Spider-Man continues to recover from the sudden death of his girlfriend Gwen Stacy over the next twelve months of his life. He slowly comes to see Mary Jane Watson less as a friend offering comfort in his time of grief and more as a potential lover in her own right. In order to stave off the feelings of loneliness that seem inherent in his double life as a college student and a superhero, Peter Parker makes an effort to build friendships with fellow Midtown High alumni Flash Thompson and Liz Allan, new neighbor Glory Grant, and his colleagues at the Daily Bugle. Principal creators Gerry Conway and Ross Andru (with some help from Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and Jim Mooney) try to keep things fresh by maintaining a balance between familiar villains and new threats, even introducing legacy versions of classic foes Mysterio and the Green Goblin. All this puts Spider-Man on a firm footing going forward.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Continuing on with... The True History of the Amazing Spider-Man!
January 1967 – Spider-Man intervenes to stop a mugging one night in New York City, only to discover that the intended victim is the wizard Xandu, whom he last encountered about three and a half years ago. Xandu instantly hypnotizes the wall-crawler, and the next thing he knows, Spidey finds himself alongside Doctor Strange in a mind-bending mystical dimension. Xandu has once again empowered himself with the magical Wand of Watoomb, which enables him to quickly defeat the two heroes by turning them into living marionettes. Xandu boasts of his spell that prevents either man from using his powers against him, but Doctor Strange casts a counter-spell that enables them to use each other’s powers instead. Thus, while Spider-Man staggers their foe with bolts of eldritch energy, Doctor Strange covers Xandu in webbing and punches him in the face. Doctor Strange then transports them all back to the villain’s dilapidated lair in Manhattan, where Xandu is distraught over losing the Wand of Watoomb since he mainly wanted it to rouse his fiancée, Melinda, from a deathlike sleep he accidentally placed her in while practicing spells many years ago. Doctor Strange examines Melinda with his magic amulet and discovers she is actually dead, though Xandu’s spell has preserved her body. With this news, Xandu suffers a complete emotional breakdown and weeps over his lost love. Still hurting from the death of Gwen Stacy last year, Spider-Man is sympathetic. Doctor Strange retrieves a magic crystal that Spider-Man stole from him earlier while under Xandu’s control, and the two heroes make a discreet exit.
Peter Parker starts his senior year at Empire State University, a full semester behind his cohort. Like Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn starts the second semester of his junior year. Peter and Harry are still sharing their Lexington Avenue apartment, but they are not on speaking terms and rarely see each other. Vietnam veteran Flash Thompson starts the second semester of his sophomore year. Peter and Mary Jane continue to see each other socially, and Peter is relieved that his elderly aunt, May Parker, has decided to continue staying with Mary Jane’s aunt, Anna Watson, in an apartment in Queens rather than living alone in the house where Peter grew up. Every so often, Peter forgoes web-swinging as Spider-Man to instead drive the Spider-Mobile around Manhattan or the outer boroughs to fulfill his contract with Corona Motors.
February 1967 – While web-swinging through the city one night, Spider-Man investigates a break-in at the American Museum of Natural History and discovers evidence that his old foe, the Molten Man, has stolen some meteorite fragments. After changing back into Peter Parker, he runs into his old high school crush, Liz Allan, outside his apartment building. Liz is distraught, so Peter takes her to Mary Jane’s nearby apartment, where she falls asleep on the couch, overcome with exhaustion. Mary Jane remembers meeting Liz a few years ago and agrees to look after her while Peter checks in at the offices of the Daily Bugle. Peter intends to dig up some information on the Molten Man, but while chatting with secretary Betty Brant, he is sent by city editor Joe “Robbie” Robertson to meet up with reporter Ned Leeds at a fleabag hotel on the lower west side. When he arrives, Spider-Man finds the building has been wrecked by an explosion and Ned has been bludgeoned. Suddenly, the Molten Man attacks him, and Spider-Man quickly realizes his webbing is no match for the intense heat his foe’s body is generating. Crashing into a fire hydrant, the Molten Man creates a thick cloud of steam to cover his escape. Spider-Man rushes Ned to the nearest emergency room, where, after changing back into Peter Parker, he learns that both he and Ned are suffering from radiation poisoning from the meteor fragments. The Molten Man then invades the hospital, intent on killing Ned, but despite feeling sick, Spidey manages to drive him off. Returning to Mary Jane’s apartment, Peter is shocked to learn that the Molten Man is Liz’s stepbrother and she’s been helping take care of him since he was confined to a hospital after being captured by Spider-Man three and a half years ago. The Molten Man’s condition has been slowly degenerating, Liz reveals, and he’s escaped from the hospital to try to find a way to cure himself.
The next day, despite fighting off waves of nausea, Peter follows some leads provided by his colleagues at the Daily Bugle and pieces together the Molten Man’s plans. This leads Spider-Man to the New York Hall of Science in Queens, where he catches the Molten Man trying to steal another meteorite, which confirms his suspicion that the Molten Man is trying to recreate the liquid metal alloy he originally developed with Professor Spencer Smythe. The clash does not go well for the web-slinger, and the Molten Man gets away. Undaunted, Spider-Man follows him onto a subway train, where they continue their battle until tumbling off the train as it crosses a bridge over the East River. The Molten Man is in a murderous rage since Spider-Man has repeatedly interfered with his attempts to stabilize his body chemistry. He grabs Spider-Man by the ankle, causing a severe burn, and slams him into a steel bridge support. Realizing he’s no match for the villain due to his radiation sickness, Spidey flings the bag containing all the stolen items off the bridge. Horrified, the Molten Man dives into the river after it, causing a huge burst of steam. When the Molten Man does not resurface, Spider-Man assumes he has drowned. Over the next week or so, Peter recovers from his illness and is relieved when Ned is finally released from the hospital.
March 1967 – Peter is troubled when Joe Robertson tells him about a string of strange, vampire-like homicides along the Eastern Seaboard that suggests the perpetrator is heading toward New York. Based on a photo taken by an amateur shutterbug in Jersey City, New Jersey, Robertson believes the serial killer to be Michael Morbius, the Nobel-winning chemist who disappeared at sea a couple years ago. Peter knows that Morbius has in fact become something akin to a vampire but is surprised to learn he is on the loose, since the X-Men said they were going to cure him. He realizes he’ll have to try to recapture Morbius if and when the monster reaches NYC. Suddenly, J. Jonah Jameson interrupts them to congratulate Peter on being nominated for photojournalist of the year. Being the first he’s heard of it, Peter is stunned by the news. The very next night, Peter spots Morbius, the Living Vampire running across the ESU campus alongside the Man-Wolf. He quickly changes into Spider-Man and goes after them, wondering how the Man-Wolf retrieved his moonstone pendant from the bottom of the Hudson River. Considering the werewolf to be the greater threat, Spider-Man goes after him first and manages to trap him in a web hastily spun in a wooded glade. Acting on a hunch, Spidey then swings over to the lab of Professor Harold Ward, the head of hematological research, who is developing an experimental blood-transfusion device. When Morbius doesn’t show up, Spider-Man goes to check on the Man-Wolf and finds he’s been cut free of the webbing. Realizing Morbius wants him chasing the Man-Wolf all over the city, Spider-Man makes the tough call to return to Professor Ward’s laboratory instead. There, he and Ward assemble a mockup of the blood-transfusion device in order to trick the vampire. Sure enough, Morbius arrives about an hour later and attacks Ward. Spider-Man fights with him, making sure that the mockup is completely destroyed. In despair, Morbius dives out the window and disappears into the darkness. Unable to locate his vampiric foe, Spidey heads over to J. Jonah Jameson’s apartment and says he has reason to believe that astronaut John Jameson has become the Man-Wolf again. The cantankerous publisher angrily insists that his son John has been with him all evening. Confused, Spider-Man offers both an apology and a warning, then spends the rest of the night on a fruitless search for the werewolf. He starts to wonder if someone other than John Jameson could have fished the moonstone pendant out of the river and become another Man-Wolf. In the days to follow, Spider-Man can find no sign of either of his monstrous foes. The following week, Peter learns from Robertson that he didn’t win the photojournalist-of-the-year award. Though disappointed, Peter tries to keep a sense of perspective about it.
