This weekend’s escapist superhero post looks at one of most memorable Spider-Man stories from 1969 involving the Kingpin, the Shocker, the Lizard and Marvel’s Mafia pastiche the Maggia.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #68 (Jan 1969)
Title: Crisis on the Campus
Villain: The Kingpin
Synopsis: The Kingpin, at this point in time still strictly a Spider-Man villain, gathers his criminal underlings in a plan to steal a priceless, ancient stone tablet that is currently on display at Empire State University, where Peter Parker is a student.
That same day, Peter, Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn, Mary Jane Watson, Flash Thompson and other students get caught up in outrage over ESU’s decision to eliminate some student housing to accommodate the number of experts around the world who are coming to ESU to try translating the mysterious tablet.
That evening the students mount a protest about the way some of them are being thrown out of their housing to make room for the arriving archeologists. The Kingpin and his thugs take advantage of the protest as it rages out of control to break in and steal the priceless tablet.
Peter Parker sees this and slips away to become Spider-Man. He battles the Kingpin and his men but the villain gets away with the tablet. Our hero is determined to find him and retrieve the ancient tablet.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #69 (Feb 1969)
Title: Mission: Crush the Kingpin
Villain: The Kingpin
Synopsis: All the next day and into the next night, Spider-Man scours the city for the Kingpin. At last, he locates his hideout and not only takes down the villain but also his many gangsters. He grabs the Tablet for the museum.
Spider-Man leaves the defeated Kingpin for the police, but the crimelord takes advantage of our hero’s clouded reputation to convince the cops and the media that Spider-Man was his partner in the theft and has double-crossed him to keep the priceless Tablet all for himself.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #70 (Mar 1969)
Title: Spider-Man: Wanted
Synopsis: The Kingpin uses his massive super-strength to escape jail. Meanwhile, the Dean of Empire State University tells the bailed-out protesters that the university has given into their demands. Our hero stashes the Tablet in the apartment he shares with his friend Harry Osborn. At ESU the next day Peter and Gwen argue over him running out on the protest when things got rough the other night.
That evening as Spider-Man, he swings around the city, pondering how he might translate the Tablet himself if he tries, making a fortune since no one else over the millennia has been able to decipher it. Instead, he flushes out the Kingpin by hitting his operations while flaunting the Tablet.
The pair battle again, but J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson arrive on the scene and the Kingpin escapes in a car with his wife Vanessa. (First Appearance) Jameson idiotically claims Spider-Man and Kingpin staged the battle to make our hero look innocent. Spidey snaps and grabs Jameson by his lapels, shouting his disgust at him. Jameson has a heart attack and collapses while Peter flees the scene.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #71 (Apr 1969)
Title: The Speedster and the Spider
Villain: Quicksilver
Synopsis: Back at his apartment, Spider-Man becomes Peter Parker and hangs out with Harry Osborn. Elsewhere, the former Avengers Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are lying low with the defected Toad.
NOTE: This was after the Avengers and X-Men defeated Magneto’s latest plan, with the Toad helping to bring him down. Magneto caused an injury which temporarily stripped away the Scarlet Witch’s powers.
Quicksilver leaves Toad and his sister Wanda in hiding while he goes to Avengers Mansion to see if enough time has passed for the two of them to rejoin the team. Jarvis tells him the Avengers are currently in Wakanda.
Quicksilver notices news reports about Spider-Man being wanted for stealing the Tablet and for assaulting J. Jonah Jameson, who is hospitalized. He sets out to arrest him. Meanwhile, at the Daily Bugle, Robbie is Acting Editor and buys Peter’s pictures of the past several nights’ battles between Spider-Man and the Kingpin.
The photos prove our hero is NOT in league with the villain and Robbie runs a story clearing Spider-Man. Jameson is outraged in his hospital bed when he reads the story.
In costume, Spidey turns the Tablet over to his girlfriend Gwen Stacy’s father Police Captain George Stacy now that he’s been proven innocent. Afterward, he clashes with Quicksilver, who is not aware he’s been cleared. Eventually, Spider-Man defeats Quicksilver, who makes up with the now-cleared hero and they part as friends.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #72 (May 1969)
Title: Rocked by the Shocker
Villain: The Shocker
Synopsis: The next day, Spider-Man’s old foe the Shocker is at large and his informants tell him Captain Stacy momentarily has the priceless Tablet. He breaks into the Stacy home, injures the Captain and blasts his safe open with his shockwaves. Grabbing the Tablet within, he flees and that night gets word to the criminal world and Black Market dealers that he will auction off the Tablet to the highest bidder.
Peter Parker sees his Aunt May off at the airport for her Florida vacation trip. He then learns about the Shocker’s theft of the Tablet and becomes Spider-Man. It takes two separate battles, but he finally captures the villain for the cops. Meanwhile, Jameson is furious over Spider-Man getting even more positive news coverage.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #73 (Jun 1969)
Title: The Web Closes
Villains: Man Mountain Marko, Silvermane, Cesar Cicero and the Maggia
Synopsis: Spider-Man covertly visits George Stacy at home and overhears the two talking about how deeply in love Gwen is with Peter Parker. After Gwen leaves the room, Spidey enters via the window and questions the Captain for information about the Shocker, since he refuses to reveal where he hid the Tablet.
Stacy recalls the name of the Shocker’s girlfriend with whom he may have left the relic. Spider-Man swings off to visit her. Meanwhile, the elderly Maggia Don called Silvermane (Silvio Manfredi) also wants the priceless Tablet. He argues with one of his Capos, Cesar Cicero, whom they both know longs to take Silvermane’s position when he dies.
Silvermane sends the super-strong Maggioso called Man Mountain Marko to the Shocker’s girlfriend to see if she has the Tablet. He and Spider-Man fight it out at her place and when Marko throws the lady out the window, our hero must save her, letting Marko escape with the relic.
Elsewhere, Silvermane has Cesar Cicero’s Maggia soldiers pick up the scholar whom the Kingpin was going to have translate the Tablet. He also has scientist Dr. Curt Connors (secretly the Spider-Man villain the Lizard) abducted to make him help with the translation.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #74 (Jul 1969)
Title: The Secret of the Petrified Tablet
Villains: Silvermane, Cesar Cicero, Man Mountain Mark, the Maggia
Synopsis: Silvermane has Cesar Cicero and his men abduct Curt Connors’ wife and son as hostages to keep him translating the priceless Tablet. The pressure of working under such conditions causes Connors to almost transform into his hated alter ego the Lizard again, but he manages to stifle the change.
Peter becomes Spider-Man to search for the Connors family. He clashes with Cesar Cicero and some of his men, ending when Cicero sets off a bomb and escapes. Meanwhile, Dr. Connors and the archeological scholar make progress in translating the Tablet. Connors observes that Silvermane correctly deduced that some of the Tablet’s strange markings were scientific and not linguistic, which is why no one else ever succeeded in deciphering it.
Elsewhere, Spider-Man is roughing up Manfredi Family Capos and Soldiers at their every known hangouts trying to find out where Silvermane is keeping the Connorses. Presently, Dr. Connors and his coworker have completely translated the Tablet.
Connors has worked up a liquid serum from the Tablet’s directions and the decrepit Silvermane drinks it. He then gurgles and collapses, but turns out not to be dead. Instead he has been restored to the prime of youth. The Petrified Tablet really contained the secrets of the Fountain of Youth.
