In “When We First Met”, we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, “Avengers Assemble!” or the first appearance of Batman’s giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man’s face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
Reader Mark G. wrote in to ask a bit of a strange question, in that it is more of a regular question than a When We First Met specific suggestion, but it was close enough that I figured I’d count it. He wanted to know if they ever explained how no one ever recognized Peter Parker’s voice coming from Spider-Man’s mask, even when people were really close to him, like J. Jonah Jameson has been around Spider-Man a lot over the years and is always trying to expose his secret identity, and yet he never seems to notice that Spider-Man sounds just like his loyal photographer, Peter Parker, like when they were trapped together in Amazing Spider-Man #52…
The way I see it, though, this is more a question of when was the first time that we learned about what Spider-Man’s mask can do, and the answer to that is Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, where there is extensive look into Spider-Man’s powers and his gear for the very first time. These pages would be reprinted many times over the years, as they’re such helpful tools.
In any event, sure enough, in the section on Spider-Man’s mask, it establishes that his mask does, in fact, muffle his voice so that it is unrecognizable…
So there you go, Mark, that’s how no one knows who Spider-Man is just by listening to his voice!
If anyone else has a suggestion for a notable comic book first that you would like to see featured, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!