Issue(s): Thor #447, Thor #448, Thor #449, Thor #450, Thor #451, Thor #452, Thor #453, Thor #454, Thor #455, Thor #456
Cover Date: May-Dec 92
Title: "Strange alliances! / If this be war!" / "Secret agendas!! / The face of fear!" / "Riot on Ryker's Island! / Obsessed!" / "When gods make war! / The end of Ego! / And they shall call thee... Bloodaxe!" / "Beware the Bloodaxe! / Enter the nameless dimension!" / "With this axe, I thee kill! / If the Enchantress should fail--!" / "When Mephisto commands..! / Betrayed--!" / "The Warriors Three die at dawn! / As my dreams lay a'dying" / "Odin unleashed--! / Strange encounter "
Credits:
Tom DeFalco / Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz - Writer
Ron Frenz / Pat Olliffe / Gary Hartle / Geof Isherwood / M.C. Wyman - Penciler
Al Milgrom / Pat Olliffe / Ariane Lenshoek / Raymond Kryssing / Al Milgrom & Kevin Yates / Geof Isherwood / Al Milgrom, Steve Alexandrov, Raymond Kryssing, & Ariane Lenshoek / Dan Bulanadi / Hector Collaz - Inker
Pat Garrahy - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
Ron Frenz shares a co-plotting credit on the main stories but not the back-ups. Gary Hartle draws the main story on issue #452 and M.C. Wyman on #455. All of the other penciler credits are for the back-ups, and all of the inker credits that don't involve Al Milgrom in some way are for the back-ups (there are a couple of cases where Milgrom gets inking help on the main stories).

There are actually several stories here but they all run together thanks to the ongoing subplots (partially depicted in the Tales of Asgard, but more on that below). A lot of it revolves around the fact that the real Thor is missing, which i think defeats the purpose of putting the mortal Eric Masterson in the role of Thor. The point of that is to give us a fresh perspective on all the situations Thor gets into, and to show us how a mortal might react in contrast to the real Thor. If you're constantly focused on the mystery of what happened to the real Thor, there's not enough space for that sort of thing. It feels like Tom DeFalco wants to give us that kind of perspective, because in this arc he sends the police force Code: Blue to Asgard, which i think is just ludicrous. We've got a perfectly good mortal with a much more plausible reason to be around the Asgardians, but that character is too busy rejecting the premise of his situation, so DeFalco has to bring in more mortals to play that role.

These issues don't actually resolve the mystery of the real Thor, even though the double-sized issue #450 would have been a logical place to do that, but it does make progress in that direction. It also introduces a new character called Bloodaxe, a Ghost Rider or Punisher type character.

These issues actually start with the sort of story that i would have thought DeFalco wanted to do when he made Eric Thor. He'd previously gotten decent mileage out of Eric's interactions with the Absorbing Man and Titania, so he returns to those characters here. Unfortunately, the story makes Eric look like a complete idiot.

Absorbing Man and Titania have been one of the more durable villain partnerships in the Marvel universe, and practically the only non-dysfunctional villain romantic relationship. But apparently DeFalco has had enough of that, because the story starts with Absorbing Man getting suspicious of Titania and calling her a "stupid broad".

She is, indeed, going out and stealing pretty pretty jewels without him, which he worries will attract the attention of the authorities.

Meanwhile, i said that this story makes Eric look like an idiot, but i guess he can do that on his own.

Note that Eric says that he's been vegging out since Operation: Galactic Storm. For placement purposes i take that to mean that Eric has been sitting in his borrowed room watching TV between Avengers missions instead of trying to get his personal life back together, not that he's literally done nothing since Galactic Storm.

Anyway, the person contacting him is Absorbing Man. He wants to scare Titania straight, so he's going to convince her to try to steal the golden bull from the Guggenheim, and Thor will show up and stop them. The use of the golden bull is a surprisingly subtle nod to Thor #146, where the original Thor was hypnotized by the Ringmaster into stealing the same statue.

One complication for this scheme is that Spider-Man also happens to be on the trail of Titania.

I've always thought of Titania as having red hair, not blonde. Strawberry blonde, i guess?

Meanwhile, Thor tries to get advice from Cap, but he picks a bad time. This sort of thing seems to happen constantly.

In fact, as Cap notes, something happened with the original Thor in Thor #427. But as Omar notes in the comments, both scenes are really an homage to Tales of Suspense #78.

Thanks to that, Thor doesn't actually talk to Cap, and he goes along with Absorbing Man's plan. Which is really dumb. A security guard inevitably gets hurt, and then Thor gives up the ruse immediately.

