Picture Perfect

Johnny hires Peter to take pictures of him instead of Spider-Man in order to build his reputation. When he is busy with some bank robbers, Peter's spider-sense goes off and, as Spider-Man, he finds Paste Pot Pete lying in wait to ambush Johnny. When the villain reveals his name to Spider-Man, Peter laughs so hard that the evil-doer slinks off and resolves to change his name.

After Johnny finishes the bank robbers he gets the idea to fly over to the Latverian embassy to single-handedly take on Dr. Doom since that will make a great front-page photo. Doom freezes Johnny in a large chunk of ice and Spider-Man thinks fast about how he can rescue him. He tells Doom he has reconsidered Doom's partnership offer the first time they met and he now thinks it's a good idea. Doom demands he kneel and Peter's automatic camera snaps the picture. Spider-Man asks Doom for the favor of polishing off the Torch and Doom agrees. Spider-Man breaks off the hunk of ice and swings away with it, Doom's curses ringing in his ears.

The wall-crawler frees the Torch, but Johnny's hair has snapped off, and Peter gets the picture and thinks it would be hilarious to have it published. Turning over the photos to the Daily Bugle, Peter thinks J. Jonah Jameson is really happy about the embarrassing picture when the skinflint gives him a bonus, however, when he gets the next day's Bugle edition he realizes Jonah was happy about the photo of his alter-ego kneeling in front of Dr. Doom with the headline "Spider-Man and Dr. Doom in cahoots." Meanwhile, Johnny has Reed reattach his hair and decides to case using Peter as his personal photographer.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Human Torch, Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Thing), Aunt May, Doris Evans, J. Jonah Jameson, Betty Brant, Mole Man, Paste-Pot Pete, Doctor Doom

Continuity Notes

• Peter mentions all the times that he met the Human Torch in his civilian identity.

  • The time that the Torch inspired Peter to keep on fighting Doctor Octopus in Amazing Spider-Man #3.

  • The time the Torch forced an autograph on Peter was in Amazing Spider-Man #17.

  • Then the time that the Torch accused Peter of trying to steal his girlfriend happened in Amazing Spider-Man #21.

• After this encounter, Paste-Pot Pete changed his name to the Trapster as seen in Fantastic Four #38.

• Spider-Man mentions the time that Doctor Doom offered him an alliance, this happened in Amazing Spider-Man #5.