{"id":5611,"date":"2012-02-19T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T03:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=5611"},"modified":"2012-02-19T22:26:34","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T03:26:34","slug":"spider-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/19\/spider-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you see what’s missing from Spider-Man?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past week or so, I’ve shared scans of pages I found in a Marvel Bullpen file cabinet during the mid-’70s\u2014so far, you’ve seen the X-Men<\/a>, Captain America<\/a>, Thor<\/a>, the Sub-Mariner<\/a>, Doctor Strange<\/a>, and the Hulk<\/a>\u2014and along the way I mentioned I had a feeling based on the content that these were written no later than the mid-’60s.<\/p>\n

Today’s sheet will give you more of an idea of why I think this. Take a look at Spider-Man and his supporting cast and tell me what you see.<\/p>\n

Or rather … what you don’t see.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well? Did you not see what I thought you might not see?<\/p>\n

That’s right\u2014the only love interest here for Peter Parker is Betty Brant. No Mary Jane Watson (who was introduced—though referenced earlier—in Spider-Man<\/em> #42 (November 1966). No Gwen Stacy (who first came onto the scene in Spider-Man<\/em> #31 (December 1965). <\/p>\n

Could these descriptions really have been written that early in the creation of the Marvel Universe, before those characters mattered? And if so\u2014for what purpose? And by whom?<\/p>\n

I’m still thinking Stan Lee wrote these … but I’ve been hearing other suggestions, such as Stan’s brother Larry Lieber, or even Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, who did a bit of work for Marvel in the early days.<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n

As soon as my continuing research yields any nugget of truth, I’ll let you know!<\/p>\n

Meanwhile—only two more write-ups remain. Check back tomorrow for Iron Man, and then … the Fantastic Four!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past week or so, I’ve shared scans of pages I found in a Marvel Bullpen file cabinet during the mid-’70s\u2014so far, you’ve seen the X-Men, Captain America, Thor, the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, and the Hulk\u2014and along the way I mentioned I had a feeling based on the content that these were written no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,20,23,19],"class_list":["post-5611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-comics","tag-marvel-comics","tag-spider-man","tag-stan-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}