Amazing Spider-Man #61. The Kingpin.

(Vat's all, folks. Cover from June 1968.)

"What A Tangled Web We Weave--!"

Written by Stan Lee

Layouts by John Romita

Pencils by Don Heck

Inking by Mickey Demeo

Lettering by Sam Rosen

Mickey Demeo's back! Why this should give me such pleasure, I don't know but, in his previous run on the title, I did grow quite attached to his inking and it has to be said, it does work remarkably well with Don Heck's pencils. He's so much better than that awful Mike Esposito who's been inking the last few issues.

What's that? Mickey Demeo is Mike Esposito?

I'll get my coat. :(

The story kicks off with a symbolic splash page showing a group of Peter Parker's friends and loved ones battling to escape the sticky entanglements of his webbing. Although, bearing in mind Mary Jane's presence - and her activities on her last appearance - it could also be interpreted as them doing a very strange kind of dance. Either way, the message is clear, that being involved in the life of Peter Parker does not a happy bunny make.

One particular unhappy bunny is Gwen Stacy who, thanks to The Daily Bugle, has just discovered her dad's a thief. In time-honoured fashion, he decides to do a runner and she goes with him, declaring that wherever he goes she goes. Gwen's mother is nowhere to be seen. Were we ever told what happened to her?

The point does bring up another question, the matter of parents in Spider-Man. Peter Parker's an orphan. Harry Osborn's mother's dead. Gwen Stacy's mother appears to be dead. As she seems to have been brought up by her Aunt Anna, it seems reasonable at this time to assume that Mary Jane's parents are dead. Unless memory fails me, I'm fairly sure that John Jameson's mother's also dead. If Flash Thompson has parents, they're never referred to. In fact, throughout Stan Lee's writing of the 1960s, there seems to be a preponderance of dead or missing parents but nowhere is this felt more strongly than in the pages of Spider-Man. Is this coincidence? Was it a deliberate policy? Does it reflect on the inner psychology of Lee? Bearing in mind Batman and Superman's orphaned state, is it merely a convention of super-hero comics? Only Lee could tell us.

Back home, Peter realises what a total plonker he's been. By exposing Stacy, he's put the ex-cop's life in danger and, by leaving Gwen alone with a potentially violent brainwashing victim, he's also exposed her to terrible risk. There's only one thing for it. Unlike the police - who seem not to have thought of descending on the Stacy residence to arrest the man - Petey, in his Spider-Man guise, heads over there...

...just in time to see some of the Kingpin's goons leaving the place.

The goons have arrived too late. The Stacys are already at the airport, but they get no further as two more of the Kingpin's men apprehend them there. At first Gwen, not unreasonably, thinks they're cops but soon cottons on to the fact that they're not.

The goons take them to the Kingpin's secret lab, which it's already been revealed is in Norman Osborn's chemical plant. Osborn, who's been having troubling flashbacks to the death of the Green Goblin, has almost accidentally stumbled on the lair but has been fobbed off by Kingie's science stooge, the worryingly named Winkler. Now, Gwen and the Captain are tied together under a huge vat of lead just asking to be dropped on them. Why he doesn't just shoot them is anyone's guess but that's criminal masterminds for you.

Spidey smashes in through a window and confronts the villain. How did he know where they were? Back at the Kingpin's club he checked out the site of the now-removed brainwashing machine and found a manufacturer's tag associated with Osborn's company. The usual fight breaks out. This time our hero's shown some foresight and put a gas mask on under his spider-mask, to make sure the Kingie's trick tie-pin can't work on him.

And that's when Norman Osborn finally stumbles on the Kingpin's lair. Spotting Winkler waving a gun around, he rugby-tackles the scientist but that makes Winkler accidentally fire the gun. The bullet hits the brainwashing machine. The machine explodes. The explosion snaps a cable and that vat of molten lead, begins to fall.

And Gwen and her dad are sat right beneath it!

Spidey swings to the rescue and gets the two captives out of the way. How Osborn survives the floor being flooded with boiling lead isn't revealed. Meanwhile, Spidey goes in pursuit of the Kingpin but, too late, the corpulent king of crime has fled in Osborn's private helicopter that just happened to be sat on the roof. Finally showing some appetite for their job, the police turn up and, irony of ironies, Gwendolyne helps to give the web-slinger some good PR by telling everyone of his part in the rescue.

So, Gwen Stacy, who just a few issues back hated Spider-Man and loved Peter Parker, is now a confirmed Spider-fan and hates Peter Parker. Clearly, it's not entered her head that Peter's grapple with her father in the previous issue might have had anything to do with her dad's brainwashing. Gwen, who just months earlier was quite the spunky, feisty, lively romantic counter-foil - MJ with a brain - is rapidly becoming the character Gerry Conway was so happy to get rid of.

I have to admit that, despite all this action and drama, my favourite scene this issue is one that's technically irrelevant. In it, Mary Jane and Harry go to the club to collect her pay for her previous night's work; only to find the place shut down and abandoned.

Leaving aside how great her hat is, and that we finally get the pleasure of seeing Mary Jane being unhappy, it's the little scenes like these - that, in strict terms, aren't really necessary to the story - that give the strip its distinctive feel and make it quite unlike other super-hero titles of the time.

It's interesting too what's happening with the art. Thanks to the credits, it's a little vague as to who's doing what by now. John Romita seems to be doing the layouts, with Don Heck doing the actual pencilling but some of the faces are clearly being drawn by Romita, and, in at least one panel, the whole figure of Spider-Man seems to have been done by him. It's a strange confusion of roles and styles that, involving various other artists, would affect the strip for a surprisingly long time to come. It wouldn't be true to say the title suffered because of it but it is odd that, for a lengthy period, what had become Marvel Comics' flagship title seemed incapable of settling on a single artist.

