was only reprinting issues that were a couple of years old–there were a bunch of issues from around this period that I’d already read, borrowed from like-minded comic book reading friends. So I had a sense of the era, but not yet all of the specifics. These were the stories that defined the character for the 1970s, a time at which he became the most popular character in the field and began to explode out into other media and licensing. And licensing was the reason for the new element of the wall-crawler’s mythos that was introduced in this epic adventure; the Spider-Mobile.
You see, Marvel was licensing its characters to just about anyone and anything that would come down the pike at that time–which is why you would see a lot of Spider-Man branded cheap toys and cap guns and so forth. And one of the big categories for kids’ toys at that time was metal cars of the Matchbox or Hot Wheels variety. Just about every kid of a certain age had a bunch of these, they were ubiquitous. And so somebody told Marvel publisher Stan Lee that Spider-Man needed to have a vehicle that could be reproduced in this marketplace. Stan in turn ordered writer Gerry Conway to introduce such a vehicle in the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN series he was then writing. Gerry thought that the idea of a Spider-Mobile was ridiculous for a character who swung above the streets, so he did as he was ordered but made the entire thing into a running joke.
Here, just so that you can see it, is one of the 1970s Spider-Mobile toys that was produced during the 1970s.
A few issues earlier, Conway had Spider-Man flagged down by two ad men, Carter and Lombardo (who were drawn to look, respectively, like Stan lee and Roy Thomas.) they had a client, Corona Motors, who were marketing a new non-polluting engine design, and to promote their innovations, they wanted to hire Spider-Man as a spokesperson. This would entail Spidey constructing and then using a Spider-Mobile using their engine plan, and then using it in his crime-fighting endeavors. As Spidey really needed the bread, he signed on the dotted line, then inveigled his gearhead rival the Human Torch to help him construct the thing. This became a running subplot for a few issues until this time out, the car is finally street-ready. Which is more than can be said for Spidey himself, who doesn’t actually know how to drive. After a nearly deadly initial sortie, Johnny Storm sits the web-head down and gives him some basic training, enough to keep him from killing anybody.
But that’s the middle of this issue, the book actually opens with an insomniac Spidey running across a bunch of bad guys out in the world and promptly delivering unto them a beat-down. But the lead crook won’t name his boss–and when he tries to, his brain is electrically fried, leaving the wall-crawler with no idea who might be behind this crime. But we the readers learn that it’s Hammerhead, who’s back in the country after having had to run off following his last bout with Spidey. Hammerhead is approached by the Jackal, the mysterious new Green Goblin-like player in the series, who riles him up before disappearing into the night, for reasons of his own. Anyway, from here, Spidey heads over to the Baxter Building, picks up his new wheels and then promptly almost mows down a sidewalk full of pedestrians before the Torch can stop the vehicle. He spends the rest of the night training with the Torch, then returns home to his apartment, where he gets both a call from Aunt May (who at this point was employed as Doctor Octopus’ housekeeper, believe it or not) and an early morning visit from Mary Jane Watson.
The next evening, more members of Hammerhead’s gang are out pulling a heist, buoyed by the jetpacks that they’re using t make their entrance and exit. But what they hadn’t counted on was the Spider-Mobile, which zips in and begins to web them up with its hood-mounted web-shooters. Spidey thinks he’s got the upper hand, but that’s when Hammerhead himself shows up, clobbering the wall-crawler’s new wheels with his steel-plated head. There’s a brief action sequence here, but when the cops start to show up, Hammerhead smashes Spidey enough to leave him dazed, and then he and his men skedaddle from the crime scene.