April 1967 – Spider-Man teams up with Hawkeye to investigate a gang of robotic thieves that stole a truckload of electronic components and took it to an estate up in Westchester County. The wall-crawler realizes that Hawkeye has recruited him so as to not have to ask his former teammates in the Avengers for help. Shortly after arriving at the estate, the two superheroes are captured, whereupon they learn that the robots serve the “living computer” known as Quasimodo. The artificial intelligence has devised a mad plan to take control of humanity by linking together all the world’s computers, thus creating a sort of worldwide web of electronic networks. Knowing that such a thing could wreck civilization, Spider-Man and Hawkeye break free and short-circuit the entire complex. The robots are destroyed, and Quasimodo is left completely inert, his mind apparently disintegrated by feedback. After shutting off the main power, Spider-Man and Hawkeye depart, dismissing Quasimodo as a machine with delusions of grandeur.
May 1967 – While on his way to visit Aunt May, Spider-Man stops to investigate a burglary at Faversham’s, a jewelry store at E. 47th Street and Park Avenue. In the shadows, the burglar attacks Spidey and effortlessly shrugs off his webbing before escaping out a window. Spider-Man follows, only to slip on a large sheet of ice covering the ground despite the air temperature being above 60° F. Stymied, Spider-Man continues on to Anna Watson’s apartment. After changing into Peter Parker, he finds his family physician, Dr. Bromwell, is making a house call. Gravely, Bromwell informs Peter that Aunt May has contracted a new strain of the flu virus that is highly resistant to treatment. Given her frail constitution, Aunt May’s prognosis is poor. Horrified, Peter insists there must be something they can do. Bromwell notes ruefully that a new medication is being brought into the country by its creator, a Dr. A.J. Maxfield, but will likely arrive too late to save Aunt May since Maxfield refuses to fly and is crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner, the S.S. Wendell. Desperately, Peter changes back into Spider-Man and swings over to the Baxter Building to borrow an aircraft from the Fantastic Four. He finds the Human Torch at home, who initially assumes the Spider-Mobile needs maintenance and acts like a jerk. After Spider-Man yells at him, the Torch agrees to help and escorts him to the team’s vehicle hangar. Grateful, the web-slinger tells the Torch about his strange encounter at the jewelry store and suggests he check it out. Within minutes, Spider-Man launches into the sky aboard a brand-new compact, high-speed aircraft and rockets out over the ocean.
Reaching the S.S. Wendell within fifteen minutes, Spider-Man leaves the aircraft in hover mode, concealed within an artificial cloud, and boards the ocean liner. After changing into Peter Parker, he accidentally bumps into some kind of European aristocrat wearing a black opera cape, whom he can barely see in the shadows. Peter apologizes and receives a curt reply in a thick accent. Minutes later, Peter discovers that a costume ball is in progress. Hearing a woman scream, he rushes over to investigate and finds her passed out on the deck with two small puncture wounds on her neck. Worried that Morbius may have struck again, Peter takes the woman to see the ship’s doctor. He is confronted by the captain, who suspects he may be a stowaway, but Peter is evasive. A good-looking couple enters the cabin—a man dressed as a Renaissance minstrel and a woman in a “sexy Viking” costume—one of whom is apparently Dr. Maxfield. However, they are accosted by Maggia gangsters who knock out the woman and kidnap the man while holding Peter and the captain at gunpoint. Peter then manages to slip away, changes back into Spider-Man, and captures the gangsters. The kidnapped man flees the scene, so Spider-Man starts searching the ship for him, assuming him to be A.J. Maxfield. Several minutes later, Spider-Man saves the man when he falls overboard and then knocks out one of the gangsters who’s gone insane and is raving about monsters. The man in the Italianate costume thanks Spider-Man for saving his life, whereupon the hero requests he turn over his new flu medicine. However, the man reveals that he is the ship’s doctor; the woman in the “sexy Viking” costume is Dr. Maxfield. Quickly, Spider-Man explains to Maxfield that an elderly woman on the mainland will likely die without the new medication. Ashamed that her aerophobia could lead to the death of a patient, Maxfield makes immediate preparations to fly the rest of the way to New York with the wall-crawler. About fifteen minutes later, Spider-Man drops Maxfield off at Anna Watson’s apartment, where Dr. Bromwell is waiting. He then takes the Fantastic Four’s aircraft back to the Baxter Building before returning as Peter Parker. To everyone’s great relief, Aunt May responds well to the treatment and makes a speedy recovery.
Peter joins Mary Jane, Flash, and Liz on a boat tour up the Hudson River only to have it immediately hijacked by a trio of Latin American terrorists. Their leader, dressed in a red-and-black costume, calls himself the Tarantula. Several members of the crew attack the terrorists, giving Peter the chance to change into Spider-Man amidst the chaos. However, while saving a crewmember who’s been knocked overboard, Spidey runs out of web-fluid and finds himself stranded on the George Washington Bridge as the boat continues heading upriver with his friends still in danger. Wishing he had the Spider-Mobile handy, Spider-Man races back to his apartment to replace his empty web-fluid cartridges. He then manages to return to the hijacked boat by hitching a ride on a police helicopter. While fighting with the Tarantula, Spidey discovers that the large spikes on the villain’s boots are coated with a debilitating poison. Things go from bad to worse when the Punisher suddenly turns up and assumes Spider-Man is in league with the hijackers. Taking advantage of the distraction, the Tarantula and his henchmen escape aboard their own helicopter with the loot they’ve stolen from the passengers. Realizing he was wrong about Spider-Man, the Punisher is furious and arranges to meet the web-slinger at midnight at the Cloisters museum in Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights. He then dives into the river and swims away. As the passengers press in around him, Spider-Man also leaps into the water, circles around to the other side of the boat, climbs aboard, changes back into Peter Parker, jumps overboard again, and starts yelling for help. As crewmen haul him back on board, Peter hopes his elaborate ruse will safeguard his secret identity, though Flash seems especially skeptical of his story. The boat returns immediately to port, where Peter checks in with the Daily Bugle before heading home to take a much-needed shower. While waiting for his late-night meeting with the Punisher, Peter does some laundry and washes his costume.