On top of that, Spider-Man assumes that Thor is working with the villains.

This is a case of that fresh perspective that i was looking for. Thor finds Spider-Man to be a "letdown" because he's not the sinister mastermind that the Daily Bugle describes him as, but at the same time he's surprisingly difficult to hit.

This is my preferred way to handle Spider-Man's spider-sense. Spidey's opponents shouldn't necessarily know about it, and Spidey shouldn't go around advertising it. He should just be uncannily able to dodge punches.

Thor eventually stops the fight with a barrage of lightning, and then tells Spider-Man that they have to work together.

This is a common DeFalco thing that i could do without: write something intensely old school comic book-y, and then have the characters complain about it.

As Spider-Man and Thor are chasing Absorbing Man and Titania, Spider-Man makes a comment about the Avengers stipend, which Eric was unaware of, and, in his current state of personal affairs, could use. I don't think anything comes of that, though, due to the string of events that happen in these issues.

The heroes catch up with the villains at a construction site. However, Titania is mad at Absorbing Man, so she's attacking him as much as the heroes are.

Code: Blue get called in too.

The final factor in defeating Absorbing Man is Thor transforming back into Eric and punching him out with his bare fists before Absorbing Man can absorb anything. Seeing her boyfriend knocked down, Titania stops fighting and runs to him. Absorbing Man gives Thor a furtive thumbs up, indicating that his defeat was part of his plan to get Titania back.

In the aftermath of the fight, Thor finds out that the construction site they were fighting at is one where Jerry Sapristi and Aloysius R. Jamesley were working at. So Eric has put his friends out of work.

Meanwhile, Susan Austin has no shortage of male suitors.

But she's not over Eric, and when Jackie Lukus shows up they have an awkward moment over him before Eric himself shows up.

All sorts of stuff is going on with the Asgardians during all of the above. The Warriors Three are attacked by Uroc (the Uru giant, in his first present day appearance) and some other giants.

And Odin won't wake up from his Odinsleep.

The really weird thing about all of these issues is that part of the Asgardian plots happen in the main issue, and then continue directly in the Tales of Asgard back-ups.

In my view, we don't need Tales of Asgard at all at this point. It was fine in the early days, when Lee and Kirby were building up the backstory of Marvel's version of Asgard. Beyond that, i think that Tales of Asgard should take place in the past. But if we must have Tales of Asgard set in the present, you'd think they'd at least be separate stories from the main story, not a direct continuation. These are really Tales of Ron Frenz Not Being Able To Do 22 Pages A Month.

With the giants attacking Asgard, Heimdall asks for an alliance with Karnilla. She initially balks, but then agrees. Later, we see her contacting a mysterious partner, though (note that we're back to Frenz art here; i jump around to simplify the subplots, but in this case it also exemplifies how indistinct the Tales of Asgard are from the main story).

Uroc is sent to Earth to free Ulik the troll. Mother Majowski is injured during Ulik's escape, and then Ulik and Uroc teleport back to Asgard. Odin then appears as a vision to Thor, but doesn't recognize him.

Code: Blue decide that they're going with Thor to Asgard to apprehend Ulik.

And Enchantress figures out that Karnilla is working against Heimdall. She tries to use the Executioner's axe to teleport from Earth to him, but she's attacked by Skoll, the Wolf God.

Enchantress has been disguising herself as Leena, Susan Austin's roomate. After Enchantress is taken away by Skoll, we see a figure in a heavy trenchcoat enter the apartment and find the axe.

Bloodaxe will eventually be revealed to be Jackie Lukas, and i'm wondering how soon that was decided. It seems to be decided during these issues, although maybe not just yet. The figure definitely looks like a man, but i suppose that could be deliberate obfuscation.

There's no sense of mystery or wonder when Code: Blue get to Asgard. These are police officers from Earth, walking up a rainbow bridge in space and being faced with trolls and gods. And they're like, so where do we go?

Rigger Ruiz, a bodybuilder, is able to disguise herself as an Asgardian, at least briefly.

Here's another comic book line.

And here's Lt. Stone stealing from They Live.

Ulik winds up going over a cliff.

Someone writes in to complain that both Uroc (who is made of Uru!) and Ulik are defeated way too easily, and i agree.

