Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #140
Cover Date: Apr 84
Title: "Where were you ... when the lights went out?"
Credits:
Tom DeFalco & Bill Mantlo - Writer
Ron Frenz - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker

Review/plot:
For the writer credit, it just says "Story by Bill Mantlo and Tom DeFalco." I don't know how that would break down regarding Script and Plot, but considering DeFalco also plots the next issue it's likely that Mantlo contributed the script here (Jim Owsley scripts the next issue).

Spidey tries to stop some looting during a blackout in New York, but in the confusion a pawnbroker (who himself was waving around a shotgun) gets shot and killed.

Spider-man isn't able to determine who did it, but the police make an arrest almost immediately. Thinking that's suspicious, he decides to investigate. Matt Murdock, acting as a public defendant, also detects that the kid isn't guilty.

Murdock is up to his neck in cases relating to the blackout lootings, so the Black Widow volunteers to investigate this one for him.

She and Spidey team-up...

...and their investigation leads them to another suspect. They find his gun and turn it in for evidence.

Then Spider-Man leaves for Secret Wars (in a scene that duplicates ASM #251 and Spectacular #89). After he's gone, the forensics on the gun come back. The gun was used in a few unsolved crimes, but it wasn't the one that killed the pawnbroker.

Spider-Man thinks of the Black Widow:

I'd forgotten that the Widow is as much of a pro at this sort of thing as I am! She's what the Black Cat could become -- should she survive the dangers of the heroes' life she wants to share with me.

I thought that was a good little monologue.

A decent issue.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: See the Chronological Placement Considerations for Amazing Spider-Man #249-251. This issue takes place during Amazing #251. This story will be continued next issue, but all of Secret Wars takes place concurrently with the first half of that issue. The MCP places this between Daredevil #205-206, which works for me although there's nothing here to really demand any particular placement for DD.

References:

• In the end scene that duplicates Spidey's exit to Secret Wars, there are references to concurrent events from Amazing Spider-Man #249-251.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

If Spider-Man x Black Widow became crime fighting partners before the Black Cat's introduction in 1979, her feelings for Spidey would be along the lines of Daredevil. It would have been to have seen her in Spider-Man's world as often as the Black Cat. Especially after he helped her to regain her memories. Imagine after those events that Natasha got the chance to meet Peter Parker and to thank her for helping her because she's not a person who forgets the kindness of strangers.

I heard in a podcast recently that DeFalco took over writing this and the next issue because Mantlo didn't want to be associated with the the black costume, which apparently a lot of people in Marvel expected to be a disaster.

This is right when Al Milgrom takes over for Bill Mantlo on Spectacular too. Cool info, thanks TCP.