At midnight, Spider-Man rendezvouses with the Punisher at the museum, where the vigilante has set up a temporary base of operations in a disused storage room. The Punisher informs Spider-Man that the Tarantula, whose real name is Anton Miguel Rodriquez, started out as a revolutionary in the South American nation of Delvadia until he switched sides to become a state-sanctioned fascist “superhero.” His lawless behavior eventually forced Rodriquez to flee the country, whereupon he entered the United States illegally and made contacts in the criminal underworld. Less than a month ago, Rodriquez hatched his plan to hold the tour boat for ransom. The Punisher has since discovered the Tarantula’s hideout near the northwest corner of Central Park and recruits the web-slinger to help bring him to justice. Arriving at the dilapidated building, Spider-Man is shocked when the Punisher storms inside and shoots up the place with a submachine gun, but he is kept too busy to intervene when the Tarantula flees into the park across the street. The ensuing fight between Spider-Man and the Tarantula carries them through the West 110th Street Playground to the banks of Harlem Meer, where the Tarantula is defeated. The Punisher then turns up with the two henchmen from the hijacking, who are unconscious. Relieved that the Punisher doesn’t seem to have killed anyone, Spider-Man lets him go. After webbing up the three crooks, the wall-crawler phones in a tip to the police and heads for home.
Peter finishes up the spring semester but is frustrated when he finds he has failed a couple of his classes, including advanced trigonometry. He knows his activities as Spider-Man are undermining his academic career but feels he has no choice but to continue trying to balance the two. He is depressed when most of the students who entered college with him graduate and move on with their lives. To cheer Peter up, Mary Jane, Flash, and Liz throw a party to celebrate his 22nd birthday.
June 1967 – Peter is saddened to learn that Captain America has retired, having idolized the star-spangled hero since he was a young boy. Soon after, when an alley fight with four muggers goes awry, Spider-Man is rescued by Brother Voodoo, a mysterious superhero based in New Orleans who has come north in pursuit of the leader of a murderous cult. They rush the muggers’ intended victim, an aspiring actress, to the hospital, as she was badly wounded during the fracas. There, she tells them about auditioning for an off-Broadway play about voodoo just before being attacked, so the two heroes head over to the theater to investigate. Brother Voodoo enters through the front door while Spider-Man looks for a skylight. By the time the web-slinger finds his way into the building, Brother Voodoo is already brawling with the cultists and their leader, a man called Moondog. Suddenly, the two heroes are overwhelmed by searing pain with no apparent cause, and when they regain their senses, they find themselves about to be burned at the stake on the theater stage. As Moondog sets the kindling on fire, Spider-Man and Brother Voodoo break free and renew their attack. Seeing the tide has turned, Moondog climbs up to a catwalk, intending to escape to the rooftops, but Brother Voodoo stops him. To Spider-Man’s horror, Brother Voodoo throws Moondog off the catwalk, clearly meaning to kill him. He quickly spins a web to catch the villain, hardly noticing a strange nimbus of light that briefly envelops Moondog as he falls. When he climbs out of the web, Moondog seems disoriented and claims to be an accountant named Wally Bevins. Spider-Man scoffs at this obvious ruse, but Brother Voodoo assures him that Bevins is telling the truth—Moondog is actually a “loa,” a voodoo spirit that had possessed Bevins down in New Orleans. Rather than allow itself to perish with its host, the loa fled Bevins’s body, as Brother Voodoo had hoped. Creeped out by all the voodoo stuff, Spider-Man heads home, leaving Brother Voodoo to deal with the defeated cultists.
A robbery at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum leads Spider-Man into a street battle with a gang of men in strange uniforms brandishing shuriken and nunchaku. Despite being unfamiliar with such weapons, Spider-Man still defeats them with relative ease. He intimidates one of the men into revealing that his employer, a master criminal called “Shang-Chi,” is planning to destroy the Ravenswood Generating Station in Queens while smaller teams of henchmen, like his, stage heists around the city to keep the police busy. Suddenly, the gang members are all electrocuted by their own uniforms. Sickened by their gruesome deaths, Spider-Man realizes that this Shang-Chi must be some kind of monster. After a quick stop at the Daily Bugle, where he learns that a Chinese man named Shang-Chi allegedly murdered a Doctor Petrie in London a couple months ago, Spider-Man makes his way to the power station. No sooner has the wall-crawler entered the generator room than Shang-Chi attacks him, accusing Spider-Man of being a murderer. The young martial-arts expert proves to be a surprisingly formidable opponent, and they eventually figure out they’ve both been played for suckers—their fight is just another diversionary tactic engineered by the actual criminal mastermind, Shang-Chi’s father. Agreeing to team up, Shang-Chi leads Spidey to a meeting with a secret agent who informs them that Shang-Chi’s father is hatching some diabolical plan atop the Empire State Building. The two heroes race over there, where they get into a fight with a sumo wrestler in a stairwell. Once the wrestler is defeated, they make their way to the roof, where they confront a gaunt man dressed as an old-time Chinese mandarin and his numerous henchmen. More of Shang-Chi’s associates arrive by helicopter, leading to a fierce gun battle. One of the commandos, a brawny, balding Englishman, confirms to Spider-Man that the man in the mandarin’s robes is Shang-Chi’s father, but he has slipped away in the confusion. Hoping to beat the express elevator to street level, Spider-Man and Shang-Chi leap off the building and land in a hastily spun net of webbing. However, when the elevator doors open in the lobby, the car is mysteriously empty. An elderly English gentleman with a bit of a limp arrives on the scene and, to Spider-Man’s surprise, identifies Shang-Chi’s father as Dr. Fu Manchu, whom the web-slinger had always thought was merely a fictional character. Hearing police sirens approaching, Spider-Man shakes hands with Shang-Chi and makes a hasty exit.
Spider-Man stops an apparent cat-burglar dressed as a cat from getting away with his loot by webbing up the large satchel he is carrying. Suddenly, though, Daredevil appears out of nowhere and kicks Spider-Man in the head while loudly announcing some bitter rivalry between them. Confused, Spider-Man defends himself forcefully, allowing the cat-burglar to escape. Daredevil then stops the fight, explaining that he was following the crook, Cat-Man, back to the hideout of his gang, which is known as the Unholy Three. The satchel contains the ransom money for a kidnapped girl named Gail Callan, daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Regretting his interference, Spidey retrieves the satchel and discovers a clump of dirt stuck to it. Daredevil somehow determines that the dirt came from Coney Island and invites the wall-crawler to join him in rescuing Gail. The two superheroes then make their way to Steeplechase Park, an amusement park that closed down a few years ago, where they find Cat-Man, Bird-Man, and Ape-Man holding Gail prisoner inside an old bait shack on a small pier. While Daredevil keeps the Unholy Three busy, Spider-Man sneaks through a back window and rescues Gail. However, Bird-Man comes after him, intent on retrieving his victim. Spidey easily evades Bird-Man’s clumsy attack and tears the mechanical wings off his costume. After webbing the crook to a lamppost, Spider-Man swings over to see if Daredevil needs help, leaving Gail on a nearby rooftop. He finds that Daredevil has defeated Cat-Man, but Ape-Man grabs Gail and carries her to the top of a roller coaster, threatening to kill her unless he is allowed to escape. While Daredevil keeps Ape-Man distracted by trying to negotiate with him, Spidey sends the roller coaster cars crashing into the villain from behind. Ape-Man drops the terrified Gail, but Daredevil catches her. Once Cat-Man and Ape-Man are securely webbed up next to Bird-Man, Spider-Man departs, trusting Daredevil to deal with the authorities.
