I was rearranging my Marvel collection yesterday, putting some things away, making space in the boxes, and I decided to just pull out random stuff and read it. I haven't done that with this project for a while. Up first is a run of five issues of Amazing Spider-Man from the 70s. I've under-represented the wall-crawler in the project, so it's time to remedy that. But I was away all weekend, so we're going to do them all together.
Let's do the art first, because it's handled by two of Marvel's famed old guard, Sal Buscema and Ross Andru. These are guys who defined the 70s house style for Marvel, a style that only significantly changes once the McFarlanes and Silvestris of the world joined the bullpen in the late 80s. Rather than the heavily-stylized depictions we start seeing in the lead-up to the great Image exodus, characters in this era of comics tend to move much more like actual human beings would in superheroic situations. There's a couple of ways to consider this. First, our heroes are human beings, so it makes sense that they would move like we do. Spider-Man may have the proportional strength, etc., etc., of a spider, but he utilizes these powers like a human would. Perhaps this helps us to place ourselves in his shoes when we see a pose that we, ourselves, could potentially strike had we the ability to stick to the side of a building or balance on a flag pole without fear of losing our balance. But I have to admit that it sometimes looks awkward, despite the talents of the artists involved. The other way to consider this is that Spider-Man, and other heroes, are enhanced, changed, or mutated human beings, so it stands to reason that their bodies wouldn't work the same way a base line human's does. Hence, when McFarlane comes along, Spider-Man's body starts acting more like a spider-inflected human, crouching a lot, flinging limbs about, and being a lot more crawly. That said, the over-stylization can be off-putting, especially for that identification we all love to have so much with our heroes.
I prefer, however, to think that what this is demonstrating, unwittingly, is Peter Parker becoming more comfortable with his powers and with the ways that those powers make his body want to move. Perhaps that's why he sometimes looks a bit stiff - he's fighting a more spider-like inclination that his body may be instinctually having. Once we get to the late 80s and 90s, we can pretend that he's had these powers for however long - ah, Marvel chronology - and has started listening to not only the obvious changes to his physiology (sticking to buildings, heightened strength, etc.) but also to the subtle changes that allow his body to use the powers to their fullest extent.
That aside, I enjoyed these comics. Writer Len Wein is really pretty great, and the stories are tightly-scripted and told, giving us all the requisite action and angst that one would expect from a 1970s Spider-Man comic.
"Mr. Osborn, I could kiss you."
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