Spider-Man (1981) (1981)
TV Show

While swinging around the city at night, Spidey encounters Doctor Octopus stealing a precious ruby from the New York Cultural Museum, but is unable to prevent him from getting away with the gem. Unfortunately, Spidey also forgets to complete his homework assignment on the landmarks of New York for his professor at college. As he attempts to find out more info about the history of New York at Empire State University's library, Spidey once again runs into Doc Ock, who this time manages to steal a quartz crystal from the science lab. As the Doctor continues his crime spree by robbing a diamond exchange, Spidey traces him to his under- ground layer in the sewer system, hoping to find out Ock's plan. There, he finds that Doc Ock has connected all the stolen crystals to his tentacles, enhancing their powers. The ruby is used to power a laser at the end of one arm, the quartz is used as a sonic paralyzer at the end of another, and the diamonds as an invulnerable saw on a third arm. Doctor Octopus captures Spidey and keeps him imprisoned, while he begins his plan to steal all the oil from the ships in the harbor. Spidey manages to escape from Octopus' lair, and then has to stop him from stealing all the oil in New York.

Air Force One is temporarily captured by Doctor Doom in his airship base, who attaches a mind control device onto the President. With the plane overdue, and journalists waiting at the airport, Peter changes to Spider-Man and rents a plane to the President's last known location. Spidey manages to climb on board Doom's blimp, but Doom jettisons both Spidey and Air Force One, which continues on its journey with Spidey not knowing of Doom's mind controller. Doom continues to kidnap all of the members of the U.N. assembly, attaching mind controllers to each of them. To prevent Spider-Man from interfering any further, Doom sends out a nuclear-powered robot to fight Spidey in the sky. After defeating the robot, Peter is sent on a photo assignment to the U.N. building, where he witnesses Doom kidnapping the secretary-general, the last free-willed assembly member. Doom traps Spidey on his airship, while he directs the mind-controlled U.N. assembly to vote Doctor Doom master of the world. Spidey escapes from Doom's ship in the nick of time, and devises a plan to defeat Doom and free everyone from his mind-controller.

All of the reptiles in Central Park Zoo are released by the Lizard, to cause chaos and confusion. Spider-Man is able to save all of the people trapped by the escaped reptiles, but an encounter with a gorilla let loose by the Lizard leaves Spidey unable to notice the Lizard stealing all the zoos' reptiles. In his underground lair, the Lizard derails two subway cars, creating an impenetrable breeding ground in-between them in the subway tunnel. In the meantime, Spidey attempts to rid himself of a troublesome cold that has begun to affect him. Spidey finds out about the Lizards' subway plans , but is unable to stop him from sealing off part of the subway tunnel. Eventually, he digs his way into the sealed breeding ground, but is overrun by the amassed reptiles and the Lizard escapes. With time to spare, Spidey heads for the nearest doctor to try and solve his current sneezing problem. The Lizard then completes his master plan by activating a weather control device, turning New York into a humid jungle, and then releasing his army of reptiles. A still-suffering Spidey then faces the Lizard and his reptiles, and attempts to return the city to normal.

The Black Cat crashes a New Years' party at the Daily Bugle, stealing partygoers' jewellery. Spider-Man follows her and returns the jewels to Jameson's guests, but loses track of the Cat. The next day, the Black Cat visits the Bugle again, and asks Jameson to issue a challenge to Spider-Man, stating that she will steal the famous Maltese Mouse artifact. Spidey manages to stop the Cat from stealing the Mouse from the cargo ship carrying it, and is offered the job of guarding the artifact on the televised Johnny Griffon Show. That night, the Black Cat appears on schedule and steal the Mouse from under Spider-Man's nose in front of millions of viewers. Spidey pursues the Black Cat, with full intentions of capturing her, and retrieving the Maltese Mouse.

