Daily Comic Book Mission #011: Spider-Man #1

Welcome back to your Daily Comic Book Mission where your mandatory required reading under the penalty of death is Spider-Man issue number one from 1990, the famous Todd McFarlane one. And I’ve got a little story about that. But before I get started, two things. One of them is this:

[beer opening sound. YUM!]

....it is Saturday, and it’s ComicBook.beer after all. If you have the chance to host a podcast or whatever this is, it literally says beer in the title. I feel like it’s an obligation to enjoy some beers while talking about comic books, which is what I’m about to do. Got another Bigger Hop from East End here. So it was nice knowing everyone. And I’ll be talking about Spider-Man number one here. What was the second thing I was going to talk… yeah, the podcast, um...

So people are actually listening to this. I am working on a full-length ComicBook.beer podcast, like a bigger one. Like one that would be on other platforms, that, even though I hate all of them, sometimes you have to use them, annoyingly. And so it’ll be your favorite podcast, not made by AI, because what computer would do this stupid crap that I’m doing?

[that's a good beer! slurp. yum. slobber.]

So I have a first recording of that in… first draft of that recorded, but I’m still working out details on production times because I don’t really want to get into producing stuff because I can go deep into the producing lifestyle these days, but everything has to be made in like negative five minutes now. It’s absurd. So I gotta figure out if I’m gonna put music in it and how much production is gonna go into it.

Is it just gonna be raw like this? Because this is fine. I mean, five-minute pod… your five-minute daily comic book mission takes five minutes to record at least. Not a whole lot of post-production. Unlike the old Classic Game Room days, where they took like four days. And people still complained. So… at least if you’re gonna complain about this one, it only took me like ten minutes, you know?

Alright, that’s your update. And my beer. And I probably should get started here. These are not the most professional things, though they are certainly not intended to be, but Spider-Man number one, taking it back to 1990. I love this particular series, like the early issues, the ones made by Todd McFarlane, who I’ve always admired his work greatly. And I don’t know the guy, but I’m very pleased to see that he’s certainly done his… done his thing. Whatever his thing is, he seems to have done a thing with Spawn and his toy company, and you know, Image, and you know, good for him.

Anyway, take a trip back to 1990 with me, August of 1990 with teenage Mark, who was going to a mall to buy his comic books. And I’ve been reading McFarland’s work in The Amazing Spider-Man for a while, and I don’t talk much about Spider-Man because I’m usually busy talking about Conan and Shogun Warriors and stuff, but I love Spider-Man. Everybody loves Spider-Man. I’ll talk about that later, maybe in a different episode, but anyway. So I went to the mall, teenage Mark, with my mom, because I couldn’t drive. I was probably like 15, my freshman year, I think, and this was before it was normal for companies to release comic books with like three or four or five different covers. And I heard they were coming out with all these different covers of Spider-Man number one. And there was gonna be like the normal cover, which is actually the one I have sitting in front of me right now, the colorful one, and there was gonna be like the black and silver one, the black and gold one, and for all I know there were more, I don’t know....

Anyway, you could only buy so many at the comic shop. Like the nerds at the comic shop were like at the hobby shop. It was a hobby shop — you can only buy like so many. So I went in and bought like, you know, my three copies or whatever I was allocated for the day. And I went into the hallway and I sent my mom in. It’s like, “Mom, go in and ask to buy the three McFarlanes.” And she’s like, “What the? What? Are you kidding me?” Like, “Please, can you go in and ask for the three McFarlanes?” And she did. So thanks, Mom. You’re never going to hear this, but thank you. I’ll tell her thank you in person. She’ll have no idea what I’m talking about.