Meanwhile, Thor has left Code: Blue to confront Heimdall, since the message from Odin suggests that he's a traitor. And Enchantress has defeated Skoll; when she shows up to give Heimdall a warning, Thor, who knows her as a bad guy, sees it as confirmation that Heimdall is bad. Karnilla briefly makes it to Odin, and casts a spell before Heimdall knocks her out. Odin wakes up and banishes Heimdall. But Thor notices Heimdall bowing loyally before that happens.

Back on Earth, we see Bloodaxe for the first time. Actually, s/he starts off looking like the Executioner.

She is obsessed with fighting, and expresses a disdain for the legal system.

At the end of her first outing, she gives herself a new look.

Code: Blue are taken back to Earth by Thor, with the only takeaway from having been in another dimension being the realization that Ruiz is quite a woman (Rassitano says "girl", but is corrected).

As they part ways, Thor thinks to himself that "policemen like that are the real superheroes".

You see that kind of line occasionally in comics. Sometimes it's firefighters, not police. And it's a nice sentiment. But it's kind of a fourth wall breaking sentiment. You know who the real superheroes are in superhero comics? Superheroes. Not to mention the fact that these particular police might as well be considered actual superheroes.

Meanwhile, Sif and Balder have been continuing their quest for the real Thor. The Norn stones take them to the former location of the High Evolutionary, where they are attacked by the New Gods, or, now, the New Immortals.

There's nothing specifically contradictory, but the current situation with the High Evolutionary feels a bit jarring following Warlock and the Infinity Watch #3-4. If Nobilus is still with the other New Immortals, where were they during the Warlock story? Again, not saying it can't fit, but it's a case where the continuity works because it has to, not smoothly.

Nobilus was made from Thor DNA, which is why the Norn stones brought Sif to him. But once it's settled that Sif and Balder have nothing to do with the High Evolutionary's disappearance, they stick around to help find him, and the trail leads them to Ego the Living Planet.

The High Evolutionary and the Analyzer (formerly the Recorder) are on Ego, and so is a Celestial.

The Evolutionary says that Ego is only "a small manifestation of a much larger and grotesque creature", and that's who he's waiting to see. High Evolutionary even suggests that there might be "quite a few Egos at large". And then the large creature, the eye-rollingly named Super-Ego, shows up and seemingly destroys Ego.

I don't know where DeFalco was going with this unless the end goal was just the disposing of a disposable character. Super-Ego doesn't really appear again and we won't see Ego for a long time (basically, nothing is done with either until Maximum Security). The High Evolutionary and company teleport off of Ego in time, and then they watch Super-Ego get attacked by a host of Celestials (although the possibility that they are actually aiding Super-Ego is also raised). Sif and Balder move on to the next possible location of Thor. And that brings them back to Earth where they meet up with Eric. Wait, is that Sif, or is it Lila Cheney?

But first Bloodaxe gets the spotlight. At the hospital where Susan is still staying, we see some causalities from the drug war being brought in. The knowing grins and comments from Ed Marrero amd Jerry Sapristi suggest some potential guesses for Bloodaxe's true identity, but i've already spilled the beans on that.

Soon after that scene, we see someone drawn back to the axe. Their gloved hands are maybe looking a little less manly (although note that whoever they are, they are wearing a completely different outfit than anyone in the previous scene).

Thor is telling Sif and Balder that something might be up with Odin when Bloodaxe goes on a rampage.

I said that Bloodaxe is a Punisher type character. I tend to think that DeFalco's doesn't really approve of the Punisher's attitude even though, as Editor in Chief, he's certainly helped that whole genre flourish. But Bloodaxe is a bad guy, so i think the idea is to have someone with that type of attitude run into a real hero like Thor. On the other hand, we see regular characters expressing sentiments that seem to support the Punisher's world view, like criminals bragging about how quickly they'll get out of jail.

So what else should we think when Bloodaxe shows up to execute them except that she's right?

Eric wants to go stop Bloodaxe, but Sif is determined to continue searching for the real Thor, so she teleports away, winding up in Mephisto's realm.

Balder and Eric-Thor go after Bloodaxe. The real mystery of Bloodaxe is where did she get the Red Skull's old mask?

Meanwhile, Karnilla has taken Enchantress prisoner.

But Enchantress manages to magically seduce a guard...

...and she gets free and teleports to where Heimdall has been banished, which turns out to be Nightmare's realm. Not him again! He's sure been showing up a lot lately.

