First time Doctor Octopus shows up in the retrospective. He’ll return in the finale.
L’Uomo Ragno #114 (1974)
Published by: Corno
I never noticed that the newspaper on the cover still has the original English text!
Mostly because the cover in my copy has been a mess barely held together since I could remember.
Amazing Spider-Man #113 (1972)
by Gerry Conway & John Romita
The original cover says “Doctor Octopus is back!”, which is a bit more enthusiastic than the Corno translation that just says “Octopus again”.
They never translated his codename, by the way.
Maybe they should’ve gone with a more impressive title, like “Holy cow! It’s Doc Ock!”.
Doctor Octopus has a good show in this, immediately putting Spider-Man on the ropes.
He’s also surprisingly in good shape!
He even manages to unmask Spider-Man!!!
I can’t believe it took him until the late 2000s to start using his power to stick to anything to prevent people from doing this.
Octopus has fought Spider-Man enough times that he’s ready for the old web-on-the-glasses trick… although by the way this is drawn it looks like he could just take off his glasses…
…but while he’s ready for the web, he’s not ready for Spider-Man to simply leave.
Doctor Octopus is a formidable foe in a normal day, but Spider-Man is having a hard time because he’s been so busy he’s sleep-deprived and bordering on sheer exhaustion.
Saving this little gem for later use.
Like to show how Spider-Man feels about what Marvel has been doing to his series for the past… holy crap, has it really been seventeen years already since One More Day???
Well… as depressing as that sounds, at least I have the perfect image to show how I feel about it.
Doc Ock drops the mask, which is picked up by Robbie Robertson’s son.
Who I think should have been called Robbie Robertsonson.
This issue is part of a storyline about a gang war to replace the Kingpin, who is currently in jail.
Maybe that’s why Ock is so thin, he realized he didn’t want to look as fat as Kingpin.
But it’s a setup from his rival: Hammerhead, who makes his first appearance in this one.
Not the last time in this retrospective that we will see Doctor Octopus fight another supervillain for control over the city.
Hammerhead’s people got off easy.
Peter Parker’s friends realize he’s so sick that they call a doctor for him.
And he diagnoses him with an ulcer! Isn’t being sick for something that normal the most Spider-Man thing you’ve ever heard?
It’s one of the reasons why I love Spider-Man. He’s as superhuman as other heroes, but he’s still human enough to get sick from normal stuff.
Unsurprisingly, J. Jonah Jameson is rather happy about the latest developments.
Come on, Spidey, you don’t even have ONE spare mask???
Time for a rematch against Doctor Octopus…
…helped by the exo-skeleton that Spider-Man recovered last issue.
Only for Hammerhead to show up, ending the story on a cliffhanger.
He will be the villain of the following issue, which sadly I didn’t have because it has one of the best story titles EVER.
“Gang war, shmang war! What I want to know is… who the heck is Hammerhead?” is OFFICIALLY the title of that story.
It’s no “Birthday cake for a cannibal robot”, but it’s close.
Historical significance: 1/10
The gang war itself doesn’t really amount to anything, except maybe create the Octopus-Hammerhead rivalry (which we’ll revisit again). And Hammerhead himself is hardly a top tier villain.
Personal significance: 6/10
I really like Octopus in this, although weirdly enough the only panels that I vividly remember are the ones where Spider-Man throws webs at his face.
I missed the fact that the exo-skeleton was created by Octopus, I remember thinking it must have been part of Spidey’s arsenal.
I also forgot that Gwen Stacy was in this one as well, since she has such a small part. This is the only issue I had set before her death.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
This is better than I remember, even if I still don’t care all that much about the gang war.
Classic superhero action paired with classic almost-everyday problems.
Incredibly Hulk #116 (1969)
by Stan Lee & Herb Trimpe
Still feels weird to have the Hulk as the backup feature of Spider-Man, especially because of the gap between the original publication years.
And the Leader is once again the villain.
In the previous issue, he managed to trap the Hulk into a cage made of super-plastic.
Just out of the goodness of his heart, of course. I’m sure he doesn’t have ulterior motives.
Just imagine how many times the world would have ended if only supervillains learned to STOP SHOUTING THEIR WORLD DOMINATION PLANS.
Betty warns the Army about this…
…and I was fully expecting the military to dismiss her warning because you can’t trust the word of someone who has a uterus, but they DO listen!
Yeah, it must be hard to find proof about the intentions of some who KEEPS SHOUTING HIS WORLD DOMINATION PLANS.
Instead they ask the Hulk what he thinks about it.
When the Hulk doesn’t want to talk, they try General Ross… with even worse results.
Just take a moment to appreciate how terrible you must be to make MAJOR TALBOT the reasonable figure.
