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My First Spider-Man.  Amazing Spider-Man #237 was the first Spider-Man comic I bought after being bitten by the comic collecting bug in the Fall of 1982.  I was already familiar with Spider-Man  - after all, who wasn't? - from various comics that I'd seen over the years.  From earlier in my youth, I vaguely remember an Amazing Spider-Man story "Crisis On Campus" with the Kingpin and a Marvel Team-Up story that somehow involved Hercules towing the island of Manhattan back into place with a large chain.  I had also seen the 60s Spider-Man cartoon, which had been re-run on TV all throughout the 70s.  But, most recently I had come to know and love the Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends cartoon.  The Spider-Friends, as they were known in back in the day, was a fun cartoon that did a great job of showcasing a broad array of heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe.  It was a great primer for a future comic collector!  I fondly remember watching that cartoon in the Fall of 1981 back-to-back with Thundarr The Barbarian...but, once again, I digress.

High & Mighty!  This issue is a prime example of what people mean when they refer to a story as being "offbeat."  The cover bills this comic as the Triumphant Return of the Original Stilt-Man and all but promises pulse-pounding action.  I should note that this issue does have a very kinetically-charged cover courtesy of Ed Hannigan and Joe Rubenstein.  The energy of the cover is particularly powerful because of the fact that the Stilt-Man's gun blast is ripping through the Spider-Man logo and other Marvel indicia.  It's a very cool cover, which is probably why I bought the comic.  What follows, though, is a relatively tame issue that recaps the underwhelming back story of the original - who knew there was a second? - Stilt-Man and recounts the tale of his scheme to regain his former status as a respected and feared super villain.  I suppose that the title is technically correct, since the Stiltman sort of ends up beating Spider-Man, but it's definitely an offbeat story.

The Funny Stuff.  There are a number of moments in this issue that are enjoyable and fun for the reader....whether they were intended or not.  The juxtaposition of this amazing cover with the splash page of Wilbur Day looking petulant and scrawny in his t-shirt and blue pants is classic!  It's clear that writer Roger Stern wasn't thinking about the future resale value of penciler Bob Hall's original art when he plotted that scene.  Intended or not, it's an amusing splash page.  Another little gem on the opening page is the cover of Science Illustrated magazine with the title "How Doc Ock Does It."  I've always enjoyed self-referential humor and other in-jokes and this is no exception.  The other thing that I particularly enjoyed as I re-read this issue recently was the flashback of Stilt-Man fighting Thor.  It would truly be hard to imagine a more one-sided contest than a guy on hydraulic stilts vs. the Asgardian God of Thunder...."Thou hast sorely tempted the wrath of the Odinson, stilted buffoon! Prepare to suffer the wrath of mine mighty Uru hammer!"...and that would be it.  I definitely need to go out and buy Thor #269 to see how that "fight" went down.

The Good Stuff.  Despite my sarcastic take on it, I did enjoy this issue.  I know that Spider-Man can't battle to the death with Dr. Octopus in every issue, so this was a perfectly good filler issue while John Romita, Jr. took a month off to get geared up for the introduction of the Hobgoblin in Amazing Spider-Man #238.  B-list comic characters - both heroes and villains - were always interesting to me as a kid because it gave me hope that it was actually possible to grow up to be a superhero.  Admittedly, that probably wasn't a realistic vocational aspiration, but I figured if all it took to go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man was some hydraulic legs, springs or slippery shoes, then maybe there was hope for me to become a superhero some day.  Of course, that was in the day when I thought being a superhero actually looked relatively fun; before Daredevil's "Born Again" saga or the X-Men's "Mutant Massacre", but that's a topic for another day.  Another thing I enjoyed about this comic was the ending.  It definitely left me with a good feeling about Spider-Man that his selfless and principled sacrifice to save his enemy from certain death was rewarded and reciprocated by the villain.

What Would Come.  Although Amazing Spider-Man #237 was a placeholder issue of sorts, it was the first Spider-Man comic I ever bought and has therefore been idealized in my mind.  Reading it today, it doesn't necessarily stand the test of time as a great comic, but it's still better than a lot of the scholck that I buy every Wednesday.  It's good because it's old and significant to me...am I showing my age?  Aside from that, it was good enough to get me to buy Amazing Spider-Man #238, which may have already been on the stands at the time, but took me a a while to find.  Ok, I may have bought issue #238 for the Lakeside Tattooz, but it certainly helped that I had enjoyed issue #237.  The introduction of the Hobgoblin, which was previewed in the letters page of issue #237, is a story that is certainly great enough to warrant its own entry in due course, so I won't discuss it now.  But, I continued to enjoy Amazing Spider-Man and then Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man and other titles for years to come and I'll look forward to writing about some of my favorite issues in my blog.