SPIDER-MAN, KINGPIN AND THE ANCIENT STONE TABLET

This weekend’s escapist superhero post looks at one of the most memorable Spider-Man stories from the 60s 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, his girlfriend Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn, his girlfriend 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 mysterious ancient relic.

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 (Avengers #53 Jun 1968). Magneto had caused an injury which temporarily stripped away the Scarlet Witch’s powers (Avengers #49 Feb 1968).

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, Caesar 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, Caesar Cicero, whom they both know longs to take Silvermane’s position when he dies.

The decrepit 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 Caesar 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, Caesar Cicero, Man Mountain Marko, the Maggia

Synopsis: Silvermane has Caesar 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 Caesar 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.   

SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #75 (Aug 1969)

Title: Death Without Warning

Villains: Silvermane, Man Mountain Marko, Caesar Cicero and the Lizard

Synopsis: Spider-Man at last roughs up a Maggia goon who gives up the location of Silvermane’s skyscraper hideout. He arrives there and winds up in the middle of Maggia in-fighting as the now-young Silvermane taunts Caesar Cicero that he is no longer at death’s door, so Cicero’s ambition of succeeding him is now postponed indefinitely.

Amid all the fighting among Spider-Man, Silvermane, Marko, Cicero and their Maggia gunmen, Curt Connors searches for his wife and son. Unfortunately, he is unable to fight a transformation into the Lizard but he has fled the building before the change is complete.

At length, Silvermane realizes the serum is taking him past his prime and into childhood, so he runs out of the room where our hero is battling Marko, Cicero and Maggiosi. Spider-Man at last defeats all his opponents and finds the fallen Silvermane just as he reverts to an embryonic state and beyond.

Sickened by the sight, Spider-Man moves on and finds Dr. Connors’ wife and son. They realize he has become the Lizard again but hope that Spider-Man can find him and turn him back into Curt Connors like he’s done in the past.   

SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #76 (Sep 1969)

Title: The Lizard Lives

Villain: The Lizard

Synopsis: The Lizard hides out in the sewers while plotting his new attack on Spider-Man. Meanwhile, our hero takes Martha and Billy Connors to a hotel where they can get some rest. He returns to his apartment, naps and chats with the vacationing Aunt May on the phone. He and Harry Osborn cross paths again in their place as Peter leaves for a date with Gwen Stacy. (“Curt WHO?” I guess he’s saying.)

The following morning, Peter is back at the apartment and wakes up to news about the Lizard attacking people at various New York City locations. He becomes Spider-Man and goes out looking for him. Eventually, the Lizard attacks him on a rooftop and they engage in a lengthy fight. 

Just as the Lizard has thoroughly beaten Spider-Man and is about to throw him to his death, Peter is saved by the coincidental arrival of his old friend the Human Torch on the scene. The Torch sets the groggy Spider-Man back on the rooftop and battles the Lizard on his behalf. The still-woozy Spidey is afraid the Human Torch may seriously injure his old mentor Curt Connors – or worse. 

SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #77 (Oct 1969)

Title: In the Blaze of Battle

Villain: The Lizard

Synopsis: The Lizard manages to hold his own against the Human Torch until Spider-Man recovers enough to get mixed up in the free-for-all. He does what he can to prevent any serious harm to the Lizard while the fighting captures so much attention that Martha and Billy Connors see news coverage of it.

Billy runs off to the vicinity of the battle while the Lizard reaches New York Harbor and hides underwater to be safe from the Human Torch. Spider-Man dives in and takes on the Lizard solo, this time knocking him out. Then, to prevent the Torch from learning the Lizard’s real identity, our hero lies to him that his Spider-Sense has detected that the rest of the Fantastic Four are being attacked at the Baxter Building.

After the Human Torch flies off, Billy Connors arrives. Spider-Man breaks into a chemical site and whips up a formula to turn the Lizard back to normal. It works and our hero reunites the Connors Family for a happy ending.