He will come to my birthday party? Oh crap, I'm too late...but if you did win this contest, Spidey would bring you and 20 friends special "mystery" gifts! I wonder what they were? I imagine they were the pens also pictured here, which were second prizes......but more likely, it was a tube of AIM.
I say this because this unique ad is from the back of a unique comic, which was "FREE WITH THE PURCHASE OF AIM" in 1980. I was all over grocery stores during that time, but I never saw this, or I would have been begging for AIM. There was also a second AIM-Spidey comic a couple of years later, featuring Doctor Octopus, that I also have.
As much as this comic should have been hilariously bad (I was expecting "Spidey Super Stories" with dental hygiene), it wasn't. It was written by Marv Wolfman (who was no slouch), and sort of plays out like a silver age Batman story, as the Goblin, intent on stealing a "laser drill" from a inventor dentist, flies around leaving various clues for Spidey to figure out. The art is by Alex Saviuk, who handles the many lines of the Spidey costume (which gave even Jack Kirby fits) very well.
I think the creators had just the right awareness of the subject matter's hilariousness to keep it from going campy (or worse), and while it's 32 straight pages of story with no ads, it was very enjoyable.
Oddly, it seems to take place in a weird universe, even for 1980, where the Green Goblin doesn't know Peter Parker is Spider-Man. In fact, we aren't even sure which Goblin it's supposed to be, because he's never out of costume. Peter Parker is commanded by JJJ to take Jameson's nephew to the dentist, and the fun goes from there. Later, they visit a dental "convention" of some sort, featuring giant teeth, fancy exhibits, and other bizareness.
Things really were so much easier back then!
1 comment:
My mom would often buy us "Aim" a lot. It's probably still out there, though these days I'm stuck with the "sensitive" toothpaste I get at Dollar Tree.
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