In the early days of Marvel, everything happened in New York City, which made people wonder why any criminal would ever set up shop there. Now, Peter Parker is on a national book tour so he gets to go around the country and fight those few super villains smart enough to leave the Big Apple. This time, it’s Chameleon. He’s engaging in industrial sabotage to hold some new tech-makers for ransom.
Spidey deals with Chameleon in fairly short order, and then we get Taskmaster next issue.
Check out the cool gravestones! Lots of neat gravestones! Why is he involved? Well, the owner of the building that Peter and Mary Jane Parker live in is a peeper, and he has kidnapped Mary Jane. Spidey is trying to find her. Taskmaster has nothing to do with it and, like Chameleon, he escapes capture.
Manslaughter Marsdale makes his final appearance for decades. He doesn’t die or anything, he just is never used until 2009–in the Dark Reign saga.
Eventually, Spidey catches up with the actual kidnapper, who has hired two lame mercenaries to protect him. (A lot of trouble to go through for one woman.)
These are the first appearances of Styx and Stone.
Styx can kill living things by touching them.
Stone is a big strong guy who wears a pack that shoots stuff. They’ll reappear a few times. But in this issue, MJ shoots at them.
And speaking of Mary Jane…
A nice twist: In the end, Mary Jane doesn’t need rescuing–she saves herself.