The Menace of the Molten Man!

As the school year comes to a close, Peter Parker is getting the cold shoulder from Liz Allan, but so is Flash Thompson without any explanation. Graduation day is coming soon, so Peter is let out of school early and he pays a visit to Spencer Smythe, creator of the robot. Even though the robot grabs Peter, he talks his way out of it and quickly exchanges Spider-Man outfits to get his real one back. Just as he finishes, he notices a commotion between Smythe and Mark Raxton over a liquid metal alloy. Raxton intends to sell it and Smythe fights back saying more testing needed to be done. As Peter goes to help, the robot grabs him and he watches as Smythe is struck down and the jar of liquid metal alloy spills onto Raxton.

Raxton leaves for a hospital and, lost in thought, is almost hit by a car. When he lashes out, he realizes his strength and decides on a life of crime. Spider-Man confronts Raxton and begins to battle him, taking extremely hard blows due to Raxton’s new body of metal. Spider-Man knocks the lights out, and in the dark ties up Raxton’s hands and feet with super-thick webbing and leaves him for the police. Peter Parker attends his graduation and unfortunately J. Jonah Jameson is the guest speaker.

After a tedious speech, Peter decides to catch up with Liz Allan as Jameson butters up Aunt May to retain Parker’s photographic skills. Liz professes her feelings to Peter and says she felt she was seen as a ditzy blonde and that she never had a chance with Betty or Mary Jane around. Liz says it’s time for that part of her to graduate and leave behind and leaves before Pete can say a thing.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, Spencer Smythe, Molten Man, Anna Watson, Charlie Murphy, Principal Davis, Wilson Allan, Doris Allan

Continuity Notes

• Principal Davis tells Peter that Flash Thompson took responsibility for their fight. The narrative of this story says that happened last issue, but it actually occurred in Amazing Spider-Man #26.

• Peter recalls how Spencer Smyth built the Spider-Slayer robot that attacked him recently, that was in Amazing Spider-Man #25.

• In this story, Peter Parker graduates from high school. According to Civil War #2, Peter was 15 when he got his powers in Amazing Fantasy #15, published in 1962. As this story was published in 1965, Peter Parker would have been 18 in real time and therefore old enough to graduate. This story was written before the concept of the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616 was conceptualized. Per the measurement of the Timescale, a little under a year has passed between Amazing Fantasy #15 and this story. Marvel has not provided an explanation to account for this irregularity. However, one could assume that Peter's intelligence allowed him to skip a number of grades, allowing him to graduate when he was roughly 15 to 16 years of age.

• Peter notices that Betty Brant is absent from his graduation ceremony. He believes it is over her spat that happened between Amazing Spider-Man #25-26. However, as seen in Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #7-9 reveals, she was actually considering going because she was forced to drop out of school to support her mother. She decided against it because she decided to move forward and stop living in the past.

• Liz Allan's parents are not named here. Her father's name was revealed in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #10. His wife's name is revealed in the Molten Man profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Spider-Man: Back in Black #1.