Amazing Spider-Man #60. The Kingpin

(The Kingpin decides to stand in for Spidey's dad and give him the good swing-around he never had as a child. Tomorrow, if he's lucky, he'll be taking him on the roundabouts. Cover from May 1968.)

"O, Bitter Victory!"

Written by Stan Lee

Layouts by John Romita

Pencils by Don Heck

Inking by Mike Esposito

Lettering by Sam Rosen

So now Spider-Man's in trouble. The Kingpin has a hold of him and is swinging him round and round and round.

Luckily Spider-man has a plan - to crash into something. Upon release, he crashes into the control panel of Kingie's brainwashing machine and sends it kaput. Flames burst forth. Smoke's everywhere. Confusion reigns. In that confusion, our hero escapes.

But not without a cost.

As a result of the explosion, he's suffering from double vision. He's in no state to return to the fray. The Kingpin, on the other hand, is suffering from nothing. Spider-Man's act of sabotage came too late to save Captain Stacy from a good brainwashing, and now Kingie can proceed with the next part of his plan - to send Stacy off to await his next set of orders.

Making his way back into the club's main hall, the brainwashed cop assures MJ, Gwen and Harry there's nothing to worry about, and everyone except Pete gets on with enjoying the evening. Where's Pete? He's gone back home to get some rest so he can be fully fit to fight the Kingpin next time round.

The next day, knowing something has to be done about Captain Stacy, Peter goes round to confront him and, in an act of self defence, ends up knocking him to the floor - just in time for Gwen to walk in and find him standing over the fallen pensioner.

Now, this is where Pete's total cluelessness about how to deal with people kicks in because, we can all see that it's right here that he should tell Gwen that Spider-Man's told him her dad's been brainwashed by the Kingpin. She won't believe him of course but it does mean that, when she notices her dad's acting oddly (ie, being evil) that the penny'll drop and she'll see that Pete was in the right all along.

Needless to say, showing the same failure to communicate that's repeatedly wrecked his love life for years, he keeps his silence, causing Gwen to throw him out and to declare to herself that she can never forgive him.

There's only one thing for it, Spidey's going to have to get some evidence that the captain's under the influence. He follows him and, hey presto, the ex-cop goes down the police station - where he practically seems to live despite being retired - and tries to steal some documents. Spidey gets it all on camera and, the next day, it's splashed all across the front of The Daily Bugle. Well, it makes sure everyone in the whole of New York knows there's something going on...

...but, if Gwen felt like she could never forgive him before, how's she going to react to him having been the one to dob her dad in?

Oh, Peter, if only you'd just learn to pass-on information, like other people do...

Amazing Spider-Man #59. The Brainwasher/Kingpin

(Cover from April 1968.)

"The Brand Of The Brainwasher!"

Written by Stan Lee

Layouts by John Romita

Pencils by Don Heck

Inked by Mike Esposito

Lettering by Artie Simek

At last Mary Jane gets her first ever cover and, after being criminally underused for the last few tales, she finally gets a pivotal part in a story.

But first there's other matters to be dealt with.

For a start, Peter Parker still hasn't come up with an explanation as to where he's been for the last few issues. A quick visit to the cop shop soon puts that right as he tells the assembled investigators that he was kidnapped by Spider-Man, who'd lost his memory, and that he'd been released the moment Spidey got his marbles back. In one fell swoop, Petey's explained his own absence while portraying Spidey as a no more than a confused and bewildered innocent.

That's not all that happens while he's down at the station, because one of his interrogators is none other than Gwen's dad George Stacy who, despite being retired, seems to spend all his time at the police station, doing police work, and being called Captain. It's the first time the pair have ever met but won't be the last. Pete also learns that a person unknown has been releasing criminals. Clearly things are afoot in the world of crime.

Things are also afoot in the world of Mary Jane. When we join her, she's using those feet to dance on a table as she finishes off her last rehearsal before starting work on her new job at the happeningest club to have opened in New York in many a year. Her dodgy boss tells her - and us - that her job is to dance for the punters and to take their photos - but only of people sat at tables with a star on them.

After she leaves, we're told by the man of mystery behind the plot that the camera she's been given is nothing less than a brainwashing machine, designed to get hapless punters under the Brainwasher's control just long enough for him to give them a mega-dose of his big brainwashing machine. Not that he has a one-track mind or anything.

Oblivious to all this, the gang turn up for the big opening night and to give Mary Jane moral support.

Not that she needs it. She's merrily dancing away like a mad thing, pausing only to take the required snaps. And, with the sort of bad luck that seems to befall anyone who finds himself trapped within Peter Parker's inner orbit, despite being retired, Captain Stacy just happens to be on the Brainwasher's hit list. MJ snaps his map and, suddenly feeling dizzy, the ex-cop sets off outside to get some fresh air.

Peter's suspicious. What's the deal with only people with a star at their table being snapped? He has to find out. Making his excuses, he sets off to see what's going on and, in the corridors, blunders into a bunch of petty crooks. He disposes of them with ease but finds himself in a room where Stacy's got his head under a huge hairdryer. And it's a safe bet he's not there for a Marcel Wave. He's about to be brainwashed - big time!

Spidey demands that the shady scientist operating the equipment tells him what's going on. The scientist declares that it's not a secret - even though it clearly is. Presumably there was nothing in the club's promotional material along the lines of, "Come to our club and get yourself brainwashed." Regardless, the scientist blabs his mouth off and says it's all the work of the Brainwasher.

The Brainwasher? Demands our hero. Who's he?

Suddenly someone's grabbed him by the arm. It's the Brainwasher.

No it's not. It's not just the Brainwasher.

It's the Kingpin!