I mean Talbot is generally a psycho AND this would end anyone else’s military career, and he’s STILL more reasonable than Ross.
But of course it’s too late, and we get a big dumb army fight.
All hope relies on Betty Ross now. If she can get anywhere on those tiny legs.
How the heck is Thunderbolt Ross able to keep his position as a general when he’ SO clueless that he didn’t realize Talbot has taken over AND authorized his men to start the attack?
The Leader then uses his rarely used mental powers to put everyone to sleep.
And yet FOR SOME REASON he gives Betty a device that shields her from his powers, allowing her to free the Hulk.
Can you blame the Hulk for being confused?
Finally some Hulk action!
Aaaaand he goes down immediately.
Well that was a waste of everyone’s time!!!
How is the Hulk going to get out of this one in the following issue?
Yeah that’s about right.
Historical significance: 0/10
The Hulk is heavily serialized in this period so I’m sure SOMETHING pops up again, but nothing comes to mind.
Personal significance: 3/10
I forgot this one. Way less interesting than the other Leader story I already covered.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Look I know it’s 1969 so there are CCTVs to keep an eye on the Leader, but maybe place ONE guard to check on the supervillain running unsupervise in your military base?
Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
Holy crap was this boring and stalling for time. I normally like the Leader, even if he’s very generic in this period at least he’s usually entertaining. But he’s lackluster here, the Hulk has a minimal presence, and his supporting cast is not enough to carry the story.
Marvel Premiere #10 (1973)
by Steve Englehart & Frank Brunner
Last Doctor Strange story in the retrospective.
And it’s a very important part of Doctor Strange’s history: it’s the final fight of the Ancient One against Shuma-Gorath, who has been hyped as a VERY big deal throughout the series.
Not that I could get it from the few pages I had…
…I could still gather that something HUGE was going on.
Doctor Strange is absolutely no match for Shuma-Gorath, so he decides to just shrink himself inside his mentor’s brain.
And that was it for me, since only the first 6 pages were published in this issue.
But I’m pretty sure I would’ve been completely lost even if I had the rest of the story, since it’s way more complex, cerebral and surreal than I would’ve understood at the time.
Despite the importance to Strange’s history and the AMAZING artwork, this run is rarely mentioned.
Might be because the involvement of Living Buddha as a servant of Marvel Cthulhu has not aged particularly well.
Eventually Doctor Strange does run into Shuma-Gorath, in all his tentacled glory.
Strange then does the only smart thing that you could possibly do when facing Shuma-Gorath: RUNNING AWAY.
Specifically back into the Ancient One’s mind, which is important because the uber-demon is using it to manifest into Earth’s dimension.
In order to stop Shuma-Gorath, the Ancient One agrees to have DOCTOR STRANGE MURDER HIM.
But don’t feel bad for the Ancient One: he hasn’t really died, he just ascended to a new plane of existence.
Thus preventing Shuma-Gorath from destroying or ruling the universe, although he will try other times over the decades when he’s not fighting the Street Fighter characters.
No, I’m not kidding, Shuma-Gorath’s breakout role outside of comics is being the dark horse in several Marvel vs Capcom games.
Historical significance: 9 / 
The death of the Ancient One, the first step for Doctor Strange’s graduation to Sorcerer Supreme.
Personal significance: 0 / 
With just these six pages I couldn’t understand anything, so no wonder I completely forgot it.
Silver Age-ness: 
/ 
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
Does it stand the test of time? 9 / 
On its own it’s a bit confusing, but if you take it as the conclusion to a solid storyline it’s still an incredible story that will make you wonder if you just took drugs without noticing.
Loving a look into these Doctor Strange stories – I read them in a black and white collection 20 years ago or so. Do you recall the Italian translation and how closely it tracks the English (if that’s even possible)? They use such non-standard convolutions of words and vocabulary that I’m quite curious how they could render it in translation.
In general they’re accurate with the tone, at least trying to match the old-fashioned vocabulary.
The main problem is that it’s a toin coss whether an alliteration remains… although it sometimes it does by accident… so most incantations sound completely different.
By far the most unfair is “By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!”: keeping the alliteration would have required three words in a row starting with an H, and Italian has no words that start with H with the only exceptions of loan words from other languages. So traditionally they go with “Per le canute schiere di Hoggoth!” which is the literal translation, but as you can see no alliteration whatsoever.
The Spider-Man and Doctor Strange issues reprinted above were the first books I ever purchased for both characters. Both blew my young mind for different reasons: Spidey because his life seemed so much more rooted in reality than other super-heroes I had read while Doctor Strange was the most surreal thing I had ever encountered up to that point.