NASA invites both Peter and Sally-Ann Beaumont from Empire State University to witness the landing of their Mars probe, Explorer One at an island location. The probe, containing radioactive soil samples, lands on target. However, the Sandman, who was hiding in the surrounding sand, steals the soil sample and intends to absorb it into his body, with the radiation contained in it making him more powerful. Spidey does battle with him, but is unable to prevent the Sandman from absorbing the Martian soil. Unfortunately, as a result of donning his Spider-Man costume, Peter is then accused of negligence by Sally-Ann, after he was nowhere to be seen during the Sandman's fight, and faces dismissal from the college. Meanwhile, the Sandman begins a crime spree by stealing money from the First City Bank. With his new radioactive powers, the police and Spider-Man are helpless to stop him. Spidey ends up in the position of having to exonerate himself in front of the school board, shut his closet door before Aunt May discovers his spare spider-suits, and stop the radioactive-powered Sandman.

At the N.Y.C. Power Company, the generators are disabled by an unknown force during the night. Shortly after, the satellite tracking station in Omaha reports that communications satellites are disappearing one by one. The next day, a mysterious individual known as Mr. M broadcasts a message to the country admitting responsibility for the blackouts and satellite thefts. He wants a million dollars for returning the satellites back to orbit, and assurance that cities will have their power. Spidey takes the opportunity to observe the launch of the new International Communications satellite to try and discover who is responsible for the communications blackout. He finds out that it is Magneto, and proceeds to do battle with him, and is able to stop Magneto from stealing the new satellite. Unfortunately for Spidey, Magneto then uses a magnetic bubble to attach Spidey to the satellite's rocket. Spidey adapts the satellite into a space shuttle like glider using his web fluid, and uses the on-board tracker to lead him straight to Magneto, who lies on Easter Island. Spidey then faces off against Magneto and his powerful magnetic magnifier in order to free the satellites and restore full communications to the world.

Spider-Man is invited to Mysterio's Disco Hour Palace, in an obvious trap. Nevertheless, he turns up and finds out that Mysterio is using the disco's music to hypnotically control all the people there. He uses his new army to attack Spidey, both inside and outside the disco, leaving Spidey with no choice but to retreat for the time being. The next day, as Peter, he undergoes rehearsals for the college play at E.S.U. Soon, Mysterio broadcasts his hypnotic music across the campus, with all but Peter affected by the tune. He follows the increasing army of people across the city to the First City Bank, where he finally confronts them as Spider-Man. Mysterio takes control of Spider-Man with a new tune, and has his hypnotised army lock Spidey in the bank's vault. Spidey naturally escapes, and discovers that Mysterio has used his army to try and steal a nuclear missile. Spidey encounters Mysterio's army and manages to free them. It falls to a final battle between Mysterio's special effects and Spidey's intuition to end Mysterio's reign of terror.

Across New York, delegates from the U.N. Security Council are kidnapped and replaced by android duplicates. Meanwhile, in the distant kingdom of Latveria a peasant, known as Johan, frees his father from captivity, vowing to also free his country from Doctor Doom, who is the one responsible for the replacement of the U.N. members. Soon, Doom is invited to the U.N. assembly to make a speech, where he claims that the true answer to the world's problems is to have a single leader in charge of the world. Since he replaced the U.N. members with android duplicates, Doom is elected master of the world, apparently legally. It isn't long before Spidey realizes what has happened, and he goes to Robbie for help. In a battle with Doom's henchmen, Robbie accidentally falls out of one of the Bugle's windows, when it is revealed that he too was an android duplicate. With this unknown to Spidey however, he vows to get revenge on Doom for the death of his best friend. Doom himself also has plans to steal the Black Diamond from the U.N. building using his androids. Spidey confronts Doom at the U.N., and attempts to show the world of Doom's treachery, and to stop Doom himself.

Spider-Man has been accused of three robberies, the latest at a downtown jewellery store. Spidey sets out to prove himself innocent of these crimes, but is sidetracked when Aunt May reminds him of their trip to the carnival. At the carnival, Peter senses that something is wrong, and finds out that the Ringmaster, who is at the carnival, is using a hypnotic gas and skilled acrobatic performers to fool people into thinking that Spider-Man is committing crimes. Spidey does battle with the Ringmaster and his goons, but is forced to leave the scene when the Ringmaster releases all the caged animals. While Spidey rescues everyone at the carnival, the Ringmaster's group goes to the 1st Federal Bank. There, they commit another crime by robbing the place of a hundred million dollars' worth of gold, with the blame again going to Spider-Man. Spidey tracks down the Ringmaster, and has to defeat him, clear his own name, and retrieve the gold.

