Spider-Man: "Spider-Man No More!"

Amazing Spider-Man #50 (1967)

By Stan Lee, John Romita Sr, Mickey Demeo*

So, What Happens? Spidey stops a robbery, but the Bugle's smear campaign means most people still don't trust him, and this is starting to affect Peter. Things get worse when aunt May suffers another attack of illness because she was too worried about Peter, and on top of that his grades are declining and he can't spend time with Gwen like he'd want to. He even had to refuse a job offer from Norman Osborn to keep his nights free. When Jameson appears on TV branding Spider-Man a menace once more and offering a thousand dollars to capture him, it's the final drop. Peter becomes convinced that he only became a superhero for the adventure of it and decides to quit, leaving his discarded costume in a trash can. Next morning a kid finds the costume and takes it to Jameson, who imagines that something must have happened to Spidey and immediately writes about it on the Bugle. Soon the entire city knows Spider-Man is no more, to the joy of some and dismay of others. Peter enjoys his new freedom more and more, but unbeknown to him a new crime boss calling himself the Kingpin is emerging, taking advantage of the situation to organize the underworld and join the various gangs together. The only one to notice is Fredrick Foswell in his Patch identity, and he decides to go back to crime and lead the gangs. Meanwhile, Peter finds out Jameson is keeping the Spider-Man costume in his office and becomes aware of the crime spree, initially managing to ignore it until something happens right in front of him. When a few crooks are about to kill an elderly watchmen, Peter is forced to intervene, putting them to sleep and running away before anyone can have a good look at him. The event and the face of the watchmen remind him of his own uncle Ben, and of the real reasons why he became a crime-fighter after getting his spider powers. Deciding once more he can't let any innocent come to harm because Spider-Man failed to act, Peter accepts his destiny, goes to Jameson's empty office and takes his costume back, triumphally announcing his return to the dismayed publisher a few minutes later. Meanwhile, Foswell meets the Kingpin and tries to wrestle control of the gangs from him, but the new crime lord isn't about to step aside and quickly has Foswell captured.

Notes: Mickey Demeo is a pseudonym for Mike Exposito. Marvel stories were still happening more or less in real time back then, so Peter says it's been “years” since the death of uncle Ben. Likewise, he and Gwen mention Flash who at the moment is fighting in Vietnam.

Speaking of Vietnam, while researching this story I came across an interesting and sad real life story. As explained on Spider-Fan, this issue's letters' page printed a missive by Cpl Leonard R. St. Clair writing from Vietnam. Marvel Comics were very popular among soldiers, and he wrote

If you get a chance, send [a Marvel super-hero] over here to give us a hand! [...] We really enjoy your series. They, like letters from home, help take our minds out of Viet Nam for a while.

Reader Kara Wright then got in touch with the website and said

I'm emailing specifically in reference to issue #50, where you quoted a letter from Cpl Leonard R. St. Clair. I was just as worried about Leonard as you were, so I decided to hit the Net and see what could be found. I found him almost immediately, on the Virtual Vietnam Veterans Wall. He was killed February 26, 1967. Which, strangely, means that his letter appeared in a comic printed about 5 months after he died. Here is the link . I'm not sure why but when I found this it really made me sad. I guess a fellow Spider-Man fan automatically becomes a real person, not just a statistic. Sorry the news wasn't better. I was really hoping to find him alive and well telling stories to his grandchildren. […] Someone else ran across the letter and posted it on the site, along with Stan's reply and the unit's reply to Stan. Not only did he get posthumous medals, but a posthumous Spider-Man comic as well. 

Finally, Amazing Spider-Man #53 will include a further letter on the topic, along with Stan's reply. Once again credits to Spider-Fan.

Dear Stan, Since all of us in the headquarters section of India Company are Spider-Man fans, we regret to inform you that Corporal St. Clair, whose letter will be printed in SPIDER-MAN #50, was killed in action on 28 February, 1967. He was a squad leader in our 3rd Platoon when his patrol was ambushed southwest of Da Nang. Your comic SPIDER-MAN is the most sought after piece of literature and art work in this company. Keep up the good work; you're a real morale booster.