"Odin" and Karnilla are actually aware of all of this. And they're also watching the fight with Bloodaxe. Odin has Karnilla cast a spell to reduce Thor's powers, a nod to how Odin used to always be halving Thor's powers back in the day. This development was weirdly spoiled in the lettercol to issue #451, the issue before it actually happened; a response to a letter talks like it had already occurred (and had me worried that i missed something). With Thor weakened, Bloodaxe defeats him handily (Balder is little help). She then causes a gas line explosion and flees. We see her having trouble transforming back into her (still obscured but more male looking than not) civilian self.

Later, when Susan Austin is greeted by friends when she's let out of the hospital, it seems clear that Ed Marrero is the guy we're supposed to think is Bloodaxe. I guess he's really just a big fan.

Meanwhile, Mephisto shows Sif his Bag of Thor...

...and says that he'll free his prisoner if Sif will become his servant. This scene is another homage, this time to Mephisto's first appearance in Silver Surfer #3.

Thor and Balder go back to Eric's room in Avengers mansion. Eric, in human form, takes the time to shave his beard, but finds that it grows right back when he transforms back into Thor. He then asks Balder if they should wait for the Avengers before going after Sif, but Balder says that they have to rely on "speed and subtlety", surely Thor's forte. And then they teleport to Mephisto's domain. Mephisto must have been about to take Sif to a Judas Priest concert.

De-powered as he is, Thor can't defeat Sif (and Balder is again a non-factor), but he transforms back into Eric, convincing her that she can't kill him. She can, however, kiss him.

Mephisto decides to turn over the Thor bag anyway. When they open it, they find it isn't actually Thor inside. Mephisto then tells them that when Loki was "killed" by Thor, he really sent his spirit to possess the sleeping Odin, while Odin's spirit was put in the bag.

Speaking of facing the rulers of extradimensional realms, Enchantress deals with Nightmare's attacks to rescue Heimdall.

Arko, an Asgardian guard, overhears Odin and Karnilla conspiring and decides to tell the Warriors Three.

And again the plot runs directly from the main story to the Tales of Asgard.

The Warriors Three are defeated by Odin, but Enchantress returns to Asgard with Heimdall. So the main plot now is the perennial one where Odin is mad or possessed and acting like a tyrant and everyone else has to slink around. You can tell he's not the real Odin because he's not wearing a gigantic awesome hat.

And later he's wearing one of Loki's hats.

Thor shows up to attack Odin, and he's helped by the Warriors Three and Arko (who is playing a sort of d'Artagnan to their Three Musketeers). Meanwhile, Enchantress and Balder take out Karnilla, with Balder rejecting Karnilla's request that he join her. He throws the Norn stones at her. I feel like all the character work that Walt Simonson did with Karnilla has been deliberately undone.

Sif shows up during the fight against Odin and opens Mephisto's bag. Odin's spirit comes out and battles Loki's. Loki is trapped in the bag, and Sif turns it over to Mephisto, fulfilling her obligation to him per their agreement. Odin says he's ok with it as long as he can have Loki back when he wants, and Mephisto seems to agree.

As for the location of Thor, Odin says that he's "closer than ere imagined" but "as far beyond thy reach as the heavens themselves. He says that only Eric can rescue Thor, but it could cost him his life. He'll have to face the gauntlet of the grim guardian. Good gravy!

Meanwhile, Dr. Strange decides to check out Bloodaxe.

But Bloodaxe sees Strange's astral form and they get into a fight. It happens on Susan Austin's roof, and she has flashbacks to when she was hospitalized.

Bloodaxe thinks she's protecting Susan from the "ghost", and she grabs her and jumps off a building, crash landing on a police car. Poor Susan has been through a lot.

Bloodaxe has attracted the attention of Code: Blue. And another police officer is on the scene as well: Kyle Brock, aka Earth-Lord.

And the rest of Earth Force shows up as well.

As the fighting continues, Thor returns to Earth, having put off the decision about the gauntlet. But Bloodaxe is defeated by Dr. Strange, Earth Force, and Code: Blue, before Thor gets involved.

Ed Marrero continues to be used as a red herring for Bloodaxe's identity.

But at the same time the possibility that Bloodaxe is a woman is raised.

This is basically the last we'll see of Earth Force (according to the MCP, Skyhawk appears much later in a Civil War tie-in, but that's it). They didn't really take off.

A final Tales of Asgard back-up shows Enchantress risking angering Odin by demanding that he heal Heimdall...

...and then getting mad at Heimdall for being more unconditionally devoted to Odin than her.

It's a nice sequence because it's not soaked with dialogue. Art is by Geof Isherwood and Ariane Lenshoek.

