The Amazing Spider-Man #20
The Amazing Spider-Man #20 (January 1965) is the origin and first costumed appearance of the Scorpion, one of the most durable recurring villains in Spider-Man's gallery — a foe explicitly engineered to be physically superior to Spider-Man, which gave Lee and Ditko room to show their hero genuinely outmatched and beaten across multiple rounds of battle before scraping out a win. The issue deepens the J. Jonah Jameson characterization in a lasting way: Jameson is not merely a loud critic of Spider-Man but an active architect of superhuman threats against him, a moral complicity that would haunt him in later stories. It also marks one of the earliest examples in the Lee–Ditko run of a two-issue narrative setup — the mystery investigator planted in issue #19 pays off here — signaling a growing confidence in serialized storytelling within a superhero comic.
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Written by Stan Lee and drawn, inked, and cover-illustrated by Steve Ditko, the issue carried a cover date of January 1965 and was released on newsstands on October 8, 1964. It was produced during the height of the Lee–Ditko collaboration, a period in which Ditko was contributing roughly forty pages of Marvel artwork per month across Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange while also reportedly beginning to clash creatively with Lee — a dynamic that even the issue's own credits page acknowledged in a joking aside about whose name appeared first. The story title, 'The Coming of the Scorpion,' was accompanied by an alternate playful subtitle ('Spidey Battles Scorpey') added by Lee in the published text, consistent with his editorial habit of mixing drama with levity to engage young readers.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First costumed appearance and origin of the Scorpion (Mac Gargan), created by Stan Lee (writer/editor) and Steve Ditko (penciler, inker, cover artist); lettered by Sam Rosen.
- Mac Gargan had first appeared in the preceding issue, Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964), as a private investigator hired by J. Jonah Jameson to surveil Peter Parker — making #20 the payoff of a two-issue setup.
- Also marks the first appearance and death of Dr. Farley Stillwell, the scientist who performs the scorpion-themed mutagenic transformation on Gargan at Jameson's behest; Stillwell falls to his death attempting to administer an antidote.
- The story establishes a defining aspect of the Scorpion mythos: Gargan is driven progressively insane by the mutagenic procedure, turns against Jameson (his own creator's patron), and becomes a villain with a vendetta against both Spider-Man and Jameson.
- Spider-Man is defeated by Scorpion twice during the issue before ultimately winning their third confrontation — one of the more thorough beatings Spider-Man had received in the series to that point, underlining Scorpion's status as a threat physically exceeding Spider-Man.
- Jameson escapes public accountability for creating the Scorpion; the story ends with Jameson framed as a hero in his own newspaper while the full truth of his role remains secret.
- The story was reprinted in Marvel Tales #15 and Marvel Tales #158, and is collected in Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 and Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1.
- The Scorpion was adapted for the 1967 Spider-Man animated television series (episode 'Never Step on a Scorpion,' with Mac Gargan voiced by Carl Banas) and later for Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1990s, voiced initially by Martin Landau); Michael Mando portrayed Mac Gargan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).
Cast · 8 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
J. Jonah Jameson pays Dr. Stillwell to turn Mac Gargan into the Scorpion to try to capture Spider-Man. Stillwell's formula makes Gargan become more evil than he originally was and the Scorpion goes on a rampage and is finally stopped by Spider-Man.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).
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