Saturday, January 12, 2019

The Amazing Spider-Man #15: The Newton edition


Newton Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man #15 was published 20 December 1975:


The cover is from Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man #14:


This issue was advertised with a pre-production cover a week before publication in Planet of the Apes #14:


The new Giant Size Monthly Edition banner had yet to be superimposed on the cover. 
This advertisement also appeared in Dracula #10.

A variation of this ad appeared in The Avengers Giant Size 84 Page Annual #1:


Yet another variation of this ad appeared a week later Monsters Unleashed #1:


This sample has even less Newton cover dress despite being issued after the other to samples. It suggests things were moving rather quickly in the Newton office. More on this below.

The story contents are as follows:

The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin, originally published in The Amazing Spider-Man #14, July 1964

Face-To-Face With... The Lizard!, originally published in The Amazing Spider-Man #6, November 1963

The splash page to the Green Goblin story was modified. Here's the splash page in the Newton edition:


This is a scan of the same page as per my Marvel Masterworks Vol. 5:


The creator credit text box and  the note! text box have been rearranged, and the art beneath Spider-Man's has been extended. This is opposite strategy to the established pattern of cropping splash pages to accommodate the indicia.

The Lizard story didn't run in earlier issue. It appears it was a victim of the Dr. Doom story which ran over The Amazing Spider-Man #4 and #5. As it is a Marvel cover story it was possibly held back to be published as a Newton cover story in an upcoming issue. It was now pulled into service for the expanded format at the expense of the second part to the Thor story in The Amazing Spider-Man #14.

This issue has the following Bulletin on the inner front cover:


The Most Exciting New Comics Plans were detailed in the Marvel Mailbag/Bullpen Bulletin in various December 1975 issues. It was announced that all titles would henceforth be monthly, and new titles were also announced. I will discuss this further in a separate post.

My copy of this issue is missing the centre pages. There is no poster advertised on the cover. The two middle pages may have included a poster or in-house advertisements. The other two centre pages likely contained the Marvel Mailbag/Bullpen Bulletin referred to above. TBC.

The contest expired 31 January 1976.

Update 4/7/2021:
Here's a photo of the poster in this issue courtesy an eBay listing:



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