We’re All Doomed… Again!

Peter Parker is packing a bag for a trip to Latveria after he got a phone call telling him that Mary Jane is alive.[1] Aunt May tries to convince Peter that it is too dangerous to go to Latveria, and tries to convince him that Mary Jane is dead. Peter refuses to believe this, pointing out how he thought she was dead for a while and later learned that she was still alive.[2] When May tries to get Peter to focus on other things, like about the bank calling about money, but he is determined to make this trip. As he leaves, she points out that he hasn’t had the time to book a flight but he assures her that he has a plan.[3]

As Spider-Man, Peter Parker stows away on a commercial airliner heading to Latveria by weaving a protective cocoon for himself on the aircraft’s landing gear. As they pass over the city of Doomstadt, Spider-Man leaps down and swings to safety. As Spider-Man swings around the city, he thinks about what brought him here. He can hardly think that Doctor Doom would kill an entire planeful of passengers to get at his wife, but this is his only lead as he recalls Mary Jane telling him her next photoshoot was going to be in Latveria a few days prior to her alleged death. Still, the caller on the phone told Peter that she is being held in Doctor Doom’s castle. Once he gets close enough, Spider-Man prepares to fire a web-line when suddenly the alarms begin going off around the city. Spider-Man ducks for cover and watches as guards mobilize and begin searching the city. When they fly past his hiding place, the wall-crawler is relieved that he wasn’t the one who set off the alarms.

Just when Spider-Man is about to sneak into the castle he sees the robot guards attacking some resistance fighters who were trying to break into the castle and realizes he can’t just ignore them. Swinging past the robots, Spider-Man swoops in an grabs the youngest of the resistance fighters, a girl named Anna, and she is amazed to see Spider-Man in her home country. He sets her down on the ground then goes back for her father but sees that he has been captured by the guards. When the wall-crawler tries swinging towards them he hits some kind of neurological net that jolts him so hard he falls to the ground. As the guards surround him, Doctor Doom emerges from his castle and tells the wall-crawler that his time has run out. Spider-Man makes a quick escape back into the town where he is pulled into a home by Anna. She then quickly puts him in a secret room under the home that will shield the web-slinger from Doctor Doom’s scanning equipment. When the coast is clear, Anna comes to retrieve Spider-Man and tells her how Doctor Doom has become more oppressive toward his people in recent times for no apparent reason.[4] She is glad to see Spider-Man, and as she shows him a book full of clippings about American superheroes, she tells him how she always dreamed that heroes would come and liberate her people. When she asks Spider-Man what the plan is, he tells her that he has one but he has to keep it secret so she doesn’t get hurt.

Later, Spider-Man sneaks into Doctor Doom’s castle and thinks about out of his depth he is. It’s here that he starts doubting the validity of the phone call he got telling him that Mary Jane is a prisoner. That’s when Doctor Doom tries to ambush the wall-crawler but he manages to evade the blast thanks to his spider-sense. While evading Doom’s gauntlet blasts, Spider-Man spins a ball of webbing he then throws into Doom’s face and tries to yank off his mask. Instead, he pulls off Doom’s entire head and quickly realizes that this isn’t the real Doctor Doom, but one of his Doombots. The headless robot still fights back, blasting Spider-Man out a window and sending him crashing into the forest outside of the castle. There he is joined by Anna who asks if he found her father. Not exactly, he tells her, but now he has a plan.

This story is continued in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #15…

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Aunt May, Mary Jane Watson (in flashback)

Continuity Notes

1. Mary Jane is believed to have died following the events of Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #13. She will turn up alive again in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #29. Peter got a phone call saying she is still alive in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #14. She and Peter are called husband and wife here. However, years later, their marriage is erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545.

2. Aunt May was believed to have died in Amazing Spider-Man #400. However, this was an imposter put in place by the Green Goblin as we learned in Spider-Man #97-98.

3. The issues with the bank are foreshadowing the revelation that Mary Jane’s agent embezzled all of her money leaving as we’ll see in the next issue.

4. This story takes place around the events of Fantastic Four (vol. 3) #27 when the world is led to believe that Doctor Doom has reformed, married the Invisible Woman and joined the Fantastic Four. In reality, this is not the real Doctor Doom but Mister Fantastic who found himself trapped in Doctor Doom’s armor in Fantastic Four (vol. 3) #25 a status quo that will remain until Fantastic Four (vol. 3) #31.