Super Sunday Special: "Superman vs The Amazing Spider-Man"

The Battle of the Century (1976)

By Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, Dick Giordano

So, What Happens? In Metropolis, Superman fights and defeats a giant robot piloted by Lex Luthor, but not before Lex can steal and stash away a small programming circuit for space satellites. Eventually, Superman finds Lex's undersea lab and captures the mad scientist, but once again not before Lex can safely hide his stolen circuit. Soon afterwards, Clark leaves for a conference in New York together with Lois Lane and the rest of his colleagues. In Manhattan, Spider-Man stops two thieves associated with Dr. Octopus and has a run-in with the supervillain himself. Initially defeated, Spidey nevertheless manages to find Ock's secret base and capture him in the end, shortly before leaving for the same conference Clark is going to. Unbeknown to both heroes, Doc Ock and Lex are imprisoned in the same penitentiary and become fast friends before escaping together thanks to Luthor's hidden devices. At the World News Conference, Peter Parker has an angry argument with J.J. Jameson and quits, before deciding to take a few pictures for himself. By doing so he meets Lois Lane, who in turn is angry at Clark for his meek personality. Lois and Peter have both heard of each other and immediately get along, much to Mary Jane Watson's annoyance, but before things can develop any further a fake Superman arrives and makes both women disappear in front of Peter and Clark. The heroes separately pur their costumes on and get on the scene, where Spidey thinks the fake Superman was the real deal, and Superman thinks Spider-Man is involved due to his dubious reputation. Clark quickly understands Spidey is not involved, but the frustrated younger hero is much more aggressive and volatile, refusing to listen to reason. Spying from a safe distance, Lex hits Spider-Man with a red sun ray, briefly making him capable of going toe to toe with a dumbfounded Superman and even gain the upper hand. Eventually the Kryptonian starts fighting back just enough to push Spidey away, and when the red radiation ray wears off a now severely overpowered Spider-Man is forced to stop and listen long enough to understand they have both been tricked. The heroes agree to join forces and follow the energy residue to an abandoned rail station, where they survive a number of death traps and discover the identity of their foes, as well as the coordinates for Mount Kilimanjaro. There, with some help from the locals, they find an empty rocket silo pointing Superman towards the satellite headquarters of the Injustice Gang, where Lex is using the stolen circuit to gain control of Comlab, a satellite equipped with a special laser gun. Superman stops the first laser ray from critically affecting Earth's atmosphere but is knocked out in the process, and Spider-Man - arriving on a space shuttle - is quickly captured too. Inside the Injustice Gang satellite, Lex explains his plan to blackmail the planet with a newly created giant tidal wave, but the heroes recover and, working together, start a counterattack. Eventually, Octopus realizes he doesn't want the planet destroyed and rebels against Luthor, tipping the scales enough for Spider-Man to capture them both while Superman flies back to Earth and stops Lex's tidal wave. The battle won, Superman and Spider-Man depart as friends, having also got enough of the battle on film to get back in the good graces of their respective bosses.


Notes: The story implies that Marvel and DC characters share the same world and have heard of each other, something which will continue to be the case until the '90s, when they are officially distinguished as belonging to two separate universes.

Something Silly This Way Comes: Very little of the story stands up to scrutiny, starting with Spidey's Spider Sense hardly ever warning Peter of anything.

Review: Apparently, when Jim Shooter axed the planned original Avengers/JLA crossover in the '80s, he did so saying the plot didn't make any sense. If it was anything like this story's, he hit the nail hard right on the head. Superman vs The Amazing Spider-Man has a big heart, the passion of all those involved is palpable and produces a generally happy and smiling atmosphere pervading the entire 96 pages of the story. The authors know they are making history and want to have fun with it, producing a tale with more than a few smiles despite the high stakes - the scene with Superman and Spidey being offered a drink of milk and cattle blood being my personal favourite - and with a happy ending for the heroes in both their costumed and civilian identities. It works, and the story is a lot of fun, but ultimately it's also the triumph of style over content.

Once you start looking closer at the plot, it's not cracks or plot holes you find but veritable chasms. The fake Superman is never explained, nor how Lex can have a red radiation ray and never use it on something more deadly such as bullets. Spider-Man's powers fluctuate tremendously, he needs to be saved from an exploding computer because his Spider Sense somehow forgot to switch itself on, and struggles against an African warrior whose augmented strength only made sense against Superman. This isn't the goofy-yet-fun nonsense of the Silver Age, but lazy writing conveniently manipulating things just to suit the story. The sad truth is that, for all his iconic value, Spidey simply wasn't the right character to pair with Superman, since the DC hero is so much more powerful that he can do anything Spidey can, and more. This ultimately makes Spider-Man feel redundant, and there is never a moment in the story when it looks like he is an asset for Superman, who could have won the day by himself just as easily. For all their talks about being living legends making history, Spidey simply didn't turn up. The same goes for Doctor Octopus, reduced to being a lackey of Lex Luthor and kept largely unaware of the latter's full plan. The moment near the end when Ock rebels against Lex is probably his best, as it at least serves to highlight the difference between Octavius and the really insane pre-Crisis Luthor.

As far as the rest of the supporting cast are concerned, Mary Jane and Lois Lane are sadly confined to a damsel in distress role, but there is a nice bit of interplay between Jonah Jameson and Morgan Edge which is actually more realistic than the entire Superman/Spider-Man dynamics. I'm not familiar enough with Superman's pre-Crisis history to know why he's not working at the Daily Planet, and I've never been convinced by the idea Clark needs to look meek to convince people he's not Superman, but Edge's no-nonsense approach is a nice foil for Jonah's more exaggerated and theatrical attitude.

The art by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano (with an uncredited Neal Adams apparently redrawing Superman a few times) is classic and very polished, with some dynamic action and very pretty close-ups, despite the fact that everyone just seems to smile a lot for no reason. I've always felt Andru to be at his best with unmasked characters, and indeed there are a few panels where the eyes on Spider-Man's mask look a little strange, but for the most part the cast plays to his strengths. Page layouts and panels' compositions are excellent too, which is no small feat as apparently both Marvel and DC triple-checked to make sure Spider-Man and Superman appeared of the same importance when together. The cover alone took a while, and the collected edition includes an extra page with several sketches being considered and rejected before the final version. Considering how long it must have taken to pencil the entire story, I'd also imagine Marvel and DC had to choose an artist who wasn't already busy with a hot-selling title, explaining why they didn't draft in the likes of John Buscema for example.

Final Verdict: The first superhero Marvel/DC team-up is an iconic and happy story, but unfortunately also one that is narratively-flawed. 3/5