“Poor Spidey. He was almost never born!”
Those were the words of Spider-Man’s cocreator Stan Lee, remembering all the arguments that were used in 1962 to convince Stan not to bring Spider-Man into the world. Stan’s then-boss Martin Goodman, voicing the common wisdom of the day, had a highly negative reaction to Stan’s idea for a new character to be called Spider-Man. Goodman’s objections were many. Allow me to cite a few: People hate spiders. Teenagers can only be sidekicks. A super hero shouldn’t have so many problems. He should be handsome and glamorous and popular. Well, you folks get the picture.
The estimable Mr. Goodman, whose criticisms were not to be taken lightly, was not pleased. Stan was allowed to go ahead and use the sure-to-be unpopular new character in the final issue of a comic book called Amazing Fantasy, cover-dated August 1962. And then the book was canceled. Stan and his artist Steve Ditko had been creating stories for that title since its inception, when it was called Amazing Adult Fantasy, presenting a fine variety of fantastic, short illustrated stories with a bit of a science fiction bent to them. It was somewhat different from the other titles the company was publishing at the time, such as Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, and Journey into Mystery.
Those comics featured monsters and alien entities arriving on our poor planet to conquer it, and they boasted outrageous monikers such as Monsteroso, Fin Fang Foom, Zzutak, and my all-time favorite, Googam, Son of Goom. Now that’s a name to conjure with.
At this point, a bit of historical perspective is needed. The legend goes that in 1962 Martin Goodman, the owner and publisher of Atlas Comics, went golfing with an executive from the rival comic book company National Periodical Publications. During that golf game, Goodman learned that National was finding success with a title featuring a super hero team called the Justice League of America. Goodman immediately asked his chief editor/writer, Stan Lee, to come up with a super team that Goodman could publish. The title that Stan dreamed up with artist Jack Kirby was The Fantastic Four. Stan and Jack quickly followed it up with The Incredible Hulk, which Stan described as a combination of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein. Spider-Man was Stan’s third entry and the one that met the most resistance.