I can’t believe no one’s ever talked about Lee’s plotting pattern. It’s pretty apparent here, twelve issues in–Spider-Man somehow gets beat in the first fight, wins in the second. Meaning there have to be at least two fights a comic book. How things have changed… Marvel comics now do a cliffhanger in the middle of one fight….

This issue’s got a big battle sequence. Spidey and Doctor Octopus fight all throughout the Manhattan skyline. Spider-Man even helps capture escaped zoo animals.

Sadly, Lee seemingly forgot Betty Brant never wanted to see Spider-Man again at the end of the last issue, because she’s over it here. She and Peter’s romance resumes, unfortunately off panel–Jonah yelling at them for their office romance is hilarious).

Ditko’s art’s gotten a lot smoother as the action has gotten bigger.

It’s good, but not great.

Doctor Octopus is a weak villain.

I always forget how small the Marvel Universe is–if you’re going to get broken out of jail, might as well have Doctor Octopus do it. If you’re going to be a mobster and have a lawyer, it might as well be a lawyer whose sister is Spider-Man’s girlfriend.

There’s a lot of cool action in this issue–I love how small the fights are in these Spider-Man books. It’s not some grandiose skyscraper battle, it’s a couple guys duking it out on a runaway boat. Makes it feel a lot more… colorful.

Still, besides those action scenes, this issue is pretty weak. Doctor Octopus, now an ex-con (his sentence apparently ran under a year), is hardened and thuggish, not the laboratory scientist previously seen.

As for Lee’s resolution to Betty’s dilemma’s? It’s weak. Not terrible, but weak. It positions her and Peter too melodramatically separated.

Eh.

So I’m not imagining things–Lee was getting sick of the high school constraints. He sends Aunt May (all better after her operation, though she does need a blood transfusion, which apparently weakens Spider-Man, but it’s hard to gauge his abilities since… well, Lee always fluctuates them anyway to add drama to a fight) off the Florida and gives Peter a place to pace.

As bad guys go, the Enforcers are kind of boring, with the Big Man being an interesting idea for a villain, but not particularly thought through (how did Foswell become the Big Man?). But there’s lots of action and romantic drama from Peter and Betty (Lee wrote romance comics, after all).

Besides the developments with Betty, Lee’s got Flash Thompson softening up a lot this issue–so’s Liz Allen. She’s usually egging Flash to bully Peter, but here she’s sympathetic.

It’s good, but not outstanding.

I was going to open with a smart remark about Lee calling this issue a “book-length” story, but he really does fit a lot in. The whole arc with Electro, with lots of fight scenes, heist scenes, an origin and a prison break, plays second fiddle to the Peter Parker story. Lee puts Aunt May in medical danger–she needs an expensive, unspecified operation–and forces Peter to come up with the cost of the operation (see, if we had national healthcare, Spider-Man wouldn’t have had to fight Electro).

There’s also a lot going on with Betty Brant. Peter is clearly becoming split–there’s the Peter who goes to high school and the Peter who works for the Bugle; it’s okay, but it doesn’t really seem likely. High school, it seems, didn’t interest Lee much.

The ending is great. Makes me sad Peter didn’t end up with Betty.

When I started reading these comics again, I had no expectations. I read them as a kid, but as I grew up, I really only read Silver Age on recommendation and no one ever recommended a reread of these.

Most of these issues, so far, are absolutely fantastic. This issue, with the Vulture returning, has all sorts of great stuff in it–not to mention ending with Peter and Betty hanging out (romantically). Ditko’s art, though not always enthusiastic, is frequently great. He’ll go soft on Spider-Man details for a few panels and then come up with some incredibly dynamic one.

One thing I don’t think Lee noticed–though he does have Spidey’s wisecracking self-aware in this one–is how Peter Parker’s changed in terms of his self-image. Maybe with the girls, sure, but the super-powers are making him a much different person than originally seen.