American Comics Update: Spider-Mania/Mighty Marvel Firsts: Debut of the Sandman in Amazing #4
*Marvel: New in this week is the fourth issue of Amazing Spider-Man, a Lee & Ditko classic which introduced Spidey to the gentleman who would become one of his most vehement enemies – and occasionally, a reluctant hero – the shape-shifting Sandman, whose molecular mastery came close to baffling our hero. In addition, this issue features the debut of Betty Brant, a lady who was to become very important in the Wall-Crawler’s life. This lowish graded pence printed copy has good structural integrity, with decent staples tight at centrefold and only slightly loose at cover. The spine is intact. There is some fairly unattractive chipping all along the right edge, with minor edge wear at spine, top and bottom and minor colour-breaking creases mostly confined to edges, except for one longer but not prominent crease that rises from the bottom edge into the lower right quarter of this panelled cover. Cover colours are nice except for a stain patch of about 6 cm circumference centering on the issue number box, top right. This fades a section of the red heading to orange (see scan) and marks the pale blue background of the upper right panel. Inside covers are tanned at the edges but not brittle. Page quality overall is a reasonably supple cream.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #4 GD- p £450