An escaped Norman Osborn is traveling by train, when it crashes, throwing Osborn from the wreckage, and restoring his memory of being the Green Goblin. Afterwards, on Halloween night, Peter attends a fancy-dress college party with Betty at E.S.U. It isn't long before Peter senses that all is not well at the Osborn Science Building, and he goes to investigate as Spider-Man.

There, he is trapped in a ‘suspended animation’ beam by the Green Goblin. The Goblin retrieves the memory amplifier, a device he created
previously, that is capable of projecting an individual's thoughts of the past and the future. The Goblin intends to reveal Spider-Man's true identity to the world, starting with Betty who almost walks in on an unmasked Spidey. He manages to avoid being found out by Betty, but the Goblin escapes. As revenge against Jameson for printing stories about unsafe conditions in Osborn labs, the Goblin sprays a chemical compound over the presses of the Daily Bugle. The next day, all the copies of the Bugle crumble into green dust. The Goblin tries to terrorize Jameson, but Spidey intervenes and saves him.

Whilst still holding onto Jameson, Spidey catches
onto the Goblin's gilder. With Jameson on the glider,
the Goblin attempts to reveal Spider-Man's secret
identity to him. Spidey makes as much noise as he
can to prevent Jameson from learning anything, but
the Goblin has to be stopped before any irreparable damage is caused.

With bills piling up for Aunt May and himself at home, Peter considers appearing on the Beyond Belief T.V. programme in order to participate in the stunts on the show, and win a cash prize. In the meantime, Jameson reveals to the public that the Daily Bugle has been sent a threatening note stating that a precious diamond and urn are going to be stolen later that night by a group calling themselves the Triangle of Evil. Spidey prevents the theft of both artifacts, but in the process gains even more bills to pay due to the damage caused by Spidey's fight with two of the members of the Triangle, Larry and Moe. Both thefts were organised by the leader of the group, known as the Stuntman, with the artifacts' owners, in order for them to specifically give Spider-Man large bills to pay. With so much money outstanding, Peter is forced to participate in the Beyond Belief show. The Stuntman announces to the director of the show that both he and Spider-Man will be taking part in the next edition.

The Stuntman also reveals that he used to be a Jack Riven, the world's greatest stuntman, who was permanently fused to a mechanical suit of armor during an accident a few years ago. He blames Spider-Man for his disfigurement, and he now intends to use the T.V. show as his revenge. The show begins the next day, and Spidey has to compete with the Stuntman in three dangerous stunts, with the other two members of his gang cheating to ensure Spidey loses. Spidey has to win at least two out of the three stunts by just staying alive, otherwise he and his Aunt will be penniless.

In Latveria, Dr. Doom does battle with a powerful individual known as Goron, who can shoot beams with many properties from his eyes. Doom confirms for himself that Goron has the power to teleport objects to and from differing locations. Doom proposes a partnership in order to combine their powers and take over the world.

Doom invites the world's leaders to Latveria in order for them to witness for themselves Doom's most powerful discovery: a growth process for crops, making them very large in size. Meanwhile, Johan's father discovers that Doom has created an android duplicate of his son for propaganda purposes in order to fool his foreign guests. With his guests off-guard, Doom uses Goron to control their minds and gets his partner invited to New York, where he demonstrates his growth ray-beams. Spidey investigates Goron, but is attacked. After escaping from Goron's trap, Spidey follows him to Cape Canaveral, where he was supposed to be using his eye-beams on an orbiting space platform in order to feed the world. Instead,

Goron imprisons the scientists there, and after dealing with Spider-Man again, manages to steal an important guidance system of a grounded spacecraft. Then, he activates every nuclear missile of the country, and holds the world to ransom unless Doom is proclaimed ruler of the world. Spidey battles Goron, with only five minutes left before the missiles' launch, and attempts to avert disaster.

