While not necessarily the best issue of The Amazing Spider-Man so far, issue #8 experiments with some new angles to approach the character from, and in this early era it’s both charming and commendable to not just repeat the story formats that have been tried before. In fact, it’s somewhat surprising how boldly Stan Lee and Steve Ditko broke new ground in most new issues, and only occasionally settled for a comfortable story of thwarting a villain and calling it a day.
The Amazing Spider-Man #8:
"The Terrible Threat of the Living Brain!"
- Writers: Stan Lee
- Artists: Steve Ditko
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: October 8, 1963
- Cover Date: January 1964
We spend a lot of time establishing the premise of the issue, and we don’t see Spider-Man in costume until a third of the way through the book. The setup has a lot going on, much more than you usually would: Flash and Peter have an argument that’s clearly escalating into something more than just regular name-calling; a machine called the Living Brain is brought into their school for a demonstration; and some good-for-nothing crooks plan a nefarious plot to make money using the machine. Perhaps unexpectedly, it's the Flash story that feels the most meaningful in this issue.
Thematically, the story is much lighter than some of the preceding ones that leaned into Peter’s civilian identity as much as this one, but there is a central motif here: both the Flash story and the story about the Living Brain involve the concept of his secret identity in some fashion, and the plot itself revolves around him trying to protect the secret while it’s being threatened from multiple angles. The tone here is comedic rather than dramatic or tragic, making for a much more playful and silly tale. This was probably the right call – lightening the mood every now and then makes the heavier stories hit harder, without choking the fun out of the character.
The Living Brain is described as a super-intelligent thinking machine that also has extensive combat abilities for some reason. Its main function is to take in information provided to it and use it to answer any question. It communicates via mathematical symbols, which require translation to be usable for humans. This might sound like nonsense now, but it’s actually not at all in conflict with what much of computer technology would have looked like in the 1960s – convenient user interfaces, let alone machines that could autonomously produce human-understandable language, would probably have seemed a little too magical to be realistic.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
The Living Brain story has Peter essentially forced to ask it to reveal the true identity of Spider-Man. It’s a ridiculous setup of dramatic irony, but because the issue is constructed as a light, silly story, it sort of works. The tension surrounding Peter’s dilemma of not being able to refuse but fearing the results is palpable, but it’s disappointingly defused by the teacher immediately informing him that the results must be deciphered overnight by Peter himself. This immediately removes the tension, which is unfortunate, because this could have been a pretty interesting story to follow through.
The machine seems to reflect popular sentiments about the emergence of computing technology: there’s a feeling of amazing potential surrounding it, but also a threat of significant danger, which of course actualizes when the Living Brain goes on a rampage. The key detail, however, is that it only goes haywire because it was accidentally tampered with by the crooks looking to steal it, indicating that the technology itself isn’t harmful, but bad people can do bad things with it, as with many other tools. Whether this was an intentional message about Stan or Steve’s beliefs regarding technological advancement is anyone’s guess.
We have an extended action scene of Spider-Man fighting the berserk robot, and while the concept of a constantly learning machine that counters any tactic it has seen before is interesting (not to mention pretty advanced thinking conceptually), it’s not the most engaging battle we’ve seen from Spider-Man, Ditko, or Marvel in general. It’s partly because fights tend to be more fun to watch if one side isn’t a block of metal with no personality, but also the stakes of the fight don’t feel quite as pressing as they do in many other encounters. That in turn is probably in part the result of the generally lighter tone of the issue. Still, Ditko has some fun beats here of the Living Brain learning to fight Spidey more effectively, and Spidey trying to stay one step ahead of it and keeping it off-balance by trying new tricks.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
The story involving Flash and Peter is positively surprising from the viewpoint of what the series was at the time: it would have been entirely possible that Flash remains a static recurring character appearing in an average of one panel per story, just as a constant reminder that Peter isn’t thriving in his social life. But here it's pushed further – not to necessarily change anything, but to have the characters themselves recognize and acknowledge their history, instead of just repeating it mechanically. This makes the cast and the world feel more real and expansive – the people in it are shown as people, not caricatures.
Peter and Flash enter the ring for a boxing match to resolve their differences, as suggested by their teacher Mr. Warren (who is not Professor Miles Warren, who would become the illustrious Jackal in the 1970s, but also isn't entirely unrelated). There’s a nice tension in the match surrounding Peter’s need to pull his punches in order to not arouse suspicion, but simultaneously wanting to maintain his pride and stand up to Flash’s bullying. The scene is ultimately played for laughs though, and it’s more evocative of a slapstick comedy than an undercover suspense story.
True to the comedic vibes of the story, the conclusion – peaking in an intentionally coincidental gag of the crooks crashing into Flash Thompson, who recently regained his consciousness after being knocked out by Peter in their boxing match – is appropriately positive. There’s a genuinely funny sequence of Peter accusing Flash of being Spider-Man, because due to his unconsciousness he was nowhere to be seen during the fight with the robot.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
After the main story, there’s a short bonus strip pencilled by Jack Kirby and inked by Steve Ditko, where Spider-Man crashes Johnny Storm’s party, and the two end up having an exhibition match to test each other’s egos. The fight eventually escalates into a brawl between Spidey and the rest of the Fantastic Four as well, until Sue Storm finally cools everyone’s heads.
This is a fun little bonus visual, but there’s not much of a story there. Sadly, the Spider-Man we see in this story also doesn’t quite feel like the same character. He’s been a bit obnoxious with J. Jonah Jameson in the past, for sure, but here he’s oddly bratty, and he comes across much less likable than usual. Also, for all of his ability drawing creative and fun fight scenes, Kirby clearly didn’t quite know what to do with Spider-Man, and so the fight isn’t necessarily one of his best.
Even though there’s not much there, this mini story (which is the third proper cross-over Spider-Man has had, not counting his brief pointless appearance in the Avengers #3) is one of the formal origins of Spider-Man’s rivalry with Johnny Storm (alongside Strange Tales Annual #2 which came out about six months before). I’ve never been a big fan of the encounters where they’re explicitly antagonistic like they are here, but you don’t necessarily get the heartfelt moments of them shaking hands and admitting their respect and affection for each other if you don’t also have the clashes.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
Calling issue #8 a filler story would be an exaggeration; it does something similar as issues #3-5 did in deepening Peter’s characterization and widening his personal conflicts, while simultaneously trying a different tone and style for the storytelling, which is refreshing. Even though I consider it the B-story of this issue, the fight with Flash easily outshines the main plot – the Living Brain is a charming relic of the Silver Age, but the boxing match is a legitimately iconic Spider-Man moment. The fact that there’s a B-story alongside the A-story at all is in itself pretty impressive for the time, too – it shows the ambition Stan and Steve had for the storytelling in The Amazing Spider-Man.
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