Synopsis:

In this issue, the opening chapter of a three-part arc, a subplot-rich Bronze Age story gets underway as Spider-Man begins the night diving into the murky depths of the Hudson River in search of the Spider-Mobile - a promotional vehicle he was tricked by Mysterio into accidentally driving off a pier months earlier, and which a corporate lawsuit is now demanding back. He surfaces with only a side mirror to show for his effort, an unsettling find given that the car was far too heavy to have been swept away by the current, suggesting someone else has already retrieved it. After evading two suspicious police officers by pulling them into the water, Peter Parker heads to Aunt May's apartment for a chicken dinner - only to find his most dangerous nemesis, Doctor Octopus, reclining calmly on the sofa. May has taken the disgraced villain in without hesitation: Octopus had descended into homelessness and alcoholism since his apparent death following the catastrophic cancellation of his wedding to Aunt May, and she received him with characteristic warmth, sending him to wash up before pressing his green costume back into service. Peter keeps his composure and, when May briefly leaves the room, presses Octopus for answers - learning that after the ill-fated wedding, he and Hammerhead ended up on a nuclear-reactor-equipped island that Aunt May had inherited, and that Hammerhead accidentally triggered a chain reaction by headbutting the reactor during an attack; Octopus escaped through an emergency shaft, made his way back to New York, but refuses to explain the mysterious event that subsequently reduced him to destitution. The answer comes almost immediately: when Aunt May returns, the spectral form of Hammerhead materializes through the wall, vowing revenge on the man he holds responsible for his death. May collapses in terror, and a surprisingly protective Octopus scoops her up and smashes through the brick wall to flee, with Peter changing into Spider-Man in pursuit. A rooftop chase ends with Octopus hijacking a helicopter from the Pan Am Building and forcing the pilot aloft; Spider-Man attaches webbing to the landing skids, but hundreds of feet in the air, Octopus severs the line, leaving the wall-crawler in freefall as the issue closes. A compelling example of the layered, soap-operatic storytelling that defined the series throughout the 1970s, this story exemplifies how the title balanced outlandish genre elements - a genuine ghost, a reformed supervillain, a sweet old lady at the center of the plot - with grounded character dynamics, and continued the tradition of unresolved dangling threads that kept readers returning month after month in what was then Marvel's preeminent single-issue franchise.

Contributors:

Writer: Len Wein
Interior Artist: Ross Andru
Inker: Mike Esposito
Cover Artist: John Romita Sr.
Letterer: John Costanza

Condition:

For raw books, I do my best to conservatively reflect the Overstreet grading standards, but I am not a professional grader and grading can be subjective so I use the following ranges:

Shipping:

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