Biography of Spider-Man, 1966

The following is a biography of Spider-Man for the year of 1966.

Biography

Kraven, out of Africa

With Aunt May's condition finally stabilized, Peter began to focus on getting back to his studies. When he returned to school, Peter found that the other students resented him, perceiving his recent absence and silence as arrogance. Harry Osborn and popular girl Gwen Stacy in particular singled him out. One night, while watching the news, Peter learned of a bogus Spider-Man attacking J. Jonah Jameson in the street. Peter was enjoying some time to himself after the stressful ordeal saving May, but after several days of the impostor harassing Jameson and public opinion turning against him, Spider-Man was forced to get to the bottom of the issue. He went to Daily Bugle headquarters, where he quickly found the impostor, who fled and led him to the roof of a condemned apartment building. The impostor revealed himself as Kraven the Hunter, returned from a forced exile in Africa. Kraven was determined to undo his past defeats and claim Spider-Man's mask as a trophy. They fought through the building, but opportunistic gangsters from the street came in and attacked Spider-Man, distracting him and giving Kraven the upper hand. The two fought through the densely packed condemned buildings as Spider-Man dispatched the other criminals. Spider-Man eventually won their hand-to-hand battle, wrapping Kraven in his web and leaving him for the police. Kraven, honorable in his own way, confessed to his Spider-Man disguise, exonerating the hero. Peter decided not to take photos of the Kraven fight to the Daily Bugle, nervous about seeing Betty Brant again—unbeknownst to him, Betty had just left her position at the Bugle.

The unreformed Molten Man

While patrolling the city, Spider-Man heard a gunshot from inside a jewelry store. He went inside to confront the culprit, who turned out to be a remarkably strong man. The robber pummeled Spider-Man until the shopkeeper yelled for the police, prompting him to flee empty-handed. Reading up on the attempted heist later, Peter learned that the criminal crushed the shopkeeper's revolver in his bare hand. He had an inkling that the fight felt familiar, and that the man's punches felt metallic, so he went with his hunch that the criminal was the Molten Man in disguise. Mark Raxton had in fact recently received a suspended sentence for good behavior, and had immediately returned to a life of crime. Spider-Man went to Raxton's last known residence, where he had since returned. Lacking any evidence to apprehend him, Spider-Man planted a tracking device on Raxton's lapel. After several days of fruitless tracking, Spider-Man followed Molten Man in disguise one night back to the same jewelry store, where Raxton attempted to break into the safe. Spider-Man confronted him, and the two fought. Spider-Man eventually got the better of him with some strong metal cord, and tied him up with photographic evidence for the police to take him away. Peter went to the Bugle to sell some of his photos, but got caught up talking with Betty Brant's replacement. Betty had left behind a signed, framed photo that Peter had given her. Peter speculated that she'd married Ned Leeds and moved away with him to the west coast, and threw the photo in the trash.

The larcenous Looter

Peter's encounters with Kraven and Molten Man had forced him to miss a number of early classes and socialization in his first semester at Empire State, and he was eager to catch up. He struggled to fit in with established cliques much as he had in high school. A girl named Sally Green was interested in Peter, but he brushed her off when he realized she was only interested in his intelligence like Betty Brant was. He remained oblivious of Gwen Stacy's less direct interest in him. Later, Spider-Man heard of a new villain on the streets known as the Looter, who had robbed a bank, but found no sight of the criminal after patrolling the city for a few days. He went to a space exhibit with a newly discovered meteorite on display, to get both the Looter and Betty off of his mind. The Looter himself attacked the exhibit, and Peter hastily fled to privacy to suit up. Unbeknownst to him, Gwen Stacy had followed him into the exhibit and thought him a coward for running away. Spider-Man and Looter fought, and the villain proved a formidable fighter with superhuman strength and agility. Looter used a blinding "dazzle light" which was ineffective against Peter's spider sense, but he was nonetheless able to temporarily blind and endanger the exhibit goers in order to escape before Spider-Man defeated him.

Peter returned to his street clothes and found Gwen, who chastised him without specifying why, leaving him clueless. The next day at school, Gwen buddied up to Flash Thompson and continued to berate Peter publicly. Spider-Man scouted the space exhibit in hopes of Looter's return, and he indeed came back several nights later. The Looter sought a meteorite as it was being transported, taking advantage of lessened security measures. In truth, Looter was an aspiring scientist who found a superpowered gas in another meteorite, and was hoping to find more of the same in another. The two fought once more, and Looter tried to escape using a helium balloon backpack, but Spider-Man held onto him and knocked him out for police retrieval.

