The Chameleon is not a great villain as he appears here, a pretty generic master of disguise character, a Silver Age “commie” villain who falls short of the pathos of a Dr. Octopus or a Curt Conners. Plus, I recall some silliness about the Chameleon already grasping Spidey’s powers so well that he could tap into his Spider sense, and this before the two ever met. But yeah, the John Jameson story kicks ass and even the Chameleon story has its moments (one you didn’t mention was web slingshot, whose awesomeness made the jump to the silver screen). I suppose there were better, or perhaps more agreeable, examples of unstellar Lee/Ditko Spider-Man stories later in the run, but the Chameleon was just the first thing that popped into my head.

Oh and, while I don’t really consider this a major flaw, it’s pretty funny to note that the FF/Chameleon story features the amazing adventures of “Peter Palmer.”

Whether it will come back next season in a different format, remains to be seen.

Uh, no.

CBS announced its upfront schedule for next season, and Harper’s Island was nowhere to be seen.

After its July finale, it’s done.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Once you get pushed to Saturday night, you’re done. There’s no coming back from that.

I’m always interested in mysteries that claim to have actual clues and so on. So far I’m ambivalent about how well Harper’s is doing in that department but we are invested enough to keep up with it. We like several of the actors and it’s okay as a mystery. We have been assuming that it’s a one-off, an event maxi-series, rather than an ongoing.

I suspect that either he has read a very narrow range of comics or he’s not quite clear on what meta-fiction is when he claims, “I don’t think anyone has brought more of a feel of “meta-fiction” to comics as Peter David has, and it’s evident right away here.” As far as I can tell, he attributes this due to PAD’s use of analogues of real-world figures.

Both of those Dunn articles were terrific. Seeing the first year of Spidey encapsulated like that, it kind of blew my mind to remember how much Peter Parker’s life was the focus of the story and how rich the supporting cast was right off the bat. And that Peter’s brains saved the day as often as his brawn, yet Spidey went from fighting wrestlers and stick-up men to going toe-to-toe with the Fantastic Four in no time flat. And that the FF seemed to be co-stars for most of that first year.

I read the Death of Jean DeWolfe as it came off the racks and I remember liking the issues a lot, but not being blown away by them. It wasn’t until I read them again years later that I got rocked back. That was probably because Spidey was appearing in at least three monthly titles at the time, plus minis, plus showing up in everybody’s second issue, so it was hard to isolate a good arc from all of the other chatter.

And Spider-Man’s origin was 11 pages. Take that, Decompression!

Off the top of my head, the hero is worrying about money troubles. J. Jonah Jameson is one hell of a unique supporting character for that era, not clear cut good or bad. The hero is not even 100 percent sure he wants to be a hero, he actually considers a career of crime before thinking twice about it. He takes on another team of superheroes, not under mind control or a misunderstanding, he breaks in with a brash, disrespectful attitude and fights them to show them how good he is. That alone is unique. And why? Because he wants to serve humanity? No, because he’s hoping to score some big cash. And when he finds out they don’t pay salaries, he storms off in an angry huff and tells them off! He gets blamed for the Chameleon’s crimes and says screw the world and storms off sobbing to himself, complaining that he can’t do anything right. He sobs! Take every superhero comic off the stands that was released that same month and I can bet you there was nothing comparable on the stands at the time.

How is that book not strong? It opened up so many doors as to what kind of acceptable behaviors and emotions could be exptressed by a protaganist superhero character. Nowadays after hundreds or thousands of similar Spidey stories it may not seem so strong to see Jameson chewing out Spider-Man or seeing him get blamed for everything and messing up or feeling sorry for himself or angry at the world, but ASM #1 helped break all that ground.

While I grant that not every Lee/Ditko story was a gem (for example, ASM #1 isn’t particularly strong), to grade a work which in 11 pages lays pretty much the entire, yet-to-be-altered foundation for literally thousands of Spider-Man tales, to grade that as a C is pretty crass. And for trivial reasons, no less. The pacing? The pacing is standard fare for Silver Age comics, especially ones slated for cancellation and thus not permitting “To Be Continued”s. It seems like he might as well be knocking the book for its coloring because, you know, it falls short of today’s standard.

Unfortunately for you, Harper’s Island is slated to run 13 episodes, period, regardless of how well or badly it does in the ratings.

NBC is (or is it CBS?) guaranteening it that all episodes will run to the very bitter conclusion.

Whether it will come back next season in a different format, remains to be seen.

I’m getting a kick out ot it, but don’t necessarily NEED to have it every year.

It’s like Cliff Notes, but with comics and spandex and stuff! Yeah!