Here’s the final page of the very first Spider-Man story, from AMAZING FANTASY #15. My scans of this story come from the Smithsonian, and they’re huge, so details become apparent when I blow them up really big that you probably can’t see on the smaller version I’m embedding here.

For example, there’s a third face roughed in between the two cops in Panel 5 that artist Steve Ditko chose to erase.

Similarly, in Panel 6, there’s a third face that’s half covered up by the bottom strap copy. In the margin is an erased note from Stan to Sol Brodsky that says:

SORRY ABOUT THIS—HAVE STEVE LIFT IT UP

So it seems like the cop on the right in this panel was added after the lettering was done, at the inking stage.

There’s a note by Stan by the last panel that’s partially hard to read, but what I can make out says:

THIS, TOO—LOWER SLIGHTLY.

And, at the bottom, thestrap caption was corrected to change the magazine title from AMAZING ADULT FANTASY to simply AMAZING FANTASY. The story page number, 11, was also whited out of the final panel.

Also, Spidey’s pop-eyes in Panel 4 aren’t dots, they’re actually little circles.

Since the first one went over so well, here’s the second page to the first Spider-Man story from AMAZING FANTASY #15, from the original art. What’s most interesting about this one is the note at the bottom:

BILL-SHOOT THIS PAGE TOO! GIVE TO STRIPPER!

This would seem to indicate that, at some point, this page was considered for deletion from this story. And if you read the story without this page, you’ll see that it would still work fine, just with less characterization of Peter Parker and his circumstances. The kind of thing that you wouldn’t even have noticed in any other short fantasy/monster strip of the era, in which the characters were all broadly-drawn stock types.

That said, though, this has the look of a printer’s mistake to me. The note at the bottom isn’t any handwriting from the period that I recognize, nor is there anybody named Bill working at Marvel during this period. My guess is that, at some point at the printer, this page was mislaid for a bit, somebody eventually found it, and made note that it needed to be included in the issue—stripped into the appropriate line-up flat.

I showed a vignette of this page yesterday, but here’s the whole thing, the first page to the first Spider-Man story from AMAZING FANTASY #15 as drawn by Steve Ditko. Again, you can see where, at the top, the original logo, the web pattern and the box it all was in were all whited out and replaced with a stat of a different Spider-Man logo. Additionally, Liz Allan’s face was corrected to make her prettier, I believe by Al Hartley.

From an episode of the television series NAKED CITY. You can see both AMAZING FANTASY #15 featuring the first appearance of Spider-Man and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83 containing the first appearance of Thor displayed on the newsstand in the background.

From the original artwork to the first Spider-Man story from AMAZING FANTASY #15, now held by the Smithsonian Museum. Here, the splash page logo stat is lifted to reveal the original title lettering underneath. Additionally, you can see where a web-pattern has been whited out around the logo and the tiny Spider-Man figure. Artwork by Steve Ditko.