July 1967 – While studying his advanced trigonometry textbook, Peter hears a news bulletin on the radio saying that Spider-Man just tried to break into the Manhattan House of Detention for Men, a.k.a. “the Tombs.” Realizing an impostor is at large in the city, he heads over to the prison, where he finds J. Jonah Jameson and Ned Leeds arriving for a press conference with the warden. Suddenly, the Hulk smashes through the wall and storms into a high-security cell block, ignoring the guards’ gunfire. Peter changes into Spider-Man but is unable to prevent the Hulk from freeing one of the convicts. A couple blocks away, Spider-Man finds the Hulk and the convict apparently talking to Rick Jones. However, “Rick” is wearing a Spider-Man costume under his trenchcoat, raising the web-slinger’s suspicions. With a thin strand of webbing, Spidey yanks off the Rick Jones facemask, revealing the impostor to be his old foe the Chameleon. Enraged, Hulk grabs the Chameleon and shakes him so violently that Spider-Man feels compelled to intervene. Just then, they are surrounded by police squad cars and armed prison guards. The Chameleon pushes the convict into his car and drives off, running over a policeman. Spider-Man stops the car by spinning a large web across the street, whereupon the Chameleon jumps out and shoots at the nearest cop. The officer shoots back, hitting the Chameleon in the shoulder. The convict then lunges at the cop, only to get shot in the chest. Spider-Man watches in horror as the convict dies in the grieving Chameleon’s arms. He tries in vain to explain concepts like friendship and self-sacrifice to the bewildered Hulk. However, when they overhear a radio bulletin reporting that Doctor Strange and Nighthawk are fighting the Wrecking Crew at a Midtown South construction site, the green behemoth leaps away to help his friends. Jameson demands that the police arrest the wall-crawler, but they have their hands full, so Spider-Man webs Jameson’s mouth shut and swings away.
Peter is baffled by a midsummer snowstorm in New York City but enjoys playing in the snow with Mary Jane. Reports of bizarre weather phenomena come in from all over, the cause remaining a mystery. Though Peter and Mary Jane frequently flirt with each other, he’s convinced their relationship is strictly platonic. Later, Peter is shocked to wake up and discover that everyone in New York City has been unconscious for two days. Reports of strange occurrences start coming in from around the globe, but then the Fantastic Four announce that it was all part of an alien invasion plot that they have foiled.
August 1967 – After spending a fun Sunday together, Peter and Mary Jane head back to his apartment to play some records on the stereo. Joking about being a “female chauvinist,” Mary Jane takes his key and starts to open the door. Reacting to his spider-sense, Peter shoves Mary Jane away just as a bomb goes off inside the apartment. Despite Peter’s lightning-fast reflexes, they are both knocked out by the blast. He comes to moments later, worried that he’s suffered a concussion, and stumbles into the apartment hoping to call for an ambulance. However, the place has been completely destroyed. Hearing sirens approaching, he quickly gathers up all his Spider-Man paraphernalia, webs it into a ball, and tosses it onto the roof of the building outside his window. As police arrive on the scene, Peter and the still unconscious Mary Jane are rushed to the nearest hospital, where he is questioned about the explosion. Anna Watson soon arrives and sits with Mary Jane for about half an hour before Peter is allowed to go into the room. Feeling woozy, Peter thinks he sees Gwen Stacy’s face superimposed on Mary Jane’s for a moment, as he fears anyone who gets too close to him may be doomed. He is relieved when Mary Jane wakes up briefly, though she soon lapses into unconsciousness again. Needing to get out and do something, Peter changes into Spider-Man and goes to check the warehouse in Chelsea where Norman Osborn stored his Green Goblin gear. Finding the place coated with a thick layer of fake dust, he decides to wait around until after nightfall. A few hours later, his suspicions are confirmed when a new Green Goblin flies into the warehouse on a goblin-glider. As they fight, Spider-Man determines that it must be Harry Osborn behind the grinning mask, intent on getting revenge for the death of his father last year. Harry has obviously been training for several months, though, and wields the Green Goblin’s various weapons like an expert. Eventually gaining the upper hand, Harry is forced to abandon the fight when his suit’s power reserves are depleted. Granting his victim a temporary reprieve, the Green Goblin leaps onto his glider and crashes through a skylight, vowing to reveal Peter’s secret identity to the world before finally killing him. He then flies off, laughing maniacally, but Spider-Man realizes he’s too woozy to give chase. Instead, he heads over to the offices of the Daily Bugle, where Jameson, who’s been unusually irascible lately, threatens to stop buying Peter’s photos altogether. Stressed out, Peter vents his frustrations on Betty Brant, then spends the rest of the night searching in vain for the Green Goblin.
The next evening, Peter visits the hospital again and becomes worried when he finds Flash, Liz, Jameson, and Robertson in the waiting room. He is relieved to learn that Mary Jane is doing much better, and when Aunt May arrives, they go in to visit her together. Despite suffering from tinnitus and other symptoms, Mary Jane is her usual upbeat self. She immediately switches on her bedside radio so Peter can hear a news report about the Green Goblin hijacking a truck on a New Jersey interstate. Claiming it may offer some newsworthy photos, Peter excuses himself to go check it out. On his way out, Peter gives Jameson the brush-off when the publisher tries to smooth things over from their spat yesterday. Hitching a ride on top of various passing cars, Spider-Man arrives at the scene of the hijacking about an hour later, where the New Jersey State Police are still investigating. Snooping around, the wall-crawler confirms that it was the Green Goblin who stole the truck’s cargo. He then makes his way to Norman Osborn’s old townhouse, which has sat vacant since its owner’s death, and finds the Green Goblin there. While ranting obsessively, Harry reveals that he witnessed his father’s final battle with Spider-Man, and that afterwards he quickly removed all evidence that Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin so the world wouldn’t learn of his criminal activities. Spider-Man realizes that that is why the police suspect him of Osborn’s murder—Harry essentially framed him for it. Angered, Spider-Man pounces on the Green Goblin and starts beating on him, but Harry reveals that he’s kidnapped Aunt May, Mary Jane, and Flash and imprisoned them in various sites around Manhattan. One of them is trapped with a small nuclear bomb stolen from the hijacked truck, which is set to go off in six minutes. Each victim is tagged with a spider-tracer that Harry stole from Peter’s room at some point, but, he gloats, Spider-Man will have to choose which one to rescue. If he chooses wrong, the villain cackles, the person most dear to him will die. With no time to lose, Spider-Man knocks the Green Goblin out with a haymaker, and guessing that Harry’s sense of “an eye for an eye” would mean killing Aunt May, he heads uptown. After a nerve-wracking detour to get fresh web-fluid cartridges, Spider-Man arrives at the General Grant National Memorial in Morningside Heights, smashes down the door of the mausoleum, and finds his unconscious aunt inside. Snagging the metal cylinder above her head with a web-line, Spider-Man flings it into the Hudson River. Seconds later, to his great relief, the bomb explodes harmlessly in the water.
