A Hero of Men ... An Idol of Women

I recently had the good fortune to land a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man: The Complete Collection, a DVD onto which has been scanned every issue of TAS-M from March 1963 to June 2006.

Regular readers like the radiant Reality Chick will be rolling their eyes at this point, sensing another comic-waffle hoving into view. But while I'll readily admit to being very excited about having thousands of pages of web-slinging action just a mouse-click away, what I'm really thrilled about is something else entirely. Because, good reader, thanks to this one DVD, I am on the brink of ascension.

Soon I shall become a Love God.

You see, not only does the DVD contain scans of the comic's strip pages, it also contains scans of all the ads that ran alongside them. And just three issues in, it's impossible not to notice a trend in the spruiking - pages of promotions for products that promise to turn weedy Spider-fans into ... well, this:

And all without the tedious rigmarole of being bitten by a radioactive body-builder!

Following this programme - perhaps, in conjunction with the 'Hip Pocket Gym' advertised elsewhere in the comics ('Used by US Veterans' Hospitals to help rebuild health and vigor in wounded' - it looks like a giant rubber band) - I should be Abs Fab in no time. But wait ... what's this?

The Dynaflex Method ... 'I'll build you a tough, brutal, massive body - shoulders clad with solid inches of he-man BRAWN'.

And with NO EXERCISE AT ALL! Man, that's the one for me!

But there's more! Not content to give you all that (with NO EXERCISE!) Dynaflex comes with an added bonus:



Well, it's not hugely surprising that comics became known as the province of sexually frustrated nerds who'd regularly get sand kicked in their faces, is it? One flick through any given issue showed just who the advertisers had as their target market.

But sex sells, right? Couple your acres of rippling muscles with, say, an artistic bent, and '60s women would drop their clothes for you in an instant:

That's right, even if you'd got 'NO TALENT!' the ladies would be stripping for you faster than a Black and Decker paint remover.

And if that didn't work, there was always the 'pocket-sized invention that helps hypnotize you or others' ...

Keep striking out with all that help and you might as well chuck it in and breed sea monkeys.