Beschreibung:

CGC certified: Fine- (5.5). Off-white to white pages. Not cleaned and pressed. Cover: Steve Ditko pencils and inks. Story: Stan Lee, Steve Ditko Steve Ditko pencils and inks. Lettering: Sam Rosen. GPAnalysis: A 5.5 sold for $375 in 3/22. Spidey and Dr. Strange's worlds collide. It's a super fun mag, but not the senses-shattering tour-de-force that the first annual was. Andrew Rilstone says ASM Annual #2 falls short due to its omission of the core characters who help define Ditko's Spider-Man universe: Aunt May, Betty Brant, JJJ, Flash Thompson, and Liz Allen. "The best Spider-Man stories are the ones involving all five characters. When none of them appear (as in the Doctor Strange annual) what we are left with barely counts as a Spider-Man story at all." — Andrew Rilstone, Listen Bud: The First Great Graphic Novel in American Literature. Unpublished manuscript, p. 305. Why did Spidey plotter Steve Ditko exclude Spidey's supporting cast from this mag? It looks Spidey's co-star, Dr. Strange, is to blame. According to one of Ditko's mini-essays, the artist disliked superhero cross-overs in ASM : “Everyone used from another hero’s story-world prevented us from focusing on... and developing our own unique story-world of characters and villains.” — Steve Ditko “Guest-Stars: Heroes and Villains,” The Comics, Vol. 14, No. 7, July 2003. Ditko's solution was to exclude the supporting cast altogether, so that the Spidey-Doc Strange mashup occurs in its own little continuity bubble. "Ditko avoided this problem by choosing not to use any of the supporting characters (even Spider-Man fails to appear in his civilian identity of Peter Parker), setting the tale apart from the monthly continuity." — Nick Caputo, "Marvel Mysteries and Comics Minutiae," nick-caputo.blogspot.com, July 20, 2015. Enjoying the Spidey Sale? Order a fully-illustrated softcover catalogue for 30 bucks. Only about 100 copies were printed and they're going fast. To reserve a copy, contact PBA's Director of Comics: [email protected] Consign to PBA Galleries. Our comic sales average a 98% sell-through rate, our prices realized are top-of-the-market, and our research-intensive catalogues are the best in the business. Seeking Silver Age Marvel, Golden Age superheroes, and pre-Code horror. Contact [email protected]