After making sure Aunt May is okay, Spider-Man tracks down Mary Jane somewhere in Midtown and returns her to the hospital. He then heads downtown to locate Flash and frees him as well. Back at the Osborn townhouse, Spidey has a chance to catch his breath before Harry regains consciousness. Learning that his scheme has been foiled, the Green Goblin lunges at Spider-Man and tries to choke him to death. In self-defense, Spider-Man slams Harry into a bank of computers, causing a short-circuit that nearly electrocutes his revenge-crazed foe. When the police arrive to investigate complaints about a ruckus in the abandoned townhouse, Spider-Man quickly hides the Green Goblin’s gear and then changes back into Peter Parker. While Harry is being carried out on a stretcher, he comes to and announces that Peter is Spider-Man. The police are intrigued until Harry also claims to be the Green Goblin. Believing Harry is too young to be the notorious super-villain, the police dismiss his accusation as the product of an addled mind. Harry continues raving as he is loaded into an ambulance and driven away. Downhearted, Peter tells the cops that Harry is a friend in need of psychiatric care.
Peter and Harry are evicted from their apartment due to the extensive damage the explosion caused to the building. Knowing he couldn’t afford the rent in any case, Peter does not object. He packs up whatever items are salvageable and then starts phoning friends from college to see if anyone would be willing to put him up for a while. Since most of his cohort has already graduated, he has no luck until, surprisingly, Flash invites Peter to his apartment in Far Rockaway, a relatively isolated part of Queens south of JFK Airport. Peter takes a taxi out there, musing about how he and Flash used to be such bitter rivals in high school, and soon arrives at the unostentatious apartment building. He notes that a demolished neighborhood, where one lone ramshackle house still stands, has left Flash’s building with an unobstructed view of the Atlantic Ocean. Flash welcomes Peter to his humble abode, and they spend the next several hours talking and really getting to know each other for the first time. Peter starts to realize that he and Flash actually have quite a bit in common. Later, after Flash has fallen asleep, Peter decides to change into Spider-Man and check out the neighborhood. He quickly discovers that the lonely, dilapidated house contains a mutant who feeds on human emotions like a psychic parasite. Flash and his neighbors have been drawn toward the house in a trance, but Spider-Man pushes his way through the crowd and beats up the mutant. As a police riot squad shows up, Spider-Man changes back into Peter Parker and meets up with Flash. The mutant suffers an emotional breakdown, so the police take him into custody.
About two weeks later, Spider-Man is caught by surprise when a powerful earthquake suddenly strikes New York City. He saves a blond woman who tumbles out a window by snagging her with a web-line before she hits the ground and is instantly reminded of Gwen’s death. Baffled by the tremors, Spider-Man swings over to ESU, changes into Peter Parker, and joins a group of students questioning a noted seismologist on the faculty. Peter learns that there were actually two focal points for the earthquake, one at the northern end of the island and another at the southern tip. Since this is impossible, Peter suspects the involvement of a super-villain. He changes back into Spider-Man and goes to recruit some help as more tremors rock the city. Unfortunately, neither the Fantastic Four nor the Avengers are at home. Making his way north, Spider-Man comes across what appears to be a robot near Inwood Hill Park using a strange device to fire energy beams into the ground. He tries to put a stop to it, only to be knocked out. When he comes to, he finds himself chained up alongside Hercules in a cavern. Two robots are nearby, also firing energy beams into the ground. Hercules breaks free of his chains and attacks them but is blasted into unconsciousness. To stall for time, Spidey asks the robots what they’re trying to accomplish and discovers they intend to steal Manhattan Island by breaking it loose from its foundations and dragging it out into the Atlantic Ocean using a nuclear submarine, after which they will hold the population for ransom. Spider-Man knows that an island can’t be towed away like an illegally parked car and would not, in any case, fit through the narrow strait between Staten Island and Brooklyn—the robots’ scheme would merely result in the destruction of the city. Having heard enough, Spider-Man breaks free and attacks the robots. With help from Hercules, the robots are quickly overcome and their mad scheme is foiled. To the heroes’ surprise, the robots turn out not to be robots at all but old men inside armored exoskeletons. The men are terrified that they will be killed for failing their mysterious employers, but even so, the heroes turn them over to the authorities. Spider-Man is annoyed when Mayor John V. Lindsay blames him for the damage the quakes caused to Washington Heights and the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. For his part, Hercules is amused by the eternal irrationality of mortals.
The following week, Liz helps Peter find an apartment he can afford, in a somewhat run-down building at 410 Chelsea Street. They go together to look at the place and meet the building superintendent’s wife, Mamie Muggins. After a quick tour, Peter decides the price is right, signs the lease, and pays the deposit. Relieved to have his own place at last, he heads over to the offices of the Daily Bugle to tell Betty Brant and Joe Robertson that Mary Jane has been released from the hospital. Suddenly, a nine-foot-tall man in a bear costume calling himself the Grizzly smashes out of the elevator and starts tearing up the place. Peter ducks into a stairwell and changes into Spider-Man, but before he can confront the costumed menace, he first must save J. Jonah Jameson when the Grizzy throws him out a window. The Grizzly proves to be a very tough customer, so Spider-Man decides to tag him with a spider-tracer and let him go rather than endanger bystanders by prolonging the fight. Several hours later, Spider-Man tracks the signal from the tracer to a well-appointed townhouse near Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Confused, he changes back into Peter Parker and rings the doorbell. A moment later, he is ambushed by the Grizzly and the Jackal and knocked unconscious. Peter comes to in the lobby of the Daily Bugle Building early the next morning and soon discovers the Jackal has fastened a large metal cuff to his right forearm. A recording of the Jackal’s voice warns Peter that if he tampers with the cuff, it will explode and take his arm with it. The villain explains that the cuff contains a tracking device, by which he will follow Peter to his next photoshoot with Spider-Man.
Later that day, Flash drives Peter from Far Rockaway to Chelsea to help him move his few belongings into his new apartment. They meet Peter’s drop-dead gorgeous new neighbor, professional model Gloria “Glory” Grant. Learning that Peter is a professional photographer, Glory invites him over for tea sometime, making Flash envious. Flash then offers to drive Peter over to ESU so they can register for classes, but Peter declines, wanting to figure out what to do about the tracking device clamped to his arm. He knows that, so long as he wears it, he can’t go into action as Spider-Man without revealing his secret identity to the Jackal. After struggling with the problem for several hours, Peter finally sneaks into the ESU chemistry building a little before midnight and makes a close examination of the cuff. Discovering a circuit board behind a small panel, he takes an acetylene torch to it, then snips off the cuff with a pair of metal shears. Following an immense wave of relief, he makes a further examination of the cuff and realizes it wasn’t booby trapped after all. Changing into Spider-Man, he drops the cuff into the river on his way over to the Daily Bugle Building. Finding Jameson working late, the web-slinger badgers the publisher into admitting he was personally responsible for ending the Grizzly’s career as a professional wrestler back in the mid-1950s, when he was known simply as Maxwell Markham. Spider-Man then returns to the townhouse off Washington Square, only to discover it’s been scrubbed of all trace of the Jackal’s activities. Following his last lead, Spidey checks out a number of gyms until he finally comes upon the Grizzy beating up former colleagues who cooperated with the state wrestling commission investigation that Jameson instigated. Wasting no time, Spider-Man shreds his foe’s bear costume and breaks apart the strength-enhancing exoskeleton the Jackal had given him, reducing the Grizzly to just a flabby, middle-aged has-been. Leaving Markham for the police, the wall-crawler departs, realizing the Jackal poses a greater threat than he previously thought.
