On the cover date of this adventurous issue, 1,000 students march in Times Square and 12 more burn their draft cards in public, risking their freedom as the first wave of anti-Vietnam demonstrations begin to spread across our divided country. All the while Spider-Man is hot on the trail of Dr Octopus as our story comes back to the Big Apple after Spidey's brief sojourn to the City of Brotherly Love.
When our story begins, Spider-Man is still catching hell in the press, most especially from J Jonah Jameson, for letting Doc Ock escape after their battle on the Delaware River. Spider-Man goes to give Jonah a good what for but is excited when he spots Betty Brant making her return to the Daily Bugle.
Meanwhile, the Doc is on a cross country crime spree, going after armored trucks, helicopters and bank vaults, all in an attempt to draw Spider-Man back into battle. The insane Doc Ock believes Spidey is the only thing standing in his way of complete domination of the criminal world and vows to finish him off for good in their next battle.
Meanwhile, Peter is back in New York worrying about mid terms and an oncoming cold. When he goes to visit Betty at the Bugle, Dr Octopus crashes through the window and begins to wreak havoc in Jonah's office, taking Betty as a hostage in order to draw Spider-Man
into a public fight............at Coney Island.
So Spidey heads over to my father's hometown for a battle with the Doc, but his cold turns progressively worse in the winter air until he is as weak as us normal human folk. Driven to save Betty at all costs, Spider-Man charges carelessly into battle, where Dr Octopus takes advantage of his weakened condition to give him a sound butt whipping before ripping off his mask and revealing his identity to the approaching police and J Jonah Jameson, who snuck down to Brooklyn to witness the fight and write the exclusive story.
While Betty, Jonah and the cops are all shocked to see that Spider-Man is nothing but an ordinary looking teenager, Dr Octopus is not convinced because of how easily he bested the wall crawler. Tossing his unconscious body aside, even Jonah and Betty believe that Peter dressed up as Spider-Man just to get pictures for the paper. Peter's sickened condition helps preserve his secret identity.
While the Doc escapes into hiding in the city, Peter's spider strength allows him to recover quicker than normal, but he must face repercussions from his Spider-Man "stunt" at Coney Island. When he goes to school he is surprised to see that many of the students are impressed with Peter's attempt at "impersonating" Spider-Man, especially Flash Thompson's girlfriend, Liz Allen.
While Peter deals with Liz's new found affections, Doc Ock decides to bust into the Central Park Zoo and let loose all of the animals, keeping the police busy and New Yorkers on the run. Spider-Man teams up with the police to help safely round up all of the escaped beasts.
Spider-Man and Dr Octopus finally go head to head, brawling along rooftops and industrial chimneys. Spider-Man gets the early licks in, but he eventually begins to tire from constantly avoiding six flailing limbs flying at him like rapid fire and looks to take the brawl out of the open and into close quarters. Tackling the Doc like a linebacker, both combatants crash into a scaffold that snaps and swings both men across a building until they both crash into a sculptors abandoned studio.
The two of them beat the snot out of each other with oversized art until the place catches on fire and a large sculpture crashes on top of Dr Octopus. Blinded by the growing fire, Spider-Man loses his view of the Doc in the smoke and is forced to abandon the building to save himself, leaving the unconscious Doc to be sprung by firefighters before being turned over to the police.
Interesting ending to this one, Liz and Flash catch up to Peter as he goes through his collection of pics he took from his automatic camera during his brawl with the Doc. When Liz invites Peter to a party at her place, Peter takes satisfaction in turning her down, telling her he has a date with Betty Brant and to go off and enjoy hanging out with her consolation prize, Flash Thompson. Now if anyone remembers, Liz Allen was the girl Peter asked out way back in Amazing Fantasy 15, the first appearance of Spidey. We see here how Peter's life has come full circle in that his life of adventure as Spider-Man is starting to carry over into his confidence as a teenage, a time in your life when confidence can make or break your social standing.
For the first time, we don't pull anything incredibly important from this issue to use in our master script, but never fear, for we have nine more issues of the Amazing Spider-Man to go as well as an awesome 6 part crossover storyline from the 80s that will play an important role in our class script. Once we finish our reading list, we will attempt to construct our original story of between 90-120 pages and take a crack at getting in on some of that Mickey Mouse money flowing through the Marvel Comics hallways.
Until then, we thank you for being a part of Comics in the Classroom.
Vocab Word Web
1- Epic
2- Psychiatrist
3- Elusive
4- Marauder
5- Perpetrated
6- Humiliation
7- Outskirts
8- Valiantly
9- Vicious
10- Virtually
11- Idle
12- Ineffectual
13- Combatants
14- Virtuoso
15- Recuperate
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