So I still have all these covers. My favorite is the silver and black one, actually, which is the one that’s on the ComicBook.beer website. The gold and black one looks great. And then there’s the regular cover. It just looks like the regular cover. It’s not as exciting. But the silver and black one, I think, is refined and, you know, it’s dignified in a way. Anyway, this is a great comic book. Wow, it’s already five minutes in and I haven’t even talked about why you should read this. It’s really unique. It’s kind of hard to explain, perhaps in today’s landscape, where I think it’s fairly common to have a lot of issues with black backgrounds and really wild page layouts, but that wasn’t as common in 1990. And McFarland’s work is just really unique, very detailed, and just kind of bizarre, but also approachable at the same time. It’s, I mean, just this terrific blend of everything. Just a remarkable artist.

And I actually you got to see some of the pages from this issue in person a couple of years ago. It was really cool to see them, like the actual hand-drawn pages. This is pre-digital. For those of you who are just like, this sounds kind of interesting, I should check this out, yes, you should. Like it’s odd. I love the detailed shots of Spider-Man. I love the page layouts. I love the use of black. The colorings really nice. And also, the paper quality is higher than usual for the period.

Mary Jane looks like she came straight out of a Whitesnake video, though. She’s got like the ’80s mall hair, and she’s rocking ripped fishnets. It’s an odd look for Mary Jane. But just the whole like dum dum dum dum dum all over the pages… almost like a bit of an Akira influence in there, I don’t know. His page layouts are nuts.

Of course, I’m a fan of the Spawn series as well. I haven’t talked about Spawn a whole lot. I think I just need to kind of reset my brain on where Spawn is and where it came from. This predates, I think this predates Spawn. This is before all these guys got so big that they just went off and formed their own company, which is now Image. But this particular issue just basically leads up to the reveal of the Lizard. And it’s a quick read, but it’s worth going back and just really admiring the detail that Todd McFarlane put into each page. Also, the ads are really good in this one. I love this period.

There’s a two-page spread in here for Bonk’s Adventure, so for the old Classic Game Room fans, this is like TurboGrafx-16 Bonk’s Adventure. Got a two-page ad. It’s its own comic book advertising Bonk’s Adventure. I’ve also got an ad in here for X-Men on the NES. What’s this one?

Wrath of the Black Manta for the NES. Where’s the Sega Genesis ads? Come on, on the back, we got Super C and Snake’s Revenge for the NES. Maybe this was too hot, too steep for Sega’s ad budget at the time, I don’t know. Anyway, check it out, and I’ll be talking about the rest of, I’ll be covering other issues in the series, and when I say covering, I mean my mandatory suggestions that you have to read these or else, so in between The Warlord and, you know, Visionaries, you’ll be hearing me talking about… wow, I’m only like half glass through…

I can assure you that all of my recordings are as sloppy as I would like the editing to reveal them to be. So for these I tend to not care a whole lot, which kind of makes them fun. So, daily comic book… well this is a long one, I’m looking at the timeline. Like eight minutes of Daily Comic Book Mission. Stop listening to me and go read some Spider-Man. Gosh, it’s like I don’t even know where to start when talking about Spider-Man. Like, just may as well keep going for like two more minutes here.

I really enjoyed the Miles Morales movies. And I don’t know that the comics capture that. I think the production and the editing of the Miles, of the recent animated Spider-Man movies, are just incredible. It’s like, I think they’re my favorite Spider-Man movies. And I’m not sure this is my favorite Spider-Man series. This whole 1990 thing, you know, they had Spider-Man, and they had X-Men, so it was not Amazing Spider-Man and not Uncanny X-Men, but like it was basically McFarlane Spider-Man and Jim Lee X-Men. Once those artists left, then the series completely lost their way. But I think it’s... I know, I find jumping into a modern superhero series these days to be frustrating and annoying, because it’s like you’re jumping in on issue 22, but actually it’s issue 5490. And to get the next part of the story, you have to read a different series. It’s super irritating.

Anyway, you don’t have to worry about that when reading Spider-Man number one from 1990, your longest Daily Comic Book Mission coming in at... passing the nine minute and fifty second mark now.

Mmmmm! It's been a delicious recording. So stay tuned for podcast information, and I will see you for the next Daily Comic Book Mission. Thanks for listening.