Amazing Spider-Man #607
Long-Term Arrangement Part 2
Despite his better judgment, Spider-Man has agreed to spend the night with his ex-girlfriend, the Black Cat, in a fancy hotel room. After having their way with one another, Spider-MAn begins to wonder why the Cat broke into Dexter Bennett’s condo and what Diablo has to do with it. He’s also worried about the Cat finding out his secret identity.[1] The Black Cat can tell he’s worrying and tells him that they can be adults again in the morning. However, once Peter has fallen asleep, Felicia leaves. The exhausted hero doesn’t know until the next morning when a newlywed couple enters the hotel room to spend their honeymoon, startling Peter awake and prompting a hasty retreat before they can get a good look at his face.
After freshening up in his apartment, Spider-Man pays a visit to Dexter Bennett at the offices of the DB to get answers as to why there was a dead man in his safe.[2] Interrupting a board meeting, Spider-Man confronts Bennett with a photo of the dead body. Recognizing the dead man as Bernie Mayer, a former business partner. Horrified, Bennett invites the wall-crawler into his office to talk. Bennett explains that he and Mayer were business partners 30 years ago. They had a falling out ten years later when Dexter learned that Bernie was involved in activities that were distasteful to him.[3] Specifically, it was learning that Bernie got the construction materials for their business dealings significantly below cost. The only people who knew that Bennett ever worked with Meyer was his accountant. It’s then that Spider-Man notices that the front page of the DB is a photo of him kissing the Black Cat. Bennett tells Spider-Man that if it is any comfort, the DB didn’t break the story as it was all over the internet before they heard about it.[4]
Later, Spider-Man goes to the warehouse owned by Bernie Meyer to look for clues. There he discovers that the Black Cat has come here as well after stealing a ledger from Dexter Bennett’s safe the night before. When Spider-Man tries to get answers out of her, she tries to change the subject by making out with the wall-crawler on the spot. That’s when Diablo appears in the office below and puts the workers to sleep. When Spider-Man tries to stop him, the villain eventually traps Spider-Man and the Black Cat in solid gold. With the gold trap cutting off the Black Cat’s oxygen, the villain gloats over his victory over the two heroes. He explains his mastery of alchemy but laments that his feats are always temporary, but doubts the Black Cat will get free before she suffocates. While Spider-Man struggles to break free, the Black Cat exerts her bad luck powers to the point where it causes the belt carrying Daiblo’s various alchemical potions to snap, shattering a vial of aqua regia on the ground. The fumes then eat through the gold, freeing Spider-Man and the Black Cat. Spider-Man stuns Diablo with a barrage of web-balls and then revives the Cat with some CPR. Unfortunately, this allows Diablo time to recover and he vanishes in a puff of smoke, telling them that they’ll discover what he has been plotting when in the morning.
Although Diablo has escaped before he can explain his scheme, Spider-Man pieces it together himself, remembering Meyer’s purchase of cheap steel and Diablo’s alchemy affects only working for a limited time. The Black Cat tells Spider-Man that she can find out what building is scheduled to collapse and asks him to trust her. Since she didn’t peek at his secret identity the night before he decides to give her a chance. The following morning, the Black Cat instructs Spider-Man to go to a building which he reinforces with webbing before it begins to collapse just long enough to get it evacuated. Outside, J. Jonah Jameson tries to take credit for the evacuation, resulting in Spider-Man pegging him in the back of the head with a few web balls. Meeting up with the Black Cat as the now-empty building collapses he asks her what she knows. The Black Cat explains that her source inside City Hall told her what building was built out of the defective steel. She then explains that this was all a plot by Diablo to defrauding insurance companies by making it look like the building collapse was an act of god.[5] With the plot exposed, this leaves Black Cat and Spider-Man to figure out where they are going form here. The Cat points out that they had a relationship end badly in the past and they both survived and this time they should just have fun together for the time being.
While at his hideout, Diablo hears the news about how all his business assets were frozen pending an investigation of the building collapse and is furious. That’s when he approached by Ana Kravinoff who has come at the behest of her mother to recruit Diablo as part of their ongoing plans to destroy Spider-Man.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Black Cat, Diablo, Dexter Bennett, J. Jonah Jameson, Ana Kravinoff
Continuity Notes
Spider-Man and the Black Cat used to date from Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #75 to 100. He broke up with her after learning that the Cat went to the Kingpin to get powers. Although Peter revealed his identity to her in issue #87 of that series Felicia no longer knows his secret as she, and virtually everyone else on Earth, had her memory of Spider-Man’s identity erased by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545.
Peter is relieved that his roommate, Michele Gonzales, is not home. Peter’s living conditions have been complicated after Peter had a drunken night with Michele in Amazing Spider-Man #601.
Dexter actually says he worked with Meyer in the 1980s. This should be considered a topical reference. Modern readers should interpret this to mean that Bennett had worked with Bernie almost 30 years prior to this story as opposed to a specific date.
One of the headlines reads “New Job for Hollister?”, this is a reference to BIll Hollister the former district attorney of New York City who ran for mayor. Although he was elected in Amazing Spider-Man #588, he had to resign immediately after it was discovered that his daughter Lily was the super-villain known as Menace. This led to J. Jonah Jameson getting elected in Amazing Spider-Man #592 during re-election. What is this new job? It’s never explored as we haven’t seen Bill Hollister since (at least at the time I wrote this in May 2020)
There is one problem with this whole scheme, Diablo being active twenty years prior to this story. In Fantastic Four #30, Diablo had been imprisoned in Transylvania since the 1800s. How he got free and later reimprisoned is unexplained as I write this (May 2020)
