Plot & Artwork: Steve Ditko
Letting & Loitering: Art Simek
Review: Madman
There’s just something about that golden era of comics that melts your cares away and takes you to that happy place. It’s akin to chugging whiskey backstage at a Guns & Roses show surrounded by chicks with 6 ft bangs, but all ages...like Grandma’s house.
You just can’t go wrong with a Lee and Ditko book in my opinion; it just can’t happen in real life. It’s up there with gravity as far as shit that keeps the world turning. That being said, here comes Molten Man!
The issue is dressed up with a pretty rad action scene featuring Spidey and Molten Man. Molten Man is charging forward through Spidey’s classic “fear inspiring” Spider-Light. As far as Spider-villains go Molten Man is definitely near the bottom of the list when it comes to my favorite. He just couldn’t compete with Venom, Kraven, or Doc Ock in my humble beginnings, and I never really fell in love with the character. After a few more trips around The Sun, however, I realized there was much more to the character and the significance he played in the early days of Spider-Man.
Mark Raxton, a.k.a. Molten Man, was turned into his super-self when an experimental alloy was spilt on him just seven issues prior in Amazing Spider-Man #28. Of course, Raxton takes on Spidey and loses in that issue as well. As this issue begins Molten Man is just getting out of the slammer and by the end of the book he’s right back. Sadly, Molten doesn’t use his heat abilities at all during the glorious, sound-effect saturated fisticuffs. Nope, he just punches stuff… There’s a panel that had me laughing pretty good which just shows Raxton in his apartment twisting large railroad track-looking pieces of steel with a caption reading, “Later, in the privacy of his own apartment, Raxton peels off his outer clothes, again to revel in his awesome power…”
It makes zero sense, but it’s perfect. I need more.
As far as classic Spidey books go this may not be a super-relevant issue per se, but it sure was a fun read. I enjoy Stan Lee’s editorial comments above most other things pertaining to comics. They’re always the first things I look for in old Marvel books. It’s something I truly miss in the modern times of comics. Back then the Big Two actually had to work to entertain their readers and ensure repeat sales. Now they just go for the gimmicks that’ll spawn an infinite number of mini-series, one-shots, tie-ins, and $6 “Over-sized first issues”. Today’s comics have no soul compared to the works by the forefathers of comicdom, and most couldn’t cure a Knight Rider rerun, let alone a solid case of the “Blahs”
Stay classy, True Believers.
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