Marvel Flashback: A 1977 Spider-Man Origin Cup


Given this week's release of The Amazing Spider-Man, I thought I would dig into my own archives to see if I could find anything Spidey-related to put on my blog to celebrate this event. This new release is the first 3D Spider-Man movie--an IMAX 3D movie, no less--so that alone is worth celebrating in my opinion.

I've mentioned before that Spider-Man was one of my gateway drugs into geekhood. Spidey soon took a backseat to Star Wars (my other gateway drug), but he's always been in the background somewhere during the course of my lifetime of geekery. In addition to some of the Spider-Man toys I had during the late 70s (click here to read about some of the lesser Spidey toys that I owned), I had some regular, everyday items that bore the likeness of Spider-Man in some form (towels, pajamas, lunch boxes, etc.). The item I'm featuring in this post is one of great sentimental value: a Spider-Man cup from 1977 that included a brief description of Spidey's origin story.





As you can see from the pictures above, this cup got a lot of use when I was a kid. It features the 70s version of Spider-Man (who was usually drawn with smaller eyes and a more muscular, less lanky build during that decade), as well as the 70s Spider-Man logo. The inclusion of Spider-Man's origin was a nice touch, a little reminder of my favorite superhero's beginnings I could glance at as I gobbled down a sugar-coated breakfast cereal while watching Spider-Man cartoons.



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