Issue(s): Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #53
Cover Date: Apr 81
Title: "Toys of the terrible Tinkerer"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Jim Mooney - Penciler
Frank Springer - Inker

Review/plot:
Business is bad for the Tinkerer so he goes into firsthand crime to make some quick cash. He sends his vaguely racist man-slave Toy to rob a business, but Spider-Man bumps into him...

...and follows him home.

When Spider-Man figures out that Toy is a robot and destroys him, the Tinkerer has an emotional collapse.

Spider-Man starts off this issue in a makeshift costume, because he has to rescue a falling girl and doesn't have time to change into his Spidey suit.

Some of the machines that the Tinkerer sends after Spider-Man were being built for Arcade. I thought that was kind of neat.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Spider-Man has only faced the Tinkerer personally twice before, in Amazing Spider-Man #2 and Amazing Spider-Man #160.
  
• But the Tinkerer was also behind the "blunderers" known as Rocket Racer and - *oh god i can barely type it* - Big Wheel, who fought each other in Amazing Spider-Man #182-183 (incorrectly footnoted as #183-184).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

John Byrne was announced to be the regular artist here after leaving Captain America.

I know it may be a thin line but I really don't see Toy as racist. Then again, I've heard stories of casual racism n the industry at the time so who knows...