This is a pretty typical DeFalco and (mostly) Frenz storyline, with the usual pros and cons. A very traditional but fun plot. Very corny dialogue. It's pretty obvious where the Odin plot is going early on, and if you've already read a lot of Thor it feels like a repeat, but it's executed well. Frenz seems to be back to when he was aping Kirby deliberately, although with Al Milgrom inks it's a little tempered as compared to when Joe Sinnott was inking (and that's not necessarily a compliment to Milgrom). I find the way the arbitrary back-ups throw off the pacing to be infuriating, but i know i have an inherent bias against back-ups anyway. Bloodaxe as a commentary on the Punisher type characters is vaguely interesting to me. But if i didn't already know her real identity, i can't say i'd find the mystery particularly intriguing, mostly because i have not been made to care at all about any of Eric Masterson's supporting cast. They're all blank slates to me, so the question of which one of them may secretly be Bloodaxe is really unimportant. Since i do know the identity, i'm looking at it more like DeFalco's handling of the Hobgoblin mystery all over again, with lots of red herrings that just serve to prolong the mystery instead of heighten it.

Some additional random notes. The double-sized issue #450, in addition to having two back-ups, also has a reprint of Journey Into Mystery #85. And issue #451's cover is an homage to Thor #337's cover (but Bloodaxe is no Beta Ray Bill).

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Bloodaxe

Chronological Placement Considerations: There are several stories here, but they do kind of run together. The MCP has all of these issues after Infinity War and Citizen Kang up until the near end of issue #456, at which point it creates a gap for some Thor appearances in other books. The final page (of the main story) in issue #456, begins "sometime later" than the rest of the issue and has Thor leaving for Asgard for the story that will result in the return of the original Thor. See the note above regarding Operation: Galactic Storm.

Valkyrie (Brunnhilde) is seen among the Asgardians during the Odin imposter storyline.

References:

• Operation: Galactic Storm ended in Avengers #347.
  
• Thor gave Absorbing Man and Titania a second chance in Thor #436.
  
• Loki found out in the time travel story in Thor #438-441 that he would die in Thor #432. This was also the arc where Susan Austin got injured.
  
• To circumvent that, he made a deal with Mephisto in Thor #430.
  
• Odin describes how he created Donald Blake, which we saw in Thor #158-159, but Odin points out that Eric is a real person, unlike Blake.
  
• Earth-Force first appeared in Thor #395.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

"This is my preferred way to handle Spider-Man's spider-sense. Spidey's opponents shouldn't necessarily know about it, and Spidey shouldn't go around advertising it. He should just be uncannily able to dodge punches."
Too bad he hardly ever does that, especially when he's fighting villains. He seems to love announcing it as much as villains announce their plans out loud.

"There's no sense of mystery or wonder when Code: Blue get to Asgard. These are police officers from Earth, walking up a rainbow bridge in space and being faced with trolls and gods. And they're like, so where do we go?"
I don't see that as being an issue. This is the Marvel Universe. They've been visited by Galactus! What's a puny rainbow bridge compared to that?

"Someone writes in to complain that both Uroc (who is made of Uru!) and Ulik are defeated way too easily, and i agree."
Wouldn't that fall under the "Diminishing Threat Syndrome"?

"but i know i have an inherent bias against back-ups anyway."
I have the exact opposite view. To me, back-ups make me feel like I'm getting two stories for the price of one. Even though here, it's just a continuation of the main story.

With the Enchantress in bondage (in a metal gag, too!) and Sif becoming Mephisto's S&M warrior, DeFalco seems to be channeling Claremont in this storyline ;)

Fnord, one question regarding Ulik's chronology- in the back up story in Thor Annual 17, Ulik was in Asgard. But in this story, Ulik is on Earth, and is implied to have been in custody since Thor 433. But you have the Annual placed between Thor 433 and this story. Shouldn't the back up story be split from the Annual?

Back in the day, reading these in realtime, my guess at Bloodaxe's secret identity was Jerry Sapristi. Prior to this he often seemed to be hanging around the Enchantress in her mortal guise as Leena. I don't really recall *why* Jerry was spending a lot of time near Leena, other than the fact that she was a hot babe. At the time I sorta suspected that maybe the Enchantress had used one of her love spells on Jerry because she knew he was friends with Thor, so he would make a useful slave. Anyway, because Jerry was seen near the Enchantress' apartment before this, to that made him a likely suspect for why he'd be around to stumble across the Executioner's axe.

Obviously I guessed wrong. I always meant to go back and re-read these issues to see if there were clues pointing to Jackie Lukas, but I never got around to it. So why *was* she hanging out near Leena's apartment, anyway?

