Issue(s): Amazing Spider-Man #59, Amazing Spider-Man #60, Amazing Spider-Man #61
Cover Date: Apr-Jun 68
Title: "The brand of the Brainwasher!" / "O, bitter victory!" / "What a tangled web we weave--!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Don Heck & John Romita Sr. - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker

Review/plot:
Peter, who has been missing for quite some time now, finally shows up at the hospital and he finds out that the police have been looking for him since he's been reported as a missing person. He was believed to have been captured by Spider-Man, and Peter takes the opportunity to say that Spidey had amnesia and wasn't really partners with Doctor Octopus. He says that once Spidey's memory returned, he let Peter go. Captain Stacy invites Peter back to his house to show him some Spider-Man slides. He is working to prove Spider-Man innocent. Gwen shows up and showers affection on Peter, embarrassing him in front of her father (Brian Cronin at CBR notes that this is the first time Peter Parker is shown kissing a girl on panel).

Then she takes him to the Coffee Bean to meet up with Harry Osborn. Peter finds out that Mary Jane has a job singing at a go-go bar.

Meanwhile the Kingpin, going under the alias of "Brainwasher", is getting criminals released on bail. He is actually the owner of the club Mary Jane is singing at. The plan is to invite important city officials to the club and, well, brainwash them. Captain Stacy is among the officials who are brainwashed. Since Peter and friends are at the club to see MJ, Spidey winds up in a fight with the Kingpin's goons and then the Kingpin himself.

He rescues MJ, but gets thrown into the brainwashing equipment and is weakened by the electric shock. He is seeing double and can't swing on his webs properly and heads home on a bus..

MJ returns to Gwen and Norman but nobody else thinks anything has gone wrong, especially when Captain Stacy returns, seemingly OK. Peter knows that something happened to Captain Stacy but when he goes to visit the Stacys things go wrong and to Gwen it appears that Peter knocked her father on the floor. Stacy reports to the Kingpin that Peter is suspicious and the Kingpin puts a hit out on him. Thugs show up at Harry's apartment but Peter was visiting Aunt May at Aunt Watson's house.

Peter knows that Captain Stacy and perhaps many other city officials are brainwashed by the Kingpin so he decides the best way to deal with the situation is to expose Stacy by taking pictures and publishing them in the Bugle.

Kingpin sets up shop in Norman Osborn's lab, since he is working with a scientist (Dr. Winkler) under Osborn's employ. The Kingpin has Captain Stacy (and Gwen, incidentally) brought in to be rubbed out. Spidey, recovered from the electric shock and prepared for the Kingpin's signature gas attack with a specially made gas mask, inspects the Go-Go club and sees that some of the brainwashing equipment was made at Oscorp. Spidey heads there and stops the Kingpin from killing Stacy. Norman Osborn also helps, but he's been acting funny.

Stacy's name is cleared but Gwen will never know that Peter helped clear it.

Amazing Spider-Man #60 has a great, simple cover of the Kingpin swinging Spidey around by his legs.

Statement of Ownership Total Paid Circulation: Average of Past 12 months = 361,663. Single issue closest to filing date = 373,300.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: Amazing Spider-Man #59 starts off with Spidey trying to get to the hospital to visit Aunt May. Initially i thought that meant it might have to continue directly from #58, but i realized that in #58 Peter wasn't sure where Aunt May was. At this point he knows which hospital she is in, and has had time to go home and refill his web cartridges (just in time, he says, but that doesn't mean immediately after the fight with the Spider-Slayer). So it looks like some time has passed; enough to check in on what other heroes are up to, and maybe even for Spidey to meet Daredevil and the Human Torch in Fantastic Four #73. Otherwise Spidey appears in the FF issue during issue #59, after the opening scene. Daredevil #42 and Spectacular Spider-Man #1 definitely do take place during #59 - see the Considerations for those entries - so i've placed those entries directly after this arc.

References:

• Spider-Man first fought the Kingpin in Amazing Spider-Man #51 (Stan's footnote says "In ish #42 - as if it matters!", but the note is incorrect. #42 is the issue with Colonel Jameson getting infected with the space spores.).
  
• Norman Osborn 'helped' Spider-Man defeat the Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man #40.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Tales #42, Marvel Tales #43, Marvel Tales #44

I remember there being a lot of "Goblin teasing" in these issues. Quite the buildup leading to the Spectacular #2.

Interesting comment in #59's letters page:"Your negroes are merely whites drawn by the artist with their skins darkened by the colorist".

'Face it, female'?! Whahuh? Stan had women calling themselves female too? Was this a weird sixties thing?

This is pretty much where Gwen and Norman must have slept together. Peter and Gwen really haven't started dating yet, although they have feelings for each other, and Osborn is having a hard time with his head. The whole thing is just rancid, and it ruined Gwen, but to make it work, and to try and preserve Gwen's relationship and feelings for Peter, between #61 and #62 must be the spot where she and Osborn did it.

Over all this was a good storyline and proof that the Kingpin was more than just some big guy who fought Spider-Man until Miller got ahold of him.

Didn't some other criminal do just what the Kingpin did here later on?

Oh and the Captain Stacy pic just feels rather weird even if just OOC with the Peter/Gwen part.

@Ataru- the brainwashing device is later used by the Hobgoblin, if that's what you're thinking of.

Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books recently did a three part retrospective on this story. It's interesting to see the perspective offered by someone who read these issues in real time, and for whom this story was their introduction to Spider-Man in comic books.

Certainly the images of Mary Jane dancing at the go-go club, as rendered by Romita, Heck & Esposito, must have made an impression on a few adolescent male readers :)

Here's a link to the first part of the write-up...

https://50yearoldcomics.wordpress.com/2018/01/07/amazing-spider-man-59-april-1968/