Issue(s): Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #100
Cover Date: Mar 85
Title: "Breakin'!"
Credits:
Al Milgrom - Writer
Al Milgrom - Penciler
Vincent Colletta & Geof Isherwood - Inker
Bob DeNatale - Assistant Editor
Danny Fingeroth - Editor

Review/plot:
Al Milgrom returns to pencils for the 100th issue of Peter Parker. This issue wraps up a couple of sub-plots.

Peter has a dream about his alien costume. While he's dreaming, the phone starts ringing in real life, and, still dreaming, Peter remembers that Mr. Fantastic used sonics to remove the costume, and implies that it's the symbiote's one weakness. This is establishing something that is a pet peeve of mine; there was nothing in the original story that said that the costume was only vulnerable to sonics; it's just what Mr. Fantastic used to safely remove the costume without harming Peter.

The phone call turns out to be from Sha Shan, who wants to know if Peter has actually followed up on Flash's mysterious actions lately. He hasn't, but the phone call prompts him to act, and he tails Flash to some football try-outs. Flash isn't doing so well. So the big mystery about Flash turns out to be a bit of a bust. At least he's ruled out as a Hobgoblin. On the downside, Peter observes that Flash and Betty Brant are seeing each other.

After that, Spider-Man and the Black Cat each independently decide to resume their attempt to confront the Kingpin. Spidey winds up running into the Spot again...

...so the Black Cat gets to the Kingpin first. She learns that her powers have a downside; any long term exposure to her powers eventually results in continuous bad luck and then death (She wants to kill the Kingpin because of this, but he says that since he won't attack her, her powers won't work on him. To which i say, "So what?" If she really wanted to kill him, and he wasn't going to fight back, she should be able to do so, bad luck powers or not).

Based on this new information, the Cat decides she has to break up with Spider-Man.

Spider-Man eventually defeats the Spot by tricking him into spreading his "spots" so thin that it's possible to punch him properly.

Despite his weird powers, the Spot is basically a scientist at heart (and body), which means: A. he's not strong enough for his punches to hurt Spider-Man too much and B. once the tables turn on him he starts repenting real fast. Spidey lets the Spot off with a mild scolding.

Spider-Man then confronts the Kingpin himself but the encounter is fruitless. He then breaks up with the Black Cat before she has a chance to do so, which she's not happy about.

Bambi, Randi, and Candi appear again in this issue, but they look nothing like they did in issue #99. I guess it's closer to what we saw in Marvel Team-Up #150, and they're talking the valley girl talk again, too.

Meanwhile, the alien symbiote costume, uses the poor tourist it possessed last issue...

...to get back to Peter Parker's apartment.

A decent number of significant events, but it's not told all that well.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - Spider-Man and the Black Cat break up.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Since it was the same drug that gave Cloak and Dagger their powers, and since Dagger's power has the ability to cure his wife, the Kingpin hoped that the Spot's study of Cloak's power might lead to a cure for Vanessa. It was shown in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #69 that the Kingpin knew Cloak & Dagger's origin.
  
• Vanessa's been in critical condition since Daredevil #180, when she became the prisoner of a crazed man living in the sewers. She wakes up enough to start shouting about that experience in this issue, but there's no footnote.
  
• Spider-Man saw how tight the security was the last time he was in the Kingpin's building, in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #96, and anticipates it being even worse this time.
  
• The Kingpin says that part of the reason he granted the Black Cat a power that would eventually backfire on her was vengeance for when she stole the nuclear detonator from him in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #76, especially since Doctor Octopus subsequently got the detonator and used it to threaten the city. "His" city.
  
• This issue ends with Peter back in his apartment, where the alien symbiote is lurking. The end blurb says the story continues in Web of Spider-Man #1.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

FNORD - You said "there was nothing in the original story that said that the costume was only vulnerable to sonics; it's just what Mr. Fantastic used to safely remove the costume without harming Peter."
Couldn't the fact that it was the first thing that harmed the symbiote cause a psychological fear of that particular weapon? Therefore, that kind of effect would "hurt" the symbiote more than anything else.

Clyde, that's fine but the point is that the symbiote shouldn't be immune to everything else, and later stories seem to treat it that way.

The old Spider-Man handbook to the TSR Marvel RPG had the symbiote listed as weaker to sonics than it is to fire fwiw.

I have no problem with the emphasis on sonics here. After all, we've seen that slashing it only harms the host while the alien reforms itself and if you were trying to get it off while it was wearing you then fire, electricity, giant blenders, liquid nitrogen and explosions are probably all bad choices. We also know that anchovies don't repel it. It's the stories from ASM#300 that mess with things.