Spidey encounters a stampede of wild bulls early one morning, and after rounding them up, finds out that they accidentally escaped from an in-town rodeo at Madison Square Garden. Later that day, at the Daily Bugle, Jameson is hosting a photo shoot of Wild Willie Wilson's priceless gold spurs due to appear at the rodeo. As they are transported secretly by subway courier, Peter is sent by Jameson to cover the human interest story of how valuables can be transported in public with no one aware of it. Soon, however, the subway car comes under attack by a masked cowboy on a flying robot horse who calls himself the Sidewinder. Fortunately, it's not long before Spider-Man appears to try and get back the stolen spurs. Spidey safely retrieves them, and returns them to their owner, Mr. Wilson. Grateful at the return of his property, he invites Spider-Man as a guest of honor at his rodeo. Whilst looking around the rodeo as Peter, he discovers that Sidewinder is using the place as a base.

With the help of one of the rodeo workers, who suspected that something was not right with the running of the rodeo, Spider-Man comes close to discovering Sidewinder's true identity, but he is rendered unconscious by the man himself before he finds out. Sidewinder straps Spidey to the rodeo's robotic bull, Diablo, and it's up to Spidey to free himself and reveal Sidewinder's true face.

J. Jonah Jameson decides to hire Kraven the Hunter to capture the last known sabre-tooth tiger as a mascot for the Daily Bugle. The large cat in question is actually Zabu, Ka-Zar of the prehistoric Savage Land's companion. When Ka-Zar learns of Kraven's involvement in his pet's disappearance, he follows him to New York. Just after landing Zabu escapes from his cage, with both Kraven and Spider-Man trying to subdue the beast. After Zabu has been restrained, Ka-Zar manages to get to New York and after causing chaos in his search for Zabu, he meets up with Spider-Man. Spidey volunteers to assist Ka-Zar in his quest to free Zabu. Upon hearing of Ka-Zar's arrival in New York, Kraven prepares to capture him, with Zabu as the bait. Kraven captures both Ka-Zar and Jameson, leaving Spider-Man alone to rescue Ka-Zar and Zabu, and defeat Kraven.

At a scientific demonstration, Dr. Norton shows off his latest invention, a diminishing ray capable of shrinking and enlarging any object. Soon however, the janitor announces himself as a super-villain known as the Gadgeteer, and steals the shrinking ray. Since Peter was taking photos of the demonstration, it isn't long before Spidey shows up to try and prevent the device's theft. During their battle, Spider-Man is shrunk down in size to two inches tall, and the Gadgeteer escapes with the ray. Now with a new perspective on the world, and after an encounter with a giant-sized cat, Spidey discovers that the International Inventor's Convention is in town, complete with a new futuristic micro-chip computer on display there, and concludes that the Gadgeteer is certain to show up. Gadgeteer does indeed wish to steal the micro-chip, and shrinks himself to get at it. He encounters Spidey there, and they battle. Afterwards, Spidey discovers that he has shrunk down further in size to only being half an inch tall. Spidey fights further with the Gadgeteer, trying to get access to the diminishing ray before he shrinks to nothing.

Professor Gizmo, a master criminal, devises a plan to use Spider-Man to attach an antenna to a sunken treasure ship, the El Conquistador, since only he can withstand the pressure at that depth. Peter, meanwhile, has been invited to a charity cruise on board Jameson's yacht. Gizmo attacks the yacht and demands that all the diamond donations be surrendered to him, using the old ship, the Monitor. Failing to draw out Spider-Man with the theft at sea, Gizmo then attempts to steal the Spirit of St. Louis from the Smithsonian Museum. This time, Spidey shows up save the plane, but is blamed for the subsequent theft of it. Next, Gizmo uses a remote control device to control various machines in the city, and steals a bank's vault contents. Gizmo then announces that he will return the stolen diamonds, money and plane in exchange for Spider-Man. The next day, during the Thanksgiving parade, Gizmo captures Spidey, and tells him of his plan to raise the treasure ship. After Spider-Man is forced to raise the ship, he has to recover the stolen items, and stop Gizmo.

