Issue(s): Amazing Spider-Man #87
Cover Date: Aug 70
Title: "Unmasked at last!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
John Romita Sr. - Penciler
Jim Mooney - Inker

Review/plot:
Full Romita pencils again.

Still sick, Spider-Man wanders the city. He tries to find Doc Connors but he has returned to Florida. Then he nearly robs a jewelry store to get Gwen a birthday gift before coming to his senses. He then falls, thinking that he's lost his powers.

He shows up at Gwen's birthday party, nearly delirious, telling everyone that he's giving up his Spider-Man identity before wandering off again.

Mary Jane's reaction to Peter's reveal, so calm and calculating compared to the others, is interesting in light of the retcon that she's known his identity all along.

Peter winds up in a hospital, now wearing his Spider-Man costume again although he was in civvies when at Gwen's party. Despite the bureaucratic complaints of the admissions staff, a dedicated doctor takes Spidey in and checks him out. It turns out he just had a really bad flu, which he suddenly recovers from very quickly.

Spider-Man hunts down Hobie Brown, AKA the Prowler, and asks him to wear Spidey's costume while Peter goes back to the Stacys' residence in an attempt to show Spidey and Peter at the same place at the same time.

It seems to work i guess but why would Spider-Man show up at Captain Stacy's house? Kinda suspicious, i'd think.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Harry remembers the previous time Peter got sick and lost his powers and was revealed to be Spider-Man when fighting Dr. Octopus in Amazing Spider-Man #12. It's really a shame that this issue was referenced, especially by someone who wasn't there at the time. It means it's fairly common knowledge that Peter has dressed up like Spider-Man in the past, and here he is doing it again. You'd really have to be denser than a stone wall to not figure out that Peter was in fact Spider-man.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Tales #68

Doug Moench has a letter here.

God, I hate, hate, HATE the retcon that Mary Jane always knew who Spider-Man was. HATE it. First on all, no freaking way is that validated by what Lee and Romita did, and it CERTAINLY wasn't what they intended, so it's a bit disrespectful to the original creators. Second of all, it's a mangling of the standard super-hero trope: Yeah, in real life it would be impossible to maintain a "secret identity", but if you point out how easy it is to blow a super-hero's cover then you remove yet another piece of what makes the genre work. It's inserting "realism" where it doesn't belong. And third, all the fans who say that it "makes more sense" if Mary Jane knew all along because "there's no way a hot chick like her it would be interested in a geek like Peter if she didn't know he was Spider-Man" just reek of nerd self-loathing.

Ditto that, Jay Patrick. I feel the same way.

On a different tangent, I thought Bendis had a very interesting take on what would really happen to Spider-Man's secret identity in his run on Ultimate Spider-Man (Peter Parker version).