Issue(s): Amazing Spider-Man #231, Amazing Spider-Man #232
Cover Date: Aug-Sep 82
Title: "Caught in the act..." / "Hyde... in plain sight!"
Credits:
Roger Stern - Writer
John Romita Jr. - Penciler
Jim Mooney - Inker
Linda Grant - Assistant Editor
Tom DeFalco - Editor

Review/plot:
The Cobra has gotten himself a nice set-up now that he's no longer partners with Mr. Hyde. Low profile heists have been keeping him well provisioned and he's even got a nice penthouse apartment.

However, a mysterious bulky figure busts through the construction zone where the Juggernaut was recently buried. We're meant to think it might be the Juggernaut, but it's really Mr. Hyde.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man's been moving up in the world as well. He's made himself two new Spider-Man costumes after his recent ones all got destroyed, including in last issue's fight with the Juggernaut. He's added back the "web pits", i.e., the webbing on his costume that ran between his arms and his sides in the earliest issues of ASM.

J. Jonah Jameson has Ned Leeds investigating the Brand Corporation because of the time when the Killer Shrike kidnapped Marla Madison for Brand, and Ned's wife Betty is worried about Ned going into a rough neighborhood. Peter decides to look after Ned as Spider-Man.

Ned is there to hear from an informant called Nose Norton about Brand.

But the Cobra is also a contact of the Nose, and he thinks the Nose is selling him out to Leeds. So he attacks, and Spider-Man jumps in.

Spidey wins pretty easily, but the Hyde shows up to extract his vengeance on Cobra.

Spider-Man's ankle is injured and Spider-Man has a hard time protecting the Cobra and saving surrounding bystanders from Hyde's attacks...

...so eventually he has to break off the fight, with Cobra in Hyde's possession.

Luckily he slipped in a spider-tracer, and he's able to track them back to Cobra's apartment later...

...where he stops both of them after a really tough fight.

Stern has been really good about putting Spider-Man through really tough battles. He does a great job depicting Hyde's menace (he's clearly had a goal of raising Mr. Hyde's status since he used him in Captain America, and of course he'll go on to use him in his Masters of Evil story in Avengers). Plus he's managing a lot of classic style Spider-Man soap opera stuff. And JRJR's art is great as well. It's just a really good run.

Quality Rating: A-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Mr. Hyde was assumed dead after being flash-frozen and drowned in Captain America #252.
  
• Spider-Man's other costume was shredded in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #66.
  
• Jameson is interested in investigating the Brand corporation ever since Marla was abducted by the Killer Shrike in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #57.
  
• Spider-Man beat the Cobra easily the last time they fought in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #46.
  
• Peter quit his job as a TA in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #68.
  
• "Recent issues of Spectacular Spider-Man" have shown that Debra Whitman suspects Peter is Spider-Man.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

A Spidey classic. Continuity wise dere's nothing really going on here dat's important for future reference or that you couldn't otherwise skip. That said Stern puts together a story that hits just about every note a Spidey story should and has a lot of fun in the process.

I think Stern/JRjr is probably unparallelled. Why was it so short! And why don't they give Stern a book of his own, he still has it.

Stern was essentially forced off the book by new incumming Spidey editor, Danny Fingeroth.

Agreed that Stern still has it. His Spidey one off specials are as strong as any monthly being written today. I'd guess it has to do with poopularity and hype constantly favoring the next new thing.

I do not understand why the editors would not allow such a genius writer to just do his thing. It seems like he got messed with on ASM, Avengers & cap, at the least. As for popularity and hype, you'd think being Stern would be enough. His work on Superman was also the best thing to happen to that franchise in the past three decades. Boo comics for not putting Stern on the biggest books, or in charge as chief creative envisioner.

My sentiments exactly regarding Stern.

I wrote to Marvel about replacing Mackie withStern; we got JMS and Jenkins instead.

Was Stern deliberately pushed out? What I've read is that he really didn't like Fingeroth as an editor as he felt they weren't on the same page and he was having to explain everything to him all the time and it was driving him crazy. Then Romita quit over the balck costume (he thought it would provoke a fan backlash and he didn't want to be associated with it) and that was the final straw. He didn't know who would be taking over on art so he quit too. He said that if he'd known it was going to be Ron Frenz then he'd have stayed longer.

Well, that's what I read in an interview with Stern anyway. Sorry, I can't remember where it was to link it.

It's a shame he left then anyway. He was great on Spider-man and I much prefer Frenz to JRjr, so I'd have loved Stern/Frenz on the alien costume era comics.

I read he left so he could work on Avengers, but who knows.

A striking aspect of Sterns run is that Pete is such an adult. As a kid, I responded more to this version than I think I would have to the "younger" Pete that we've had pretty much since the Byrne reboot.

Fnord, I just referred to your rules link and it looks like the issue writeup in question is the proper place for stuff like this so: you don't have Phillip Chen listed as a character appearing, even though he's in the last scan you include here.

Between Stern's use of Cobra in this issue and PPTSSM#46 and Mantlo's use of him later, I wonder if the intent was to make Cobra a Spidey villain before Gruenwald ended up grabbing him for Captain America as part of the Serpent Society. Cobra's power set is very appropriate to a Spidey level villain. I've always liked the Cobra, but this period where the Cobra-Hyde dynamic overpowered everything was really killing the character. It was the same story over and over. Years later, Grunewald would thankfully resolve this and allow Cobra and Hyde to move on to be their own characters.

Added Phillip *Chang*. Thanks Dan.

This Stern run was incredible.........the darkness and posturing of the characters was right on point.
Juggernaut, Cobra, Mr. Hyde, Will O Wisp, all this was leading towards the badness of the Hobgoblin frenzy.