In Latveria, Johan's father and many other countrymen continue to be forced to work as slaves. Boris, Dr. Doom's assistant tries to convince Doom that his people should have more rights. Doom dismisses this, and continues to have his people construct a satellite tracking station and connect it to the guidance system teleported to him by Goron, before the U.S. launches a space platform. By causing two large explosions in Greenland and the Mexican jungle, Doom creates a new fault line that crosses New York, putting the city in extreme jeopardy. Doom is allowed to journey to New York by invitation from Jameson, over the objections of the government, and he takes a large laser cannon with him. Doom claims that his laser will drill a hole deep enough into the Earth that the resulting heat can be sold by Jameson from his estate. Peter goes to Jameson's mansion, and discovers that the new fault line lies directly below the estate. As Spider-Man, he then fights with Doom but is unable to prevent the first earthquakes from occurring. Back in Latveria, Johan escapes from Doom's forces with the help of Boris. While on the run, Boris tells Johan of how Doom came to power, with his father being killed by a tyrant's soldiers. Doom continued to fight injustice in Europe with his scientific knowledge until he gained a scholarship in America. There, he conducted forbidden and dangerous experiments that scarred his face. He then took refuge with a mysterious order of monks and became Dr. Doom. Doom's tale told, Boris then gives Johan the address of a Latverian resistance base in New York. With the earthquakes continuing, and an air strike on Jameson's estate imminent, Spidey must shut down Doom's laser canon.

Jameson decides to honor Captain America, hero of World War II. Upon hearing of this, the Red Skull decides to use the dedication ceremony as an opportunity to kidnap Captain America. As the Red Skull ambushes the Captain at the ceremony, Spidey attempts to help stop the Skull, but ends up inadvertently letting him escape with Captain America as a captive. Spidey ends up being blamed for the Captain's kidnapping by the assembled crowd. Facing increasing public hostility, Spidey decides to rescue Captain America by himself. He disguises himself as Captain America after a visit to a costume shop, and journey's to the Red Skull's castle stronghold in a rented plane with little resistance from his pilot. With Captain America as his captive, the Skull demonstrates a device created by his worker, Dr. Niemann, that is capable of mind transfer. He intends to swap minds with Captain America, and use his power to control the U.S., while Cap in the Skull's body is locked away forever. Spidey infiltrates the Skull's castle and does battle with his robotic guards. As the Red Skull begins to swap minds with Captain America, Spider-Man arrives and has to figure out a way of stopping the Skull's plan from succeeding.

The Latverian peasant Johan has managed to escape thanks to help from Dr. Doom's assistant Boris. Doom punishes Boris by imprisoning him in his dungeon. Johan meanwhile, has made it to New York, where he meets a group of underground Latverian resistance fighters. Afterwards, he wishes to tell the world about the terrible conditions for the people of Latveria thanks to Doom. The resistance leader tells Johan to go specifically to the Daily Bugle, but when he gets there, his story is immediately dismissed by Jameson, who still thinks that Doom is a great man. However, Peter and Betty overhear Johan's accusations, and Peter decides to record his story. As Betty types up the story for publication, she is kidnapped by the freedom fighters, who are in reality working for Doom. Spider-Man turns up quickly and rescues Betty, but the transcript of Johan's story is stolen. However, since she still has Peter's tape, the story ends up being printed by every newspaper (except the Bugle) in the city after copies are sent out. Thanks to the publicity against Doom, the revolution in Latveria begins and Johan returns to Latveria. Spider-Man decides to join him on his journey back, but Doom is remote-controlling their plane. Doom issues the U.N. with another ultimatum to make him the leader of the world or his will use his giant Tesla coils to produce torrents of rain all over the Earth. When Spidey and Johan get to Latveria after escaping from the remote-plane, they meet up with the true resistance, and Spidey sneaks into Doom's castle, while the resistance attempt to destroy the satellite tracking station. Spidey has to face Doom yet again, and save the Earth by destroying the giant Tesla coils.

