Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #51

Background

While having lunch with Aunt May, Nathan Lubenski and Deb Whitman, Peter was abducted by space aliens. The aliens took Peter onboard their space ship and brought him to their leader, Mysterio.

Story 'Aliens And Illusions!'

On the ship, the aliens hung Peter from a hook dangling from the ceiling as Mysterio reiterated that he wanted information that Peter had. He explained that he wanted to know about the money supposedly left in the Parker home by the gangster, Dutch Mallone. Peter told him that the box containing the money had been found but it had been eaten by silverfish. One of the aliens said he was a liar and had claimed to know the whereabouts of the treasure and another suggested putting Peter into the "psycho-drome." Mysterio called Peter's story ludicrous and agreed to subject him to the psycho-drome.

He was swung around the room by the hook while exposed to flashing lights, which he assumed was trying to make him dizzy. Suddenly he was being swung into the mouth of a giant reptile monster and he assumed he has passed through a space warp. Then he realized that doing so didn't make sense, Mysterio wouldn't kill him without the information that he wanted. Peter closed his eyes and when he opened them, he was back in the "psycho-drome," realizing that the swinging and lights were supposed to confuse him. He questioned why Mysterio would need alien help to create illusions when he could do it himself. Still, the tricks felt so real that he could feel the dampness of the monster's mouth.

After seeing an illusion of Aunt May begging to be saved from a fire and confronting an angry Spider-Man, Peter pretended to faint. In a control room, Mysterio cursed that he had overplayed his hand by using Spider-Man to threaten Peter. Still, when he had kidnapped May, she did call Peter a sensitive boy, so maybe his fainting was to be expected. He decided to try another path.

The aliens removed Peter from the hook and he hoped for the chance to break free of them. His plan didn't work as they injected him with a sedative before carrying him away.

At the nursing home, May was heartbroken that the police hadn't believed their story and feared never seeing her nephew again. Nathan and Deb tried to reassure her and after they left, Nate asked Deb if she was ok. She was fine but the whole episode had been unbelievable. As Deborah walked away, she was grabbed by two men that pulled her into an emergency exit. However, her shoe was left behind in the hallway.

Peter woke up on the floor of a cell and noticed an ant crawling near him. Realizing that aliens would be able to keep insects out of their craft, he became more suspicious. Not feeling any buzzing from his spider sense, he assumed that the room was without cameras and changed to Spider-Man. Pulling on an air vent on the wall revealed very earthly manufacturing and after crawling through the vent and into another room, he found an alien listening to country music. He unmasked the "alien" and found a very human man underneath. The man explained that the crew had all been part of the group that had worked with the Tinkerer years ago. They had been out of work actors and stunt men that joined the Tinkerer to steal scientific secrets. The alien aspect had been a ruse in case they were caught. After Spider-Man had beaten them, they escaped and destroyed their base by remote control. One of the stunt men swore to defeat Spider-Man one day and Spidey easily guessed that individual was Mysterio.

Spider-Man made his way through the special effects studio, webbing up the henchmen as he went. He found a door marked "master control-no admittance" and marveled that even Mysterio wouldn't be stupid enough to label the control room. Assuming it was a trap, he entered anyway...and saw it was indeed the control room. On a monitor screen, he saw Mysterio and a disguised henchman interrogating Deb. Mysterio found Deb to be too timid to be a liar and decided to show her to Peter, to loosen his tongue.

That's when Spidey arrived and took on the crooks, whose weapons shot through him harmlessly. Mysterio knew that his enemy had found his control room and was using an illusion and threatened to shoot Deb. He pretended to not care and told Mysterio that he'd turn off the illusions and give him a head start to escape. Mysterio thought that once he got to his axillary control room, he could detonate the self-destruct in the main control room. Equipment fell towards Mysterio and Deb, leaving them wondering what was real. Several Spider-Men attacked Mysterio but he knew that Spidey still had to be in the control room, unless he had figured out the controls. He doubted it, as only a scientific mind would know how to use them.

Mysterio pulled Deb closer to the axillary control and she had figured out that almost everything was an illusion, except for Mysterio. She was only a hostage to him, which infuriated her. She grabbed a miniature model and bashed him over the helmet with it, cracking it and obscuring his vision. She ran away as Mysterio removed his helmet, enraged that she had struck him. Once he killed Spider-Man he planned to make the rest of her short life very miserable.

Deb found an office with a phone and called the police, saying that she had been kidnapped and Mysterio and aliens were involved even though they weren't aliens. She didn't know where she was but was told that the call could be traced. Spidey defeated Mysterio despite being shot by his ray gun, grateful that he hadn't broken Mysterio's neck despite his anger.

He found Deb, who was in a panic over Peter's whereabouts. Spidey told her which cell Peter was in and then made it back in time to change into his civilian clothes. Deb told him that Spider-Man had saved them but he gave her the creeps.

General Comments

There is a lot going on here. I'm not a fan of "Spidey-in-space" type stories, so this kind of turned me off. I like him in more street level stories. Even if the "aliens" were just humans in masks, interplanetary tales feel like more of a Fantastic Four type of thing.

Both Peter and Mysterio were written to be a little stupid. Shouldn't Peter have realized as soon as he saw Bubblehead that the aliens were fake? Over the top crimes as exactly his M.O. I wonder how much money Mysterio was expecting to find in the Parker house; this whole scheme must have cost a pretty penny. I'm not sure why he didn't have a security camera in the holding cell. He can create an elaborate control room but not a security camera? Then again, he only expected to be dealing with Aunt May and Peter, so I guess he didn't bother. Spidey and I had the same reaction to the control room being labeled as such.

It was nice to see Deb being useful, even if it was kind of brief. I don't know how Spidey knew which room to send Deb to in order to find Peter. He had been unconscious when he had been left there and had exited via the vent.

I did like the twist (even if it is well known 44 years after the fact) that Mysterio had been part of the gang that worked for the Tinkerer.

Overall Rating

Not my type of story and it feels sloppily written at times.

Footnote

The story picks up on plot points from Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1) #2 (Story 2).