September 1967 – Peter starts the second semester of his senior year at Empire State University, but he knows he hasn’t earned enough credits to graduate and will probably need at least another year of classes. He re-takes a biochemistry course with Professor Miles Warren that he failed last year, though Professor Warren seems to be losing patience with Peter’s attitude toward his studies. Flash starts his junior year. On the advice of her doctor, Mary Jane does not register for any classes this semester, and Harry is also out on medical leave. Determined not to fail any more courses, Peter goes out as Spider-Man only infrequently and deals mostly with petty street crime.
October 1967 – Spider-Man is drawn into a bizarre conflict between two extradimensional aliens, one a blue-skinned, half-naked woman named DeSinna and the other an apparently monstrous creature called Tarros. At an Art Deco office building slated for demolition, DeSinna recruits Spider-Man’s help by showing him a holographic recreation of the exploits of Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, and his five associates on the same site in 1934. As with Fu Manchu, Spider-Man had always thought Doc Savage was merely a fictional character but is suddenly not so sure. The presentation shows DeSinna teaming up with Doc Savage to trap the ghostly Tarros in the building’s cornerstone. However, an initial skirmish with Tarros convinces Spider-Man that DeSinna is lying, so he intentionally jackhammers the cornerstone, releasing Tarros’s astral form from its decades-long imprisonment. Expressing gratitude to the web-slinger, Tarros returns to his native dimension and, moments later, draws the duplicitous DeSinna back there as well to pay for her crimes. Still wondering whether Doc Savage was ever real, Spider-Man heads for home.
Rescuing Glory Grant from what appears to be a mugging, Spider-Man is surprised to learn the assailants are her cousin and his friends. As it turns out, the three young men were forcibly exposed to a drug that made them uncontrollably violent, administered by a man in a golden costume at a popular dance club, the Hot Spot. Glory tells the wall-crawler she’s heard rumors of a man in gold who wants to rid New York City of black people. Outraged, Spider-Man heads over to the Hot Spot to investigate. There, he runs into the Falcon, who’s been on the trail of the villain, who calls himself Midas, for weeks. While the heroes are brawling with some henchmen, Midas escapes, but they track him to the Connecticut estate of the club’s owner, liberal philanthropist Harrison J. Merriwell. Midas tries to trap the heroes in a walk-in freezer, but they break free and expose him as Harrison Merriwell’s ne’er-do-well brother Malcolm. Once Malcolm Merriwell is in police custody, Spider-Man and the Falcon return to New York, satisfied that the racist gangster will no longer be a menace to society.
Late one night, Spider-Man is driving around in the Spider-Mobile when several police cars start chasing him. He drives the dune buggy off a Hudson River pier, which he could have sworn was an alley. Confused, Spider-Man heads home to bed when the police decide to let the Harbor Patrol deal with the situation in the morning. After a busy day at school, he returns to the pier to figure out a way to salvage the Spider-Mobile so as to not lose his income from Corona Motors. Suddenly, the web-slinger is ambushed by Mysterio, who keeps him disoriented with a hallucinogenic gas while delivering kicks and punches. Believing he’s being attacked by nearly a dozen of his old foes simultaneously, Spider-Man quickly realizes he’s furiously pummeling a brick wall. Half out of his mind, he tries to tackle the unusually taciturn Mysterio, only to pass right through the villain and bang his head on a fire escape. When he finally regains his senses, Spider-Man finds his gloves shredded, his web-shooters damaged, and his hands bleeding, so he changes back into Peter Parker and gets his wounds treated at a nearby clinic. He then makes his way over to the offices of the Daily Bugle, where Betty and Ned are working late. Seeing his bandaged hands, they ask him what happened, but when Peter claims to have been caught up in a brawl between Spider-Man and Mysterio, Ned informs him that Mysterio died in prison nearly a year ago. Shocked by this revelation, Peter begins to question his own sanity.
The next day, Spidey locates the wreck of the Spider-Mobile at the bottom of the river, but when he climbs back onto the pier, he is again attacked by Mysterio. The fight does not go well due to the wall-crawler’s injured hands, and after taunting the hero for a few minutes, Mysterio vanishes into thin air. Baffled, Spider-Man returns home and changes back into Peter Parker. While Peter’s on the phone with Aunt May, Mary Jane comes over to hang out, but things take a dark turn when a ghostly Kingpin briefly menaces them. Not having seen the apparition, Mary Jane is disturbed by Peter’s erratic behavior. The two friends then pay a visit to the Daily Bugle Building, where Peter thinks he sees Gwen Stacy leaving the lobby. He chases after her, only to lose her in the crowded street outside. Shaken, Peter is forced to wonder if Mysterio has discovered his secret identity. However, while changing into Spider-Man, he discovers a tiny image projector attached to his chest and realizes Mysterio must have planted it there during their earlier fight. Tracking the signals being received by the projector, Spider-Man finds Mysterio’s hideout and catches his foe by surprise. Mysterio is quickly defeated and revealed to be an impostor, a down-on-his-luck stuntman and ex-con named Danny Berkhart who claims to have “inherited” the Mysterio identity when the original died. Spider-Man webs the super-villain wannabe to the floor and mocks him as he departs. Convinced that Berkhart does not know his true identity, Peter realizes that his sighting of Gwen remains unexplained.
November 1967 – Peter focuses almost exclusively on his schoolwork all month and rarely goes out as Spider-Man. Despite his hands healing quickly, he continues to bandage them so as not to arouse his friends’ suspicions. Aunt May and Anna Watson host a modest Thanksgiving dinner with Peter and Mary Jane. Though Peter finds Mary Jane attractive and fun to hang around with, he’s not sure any woman can replace Gwen in his heart.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Spider-Man finds himself trapped within a force-field bubble. Try as he might, he is unable to escape. Finally, the force field vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. He then learns that while he was trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army.
While Spider-Man is foiling a kidnapping in Long Island City, one of the crooks pulls a gun and is immediately shot dead by an unseen sniper. When the police arrive on the scene, the web-slinger goes after the sniper and soon finds a TV-repair van filled with weapons. He slips inside as the driver approaches. It is, as he suspected, the Punisher. Upon arriving at his hideout inside an abandoned power station on the Upper East Side, the Punisher discovers his passenger and complains that Spider-Man’s interference ruined his plan to follow the kidnappers back to their employer. He explains that the kidnap victims are taken to a camp somewhere in South America, where they are made test subjects for deadly chemical weapons. After arguing about tactics, the Punisher convinces Spider-Man to join him on a mission to the company he suspects is behind the kidnappings—the Deterrence Research Corporation, led by a man named Moses Magnum. Spider-Man agrees to allow himself to be captured so the Punisher can follow him to the South American camp using a tracking device. The Punisher also provides some facial prosthetics to protect Spider-Man’s identity in the event he is unmasked. Their plan goes off without a hitch until they get into a shooting war with the guards at the camp. As the Punisher holds off the guards, Spider-Man finds Moses Magnum in his fortified command center and fights with him. Magnum grabs a cannister of his flesh-dissolving gas and threatens to release it, claiming to be willing to sacrifice himself to kill his enemies. However, the Punisher enters and, ignoring the wall-crawler’s hasty warning, shoots a hole in the cannister. Spider-Man launches himself across the room, knocks the Punisher into the corridor, and slams the command center’s vault-like door behind him, trapping Magnum inside with the gas. After calling in the local authorities and the United Nations to liberate the camp, the Punisher departs, leaving Spider-Man to be returned home with the other kidnap victims. Back in New York a few days later, Spider-Man storms into the Punisher’s hideout, but of course the vigilante has already moved his operations elsewhere.