Oh, yeah, apropos of nothing, Karnilla is rocking some major cleavage in these stories.

I think Bloodsxe is more analogous to Venom than to the Punisher. A kewl new arch villain who matches the hero's power and has a code against killing innocents, or whatever. See also: Vengeance.

The picture right after Earth Force's appearance has a cute if puzzling reference to "Magniconte". It is odd because Jack Magniconte (originally from "Kickers, Inc."), is one of the weakest, least developed, most over-promoted characters in the whole of the New Universe line, which was trashed in a very unprofesional way by Marvel two years prior to this story.

Both Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz participated on the early issues of Kickers, Inc. and I guess they felt a bit nostalgic about it. I fear they may have been the only ones. Even Mark Gruenwald, IIRC, did not bring him back in a story you will meet soon enough.

Also, Bloodaxe really feels like a prototype for Vengeance in this storyline. That is not a compliment for either character.

Thor bursting in on Captain America seems to be an homage to the sequence with Nick Fury doing the same thing from Tales of Suspense #78.

One of the weird things about Eric Masterson is that he's really a screw-up, both as "Thor" and in civilian life, and not in the put-upon way Spider-Man is (when written well). He comes across as someone who really *shouldn't* be a superhero.

Thanks Omar. What i was actually looking for was the reference to the same thing happening to Thor's predecessor, which was in Thor #427. But both are indeed homages to Tales of Suspense #78.

@Michael, nah, i just won't list the characters from that back-up in the annual. It was just a nonsense humor story anyway.

Thank god you found it, it was driving me nuts.

In the last scan, they call her Brunnhilde, but she looks exactly like Hildegarde from Gerry Conway's run.

The Judas Priest-ified Sif makes the Goblin Queen look practically G-rated by comparison. This is the era when Susan Richards gets her stripperific costume, too, so I guess this is what DeFalco thinks his comics have to do to compete in the chrome-cover, Image-driven early '90s.

Apparently High Evolutionary has recovered somewhat from his last appearance, though still not operating at full capacity.

Titania DOES have strawberry blonde hair as per the OHOTMU 13.

From day one, it was obvious to me that Jackie was Bloodaxe. She asked Susan in the hospital about Leena, and then a shadowy character shows up at the apartment, wondering if they should have called first. Right there, I figured it was Jackie, and later on in the THUNDERSTRIKE series I knew for sure it was her when Seth called Bloodaxe "my dear" during their battle.

Lieutenant Stone's attitude towards Spider-Man came off as a bit hypocritical, in my opinion. He has no problem working with Thor or Thunderstrike, but when Spidey comes along he's all "I don't work with vigilantes", like he's J Jonah Jameson's long-lost brother. What was the logic behind giving Spidey the cold shoulder???

Marvel has always been unclear on what exactly distinguishes Spider-Man from respectable heroes like Cap, Thor and Iron Man. I've had to assume that the Avengers, and therefore all its members, have to be some kind of deputized heroes who therefore are working within the law. They probably also have to abide many of the same restrictions that police officers do in terms of admissibility of evidence, adhering to legal rights of criminals, etc. (I have no idea if the comics themselves support such an interpretation, but I'm going with it).

Spider-Man however operates outside of that. He doesn't have the same connections with the legal system so he is more of an ordinary citizen legalwise than an officer of the law. On the other hand, should he come across evidence of crimes, he can share them with the police with less risk of the evidence being suppressed. It seems to me that usually the readers see Spidey doing a lot more legally questionable activities like trespassing and breaking & entering than we see other heroes do.

People like Daredevil have to be fit inbetween. Daredevil doesn't have Avengers status, but presumably his interactions with the police demonstrate his knowledge of the law, and therefore from most cops' perspective he operates within the Avengers framework.

Characters like Punisher or Ghost Rider, of course, clearly operate outside the law and therefore are handled as criminals.

Still, Spidey was a reserved member of the Avengers at the time, and has aided them on a few missions. Given that clearance, Stone should have cut him a bit of slack.

Since I'm currently re-reading these issues, I asked Ron Frenz on Facebook if he and Tom DeFalco intended for Bloodaxe's secret identity to be Jackie Lucas right from the very start. He gave me the following not-so-serious reply...

"Ben Herman I'm SURPRISED at you! You're not suggesting that totally professional storytellers like The Legendary Tom DeFalco and me who get paid and everything would actually play an important story point by ear and hedge our bets ARE you?? Well I NEVER! ;D "