Marvel’s Very First Spiderman Was a Cold-Blooded Killer
Marvel's original Spiderman was nothing like Peter Parker, and the fact that he wasn't demonstrates just how far the comics industry has come.
Marvel undoubtedly has one of, if not the oldest, roster of genuine superheroes in pop culture. Unsurprisingly, not every hero stuck their landing when they first appeared, while others almost missed seeing print entirely. Of all of those who were nearly relegated to the waste bin before their Marvel Comics debut, the most famous is likely none other than everyone's favorite Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and Marvel's original Spiderman didn't help.
While the Golden Age of comics was replete with superheroes, the scale on which they operated was far different from the sprawling landscape fans are familiar with today. Though there were certainly the likes of Superman to embark upon grand adventures, every classic superhero was just as likely to be found taking part in an otherwise ordinary criminal investigation. This was exemplified in "Scourge of the Spiderman!" (by Bill Finger and Charles Nicholas, from the pages of 1946's Blonde Phantom Comics #12), which saw Madeline Joyce, aka the original Miss America, openly reveal her secret identity to the police in order to help them crack the sudden string of murders in the area.
Who was Marvel Comics' First Spiderman - And What Happened to Him?
Coincidentally, this newfound partnership was formed at the exact same time and place as the killer's latest attempt to claim a victim. Although Miss America was successful in keeping the sinister Spiderman at bay, the villain was similarly successful in slipping away from the fight, leaving behind only the strange webbing he used to capture his victims. What ensued was a strange mystery involving an entomologist who was easily recognizable to Miss America as the killer, a villainous lab assistant attempting to set his mentor up for his crimes, and a cartoonish plot to take over the world.
As it turned out, the entomologist's assistant was not only in the business of framing his mentor for his own crimes, but in that of breeding massive, monstrous spiders fed from the blood of his victims. Luckily, Miss America and the entomologist escaped the villainous Spiderman's clutches, while the latter was left to become his creations' next meal. For where it stands today, "The Scourge of the Spiderman!" serves as a distillation of all the Golden Age comic book tropes that fans have come to know and love over the years. For its own time, however, the story — or at least the space it inhabited in that era — was just another reason the Spider-Man fans know best almost never saw print.
How Marvel's First Spiderman Helped Hold Peter Parker Back
Although Peter Parker is an indelible part of pop culture today, the character was one that co-creator Stan Lee famously purported he had to fight for in order for Spider-Man to see the comic book page. As Lee stated on many occasions, the Marvel editorial was convinced fans wouldn't like a hero with a spider motif, nor would they want to see a teenager with rampant interpersonal issues stepping outside the kid sidekick mold. Fortunately for fans, Lee took the opportunity presented by what should have been Amazing Fantasy's final issue to introduce Spider-Man to the world. With that, an overnight sensation was born.
Apart from helping to herald in the absolute best of the Silver Age of comics, introducing Peter Parker as Spider-Man stood as a testament to how far the needle had swung in terms of what readers were interested in. Whereas the most popular superhero books previously had starred face-forward heroes and gruesome violence, readers' interests had shifted to comics that were both more and less fantastical in their approach to storytelling. Characters may have gotten bigger than ever, yet they could also express a genuine human element that had previously been glossed over by a usually overtly patriotic sense of optimism that made most Golden Age heroes only relatable as inspirational figures.
Blonde Phantom's Spiderman Matters Because Comics History Matters
There is certainly something to be said for how the Comics Code Authority forced a drastic shift in tone in comics. The same could be said of changing cultural norms and expectations, all of which makes it almost impossible to compare Peter Parker's Spider-Man to the Spiderman of the Golden Age. However, comparing the two as characters isn't nearly as important as comparing them as concepts. By holding these two and their respective eras against one another, the lines were drawn for writers and how they moved over the years become perfectly clear. The general literary tone used during the age Spiderman and Spider-Man debuted also reveals some interesting facts. Neither comics were trying to take themselves nor their readers too seriously, but the Silver Age was at least willing to put effort into making its most prominent players more than a pastiche of what already sold.
The comics of the Silver Age may not have had the same killer edge as many Golden Age classics did, but what the era traded that in for was infinitely more valuable than any amount of shock and awe could ever be. The Golden Age Spiderman, only lasting a single issue as a villain, made sense with in the context of that story. However, similar circumstances playing out across countless titles didn't afford readers a chance to develop any real attachment to the majority of Marvel's characters. At the same time, the general lack of relatability readers had with heroes such as Miss America, or even the Golden Age Superman, kept writers from developing any heart to these heroes beyond the vague ideals they were written to embody. No matter how obscure the likes of Blonde Phantom Comics' Spiderman are, remembering the lens that they were crafted and consumed through is both a reminder of how far the industry has come and an important lesson in how media so often informs and works against itself.