Kravinov's Revenge!

At a dive bar, Flash Thompson has gotten completely drunk and has been boring the bartender with stories of his glory days. When Flash asks for another drink the bartender refuses as he wants to close up for the night. When Thompson tries to intimidate the barkeep, he ends up getting tossed out into the street. To drunk to get back up on his feet, Flash blacks out on the pavement in the pouring rain.

Meanwhile, in Queens, Mary Jane forces herself to stay up as she can't sleep until she knows her husband is home safe and the Chameleon has been captured.[1] She is worried that yet another one of Peter's foes now knows his secret identity and wishes they could have continued living in relative peace in Portland.[2] However, she once more reminds herself that being married to Spider-Man means that she doesn't get to have a normal marriage. Looking out the window, Mary Jane is startled by the face of Jack O'Lantern. Rushing outside to confirm what she saw, Mary Jane finds nothing and decides that her mind was playing tricks on her. Unfortunately, Mary Jane is very wrong as Jack O'Lantern is hoving above the Parker home, out of her range of vision.

In Manhattan, Spider-Man is at the Kravinoff estate where the Chameleon has the wall-crawler's friends John Jameson and Ashley Kafka as prisoners. With the pair trapped in an electrified cage, Spider-Man is ordered to do what the Chameleon demands of him in order to keep them safe. Spider-Man tries to free his friends, but the Chameleon electrifies the cage, jolting the web-head with a powerful jolt of electricity. When Spider-Man tries to use force to make the Chameleon free Jameson and Kafka, the villain threatens to flash fry them instead. The increasingly mad villain also insists that Spider-Man stop calling him by his last name, Smerdyakov, as he has recently remembered that he is part of the Karvinoff family. He explains to Spider-Man that this memory was suppressed after years of abuse, but now he knows that he and Kraven the Hunter were actually brothers. While the former spy rants and raves, Spider-Man webs the Chameleon's hand to a wall and smashes the control device. However, this victory suddenly turns when Spider-Man's spider-sense goes off. Before he can react, Spider-Man is struck in the back of the neck with a drug-tipped dart. When the web-slinger wakes up he finds himself locked in the same cage as John Jameson and Ashley Kafka. With Spider-Man subdued, the Chameleon takes on the form of Mary Jane, telling Spider-Man that he is going to pay a visit to an old friend. Fearing for his wife's safety, Spider-Man tries to break free from the cage but the voltage is too powerful for him to break free.

Meanwhile, the Grizzly welcomes the Kangaroo after freeing him from Spider-Man's webbing. The Kangaroo is upset because even though he just started his career he was already beaten by Spider-Man on two occasions. Adding to this humiliation, the Kangaroo's high tech armor got trashed, and he has been forced to hide out wearing nothing but his underwear.[3] Although the Grizzly has offered an opportunity to get revenge against Spider-Man, the Kangaroo isn't really buying it from a villain who is nothing more than a washed-up wrestler.[4] However, the Grizzly insists that he is a great villain, and tells a wild story about how he once broke Spider-Man's back and tossed his body in the East River.[5] The Kangaroo finds this hard to believe since Spider-Man is clearly still alive. Finding this whole idea ridiculous, the Kangaroo is about to leave when they are joined by the Gibbon and the Spot, who has also been summoned by the Grizzly as well.[6]

Back in Queens, Mary Jane is woken up when someone turns off the television. She is relieved to see that it is her husband, Peter. The couple kiss and head up to the bedroom to go to bed. However, while "Peter" is washing his face, Mary Jane goes for a baseball bat as she has deduced that this is really the Chameleon in disguise. With his cover blown, the Chameleon drops his disguise and tries to seduce Mary Jane by offering to make himself appear as anyone she wants. However, Mary Jane wants nothing to do with this lunatic and warns Smerdyakov to keep away from her. Unfortunately, her threats do little to dissuade the villain, who tells her that he intends to get what he wants. Back at the Kravinoff mansion, Spider-Man recovers from the electrical shock he received. Fearing for his wife's safety, he loses his temper with Doctor Kafka when she insists that the Chameleon won't hurt anyone. Furious, the wall-crawler blames Ashley for everything that has happened. When John tries to defend her, Ashley admits that Spider-Man was right. However, the wall-crawler realizes that he crossed a line and apologizes. Needing to get out, Spider-Man spins gloves out of his webbing to insulate his hands. They prove to be enough to allow him to rip the cage open. Rushing to his home, Spider-Man is almost attacked by Mary Jane who is in a frenzy. Calming her down, the wall-crawler discovers that his wife beat the Chameleon into unconsciousness. When the couple thinks about this they both begin to laugh despite the severity of the situation. When Peter's spider-sense goes off, he is too late to stop the Chameleon from escaping. However, the pair feel that it will be a long time before the Chameleon comes back to their home and terrorizes them.

Feeling down the street, the Chameleon runs into Kraven the Hunter again. However, this time the Chameleon insists that this being is nothing more than a figment of his imagination as the real Kraven is dead.[7] Kraven points out that, if he is a hallucination, how could he have knocked out Spider-Man with a drugged dart back at the mansion. Stunned by this reality, the Chameleon is shot by Kraven who insists that there can only be one Kravinoff in this world and that person is him.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Flash Thompson, Mary Jane Watson, Ashley Kafka, John Jameson, Jack O’Lantern, Chameleon, Grizzly, Kangaroo, Gibbon, Spot, Kraven the Hunter, Maguire

Continuity Notes

1. Peter and Mary Jane are referred to as husband and wife here. However, years later, their marriage is erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. As such they should be considered a common-law couple here.

2. Peter and Mary Jane briefly lived in Portland during a period when Peter retired as Spider-Man, as seen in Spider-Man: The Final Adventure #1-4. They ultimately moved back to New York in Spider-Man #66.

3. The Kangaroo was defeated by Spider-Man in The Spectacular Spider-Man #242 and last issue.

4. The Grizzly was a professional wrestler until J. Jonah Jameson's editorials put him out of a job, as seen in Amazing Spider-Man #139.

5. This assertion by the Grizzly that he killed Spider-Man by breaking his back and tossing him in a river is obviously made up. He's probably been reading Batman comics as his made-up story sounds remarkably like the Knightfall event. In that event, Bane nearly killed Batman by breaking his back, an injury that the wall-crawler eventually recovered. The similarities between Bane and Grizzly are a stretch, even though Bane wears a Luchador mask he was never a wrestler.

6. The Kangaroo makes a point to say he is not the original Kangaroo, but his successor. The original Kangaroo died in Amazing Spider-Man #126.

7. Sergei Kravinoff committed suicide during Kraven's Last Hunt. As revealed in The Spectacular Spider-Man #250, this is actually Sergei's son Alexi.