Another post, another round of comic book references to go through! Prepare yourself for some villainy! But we’re going to start with a few of the most iconic scenes in all of Spider-Man canon.

You’re not seeing things, that is Ben Parker in the following panels. This is the last issue in this particular run of comics, and it contains side references to Calvin and Hobbes, looks back at what makes Spider-Man a hero, and an emotional farewell not just to Peter Parker’s inspiration, but probably a farewell to the journey of creating the comics by the writers and artists themselves; this is made crystal clear by the final page of the comic featuring not just a literal final act bow from Spider-Man and all his allies and villains, but also the artists in the background.

If we’re talking about a single most iconic cover from Spider-Man, it might be this one (or more likely, the traditional version where Peter Parker is in a normal wedding suit). Weddings rarely work in comics. Giving a hero a stable relationship removes a lot of potential for easy drama. Also, breaking up weddings is a very villainous act, so they often fail to finish. Peter Parker and the new Mary-Jane Watson Parker are rare among comic book characters; not only did they get married once, but across multiple retellings of the story, they keep finding each other.

Also an important note that will be relevant soon: Annuals were big storyline important issues, produced, well, annually, that were often twice as big as normal comics.

While this isn’t necessarily an “iconic” image, there’s not a lot of them for Chameleon, whose superpower is the ability to not look like himself, so any important panel with him in it often doesn’t look like he’s in it. This issue is from the modern version of Annuals, taking place between the rebooted Amazing Spider-Man #69 and #70. Without reading too many comics on either side, it appears that Chameleon is not the only one who can do that. He comes from a secret child soldier program full of shapeshifters, and attempts to gaslight Peter Parker’s younger sister Teresa, who is a secret government agent, that she has been a shapeshifter the whole time. Comics are weird.

Going from not terribly iconic back to character-defining, this is from the third issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the debut of Doctor Octopus. The background of the card is yellow because, as you can see, the background of the panel, and most of the fight panels before it, were yellow due to the yellow wall of the room they’re fighting in. Peter Parker then attends a guest lecture by The Human Torch, who provides the brand recognition and motivation to go back and win the rematch.

Often, older comics will put something inflammatory on the cover in order to entice readers. The classic examples are those older Superman comics where Superman is being an asshole, and when you actually read the comic, it turns out the cover is a gross misrepresentation. So, does Doc Ock win in this comic? Yep, he shoots Spider-Man with a weapon called a Nullifier that disables all technology, and apparently causes amnesia, so he convinces Spider-Man that they’re allies. To be continued! (Spoilers, he kicks Doc Ock’s ass despite not getting his memory back, and J. Jonah Jameson considers the fact that he has no pictures of villainous Spider-Man to be a communist plot.)

Spider-Man, as a property, provides a unique opportunity for Magic. We get to see a selection of some of the most iconic printed moments in Spider-Man history. I collected most of these, just as pairs of images, but I’m going to go a bit more in-depth on each one. Either why it’s iconic, or at least something interesting from that comic. Again, starting with five at a time, just so it’s not a massive wall.

Most of the media spotlight cards utilize iconic covers. This one is from the return of The Spot, who hadn’t been seen for a while. The Spot has had a resurgence recently due to his role in the new Spiderverse movie.
Aunt May’s charity is approached by Russian mobsters that want to use her for good publicity. Peter investigates the mob, but is disrupted by The Spot doing a murder at them. He has to protect the head of the gang.
Pages 7-8 include a Rocky and Bullwinkle reference. Parker is seen using a Syno camera, a parody of Sony. And, most notably, on page 12, Spider-Man tries to talk like Christian Bale and struggles with the gravely voice.

This is not just an iconic cover, but a pivotal issue in the plot. MJ is just a friend, Black Cat is his girlfriend, all that good stuff. But most importantly, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars had just taken place, the storyline where Peter Parker first acquires the alien symbiote suit that would go on to be Venom. In order to figure out what is going on with his suit, Peter goes to the Fantastic Four, but needs to remain anonymous, so when he takes his suit off, he wears an old F4 suit and a paper bag, thus marking the first appearance of the Bombastic Bag-Man as seen on the super fancy printing of Spectacular Spider-Man.

While not the first Black Cat-centric comic, a cursory glance at other iconic Black Cat covers and individual pages reveals that it’s very likely this one was chosen because Black Cat is often drawn very…un-family friendly, and this one gets you a nice cat burglar pose without too much T&A. This ten-issue run takes place during a major Marvel crossover event when Earth was being invaded by an army of symbiotes, and Black Cat was doing some anti-hero-ing.

If we’re talking about iconic Spider-Man covers, I’d put this in my top 5. The first milestone comic, being number 50, obviously a big story climax had to happen here. And they didn’t disappoint; Aunt May is very sick, he’s struggling in school, Gwen Stacy is flirting with him, and J. Jonah Jameson is starting to get under his skin. So Peter makes the ultimate decision. He dumps his suit in a trash can, in another iconic image. This lasts about 15 pages, when he saves a night watchman who looks like Uncle Ben and then has a big emotional roller coaster.

Green Goblin had been slain 14 issues earlier. But when a very identifiable explosion puts MJ in the hospital, Spidey is convinced that despite Norman Osborn being dead, the villainous Goblin is still around. So he goes to Goblin’s old hideout, finds it full of dust, decides to see if it is fake dust, finds out that it is, and establishes a stakeout. By creating a web hammock and just waiting. 6 pages later, as Harry Osborn (spoilers if you haven’t read any Spider-Man comics or didn’t watch Spider-Man 3) is about to finish him off, the Goblin runs out of power in his suit. Here’s what he has to say about that:

Wonder if that’s why they chose an image from this comic…also, that’s basically the end of the issue. Goblin runs out of power and runs away. Big let-down.

Anyways, that’s the first five of forty (holy crap, there’s forty of these) special cards to look at. I hope you like the context for each one, and stay tuned for more of my insane rabbit holes I have to go down to try and find the source for unlabeled individual panels.