Cover art by John Romita Sr.
While slinging his way across the New York skyline in The Amazing Spider-Man #62, the famed comic book superhero suddenly finds himself falling when something slices through his webbing. Before he can react, another form of webbing wraps around him and slows his descent to the street below. The mesh that now entangles him is not from a spider, however, but long strands of red hair belonging to the Inhuman named Medusa.
It was Medusa’s flying mono-cruiser that accidently cut the synthetic webbings of Spider-Man and caused him to fall. She then stopped his descent to not only save him but scold the superhero for interrupting her mission.
“He who rules the proud and powerful Inhumans has sent me here to learn whether the rest of mankind still fears us or whether we may rejoin the unthinking, suspicious human race,” Medusa tells Spider-Man, “Costumed adventurers such as yourself are not typical of the rest of humanity. I seek the reaction of the average man – something you could never be.”
Medusa continues on her mission and the journey takes her past the windows of the Madison Avenue offices of Heavenly Hair Spray. Company president Montgomery Bliss sees Medusa and realizes that the Inhuman with the flowing red hair would be the perfect model for the company’s next advertising campaign. Bliss thus orders his assistant Wilberforce to track her down and escort her to his office.
David Bailey came from the “scruffy” East End, a Bohemian who dressed in Cuban-heeled boots, jeans, and leather jacket in what was still a “stuffy” London at the time. Despite his appearance – or maybe because of it – photographer John French hired Bailey for his studio in 1959, which eventually led to an introduction with the picture editor of Daily Express. Bailey snapped a photo for the newspaper of model Pauline Stone wearing a dark skirt and bright turtleneck, crouching on leave-covered grass while watching a squirrel nibbling on a nut. Compared to other photographs from the era, it had a “freshness” to it and led to the editor of Vogue magazine offering Baily a full-time job.
As Shawn Levy notes in his 2002 book Ready, Steady, Go: The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London, most fashion photographers at the time used their models as props. David Bailey combined a sense of movement and energy that humanized and transformed his models into actual people. In the spring of 1961, he even ditched his tripod in favor of a handheld 35-mm Pentax camera that allowed him to rapidly circle his subject while snapping photos instead of meticulously setting up each shot as was the norm. It also enabled Bailey to take photographs wherever and whenever the mood struck him, adding to the impromptu feel of his work.
Medusa has finally found a busy street corner where she can gauge reaction to her sudden appearance. Wilberforce finds her there and – after making his way through the crowd that has gathered – offers Medusa a job as the “Heavenly Hair Spray Girl.” While the Inhuman has no need for money, she realizes that working amongst humans could prove useful and accepts the offer.
A photography set is quickly constructed at the offices of Heavenly Hair Spray and Medusa whips her hair around while the photographer hides from the onslaught. Montgomery Bliss is pleased, noting, “She’s perfect – that savage excitement is just what we want. She’ll be a sensation!”
Eventually Medusa gets bored with being a model, however, and lashes out at the expensive equipment in frustration. Bliss tries to calm her, telling her to take the rest of the day off, but Medusa replies that there is nothing more for her to learn at Heavenly Hair Spray and will not be returning.
Although the brief photo shoot did produce a number of usable photos, Montgomery Bliss is not satisfied, declaring that he “planned to get a million dollars’ worth of publicity out of that female and we’ll do it yet.” Noticing that Spider-Man is back on patrol, Bliss orders his assistant Wilberforce to make the studio appear in even worse shape than when Medusa left. He then calls for help from his upper floor window.
Spider-Man hears the cries of distress and slings his way to Heavenly Hair Spray. “It was Medusa!” Montgomery Bliss shouts when Spider-Man sees all the damage. “She must be mad. She said this is just a sample of what she’ll do to the city. She must be caught, stopped. You can do it, Spider-Man!”
In 1962, Vogue came up with the idea of using the same female model, albeit wearing different outfits, in a series of photographs spotlighting the men who were making a cultural splash in London at the time, such as Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and David Frost. Editor Claire Rendlesham disagreed with David Bailey’s choice for the model, a newcomer named Jean Shrimpton. The photographer argued vehemently enough for Rendlesham to relent, although he did agree to reshoot the entire project with a different model if the photos were deemed subpar.
They weren’t and instead launched the career of the world’s first supermodel.
“Prior to then, a model was an anonymous creature,” journalist Peter Evans explains in Ready, Steady, Go. “One or two might have a name but mostly because they were society girls. The top models were either married to or were themselves aristocrats – they could afford to do it because it wasn’t a highly paid job.” That changed after the photos David Bailey took of Jean Shrimpton appeared in Vogue.
Although Baily coached Shrimpton on what clothes to wear and how a model should act, he left it up to her to smooth out the edges and uncover her own natural identity. “Jean had an appeal that was kind of democratic,” Bailey said of Shrimpton. “Everybody liked her. Culturally, she had no barriers. She wasn’t the girl next door. She was the girl you wished lived next door.”
In regard to his own abilities, Baily noted, “If you look at my fashion pictures, there’s a personality to the girls. The girl is always the most important, then the dress. If she’s not looking stunning, then I figure the dress doesn’t either. The girl is the catalyst that brings it all together.”
After Spider-Man leaves the offices of Heavenly Hair Spray, Montgomery Bliss instructs his assistant Wilberforce to have cameramen positioned on the rooftops – he plans on photographing the upcoming battle between Spider-Man and Medusa and then use the photos for his new advertising campaign. It doesn’t take long before the superhero finds the Inhuman, and the two begin to fight directly in front of a billboard for Heavenly Hair Spray. Spider-Man tries to reason with Medusa but she is not interested in talking. Eventually, however, she becomes bored with fighting.
“Medusa is ready for but one thing alone,” she tells her opponent. “To return to her people, to her world of sanity. From what I have seen of the conduct of humanity, never shall we dwell among you. To you and your kind, we leave this world of violence.”
Now Spider-Man is even more confused as the words don’t sound like those of a mad woman intent on destroying New York City as Montgomery Bliss had claimed. When Medusa counters with her own confusion, replying that she hasn’t seen Bliss since she quit Heavenly Hair Spray, Spider-Man is able to connect the dots.
“He wanted you as a living testimonial to his hair goo,” he tells Medusa. “But you cut out. Then he tried to trick us into battling, hoping he could cash in on the publicity.” Medusa does not like being duped and vows revenge, but Spider-Man convinces her to return to her fellow Inhumans and let him handle it instead.
The next day, Montgomery Bliss is thrilled by the media coverage generated by the fight between Spider-Man and Medusa – that is until Wilberforce rushes into his office and announces that “disaster has struck.” Spider-Man told the media that Medusa was both wild and uncontrollable, and the backlash against her has fallen on Heavenly Hair Spray as well.
“Now nobody will buy a hair spray that she had anything to do with,” Wilberforce explains. “The image is all wrong.” The news is even worse for Bliss, as the company’s board of directors have voted to replace him with Wilberforce. “It’s all the fault of that rotten web-slinger,” Bliss cries out, to which Wilberforce responds, “Personally, I’ll be his fan for life.”
Anthony Letizia