The cops aren’t quite sure what to make of the Spider-Mobile and decide that they’d better impound it. But before that can happen, Spidey leaps in, webs up the cops to get them out of his way, then takes off in his car. He discovers a letter addressed to Aunt May on the windshield of his vehicle and assumes that it was part of the loot that Hammerhead and his guys were after. In reality, the letter had been placed there by the Jackal as a way of bringing Spidey, Hammerhead and Doctor Octopus together in a conflict that was likely to destroy some or all of them, leaving the way open for the Jackal’s own takeover of the underworld. (At this point, it seems fair to say that Conway hadn’t decided who the Jackal truly was or what his motivations would turn out to be, as this course of action doesn’t really make sense with the eventual revelations regarding the character.) Anyway, Spidey heads over to a Christmas party that Betty Brant and Ned Leeds are throwing, where MJ keeps trying to get him under the mistletoe but Pete keeps giving her the slip–he’s still not over Gwen Stacy’s then-recent death.
At a certain point, Peter ducks into an unoccupied room and reads the letter that he took from his windshield. Its contents aren’t revealed to the reader, but Peter indicates that it tells him why both Hammerhead and Doc Ock have been so hung up on Aunt May recently. He slips away from the party, changes into his Spidey gear and heads upstate to Westchester County, where Ock’s home is, intent on letting Aunt May know the truth. But in one of the most bonkers cliffhangers of the era, when he arrives at Ock’s home, he’s startled to see that, in a Godfather-style ceremony attended by assorted gunsels, Aunt May is in the process of marrying Doctor Octopus! And that’s where the story is To Be Continued. Now, can you imagine any circumstance under which Aunt May would agree to a wedding and not invite her beloved nephew to attend? I couldn’t–and that was when I first read this story. (Years later, Roger Stern would perform a bit of a hand-wave, revealing that May’s heart condition caused improper blood flow to her brain for years, making her for a time a bit mentally deficient. It’s as good a rationale as anything.)
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
guessing the inker split was time constraint related, but boy those inks on the page 10 with torch completely transform andru’s pencils, looks like a different book.
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I don’t think it was an inker split so much as an inker collaboration. Dave Hunt had been inking backgrounds for John Romita, and I think he’s inking backgrounds — or maybe a bit more than backgrounds — with Giacoia.
But the faces never look like Hunt-inked faces to me, and the Torch figures on page 10 all look like Giacoia’s work. In that big panel, it looks like the intent is that he’s taking off as he’s flaming on, and Andru would have expected Gerry to cover that in dialogue, but Gerry didn’t.
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So that is the mystery of the reason ( real world to comics ) for the Spider-Mobile. I’m no doctor but shouldn’t Hammerhead ramming things with his head still hurt him? Are the nerves on the top of his head not working? Wouldn’t he experience neck pain?
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Same question I have now whenever I see that character. Y’know, as a kid, I actually Hammerhead was a scary villain.
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Oh my goodness! You’ve a villain with a steel-plated skull who shouldn’t be able to survive one impact – let alone threaten Spider-Man. Then there’s this green guy who seems to be trying out for role of the new Goblin. Toss in a vehicle that answers the question what if Peter Parker and Speed Buggy had a love child. Add in MJ trying to kiss our hero before he’s completely over Gwen. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah. His beloved Aunt May’s about to marry Doctor Otto Octavias – his worstest enemy in the world! That’s batsh*t crazy on acid!
And you what? As a 7th grade kid reading this, I loved every panel! Sure the Spider Mobile was dorky. But with everything going on, how could you not love that comic? Half the fun would be seeing how Gerry Conway got our guy out this mess! Add to that, I thoroughly enjoyed Ross Andru’s art. Just enough of a cartoony look to snag the Saturday morning geek side of me.
Good to know that I wasn’t the only eating this stuff up like it a bag of Oreos next to a carton of milk!
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I’d think “Spider-Buggy” would’ve been more appropriate.
But “Batmobile” might’ve influenced the name choice, maybe for marketing. The 1960’s “Batman” TV show was still in reruns on local UHF stations in many places during the 1970’s.
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Marketing definitely had to have driven (bad pun!) the name. Otherwise, why develop a vehicle with a buggy design for driving in a huge city with inclement weather. But hey, it was marketing and Conway certainly made the most with it.
I didn’t catch those Batman reruns until about ten years later in my area, but damned if they weren’t an absolute kick!
