One important ingredient Stan Lee and the Marvel artists sprinkled liberally into their superhero recipes was soap opera.
J. Jonah Jameson’s secretary Betty Brant — the first pretty girl who’d paid attention to Peter Parker — made me consider that a superhero’s girlfriend need not be a permanent fixture, and more broadly, that loving someone isn’t necessarily enough to guarantee a happy ending.
Circumstances steered her toward loathing Spider-Man, even as her affection for Peter grew. While trying to protect her, Betty’s brother Bennett had been shot by gangland boss Blackie Gaxton during his struggle with Spider-Man.
I’ll always remember artist Steve Ditko’s great scene (repeated on the splash page of Amazing Spider-Man 11, April 1964) of the anguished Betty pounding her fists furiously and ineffectually on Spider-Man’s chest. He wasn’t hurt physically, but emotionally he was in agony.
This was a more interesting dramatic dilemma than Superman’s or Green Lantern’s. If she ever found out who Peter Parker really was, the girl he loved would hate him.
And this situation also represented a reversal of convention. Lois Lane and Carol Ferris were dazzled by supermen, and not so much by the real men inside the costumes.
I do have to put in a word here for the level-headed Iris West, however. While she was naturally curious about the Flash as a news reporter, Iris had no romantic interest in so flamboyant a figure. She knew the man for her would be a decent, ordinary guy — someone like good, old, slow and steady Barry Allen.
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