"...And One Will Fall"

Sometime in late 1974 or early '75, just after the Mole's eighth birthday, he and his father stopped off at what we called "The Little Store" on 82nd Avenue in Milwaukie, Oregon, just before the intersection with Harmony to get bread, milk, whatever. There was a magazine rack just inside the door, and on the bottom rack were always comic books -- never consistent, as I would learn, from week to week, but the few comics I would buy over the years at the Little Store were key ones -- Kamandi #22 and OMAC #5 among them -- but this night in particular set the dominoes falling.

That night, I asked my dad for a quarter so I could buy the first comic book (not counting some handmedown Archies in kindergarten) I ever owned, and that started the long winding road that 30 years later I have still managed to be on: that comic book was The Amazing Spider-Man #140. How could you refuse that cover? It looked like Spidey would grab onto you if you didnt take it along.

Reading that comic book, I had almost no knowledge whatsoever of Spiderman, or Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn, MJ Watson, J. Jonah Jameson or even ever-lovin' Aunt May. Actually, re-reading this issue now, one could not pick a better intro (for the time) into the Spiderman universe; in fact, there was no Green Goblin backstory, no massive story arc other than the mystery of the Jackal, who he was and why he wanted Spidey so bad -- it was, and is, just a great issue start to finish, and a fine example of what is now called Bronze-Age Marvel Comics storytelling -- lots of detail, footnotes referring you to previous issues, flashbacks well-embedded into the story. No decompression here, Mr. Bendis! Lots of words, lots of information, and to top it all off, a guy who climbs walls, cracks jokes, and can shoot webbing out of his hands, fercripessake.

Our story: the Jackal had with him one of these big-lug-goon type henchmen working for him, the Grizzly, who for some reason wanted to kill J. Jonah Jameson. The Jackal is interested in killing Spiderman, so they kidnap Peter Parker, who appears to know the webhead and is constantly getting these great photos of the hero. Knocking Petey out, they attach an arm-thing that will track Peter wherever he goes, and explode if he tries to take it off. Petey has to think -- in the meantime he goes and rents an apartment with old buddy Flash Thompson and meets his hot fashion model neighbor, Glory Grant, who would remain a mainstay in the Spidey comics for years to come. That night, Peter decides to wing over to the NYU science lab and try to take the arm thing off, because otherwise he can never be Spidey again. In a remarkably tense but ultimately anticlimactic scene, it turns out the Jackal didnt count on the fact that Pete knows his way around a lab, and Spidey chucks the offending device into the Hudson.

So, without other clues, the webslinger heads off to visit J. Jonah and find out why the old creep would have a giant guy in a bear suit trying to kill him. Turns out the Grizzly was a wrestler who Jonah ruined in the Daily Bugle years ago, trying to get revenge. Spidey does some Batman-style detective work and ultimately finds out the Jackal gave the Grizzly an exoskeleton (a popular device in Marvel Comics of the '70's -- see Ben Grimm) to make him more powerful. Spidey rips the suit off the guy, revealing him as an out of shape has-been, who is easily taken apart. See you next month!

(Whatever happened to Ross Andru? What a great artist, I almost never hear him mentioned.)

I think I read this comic about a million times before it finally disintegrated into dust and paper. Recently at the Comic Book Shop (where the Mole shops for comics - see link) a 50% off sale allowed me to repurchase the book and now it sits here with the other memorabilia. I think I read Spiderman consistently for at least another six years, till I hit high school and didnt want to buy comics anymore. But the magic of this issue, the complexity, the sense of being part of another world, a special world that only some people got to be part of, is what drew me to Marvel -- within a few years I had stacks of Marvel and even owned Stan Lee's Origins books and anything else I could get my hands on. Comics led to science fiction led to movies led to music -- all of the things that I have loved over my life started in part with Spiderman #140. I have to say I'm glad to know there's still something of that 8-year-old in me -- I've re-read this issue at least five times since getting it.