The Stromm and Osborn rivalry

On the day that one Professor Mendel Stromm was released from prison, he was picked up by another ex-con, Max Young. Daily Bugle reporter Frederick Foswell was on the scene to observe quietly, and trailed their car. Spider-Man was also there, but had to divert his attention from following the two vehicles. He decided to check at the Bugle and found that Betty Brant had been replaced as Jameson's secretary—Jameson blamed Parker for her departure. Foswell arrived soon after, telling Jonah that Stromm was plotting revenge against those responsible for his imprisonment. Peter planted a tracker on Foswell's hat in hopes of gathering more information on Stromm. In the meantime, he went to school and tried to say hello to Gwen Stacy, but she brushed him off and they escalated into an argument. Flash Thompson soon arrived and challenged Peter to fight him, but Peter simply walked off for fear of seriously hurting him. Secretly, Gwen could tell Peter wasn't scared of Flash, and even defended him against Harry Osborn's apparent jealousy in class.

Later, Spider-Man investigated an attack on an electronics plant. The facility had been attacked by a strange, alien-like robot, which quickly overpowered Spider-Man as he went inside. Peter forced the robot into the building's growing fire, releasing its grip and allowing him to escape, having confirmed that no one was trapped inside. The factory in fact belonged to Norman Osborn, a noted manufacturer and father of Peter's classmate Harry. Citizens seeing Spider-Man flee the building naturally assumed he was responsible for the fire. Spider-Man followed the signal in Foswell's hat and trailed him as he investigated under his "Patch" persona. Foswell secured information regarding Stromm's hideout and made his way there, only to be captured inside by Max Young and another of Stromm's robots. Spider-Man slipped another tracker on the robot as it departed the building, and freed Foswell from Young. He followed the robot as it attacked Norman Osborn's office, and gained the advantage this time, but Osborn strangely attacked Spider-Man from behind and briefly knocked him out, allowing the robot to devastate another of Osborn's facilities. Spider-Man literally didn't know what hit him. He returned to Stromm's hideout, defeated the robot, and confronted Stromm. At that moment, an unseen gunman fired upon Stromm from a window. Peter's spider sense allowed him to shove Stromm out of the way, but he still apparently died of a heart attack. Spider-Man was baffled by the gunman's ability to shoot from such a high window with no sign of escape.

Daredevil's mistaken identities and the Masked Marauder's mayhem

Spider-Man fended off a group of thugs led by the Masked Marauder, who sought to attack the World Motors Building. Some days later, while on patrol, he was attacked by the flying billy club of fellow hero Daredevil, who quickly fled. In truth, this Daredevil was an impostor, one of many goons employed by the Masked Marauder. Soon the real Daredevil showed, and Spider-Man attacked him. After an evenly matched contest, Daredevil got the better of Spider-Man by wrapping him securely to a pole with his billy club cable. Daredevil knew this wouldn't hold him for long, and fled while he was still at an advantage. Humbled and frustrated, Peter returned home and to the Daily Bugle, where he learned that the Masked Marauder had made off with an XB-390 engine from the World Motors Building during the fight with Daredevil. He began to suspect that Daredevil had deliberately distracted him to allow Marauder to make the heist. He combed the city and followed his spider sense into the law offices of Nelson & Murdock, where he saw a blind man, Matt Murdock, a woman, Karen Page, and finally Foggy Nelson—he was certain that he was sensing Daredevil's presence, and concluded that Nelson was his target. He broke through the window and grabbed Nelson threateningly as Murdock, the real Daredevil, looked on desperately.

Spider-Man interrogated Foggy, but soon relented and left amid Karen's pleas and the realization that Foggy obviously didn't have Daredevil's physique—nonetheless warning him in case he was involved. Later, Peter saw a J. Jonah Jameson TV news bulletin reporting that Spider-Man and the Masked Marauder were in cahoots and that Marauder had failed to steal the fuel formula necessary to operate the XB-390 engine. Spider-Man knew that the report would draw Marauder back to World Motors, and he would be there to fend him off once more. The following night, Spider-Man saw Daredevil on the way there and attacked him. This time Daredevil tried to convince him that they were on the same side, but Spider-Man didn't listen. Spidey and his overwhelming strength got the upper hand on this occasion—their fight may have continued, but they saw a large yellow blimp nearby. It was Marauder's blimp, disguised as a World Motors advertising vehicle. Spider-Man faced them head-on, insisting on fighting them without Daredevil. He easily disposed of Marauder's minions, but Marauder himself temporarily blinded him with "opti-blast" from his helmet. Daredevil took over and was naturally immune to the opti-blast because of his pre-existing blindness. As the minions tried to escape in the blimp, Daredevil shot it down with a single bullet, careful not to cause any casualties. As Spider-Man fled and recovered from his blindness, police and reporters arrived and concluded that he was in league with Marauder after all, but Daredevil stood up for his valor. The Marauder meanwhile escaped in the guise of a police uniform.

See also

• Biography of Spider-Man, 1965