Spider-Rama: Amazing Spider-Man #7

Welcome to Spider-Rama! Each Wednesday, 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 #7
by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Spider-Man battles the Vulture again, and Peter and Betty Brant get closer.

POINTLESS TRIVIA

BEN: Spider-Man’s first repeat villain is the Vulture, a fact that I had forgotten.

DUY: First time Peter basically says he's Spider-Man (to Betty) and isn't believed. He's joking, but it's gonna happen at least two more times in the next 200 issues.

BEN: First time Spider-Man has had to fight with a busted arm, an eventual trope.

DUY: First time he webs up JJJ's mouth.

BEN: First time Spider-Man fights a villain in the Bugle offices.

DUY: Since we're tracking the evolution of his humor as well, I'll point out that the cover blurb flat-out says that joking is part of what makes him "at his best."

BEN: Second billed before "daring".

FAVORITE PANEL

BEN: Peter sitting on the floor talking to Betty is a scene that’s always stuck with me for whatever reason. It’s something that real people would do, I guess.

DUY: This is when they finally start playing with these close shaves with Aunt May:

WHAT'S AGED THE BEST?

BEN: Spider-Man is in full-on wisecracking mode now. I love it.

DUY: Why do secret identities work? Because if you do it right, the character you're keeping it a secret from wouldn't believe you anyway.

BEN: I prefer the concept that most people wouldn’t even consider that Spider-Man or Superman spend time as anyone else. But that doesn’t come until much much later.

WHAT'S AGED THE WORST?

DUY: The Vulture. Bad joke?

BEN: I'll allow it.

NITPICKS

BEN: It’s probably not a great idea to give a gifted engineer access to the prison machine shop.

DUY: The Vulture gets released for being a model inmate. Can you really become a model inmate in what would be five months at most?


WHO WON THE COMIC?

DUY: Spider-Man, for this one. I love his rhythm by this point and the confidence he's building.

BEN: The Vulture. It's time the elderly got the respect they earned as winged menaces. I’ve been rewatching The Sopranos, tell me Junior Soprano isn’t the real life Adrian Toomes.

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.

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