Dr. Bradley Shaw and his manipulative assistant Penny study Spider-Man and his powers carefully, with the intent to duplicate them for their own purposes. After obtaining a sample of Spider-Man's blood, they discover that the catalyst for his powers was radiation. In the meantime, Peter uses any excuse possible to avoid giving blood at the Bugle, since his blood contains the aforementioned radioactive elements. Penny forces Shaw to experiment on himself, to give him the powers of Spider-Man. She allows him to receive an overdose of radiation in addition to an injection of spider D.N.A., and instead of simply duplicating Spidey's powers, he is turned into a half-human half-spider mutation known as Nephilia. He goes to the Bugle and webs up Jameson to get Spider-Man's attention. Soon, the two spider-men meet up and clash with each other. Spidey finds out that a nephilia spider was sold to Dr. Shaw and goes to his workplace, where he finds a message from Penny telling him that she and Nephilia will rob an armored shipment of gold. It falls to Spidey to protect the shipment of gold and find a cure to return Dr. Shaw to normal, as well as fooling Jameson that he has in fact donated some blood.

As N.A.S.A. prepares to launch a space platform containing a canon created by Dr. Doom, there is an accident with a liquid nitrogen leak, trapping some gantry workers. Spidey quickly intervenes and saves both the workers, and the rocket, little realizing that he has ensured that Dr. Doom's final master plan can go ahead. Doom watches the rocket's launch from his new castle, unaware of Johan and his comrade's escape from the dungeons. Doom takes control of the rocket using his satellite tracking station, and help from Dr. Zoltan at N.A.S.A. Doom uses the laser canon on board the space platform to ignite all the volcanoes around the Pacific rim of fire. The resulting simultaneous eruptions move the Earth from its orbit, sending it away from the Sun and plunging it into a new ice age. Spidey discovers that the only opportunity to return the Earth to its original orbit it at midnight, when the volcanoes are on the other side of the Earth, facing away from the Sun. Doom issues his final ultimatum to the U.N., and with no choice, they declare him absolute ruler of the world. Spidey meanwhile, has hitched a lift to Latveria thanks to the French ambassador, and meets up with Johan's resistance. With Doom now master of the world, he sends out robot duplicates of himself to take their place at the head of all the world's governments, and dissolves the U.N. As Spider-Man and the Latverian resistance converge on Dr. Doom's castle, the stage is set for the final battle to save the Earth.

At night, Spider-Man helps the police catch a cat burglar. When he is put in jail, he ends up as a cellmate of the Chameleon. He tells the Chameleon of how he is related to the man partly responsible for a lot of the inmates being imprisoned in the first place. The Chameleon is told of how, when Spider-Man first appeared, all he wanted was fame and fortune, but after his cousin murdered Ben Parker, Spider-Man turned into a crime fighter. The Chameleon remembers how Peter Parker always gets the best pictures of Spider-Man and decides to visit May Parker to find a way of trapping Spider-Man. He and his partner Colleen trick May into seeing what she believes to be a vision of Ben (in reality, the Chameleon in disguise). May is fooled into visiting a medium called Mentarr (really the Chameleon), so that she can contact Ben's spirit. The Chameleon gets May to believe that Ben's spirit can only rest when Spider-Man has been made helpless and turned over to Mentarr. He gives May an amulet that gives out a hypnotic gas, and she asks Peter if he can set up a meeting between her and Spider-Man. As Spidey helps Aunt May around the house, she tries several times to incapacitate him, but to no avail. It isn't long before he realizes that something is wrong with May, and Spidey ends up having to deal with his manipulated Aunt, as well as the villainous Chameleon.

