The Amazing Spiderman #10

Written by Stan Lee, Illustrated by Steve Ditko

The Enforcers

The Enforcers are hilarious. They are bad-guy mobsters straight out of Dick Tracey. Their leader is known as The Big Man and he introduces his gang as if they played bass, drums and lead guitar in his band a few pages into the comic . There’s Montana, who is an ace with a lasso and speaks with a Texas drawl, Ox, the big man, and my favorite, Fancy Dan. Fancy Dan is a very small black belt in judo. Fancy Dan often talks about how small he is and how good at judo he is. He loves to point out the fact that, though he’s small, people should not underestimate him because he holds a black belt in judo. Plus, he’s fancy.

The Big Man is strong-arming all the mobsters in New York City into working for him. If they don’t obey, the Enforcers clean house. He wears a mask and no one knows his identity. J. Jonah Jameson, of course, thinks Spiderman is the Big Man and forces his poor lead writer, Foswell, to write articles supporting this theory. Spiderman sees Jonah at the scene of several of the mob bosses crimes which leads our hero into thinking J.J. is the culprit. So the two main characters are pointing fingers at each other and it turns out to be Foswell, the lead writer of the Daily Bugle who came out of no where for this one issue. Both sides are chagrinned at not seeing the obvious. It sounds unbearably hokey, but it was a pretty decent issue, filled with amusing gangster pastiche.

The meat of the story is the character development of both major characters from the Daily Bugle, Jameson and Betty Brant. Jameson has a particularly pathetic soliloquy at the end of the book. He stands by himself in the darkness, shoulders slumped, and regrets trying, once again, to pin Spiderman as a criminal. He says, “All my life I’ve been interested in one thing: money. And yet, Spiderman risks his life, day after day, with no thought of reward. If a man like him is good- is a hero- then what am I?” (Page 22)

This is the first time Jameson appears in private and his behavior is radically different from his public persona. In the public forum, he seems incapable of introspection. He’s a blustering know-it-all that won’t take guff from anyone. He has an unlimited supply of energy and will work tirelessly to prove that his world view is the correct one. But the private Jameson is depressed, painfully self-aware, almost suicidal. He says, “Spiderman represents everything I’m not. He’s brave, powerful, and unselfish. The truth is, I envy him. I, J. Jonah Jameson- millionaire, man of the world, civic leader- I’d give everything I own to be the man he is. But I can never climb to his level.” (Page 22) At first glance, Jameson is a megalomaniac, a demigod in his land of newspaper, but upon further inspection, he doesn’t simply have a vanity issue or a quirky personality, but may be manic depressive. His highs are unbelievably high and his lows are rock bottom.

Betty Brant is also falling apart. We received a hint last issue that she may have some dark secret when she correctly identified one of Peter’s personality traits saying, “You’re beginning to enjoy the danger- the excitement. Just like someone else I know”. (AS #9, page 14) She had to drop out of high school because of her secret and the mystery also involves money that she owns to a lone shark. This is where the Enforcers come in. The Big Man has taken over all the loans in the city and the Enforcers are going around, person to person, collecting.

Also, somewhere between issues, Peter and Betty have begun officially dating. Peter shows up when the Enforcers are threatening Betty and almost gets into a mild-mannered fight. Betty promises the Enforcers she’ll pay if they just leave Peter alone and thinks, “I can’t let the dearest, most wonderful boy I’ve ever known get mixed up with the Enforcers because of me!” (Page 8) She freaks out, won’t return Peter’s phone calls, and skips town. This has been building for a few issues now and the tension is at its height for the next storyline, which is a two-parter featuring the return of Dr. Octopus. This is going to be good.