Hit Comics #1
Hit Comics #1 (September 1966, Bildschriftenverlag/BSV-Williams) holds a firm place in the history of Marvel Comics outside North America: it marks the first appearance of Spider-Man — published here as Die Spinne — in any German-language comic book, opening the character to an entirely new readership. As the debut issue of the Hit Comics anthology series, it was also the vehicle through which Marvel superhero comics first reached German-speaking audiences at all, preceding the later and better-known Williams Verlag relaunches of the 1970s. The story it chose to introduce the character — the Scorpion's prison break and assault on the Daily Bugle — is a compact, dramatically tense Lee/Ditko chapter that efficiently showcases Peter Parker's web of personal relationships as well as his physical abilities, making it a reasonable if idiosyncratic choice for a first impression. Crucially, this specific issue was later skipped entirely when Williams restarted its own dedicated Die Spinne series in 1974, meaning Hit Comics #1 contains the only German-language printing of this story in the original BSV era.
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BSV (Bildschriftenverlag), founded in Aachen in 1956 as Verlag Internationale Klassiker and renamed shortly thereafter, had spent its first decade licensing Dell and Gold Key material before securing Marvel Comics content in 1966. Hit Comics launched that same year as an anthology mixing Marvel superhero reprints with other features, in no particular publication order relative to the American originals. The publisher reprinted the content of The Amazing Spider-Man #29 (October 1965, written by Stan Lee, plotted and drawn by Steve Ditko, lettered by Sam Rosen) for this debut issue — notably the German edition's credits mistakenly list Sam Rosen as 'Druck' (printer) rather than letterer. The series ran through 1970 and across 28 issues before BSV was eventually absorbed into and then dissolved by the Williams organization by the mid-1970s.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated September 1966; published by Bildschriftenverlag GmbH (BSV-Williams), Aachen, Germany — 28 pages.
- First appearance of Spider-Man (Die Spinne) in German-language comics, making it the debut of the character for an entire language market.
- Reprints the story from The Amazing Spider-Man #29 (October 1965, Marvel Comics), titled 'Never Step on a Scorpion!' — written by Stan Lee, plotted and penciled/inked by Steve Ditko, lettered by Sam Rosen.
- The issue presents the second appearance (rematch) of the Scorpion (Mac Gargan), who escapes prison seeking revenge on both Spider-Man and J. Jonah Jameson; Jameson had originally bankrolled the experiment that created the Scorpion.
- Supporting cast in this story includes Betty Brant, Frederick Foswell, J. Jonah Jameson, Ned Leeds (returning from a European assignment), Aunt May Parker, and Peter Parker as Spider-Man.
- The original first printing exists in two slightly different physical sizes (differing by approximately 0.2 cm in height and width), with the smaller variant being the rarer of the two; a key identifier for originals is the vertical spine notation 'Sp. Nr. 1 Deutschl.' absent from later reprints.
- A reprint of this issue was later published in the Spider-Man Komplett slip-case set #4 (Panini Verlag), identifiable by its orange-beige rather than yellow logo bar and added interior page numbering.
- This specific story was deliberately skipped when Williams Verlag relaunched its dedicated Die Spinne series in 1974, meaning no second BSV-era German printing of the Amazing Spider-Man #29 content was produced in that run.
Cast · 9 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Der Skorpion bricht aus dem Gefängnis aus und plant, die Spinne [Spider-Man] und J. Jonah Jameson zu töten.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).