Issue(s): Untold Tales of Spider-Man #11
Cover Date: Jul 96
Title: "Shock Follows Shock!"
Credits:
Kurt Busiek - Writer
Pat Olliffe - Penciler
Al Vey & Pam Eklund - Inker
Glenn Greenberg - Assistant Editor
Tom Brevoort - Editor
Bob Harras - EIC

Review/plot:
In a really nice scene, the Eel rescues Electro from prison, where he'd been getting grief from having been defeated by a pair of kids in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #7, and offers him a partnership. It's just... really well done.

In the next scene, Sally swings into Peter's bedroom window dressed as The Bluebird.

She's been working with Jason, whose father is an engineer, to create crime fighting gadgets, and she is using her gymnastic skills to be a super hero. Her goal is to be famous, and she wants Peter to take pictures of her, like he does for Spider-Man. If he refuses to help her, she'll reveal the fact that he takes the pictures to everyone at school.

So the next day at school, Peter reveals that he's been taking pictures of Spider-Man himself so that Sally can't (another nice touch).

He immediately makes Flash Thomspon his best friend in the process, to the point where he can't shake him when Electro and the Eel make a public display of power as a prelude to demanding a ransom from the city.

Peter is able to slip away long enough to tag the Eel's helicopter with a Spider Tracer. Then he heads back to the Bugle with pictures, but Jameson says they are no good (because Peter took them himself instead of webbing his camera to a wall and putting it on automatic. "They're bland - they don't have any of the striking angles you usually get. Frankly, they're boring."

Peter uses his tracker to find the Eel and Electro at a power station, and attacks, but Sally shows up as Bluebird and interferes. She throws Bluebird's Eggs full of ether that dissolve in the air, and after Spidey uses a modified version of the device that took out the Vulture's wings to reverse the Eel's electric polarity and stick him to Electro, she knocks them into the water where the device is shorted out and they escape.

Spidey runs off and changes back to Peter because Flash and Liz have shown up and he doesn't want them to find his camera. When Flash asks Peter if he can bring him to Spider-Man for an autograph, Peter yells at him, telling Flash that Spider-Man probably doesn't even like him because the pictures he takes are used by the Bugle to make Spidey look bad. This ruins the Peter/Flash friendship.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: At the end of this issue, Electro mumbles to himself that he's going to stick to smaller schemes from now on, like stealing cars. In DD #2, he is the leader of a car-stealing ring. According to the chronology chart in UTOS #14, this issue takes place between ASM #12 & #13.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: N/A