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- NARRATOR: Spider-Man made
his debut in Amazing Fantasy number 15 in 1962.
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Stan Lee and Steve
Ditko wanted to create a character the teens could
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An ordinary kid with
extraordinary powers.
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It was a massive hit,
becoming Marvel's top selling comic.
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And by the '70s, it
even surpassed Superman
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to become the top
seller in the industry.
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Fourteen years from the
web-slinger's debut,
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Spider-Man had just as
many fans as Superman.
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And they often wondered
what would happen
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if these two superheroes
went head-to-head.
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[triumphant music playing]
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In the midst of the 1970s,
in a quiet, unassuming home,
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one casual encounter
with friends
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was about to forever change
the course of comics history.
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- KID: Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.
- Oh, hey, sweety.
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- DAVID: The
year was 1976.
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I was a troublemaker and was
looking for my next project.
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- Which one's your favorite?
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- Oh, they're both my favorite.
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- DAVID: I was at a friend's
house, and their kid said to me...
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- My... my friend Connor,
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he said that Superman would
beat Spider-Man in a fight.
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Who do you think
would win in a fight?
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- I know someone who
could take them both.
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- Me, too.
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- You know, that's a
really good question.
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[dramatic music playing]
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- DAVID: The next day
coincidentally, I was having lunch with Stan Lee.
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- STAN: I have a
friend who's an agent.
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And he said to me one day,
"Hey, why don't you do a book f Superman and Spider-Man?"
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And I said,
"You're stupid."
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We've had so much mail
from readers who've said,
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"Gee, we love Superman,
and we love Spider-Man.
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Wouldn't it be great
if they got together?"
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- This is an idea that
every single person who's ever read a comic has had.
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"Why can't Superman meet The
Hulk? Why can't Batman punch Thor?"
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This is something that
people have dreamed about
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for years and
years and years.
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- In 1970, I went to my first
comic book convention in New York.
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There was a panel where a kid
got up and asked DC and Marvel,
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"Will there ever be a comic
book where Superman meets Spider-Man?"
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For the next five
minutes, they told that kid how stupid he was
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to think that they
could ever do that.
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We're two separate companies.
We don't intermingle.
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We're in competition with
each other. That's ridiculous.
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- REED: Stan Lee's position
was, "Well, we're beating DC in sales.
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They're old hat. They have
all these old aged characters.
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We're the hot, young thing.
Why would I wanna team up with Superman?"
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- It's just that we take the
work a little more seriously.
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But don't you go telling that to
DC. - INTERVIEWER: Okay.
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- Superman, at that stage,
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was one of the three most
famous fictitious characters in the world.
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- At many times, comics
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were considered finished,
over with. - INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm.
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- Well, Superman has
outlived Titans. In fact, he's stronger than ever.
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- ROY: So, to have Superman
versus Spider-Man was just wonderful,
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because to me, right away,
that meant somehow
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it's like Spider-Man
is coming of age.
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He's now on a plane with
Superman, and they're, they're kind of admitting it.
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- They are the two arch-rivals
in the comic industry.
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- DAVID: Carmine was the
boss, and Stan was the boss on the other side.
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I took it to the powers that be
at both companies.
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- So, I was talking to Stan,
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and he says
you guys would never go for it.
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- Of course, he would.
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I mean, the last
thing he'd wanna see
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is their most prized character,
eh, get destroyed by Superman. [laughs]
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If Superman so much as shook
Spidey's hand, he'd crush it. Mm.
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- As a comic fan,
I'm the first guy that goes,
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"How are Spider-Man and Superman
really gonna fight?"
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- You put Superman against
anybody and Superman's gonna win.
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He can just stop the
rotation of the Earth,
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and then, you're
basically screwed.
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- STAN: Dave said, "Well,
suppose I talk to Carmine, and he okays it?"
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I said, "Sure, I'll okay it
'cause Carmine never will."
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- So, Stan says we'd
never go for it, huh?
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- You know Stan, bada-bing,
bada-boop, bada-beep.
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- Yeah. Stan's world.
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- Carmine was always trying
to one-up Marvel in some way.
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- I think Carmine thought,
"Well, we wanna maybe get some of those Marvel readers."
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"We should do it."
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- GERRY: It was a kind
of game of chicken
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where they both ended up
crashing into each other.
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- I had enough juice
with both companies
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so that they were willing
to throw the dice.
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Little did I know, that was the
easy part. Much harder to put the story together.
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- It would seem like with the
two publishing companies, DC, and Marvel,
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that there'd be so many problems
to overcome.
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- There was. The
problems were numerable.
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- Stan, listen, Superman has
to be named first on the cover.
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- We need a few ground rules,
okay. They both have to be the same size.
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- The name of the book is
Superman-- - Neither of them can win or lose.
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- He's been around longer...
- They can...
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- ...he's more legendary. - They
can hit each other, of course.
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- DAVID: Our first
meeting was very testy.
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Veins in people's
necks bulging.
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Ecumenical Councils
in the Middle Ages
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weren't as divisive
as these two groups.
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- You're basically, you're
in a... a no-win situation.
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- If Spider-Man got to punch
Superman, Superman got to punch Spider-Man.
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They had to do it exactly 50-50.
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- PERSON: It's a terrible
balance you gotta hit
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because you can't favor one
or the other. Both companies were watching it carefully.
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- There was a number of
times where I was sure it was just gonna blow up.
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It never happened because nobody
had ever done anything like this before.
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It finally ended up with the
DC people saying, "Screw it."
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They were walking out of the
room. So, I went, "Whoa! Wait, sit down.
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How about it's just a
big fake. They're not really fighting each other."
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- Heroes meet, fight,
and then make common cause.
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- And at the end, they shake
hands. Everyone's a winner.
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- That's just fine.
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- CARMINE: This thing
we concurred up and down the line.
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- STAN: And before I
knew it, we had a book.
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- IVAN: It was
very special.
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It was special in a way that I'm
not sure there's anything like that now.
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- MICHAEL: For me, Superman
versus the Amazing Spider-Man
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is my desert island comic.
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It is so special. It's
a dream come true.
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- REED: When this thing
appeared on newsstands,
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to a lot of people who were
buying comics, it was a complee surprise.
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- A magazine that rocked the
comic book industry recently.
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There it is. Superman
takes on Spider-Man.
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- REED: Seeing these
two characters together
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blew their mind. They could
not believe it was happening.
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- REPORTER: The collectors
are buying up this book all over.
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The book, which is now
selling for two dollars,
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is selling up five and six
dollars. They can't find it.
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- NARRATOR: DC and Marvel's
first official team-up was a shared success.
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[phone ringing]
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But it may never have made
the shelves if it weren't for one final compromise.
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- ACTOR: Stan,
about the handshake.
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I had one more idea
to make it a bit more realistic.
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- The image of Superman and
Spider-Man shaking hands is iconic.
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- NARRATOR: But Carmine
wasn't going to let it go
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without one last reminder
who had the stronger grip.
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- GERRY: Carmine was
extremely competitive.
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I don't think Stan
really cared... [chuckles]
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...one way or the
other, to be honest.
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- Well, you're a real son of a
bitch, Carmine, you know that.
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- Excelsior! [laughs]
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- NARRATOR: Superman versus
Spider-Man was a landmark comic
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that pulled off the
seemingly impossible:
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getting two rivals to come
together for the greater good f their fans.
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Aside from their brief
moment of harmony,
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their need to compete with
each other continued to push te industry forward.
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But little did they know,
a record-breaking winter
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and an injection
of new blood
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was about to dramatically
change life at DC Comics.
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00:07:01,909 --> 00:07:06,459
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