Even then, I recognized it as a milestone of Marvel’s success.
The magazine appeared on the newsstands in April 1968, not with the comic books but alongside the horror magazines: Creepy 21, Eerie 16, and Famous Monsters of Filmland 50 (featuring Gorgo).
This new publication was a first — the first such magazine devoted to a superhero, and the first Marvel magazine — and one “second.” The Spectacular Spider-Man was the second title devoted to Marvel’s most popular hero.
I was 14, and remember laying out serious money for the issue — 35 cents! — and reading it to comfort myself after a disappointing freshman math test.
The new magazine reflected Stan Lee and John Romita’s zest for the zeitgeist. In that most political of years, the story was about political hypocrisy and corruption.
Two months before the magazine appeared, avuncular CBS anchor Walter Cronkite announced that the much-protested Vietnam War was “…mired in stalemate,” increasing public skepticism about the conflict.
Investigating urban race riots, the Kerner Commission reported that the nation was…“moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”
The month before, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of the recently martyred JFK, entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, citing “deep … divisions within our party and country” that made it “…unmistakably clear that we can change these disastrous, divisive policies only by changing the men who make them.” And President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would not seek that same nomination.
The very month the magazine appeared, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot on the balcony of a Memphis motel. Riots in more than 100 cities nationwide left 39 people dead, more than 2,600 injured, and 21,000 arrested over the next week.
Students seized five buildings on Columbia University’s campus and briefly held a dean hostage, demanding that he university cut its ties to military research.
And LBJ signed the Fair Housing Act, banning discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, or national origin, the last of his landmark civil rights laws.
Meanwhile, back in the Marvel universe, New York City mayoral candidate Richard Raleigh is alliteratively named, like many Marvel heroes, including Peter Parker himself, and seems to share their values.
Apparently an honest, crusading “law-and-order” candidate, the handsome Raleigh is in fact a power-mad schemer who is orchestrating super villain attacks against himself to put his election over the top.
“To me, you’re just another sheep … like all the unthinking masses,” Raleigh sneers at an aide. “One day, all who live will be my slaves! Nothing can change that.” This was the superhero version of Elia Kazan’s prophetic film A Face in the Crowd, released a decade before.
The real-world themes of political hypocrisy and an easily conned American public — even Peter’s friends MJ and Harry and his Aunt May support Raleigh — show that Lee and artist Romita were probably hoping this magazine might appeal to a slightly more “grown-up” audience than the comic book.
Jonah Jameson, off the beam as ever, is cheering for Raleigh. “More females than ever are buying the Bugle since I threw him our support,” he chortles.
The more skeptical Peter and Captain Stacy wonder where all Raleigh’s money is coming from, and implicitly question whether telegenic candidates are good for democracy.
“I’m surprised Rock Hudson never ran for president,” Peter says.
Oh, a movie star will, Pete.
At a private midtown men’s club, Stacy confronts Jameson, noting that the public knows nothing more about Raleigh than that he photographs well, opposes sin, and supports motherhood and apple pie.
“Are you questioning my judgment, Stacy?” Jameson huffs.
“Well, since YOU never question it, perhaps SOMEONE should,” Stacy replies. “You never WOULD let your judgment be clouded by facts, Jonah!”
A friend of Stacy’s drily observes that Jameson had predicted a landslide for Goldwater. And as Stacy watches Jameson walk away, he thinks, “May heaven protect us from those who know all they NEED to know … about anything.”
The story carefully contrasts Raleigh’s betrayal of the public to Spidey’s genuine concern for it, with the superhero snagging falling debris and saving billboard painters.
When Raleigh’s machinations threaten to collapse the ceiling of a convention hall on his own supporters, Peter is forced to go into action without his costume to save the crowd. Ripping out a power panel, he trusts to the shadows to disguise him. It’s the kind of scene we’ll see in the Spider-Man movies of the 21st century.
Raleigh sends his ionically empowered, bulletproof giant to shut Stacy up permanently, but luckily, Spider-Man is on hand. Raleigh has enslaved the “man-monster” with an electronic torture device, but goes too far, and the giant kills him.
In a final irony, Jameson lionizes the dead megalomaniac. “Even in death, his honesty … his fearlessness … shine out like a beacon,” the publisher says. “I’ll make the world ASHAMED that Raleigh is dead … while SPIDER-MAN roams free!”
Meanwhile, back in the real world…
In August 1968, the same month that the second and final issue of The Spectacular Spider-Man appeared on the stands, the Republican National Convention would nominate its own “law-and-order candidate” — Richard Nixon — for a second and successful run at the presidency.
Although the Spider-Man magazine was short-lived, the story was retooled for Amazing Spider-Man 116-117 (Jan.-Feb. 1973). By that time, Nixon was terminally embroiled in Watergate.
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