Issue(s): Web of Spider-Man #18
Cover Date: Sep 86
Title: "The longest road!"
Credits:
David Michelinie - Writer
Marc Silvestri - Penciler
Kyle Baker - Inker
Adam Blaustein - Assistant Editor
Christopher Priest - Editor

Review/plot:
Calm down, you guys! Spider-Man is fine!

This issue is the conclusion of the Where Is Spider-Man?/Missing In Action mini-event, and we find out where Spider-Man has been. Well, actually, we know that he was caught in an explosion while fighting Magma last issue, but it turns out that he hasn't just been laying in a pile of rubble since then. He's actually been hitchhiking his way home in the tattered remains of his Spider-Man costume and a stolen overcoat (he says he'll try to find some way to pay the guy back).

On the way home he wound up in a small town prison for vagrancy and then found himself sent to a rich guy's mansion for a variant of The Most Dangerous Game.

He of course didn't manage to hang on to his camera, so no photos for him to sell. JJ is pretty mellow about it.

The destruction of the red and blue Spider-Man costume is one of the two significant things to come out of this arc. Spider-Man will be wearing his black costume exclusively for a while going forward.

Interesting that Peter describes the red and blue as if it were literally the first and only version of his original costume. He did have at least one back-up for a while, and he had to repair the original so many times that Theseus's paradox should come into play. In any event there's nothing stopping him from making a new red and blue costume if he wanted to.

The other significant thing isn't related to the Missing In Action story, and is really just a teaser. But it's technically the first appearance of Venom. Peter is pushed onto the subway rails by someone that doesn't trigger his spider-sense.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - temporary destruction of the red and blue costume. First Venom (mostly off panel)

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place after Amazing Spider-Man #279 and Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #117. Spider-Man shouldn't appear in his red and blue costume after this issue.

References: N/A

Crossover: Missing In Action

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Spider-Man never had trouble hitching rides on trucks, planes or even boats back in the 1970s. The whole point of this non-event event just seems kinda dumb.

The Silvestri/Baker art team just isn't doing it for me. Everybody looks like a chunk of their face has been erased.

I like the way Michelinie wrote Joy Mercado. It's a shame her role in the Spider-Books didn't last. I enjoy the chemistry between her and Peter, and more stories could have been done contrasting their different approaches to journalism.

From http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2016/04/16/provide-some-answers-who-the-heck-freed-the-venom-symbiote-way-back-when/3/
Triniking1234
April 16, 2016 at 11:25 pm

SNIP

Also someone mentioned Web of Spidey #18. When that character that could bypass Spidey’s spider-sense was introduced it was meant to be Venom but not Eddie Brock. I think that was covered in Comic Legends where the host was some woman whose husband died in some Spidey-related incident.

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If I understand Triniking1234's point, it's not Eddie?

BTW, the Comic Book Legend Triniking1234 referred to is here: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/05/11/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-50/3/

That was David Michelinie's original intention, but it didn't see print / become canon. We've never met or heard anything about that woman in-story, and, most notably, the flashbacks of Venom's origin show the symbiote was still in the church where Spider-Man got rid of it in Web of Spider-Man #1. The implication being that it had been there since Spidey got rid of it.

Granted, there's room for an Untold Story where the symbiote briefly bonded with someone else and then returned to the church by the time Eddie Brock got there. But unless there's actual evidence of that, the simplest thing to assume is that it was there until Brock got there.