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As a friend of mine says, if a character’s trademark ability is a super-powered head, the odds are against them being any good.
While I remember the Spider-Mobile, I didn’t remember any details. Nice touch to contrast Peter with the car-loving Johnny Storm. Not much else can be said about it.
I remember where this plotline with the letter and the wedding goes. Nowhere good.
IIRC in Untold Tales Kurt Busiek had Doc Ock wondering why May was treating him perfectly nicely when he’d kidnapped her not long before. Was that inspired by the “bad blood flow” idea?
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I don’t remember.
I might have just been noting how nonsensical it was.
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Spider-man fights more than his share of villains who hit with their head: Rhino, Ramrod, Hammerhead… that’s just off the top of my… head.
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Rhino has horns on his head and does ram things but his entire body is super-strong. Ramrod … from what I remember he hardly disproves my thesis about super-powered heads.
I remember Roy Thomas once had a character with superhuman teeth. That was also suboptimal.
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If there’s ever a “Marvel Olympics”, all those villains, plus Bulldozer of the Wrecking Crew could compete in the same “event”.
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The problem is Hammerhead is here just an ordinary human with basically a helmet attached to his head. He simply shouldn’t be a Spider-Man threat. Rhino is (as frasersherman noted) superstrong, and also superdurable. He’s definitely at Spider-Man’s power level, and sometimes above it.
Hammerhead is like having a guy called “Hammerfists” who is a big ordinary human wearing large brass knuckles. That’s a threat to a human acrobat, but not to more powerful heroes.
I’ve always thought Hammerhead’s name sounded unfortunately like an insult calling him dumb.
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TRIVIA ( Hammerhead — wikipedia.org ): ( Gerry ) Conway recalled that Hammerhead “was most directly influenced by the Big Man and the Crime-Master, who were among the first villains in Amazing Spider-Man. Once of the more interesting things Stan [Lee], Jack Kirby, and, of course, Steve Ditko did was combing the two different kinds of milieus: superhero and Dick Tracy, with the unusual criminal characters who had some kind of physical deformity….Plus, Hammerhead — I liked [the] name, and John Romita came up with an interesting look” —-ME: I don’t see any Big Man or Crime Master in Hammerhead, I do with the Rose. So it must be just the gangster thing Gerry is talking about. I was disappointed Gerry didn’t mention the Dick Tracy criminal Flattop —
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I guess back then Gerry Conway didn’t know that later writers ( Official Handbook Deluxe Edition? ) would make Hammerhead’s Maggia Family originally The Top Man’s Maggia Family [ Fantastic Four#101 ( August 1970 ) Gimlet, Big Rock & Charlie –comics.org ] who used advanced weapons against the Fantastic Four. I remember when I read about The Top Man in that Official Handbook and what happened to him then noticed his face and thought someone should reveal he was the guy Hammerhead use to be ( Awhile back I looked up Hammerhead to see if he got an origin and he did — so much for that suggestion ).
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I think Gerry handled the Spider-Mobile just perfectly. He did it, and even made it prominent, even though it made no sense for Spider-Man to have a car. In lesser hands, it would have stood out as a bad idea, but Gerry playing it as something the characters know full well is a bad idea, but is forced on them by people for idiosyncratic reasons, makes it halfway work.
And the other half is made up for because it’s consistently funny.
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Which would certainly be legit.
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Before this, I didn’t think Aunt May ever twigged to Doc Ock’s being a criminal. That was the whole joke Stan and Steve had started back in Annual #1. Happy to see citations to the contrary.
At the time this came out, I rationalized that she was just a lonely old lady who fell for Ock’s smooth talk. However, I thought it was an offense to the dignity I attributed to this fictional character for Andru to have a 60-something widow running about in a white wedding gown. Yeah, I know Andru was probably thinking that young kids would expect wedding-white, rather than the more modest attire appropriate to an older woman. Still bugged me, though.
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when I was a kid that was just looking at the pictures in comics, I thought the Jackal was the Green Goblin with his clothes off. And I couldn’t figure out why he was running around in no clothes.
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