Issue(s): Amazing Spider-Man #165, Amazing Spider-Man #166
Cover Date: Feb-Mar 77
Title: "Stegron stalks the city!" / "War of the reptile-men!"
Credits:
Len Wein - Writer
Ross Andru - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker

Review/plot:
Spider-Man investigates a twinge from his spider-sense and finds himself in a SHIELD lab getting shot at by agents who think that whoever just attacked them was working with Spidey.

The villain will turn out to be Stegron the Dinosaur Man. And he'd like to bring the dinosaur skeletons in the Natural History Museum back to life, which is why he was stealing equipment from SHIELD, and why he's showing up at his former mentor Doc Connor's place to kidnap Billy and force Connors to perfect his device.

So that puts the Lizard in conflict with Stegron.

All of that is what it is, but what's important is that these guys are SO CUTE!

Conquer the world?! Of course you can, you adorable creatures!

The Lizard shows an attachment to Billy...

...and even talks like he's acting on Doc Connor's behalf.

It's "Christmas" time, so Spider-Man eventually has to hunt Stegron down in the snow, but Stegron is so weak that he's unable to launch his ambush and falls into a river.

It's not explicitly said that this is because he's cold-blooded, but when someone writes in to compliment Len Wein for that, the response says that there's a faction at Marvel, including Andy Yanchus and Dave Cockrum, claiming that dinosaurs were actually warm blooded, but Wein stuck to his guns.

On the soap opera side, Peter confronts Flash Thompson about his horning in on Mary Jane, and when Flash learns that MJ and Peter are supposed to be dating, he backs away and has some words (off panel) with MJ. Peter and MJ then kind of resolve things. It's really nice to see an actual resolution to some drama.

Meanwhile. J. Jonah Jameson and his new scientist friend Marla Madison are cooking up a new Spider-Slayer. It's their own way of bonding.

And Harry and Liz announce their engagement.

I leave you with Stegron riding a T. Rex through New York City.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Index places Marvel Team-Up annual #1 and Marvel Team-Up #53-56 between Amazing Spider-Man #170-171, so i have pushed a number of 1977 ASMs back into 1976 to accommodate. Some time has passed between the end of #165 and #166; enough for Mary Jane to have moved from the Cosmic Laser Light Concert to a party at Flash and Harry's place. But i'm assuming that it's still the same night. Spider-Man also says the Avengers weren't home when he tried to get help against Stegron, for what that's worth.

References:

• Spider-Man tells the SHIELD agents to confirm with Nick Fury that he's a good guy. He met Fury in Marvel Team-Up #13.
  
• Spider-Man lists a bunch of the super-villains he's fought recently, including the Kingpin in the previous arc of ASM, plus the Tarantula and Kraven in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #1 through #3.
  
• Stegron was last seen in Marvel Team-Up #20. Stegron says he survived his fall into the harbor by slowing his metabolism.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

It looks like you accidentally posted the "Stegron succumbs to the cold" panels a second time instead of "Stegron riding a T. Rex through New York City".

Thankssss, Gnu. It would have been a sssssshame to deny everyone the pleassssssure of ssssssseeing that sssssssscan.

"The Lizard shows an attachment to Billy."

He was saving it now to eat it later. :-(

Mary Jane pretends like the reason she's pissed at Peter is because he keeps running out on her to take his "precious photos," but we know better, because we already know about the later retcon that says she's known from the get-go that he is secretly Spider-Man.

So, taking that later retcon at face value, Mary Jane, too, is being duplicitous here; they are each holding something back from the other. Peter is holding back a secret, but MJ is also holding back, on her secret knowledge of his secret. MJ's moral highground is thus eroded by the revelations of the retcon.

Time to stop lying MJ. Sounds silly right? In other words, the retcon just doesn't work. At least, not for me it doesn't.

That is a lot of problem with too many retcons - the people responsible for them can't possibly know ALL the ways past stories are impacted. And some of them could very well damage the characters.

MJ's original reveal that she knew Pete's secret identity in ASM # 257-258 worked because we assumed it's something she's recently figured out (the exact timing of which irrelevant). But push that back too far, and it undermines the stories written when the writers didn't consider that.

There are a lot of cool ideas that would be awesome GOING FORWARD, but which were ruined because it was introduced as a retcon instead.

Going forward, yeah, it would make perfect sense, and better sense than assuming MJ was too dumb to ever figure it out. I haven't read the actual story, but Wikipedia says that a Parallel Lives graphic novel and Untold Tales later gave us the "revelation" (wow) that MJ had known Peter's secret ever since Amazing Fantasy #15, when she saw Spidey coming out of Peter's window on his way to snag the burglar who killed Uncle Ben.

As one reads these stories in real time, one sort of constructs one's own backstories to fill in the gaps. When MJ was introduced I imagined she and Aunt Anna must have lived at least a few blocks away from Peter and Aunt May-- otherwise, how to explain that Peter and Mary Jane had never met while still in primary school or high school? Now I'm to believe that she lived right across the street or next door or somewhere in the neighborhood with an easy view of Peter's window. Again it just doesn't make sense within the story sandbox earlier writers had constructed. One can't help seeing one's neighbors over the course of years, unless one of them is deliberately trying to hide.

Fnord has a review of Parallel lives here:
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/amazing_spider-man_parallel_li.shtml

Thanks Michael. I remember that in 1989 I wasn't reading any X-things, Spider-things, Superthings, Green things, or basically anythings that were pushing multiple titles a month onto the racks. Reading this one now, the most persuasive feeling I get is that I'm reading about a Spider-Man from an alternate reality. This has long since become a very familiar feeling, after so many retcons, continuity white-outs, and unexplained time travel misadventures.