 To which Stan replied 

God rest you, soldier. And God bless you all. As a mark of respect to Corporal St. Clair, and all others who have given the last measure of devotion for their country, we are omitting our usual "coming attractions" paragraph this issue. We prefer, instead, to express the fervent hope that the day will soon come when men in every land will walk together in peace -- and brotherhood.

Then as now, superhero comics were escapism, but letters and stories like this really prove how widespread and popular Marvel heroes were across all classes of society back then when it was all beginning. 

Review: I quit and I'm loving it. After about four years, Spidey reaches his first landmark, and instead of going for the epic, Stan and John decide to celebrate with a relaxed, offbeat story. The basic premise is very ordinary: the hero quits and we get to see how much he finally gets to enjoy life, but eventually his sense of responsibility draws him back to the reality he's been trying to escape. Doing so highlights the selflessness of his everyday actions and makes him triumph from a moral point of view, as we get to see that being a superhero is a burden more than a fortune, but one that he accepts for the sake of others. We are therefore treated to what should be a watershed moment for Peter's career, and for the most part it works, but unfortunately not completely. As a matter of fact actually, the main problem isn't so much with this story, but with the fact that instead of being a once-in-a-lifetime moment, it will become the first of many. As Mary Jane will put it decades later, Peter quitting will eventually get to look like a monthly event, losing all of its power and drama in the process. As I said, it is no fault of this story – Peter considered quitting a few times before (most notably in ASM #3) but never actually did – but reading it 50 years later it's hard to take Peter seriously and not to think “here we go again”. It doesn't help that his motivations aren't all that deep and that there hasn't been any particular foreshadowing in the preceding issues, as Stan and John clearly came up with this idea at the last minute and didn't have time to prepare things beforehand. Sure, grades are low, spending time with Gwen is difficult and Aunt May is ill, but this is nothing really new for Peter, and quitting over it tends to look more like a teenager tantrum than an adult man's decision. Likewise, towards the end Peter acts like he had forgotten uncle Ben, and needed a similar-looking watchmen to remind him of what was the greatest tragedy of his life. It's obviously all for the readers' sake as many possibly had never read Amazing Fantasy #15, but still a little uncharacteristic.

Does this all mean this is a poor issue then? Not by a mile of the Bifrost Bridge. Peter quitting may not be handled quite in the best possible way, but thanks to it we get the first introduction of Marvel's premiere crime boss and long-standing villain, the Kingpin. Crime leaders were more a thing of Steve Ditko than of Stan, and the two of them had previously introduced wanna-be kingpins with the Big Man and the Crime-Master, but it was always all over in the space of one issue. This time instead not only the Kingpin gets a proper introduction suggesting he is here to stay, but he quickly asserts his role by outclassing Foswell, who himself was no slouch. Defining a villain by making him quickly defeat another previously formidable foe is a tried and trusted formula, and one that works.

But what really makes this story memorable is the art. Every single page is a joy to look at, starting from on the best-known, most-imitated covers in the history of American comics. It's such a simple image, and yet one so powerful and immediate that I'm sure many readers back in the day must have feared Peter was really going to quit and this was the magazine's closing issue. The impact is then mirrored and magnified by the equally iconic splash page with the costume in a trash can, something so historic it got referenced even in the Spider-Man 2 movie. It doesn't even end here: JJJ is at his most expressive when he gets all smiles, and the Kingpin's unusual figure helps differentiating him from his rivals and giving him a calmly-imposing, quietly threatening aura. We don't see much of Spidey himself, but what we get is also good: Romita doesn't quite have the inventiveness that characterized Peter's fights against criminals under Ditko, but makes up for it with the beauty of his figures.

Final Verdict: Not perfect and didn't fully stand the test of time, but still a Spider-Man classic with amazing art. 4/5