Typically when I do these comic reviews it's because of a movie relating to comics is coming out. I did this with Spider-Verse, when Across the Spidee-Verse was coming out. And I did this with Flashpoint, when The Flash was coming out.
So what's the reason here? Why not? When I reviewed the previously mentioned comics people liked those, so I figured why not review this just to give my thoughts.
If This Be My Destiny was a 1965 storyline that can be found in the 1963 volume of The Amazing Spider-Man, within issues #31-33. The story arc was written by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and drawn by Steve Ditko.
The story is, it starts off with a typical day for Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, with fighting bad guys, figuring out who the Master Planner is, and attending his first day at his university. But when his Aunt May succumbs to a mysterious life-threatening illness, he must get the cure with the limited time he has. The only problem is the Master Planner has it.
- Negatives
I've got nothing.
- Mix
Now for me, I felt like the pacing was in the decent category. With issues thirty-one, we slow. Now I understand why Stan and Steve did that it was set up plot and character, but it still felt like things could've been quicker. Now issue thirty-two was pretty good, we breeze by, but in no way are we going to quick. This luckily carries on into the next issue.
- Positives
Now I'm more than likely gonna lose a lot comic fan credit for this but, I've never been the biggest fan of Steve Ditko's art. Not because I think it's bad, far far from actually. Ditko is without a shadow of doubt one of the greatest, and rightfully deserves to be called a legend. It's just my taste is different from everybody else's. But with If This Be My Destiny, I find this to be Ditko at his best. He's able to show Peter's emotional struggle both with and without the mask, primarily because of skill of display emotion through what kind of pose the characters are in. And I also want to praise Steve for his genius idea of this iconic moment.
When this moment was still in its early phase, Stan Lee himself at first thought this was only gonna be a couple of panels, but to his surprise Ditko stretched this moment out to page after page. According to Stan, he jumped up in triumph even though he wrote the thing.
Then we have the story. It's no wonder people believe this to be the top best story during the Lee & Ditko era of Amazing Spider-Man. Because it's fantastic. We've got Peter going through the ringer, in terms of psychologically, physically, and emotionally, a trope that would follow other Spider-Man stories throughout the character's history for better or worse. We've got drama what with us wondering if Peter will save Aunt May in time, and with him being pinned by that heavy machinery, which would demonstrate his never give up attitude. Even though other great stories would follow suit, this old school classic is one of the examples that show why we love The Wall Crawler.
While a lot of my favorite Spider-Man stories, are either ones Stan Lee didn't write or are ones I grew up with, primarily examples being the J. Michael Straczynski run w/ John Romita Jr. as the artist or Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis, I absolutely love If This Be My Destiny. If I was for some reason only allowed to read this Spidey story and only this story, you'd hear no complaints from me.
My final rating is, A Must Read!
Okay this was a fun one. Come back on Thursday, Jun 27th, for part six of Looking Back at the Films of 2023. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
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