Spidey encounters the Vulture attempting to kidnap a scientist from his apartment, but is unable to stop him. The Vulture has kidnapped a number of scientists recently, and Peter is sent to contact Harry Osborn by Jameson to get a good quote. After losing his clothes as Spidey, Peter borrows some of Harry's clothes from his apartment, and is soon mistaken for Osborn by the Vulture, who kidnaps him. The Vulture takes Peter to his airship base, where he finds the other kidnapped scientists being forced to work for the Vulture. He forces Peter to develop enough radar-jamming paint to cover his ship, and Peter develops it using Harry's notes. After coating the Vulture's ship with the invisible paint, the Vulture leaves and Peter becomes Spider-Man. The other scientists are freed, but Spidey is thrown off the airship when the Vulture returns. Spidey lands safely and later discovers that the Jupiter space probe containing rare space rocks is scheduled to splashdown in one hour. He figures out that the Vulture's plans are to capture the probe and steal the rare gems. Spidey makes it on the recovery ship, and prepares to battle the Vulture to prevent the theft of the space probe.

The crime boss Silvermane comes to New York to call a truce with the Kingpin. The Kingpin himself has had his scientist, Dr. Everett, create a new and powerful dissolvent fluid, capable of eating through anything. The resultant toxic waste from production of the fluid is dumped in the river, where the pollution poisons Namorita, Namor the Sub-Mariner's cousin. Namor takes her to a surface hospital, where she is treated for the poisoning. Namor then goes on a rampage, creating chaos in the city, while destroying anything that produces pollution. Spidey turns up to stop him from causing any more destruction, and the Sub-Mariner is convinced to get his message on pollution across by using the Daily Bugle. Meanwhile, Spider-Man tails further crime bosses, who have arrived in New York, and finds them all converging at a remote location. Namor takes Jameson on a tour of the area, showing him the effects of pollution on the environment, and soon finds Spidey in trouble with the crime lords. Namor rescue Spidey and tracks the pollution that poisoned Namorita to the Kingpin's hideout. The Kingpin puts it to the other bosses that they should join their forces, using the new dissolvent as his bargaining chip. Namor fights with the crime bosses, but ends up being defeated and imprisoned. With Namor facing being thrown into a vat of the dissolvent, only Spider-Man can save him from the Kingpin's forces.

After saving a gem courier from a couple of muggers, Spider-Man is contacted by a talent scout called Hal Hunter. In reality, Hunter works for the Kingpin, and uses his offer of money to lure Spidey into taking photographs of an art exhibit at the Graham Arts Museum. Unbeknownst to Spidey, the camera he used contained infra-red film that the Kingpin's goons use to find the location of the sensor-beams guarding the statue, and manage to steal it. The next day, with Spidey blamed for the statue's theft, the Bank Bonanza quiz show offers a grand prize of a million dollars. Hunter offers Spidey the job of ""courier"" to transport the money to the show, but the real money was stolen, with Spidey giving the studio a case full of counterfeit bills. With Spidey now blamed for the theft of the money as well, he figures out that Hunter set him up, and after visiting him, is offered one last job to fix the Hapsburg Clock above the International Diamond Exchange. With Spidey now knowing that Hunter has been using him on behalf of the Kingpin, he prepares to prevent the Kingpin from stealing diamonds from the exchange and save Hunter.

A couple of roller-bladers terrorize vendors in Central Park, with Spidey showing up to quickly deal with them. Medusa appears and confirms to the police that Spidey had nothing to do with the trouble. She claims to be just visiting New York, but has in fact been invited there by the Wizard, her old partner in crime. She refuses his offer of joining forces with him, so the Wizard gives Medusa an unremoveable collar forcing her to work for him. Together, they steal cylinders of the rare metal element Niobium, so that the Wizard can construct an anti-gravity weapon. Medusa accidentally drops two of the cylinders and the alarm is sounded. Spidey turns up and fights the Wizard, not believing that Medusa is working for him again. The Wizard escapes, leaving Spider-Man and Medusa to talk about her problems, but she quickly leaves to join up with the Wizard before he does anything to the collar. The Wizard asks Medusa to steal an electronic component from a military base with Spider-Man's help. She tricks Spidey into helping her steal the component, and the Wizard then traps Spidey in his lair. Trapped in a room with increasingly hot walls, Spidey has to figure a way out in time to stop the Wizard and his anti-gravity weapon.