“Spidey Cops Out!”

MARVEL TALES — Issue no. 91, February 1978

Book: Marvel Tales

Issue No.: 91

Published: February 14, 1978

Title: “Spidey Cops Out!” (reprint of Amazing Spider-Man no. 112)

One thing that amuses me about Spider-Man comics from the 1960s and 1970s is how Spidey’s alter-ego Peter Parker’s Aunt May is impossibly old. Which creates inherent drama, because she is the only family Peter Parker has, and she is very frail, so Spidey/Peter is always extra careful to protect his secret identity to keep Aunt May safe from his many arch-enemies and also to keep her for worrying about Peter getting hurt swinging around fighting masked maniacs.

One thing that doesn’t amuse me about Spider-Man movies is when they cast someone only a few years older than me to play Aunt May. I mean, I get it, Marvel, I am old! But seriously, Marisa Tomei is a wonderful actor, and her take on Aunt May as not-frail-and-ancient is one of my favorite things about the Tom Holland run of Spider-Man movies.

I mention all of that just to point out there is a flashback early in this issue of Marvel Tales (that reprints the story from Amazing Spidey 112 from 1972) where Peter looks to be eight or nine years old and even in the flashback Aunt May looks like she’s 100 years old.

I can only assume if I ever get to see an Aunt May flashback in a Bronze Age comic book to thirty years before Peter was born, Aunt May will look like she is 100 years old.

Next time — We go big with 80 pages of the Defenders!