After a month of spotlighting the strange (if endearingly strange) history of comic books (and especially the Silver Age), I think it is worthwhile to show the comic books of the Silver Age that are simply great stories period. Here is an archive of all the Silver Age comics features so far!

Today we finish up Silver Age September with one of the most famous stories of the Silver Age, Amazing Spider-Man #31-33, Spider-Man versus the Master Planner!

Enjoy!

This story is important for two separate reasons. First off, issue #31 has Peter Parker starting college, where he meets two people who become very important in his life - Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy! Plus, Aunt May has gotten very sick from the blood transfusion Peter gave her awhile back, so Peter has that on his mind. Check out Harry and Gwen's intros...

Peter had been dealing with this criminal known as the Master Planner, who had been having his minions committing a bunch of crimes. Eventually, Peter discovers that the Master Planner is his old nemesis, Doctor Octopus!

Here's the problem - there's a serum that could be used to cure Aunt May. However, the serum would also help Doctor Octopus, so Doc Ock steals it. Spidey breaks into his underwater headquarters to steal it back and manages to get it from Doc, but not before a ton of machinery falls on top of ol' Spidey. Plus, the underwater headquarters is leaking. PLUS, Doc left armed guards outside the door!!

This, of course, led to Amazing Spider-Man #33, and one of the most famous sequences of the Silver Age...

Amazing!

And what people sometimes forget is that it is followed by yet ANOTHER amazing sequence!!

What's particularly interesting about the second sequence is that if you took out the thought balloons, Ditko's art is so well done that you could still totally see what Peter is thinking just by his body movement. Awesome.

A total and utter classic storyline.