10 Goofiest Moments In The Early Days Of Spider-Man
3. Every Single Newspaper Strip
For the most part, modern-day Spider-Man has all but left behind the goofiness of his early years. Or at least, the goofiness has been replaced with absolute nonsense and insanity, from selling his marriage to the Devil so Aunt May wouldn't die to discovering that Gwen Stacy had some evil babies with Norman Osborn before he killed her back in the day. The ridiculousness of sixties/seventies Spider-Man is still alive and well in the daily newspaper strip, however, which is syndicated in hundreds of print editions across the United States. Stan Lee is still credited with writing it (he doesn't), and his younger brother Larry Lieber does his best to ape the John Romita Sr drawing style. It creates a weird cognitive dissonance where everybody still looks and talks like the sixties Spidey, but the stories are nominally set in the present day. The strip doesn't share a continuity with the comics, which means it can introduce concepts like snake-themed villain The Rattler and Peter Parker doing the Dallas it was all a dream shower revelation.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