Spider-Man is on his way to the Daily Bugle Building when he thinks he sees Gwen entering a subway station some distance away. Unable to get a good look at her, he wonders if he’s going crazy now that he can’t blame it on Mysterio’s illusions. He notes that he’s been thinking about Gwen a lot lately and wonders if the guilt he still feels is making him delusional. Shaking it off, he sneaks into J. Jonah Jameson’s office and snoops around, suspecting his long-time nemesis of being involved in Mysterio’s scheme. Not finding anything, he changes into Peter Parker and chats with Betty Brant, who informs him that Jameson left suddenly for Europe several weeks ago. Joe Robertson then takes Peter out to lunch and shows him a suspicious telegram he received from Jameson, asking him to bring a million dollars in negotiable bonds to Paris immediately. Concerned, Peter agrees to accompany Robertson to France. After spending the afternoon at ESU, Peter takes a taxi to John F. Kennedy International Airport, accompanied by Mary Jane, and meets up with Robertson at the departure gate. When the boarding call comes, Peter and Mary Jane kiss goodbye with a passion that surprises them both. Flushed with love, they say farewell, then the two newspapermen board the plane. As the Boeing 747 takes off into the snowy sky, Peter wonders what the heck just happened.
After a layover in London, the aircraft lands in Paris about 17 hours after leaving New York. Peter and Robertson check into their hotel on the Boulevard Saint-Germain and have dinner in the hotel restaurant. Back in their room afterwards, they receive a phone call. After a brief conversation in French, Robertson informs Peter that Jameson has been kidnapped, as they feared, and the bonds are his ransom. Robertson then heads out to meet with the kidnappers to receive further instructions. As soon as he’s gone, Peter changes into Spider-Man and follows him. After being driven around the city for an hour, Robertson finally meets with three costumed henchmen under a bridge on the Left Bank of the River Seine near the Eiffel Tower. When Robertson is knocked out, Spider-Man swings down and beats up the henchmen, only to be attacked by their boss, a French super-villain calling himself the Cyclone. Somehow, the Cyclone generates a tornado-like vortex around himself, with which he damages a nearby building, burying the web-slinger beneath half a ton of rubble. When he digs himself out of the debris, Spider-Man finds that Robertson has been kidnapped as well. Returning to the hotel, Peter is soon roughed up by two of the Cyclone’s henchmen and told to bring the ransom to the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris tomorrow evening.
Rising at dawn, Peter decides to set a trap for the Cyclone. Finding a hardware store with a clerk who speaks English, he buys a large industrial fan, a tarp large enough to cover it, and a trolly on which to transport it, as well as a remote-control tape recorder and a blank cassette. He then heads to the Île de la Cité in the Seine, where the cathedral is located, and makes his preparations. Changing into Spider-Man, he spends the rest of the day web-swinging around Paris and seeing the sights. At dusk, he returns to the cathedral and finds the Cyclone there with Jameson and Robertson and a couple of henchmen. The Cyclone is telling his bound hostages about his origins as a NATO engineer who designed exotic weaponry but couldn’t compete with American firms like Stark Industries. Spidey quickly takes out the henchmen and attacks the Cyclone, leading him towards the hidden fan. At the last second, the wall-crawler activates the fan, creating a vortex in opposition to the Cyclone’s own, sending the villain spinning out of control into a pillar. With the Cyclone and his men knocked unconscious, Spider-Man frees Jameson and Robertson, using the remote-control tape recorder to convince them that Peter Parker is in an upper level of the church taking photos. After retrieving his automatic camera, Peter meets Jameson and Robertson outside the cathedral with the ransom, and once the police have been summoned, they all head to the airport to catch the next plane home.
Arriving in New York early in the morning, Peter wonders why Mary Jane has not met them at the airport as planned. He takes a taxi with Jameson and Robertson into Manhattan, and they drop him off at his apartment in Chelsea, wondering why Anna Watson is waiting outside in the cold. Worried, Peter gets out of the cab, whereupon Mrs. Watson stammers out something about Aunt May being hospitalized. She directs Peter upstairs to his apartment. Dropping his bags, he charges up the stairs, his heart pounding. Bursting through his door, Peter is shocked to see Gwen Stacy standing by the window. His mind reeling, Peter backs out onto the landing, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. He lashes out at Gwen in a rage, insisting she must be an impostor. She collapses to the floor, sobbing, as he storms off down the street. Boiling mad, Peter changes into Spider-Man and makes his way over to the hospital to visit his aunt. By the time he is allowed into Aunt May’s room, Peter has calmed down. When Aunt May wakes up, she is of course more concerned with Peter’s welfare than her own. Exhausted and overwrought, he spends the rest of the day with her in the hospital and sleeps on a sofa in the waiting room that night.
The following morning, Peter learns that the Scorpion has just robbed a bank near Wall Street and was last seen heading toward Midtown. Since Aunt May’s condition has stabilized, he decides to change into Spider-Man and go after his old foe. While searching for the Scorpion, Spider-Man lends Nighthawk a hand with tracking down the Looter, a third-rate super-villain the web-slinger apprehended four years ago. While Nighthawk questions the prison authorities about the Looter’s escape, Spider-Man checks out his old hideout, only to discover that a religious cult called the Innocents of God has taken over the property while the villain’s been in jail. Shortly after leaving, though, Spider-Man is ambushed by the Looter, who’s now calling himself the Meteor Man. Their brief fight ends when the crook’s getaway balloon carries him higher than Spider-Man can leap, but Nighthawk arrives in time to save the wall-crawler from a nasty fall. However, Nighthawk refuses to go after the Looter, arguing that being sent back to prison won’t address his mental health issues. Annoyed, Spider-Man points out that the Looter’s super-strength and larcenous tendencies make him dangerous, and he accuses Nighthawk of being a coward. In response, Nighthawk punches Spider-Man in the face and flies off. Ashamed of his outburst, the web-slinger decides to continue searching for the Scorpion.
