Spider-Rama: Amazing Spider-Man #76

Welcome to Spider-Rama! Every day until the end of April, Ben and Duy will look at a Spider-Man issue from the very beginning, in chronological order, and answer questions for various categories, inspired in large part by one of our favorite podcasts, The Rewatchables by The Ringer. Our goal is to make it to Amazing Spider-Man #200. Will we make it? Grab your Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus or crank up your tablet to Marvel Unlimited, and then tune in every Wednesday to find out!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #76
Spider-Rama
by Stan Lee, John Buscema, and Jim Mooney

The title of this issue is "The Lizard Lives!" and we're gonna leave the synopsis at that.

POINTLESS TRIVIA

BEN: Villain appearance count:

• Doctor Octopus: 9
• The Kingpin: 9
• Green Goblin: 8
• The Vulture: 7
• Mysterio: 6
• Kraven the Hunter: 5
• Sandman: 4
• The Enforcers: 3
• The Rhino: 3
• The Lizard: 4
• Professor Smythe/Spider Slayer: 3
• The Chameleon: 2
• Electro: 2
• The Ringmaster: 2
• Scorpion: 2
• Molten Man: 2
• Shocker: 2
• Man Mountain Marko: 3
• Silvermane: 3

BEN: John Buscema takes over on pencils.

DUY: Until you mentioned it, I didn't realize it wasn't Romita. I think I'd be able to recognize prime Buscema right away, but this one definitely feels like he's sticking to the Romita model.

BEN: Or Mooney was keeping the look consistent.

WHAT'S AGED THE BEST?

DUY: Robbie and George Stacy being friends and trying to figure out Spider-Man is an interesting subplot I've always liked..

BEN: I’ve always loved Robbie as the subtle supporter of Spider-Man.

WHAT'S AGED THE WORST?

DUY: Gwen Stacy goes awfully quick from thinking Peter is cheating on her to devoting a lifetime to waiting for him, especially since she's aware he has a huge secret he's not telling her.

BEN: So, somewhere in this time period we’re supposed to believe this devoted woman, this woman, has a secret affair with Norman Osborn purely on the basis that he looked sad one day. That comic is literally the single worst comic book story ever written

DUY: That happens juuust a bit later.

BEN: Also, why doesn’t he just tell her he’s a news photographer?

DUY: Because he's a neurotic idiot.

BEN: Everything said here has aged the worst:

NITPICKS

DUY: Why does Stan Lee not know how to write women? He was married at this point, right?

BEN: His generation didn’t talk to their wives? Yet, he’s still better than JMS, who swears he’s known women to make bad sexual decisions on the level of Gwen losing her virginity to Norman Osborn on a whim.

DUY: Oh, so much better.

FAVORITE PANEL

BEN: The Lizard should use his tail more:

DUY: This is a well-inked face, and it reminds me of how bad the inks were on this book not too long ago:

BEN: His hand is ginormous.

WHO WON THE COMIC?

DUY: Marvel Shared Universe Rules win here. In any other genre, the Human Torch suddenly showing up at the end would be a no-no, but here it's a thing that just happens, and was completely new and fresh for fans back then.

BEN: Peter gets mad that his pretty awful plan gets ruined by the Torch, instead of being glad he has help.

DUY: So your winner is the Torch?

BEN: No, of course it's Gwen.

THE LIZARD

BEN: I’ve never really liked the Lizard all that much and I don’t know why. It must be that, like the Hulk, they’re both only half a character at any one time. And the Connors and Banner half are supposed to be the ones we care about but they’re so mild-mannered they become boring.

DUY: Martha and Billy only ever exist in the context of Curt too. They're used to make us care about Curt. But we don't care about them, so it doesn't really work.

BEN: She’s the original “worrying by an open window” character.

DUY: That's it for Spider-Rama this week.

BEN: Thank you, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko—

DUY: —for telling us we aren't the only ones.

Leave us a comment below or on our Facebook page. See you next Wednesday!