Minutes later, the Scorpion gets the drop on Spider-Man, leading to a fight in a cement processing plant. The Scorpion manages to knock Spider-Man into a large mixing vat, which the villain then activates, flooding the vat with water. By the time the wall-crawler escapes from the trap, the Scorpion has gotten away. Tired and soggy, Spider-Man makes his way back to the hospital, where he changes into Peter Parker. He is enraged to find the Gwen impostor there with Mary Jane, Joe Robertson, Betty Brant, and Ned Leeds. Ned calms Peter down, revealing that when “Gwen” went to the Daily Bugle following her encounter with Peter, they naturally assumed she was an impostor as well. However, when they compared the woman’s fingerprints to those taken during Gwen’s autopsy, they were a match. Ned then arranged to have Gwen’s body exhumed, and sure enough, it was still in its grave. Thus, for some inexplicable reason, there appear to be two Gwen Stacys—one dead and the other very much alive. Wracked with confusion and fear, Gwen collapses into Peter’s arms, begging him for help. Peter can only glance helplessly at Mary Jane, who is clearly disturbed by this bizarre turn of events. Not knowing what else to do, Peter walks Gwen’s doppelgänger over to Betty’s Gramercy Park apartment, where she’s staying for the time being. During an awkward conversation, Gwen reveals that she has no memory of the last two years but takes comfort in the fact that she and Peter still love each other. She kisses him on the stoop but becomes embarrassed and upset when he does not return her affection. After she has gone inside the building, Peter walks away, frustrated and dejected. He can no longer deny to himself that he has fallen in love with Mary Jane.
Hoping some late-afternoon web-swinging will help him clear his head, Peter changes into Spider-Man and breaks into the office of the Scorpion’s parole officer to get the villain’s address. This leads him to a seedy hotel in Washington Heights where he discovers the money the Scorpion stole from the bank hidden in the closet. After tipping off the police, Spider-Man spends an hour searching for his foe before deciding to check on Aunt May again. At the hospital, Peter is concerned to find Aunt May talking about the “rumors” of Gwen’s death and realizes she’s created a safe fantasy for herself where Gwen never died rather than face the reality of her resurrection. Suddenly, the Scorpion leaps through the window, saying the Jackal told him he would find Spider-Man there. Shocked, Peter changes back into Spider-Man after the Scorpion stalks off down the corridor and drives the villain out of the hospital. While they’re fighting on the tower of the Chrysler Building, the Scorpion ends up clinging precariously to one of the decorative eagles and begs the wall-crawler not to kill him. Spider-Man agrees not to send the Scorpion plummeting to his death if he’ll apologize to the Parkers for frightening them. Thus, after being turned over to the police, the Scorpion is led up to Aunt May’s room in chains, where he offers a perfunctory apology. Peter, who has gotten there first, is satisfied, but Aunt May tells the Scorpion that he should be ashamed of himself.
Peter manages to pass all his classes and complete his senior year, though he still has a ways to go to fulfill all the requirements for graduation. He spends Christmas with Aunt May in the hospital, worried that the Jackal has somehow discovered his secret identity. Feeling very conflicted, Peter visits with Gwen a few times, as she is clearly on the verge of an emotional breakdown, but does not make time to see Mary Jane. Amid all this personal turmoil, Peter is somewhat gladdened by news reports that his hero, Captain America, is back in action, though he thinks something really should be done about the murderous Punisher. Looking ahead, Peter can’t even imagine what travails the new year will bring.
Notes:
January–February 1967 – Spider-Man’s adventures resume in Amazing Spider-Man #132 and Marvel Team-Up #21. The Molten Man does not drown in the river and will return to menace the web-slinger yet again.
March 1967 – Morbius and the Man-Wolf team up against Spider-Man in the one-shot Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1. John Jameson has indeed become the Man-Wolf again, but his father is covering for him.
May 1967 – Aunt May is saved from a flu epidemic in Giant-Size Spider-Man #1. The European aristocrat that Peter encounters briefly aboard the ocean liner is none other than Dracula, lord of vampires. This story interweaves with the Human Torch / Iceman tale in Marvel Team-Up #23, where we learn that the slippery burglar in the jewelry store was Equinox, the Thermodynamic Man. While Peter is taking his shower following the hijacking of the sightseeing cruise, Harry Osborn sneaks into his room and finds his Spider-Man costume, thus confirming his suspicions about his roommate’s dual identity. Suffering another mental breakdown, Harry fails all his spring semester classes.
June 1967 – The public becomes aware of Captain America’s retirement in Captain America #177. In Giant-Size Spider-Man #2, Spidey meets Shang-Chi, as well as his English associates Black Jack Tarr and Sir Denis Nayland Smith. Fu Manchu’s plan was to take advantage of the destruction of the television aerial atop the Empire State Building by the Mandrill’s Black Spectre terrorist group last month (as seen in Daredevil #111–112) by rigging the replacement aerial to broadcast a mind-control signal that would bring the Eastern Seaboard under his subjugation. Near the end of the month, Spider-Man makes a couple of brief cameo appearances web-swinging past the Daily Bugle Building in Creatures on the Loose #32 & 37.
July 1967 – The bizarre weather phenomena result from Dormammu imprisoning Gaea in Doctor Strange v.2 #8–9. The people of Manhattan are then rendered insensate for two days by alien invaders in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3.
August 1967 – Amazing Spider-Man #136 incorrectly asserts that Peter is a college junior and that he and Mary Jane knew each other in high school. They didn’t actually meet until after he had started at ESU. The movie they saw together just before the story opens was most likely the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Since the Green Goblin’s nuclear bomb is an experimental “clean fusion” device, there is no radioactive contamination when it explodes in the Hudson River. The mutant featured in Amazing Spider-Man #138 is William Turner, a.k.a. the Mindworm, but Spider-Man doesn’t learn his tragic backstory. The version of the “city-stealers” story presented in Marvel Team-Up #28 reflects Hercules’s later self-aggrandizing embellishments, as confirmed in Hulk #241. That issue also reveals the villains’ behind-the-scenes employers to be They Who Wield Power. The Fantastic Four and the Avengers are not at home because they’re already out rescuing people from quake-damaged buildings. In Amazing Spider-Man #140, the Jackal is just messing with Peter; he already knows that he’s Spider-Man.
October 1967 – Spider-Man meets DeSinna and Tarros in Giant-Size Spider-Man #3. Doc Savage and his associates—Ham, Johnny, Long Tom, Monk, and Renny—did not exist in the Original Marvel Universe. DeSinna thought seeing famous heroes of the 1930s battling her foe would convince Spider-Man that Tarros was a rampaging monster that deserved to be killed. She did not realize the heroes she chose were fictional. The death of the original Mysterio, Quentin Beck, was merely a hoax that he engineered so he could escape from jail. Beck is secretly using Berkhart as a patsy, as revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #198. Near the end of the month, as seen in Marvel Team-Up #31, Spider-Man and Iron Fist join forces against Drom, the Backwards Man, but neither hero is left with any memory of the incident afterwards.
December 1967 – Spider-Man is among the various superheroes seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233. He and the Punisher then take on Moses Magnum in Giant-Size Spider-Man #4. Thanks to his protective suit, Magnum survives exposure to the flesh-eating gas and gets away. As revealed in Spectacular Spider-Man #149, Gwen’s doppelgänger was created when the Jackal injected a young woman named Joyce Delaney with a genetically altered virus derived from Gwen’s DNA. This brings us up to Amazing Spider-Man #146 and Marvel Team-Up #33. After about six months of calling himself Nomad, Steve Rogers becomes Captain America again in Captain America #183.
Jump Back: Spider-Man – Year Five
Next Issue: Doctor Strange – Year Six
