Random Happenstance

If you're a super-villain, and another super-villain busts you out of jail, you have to help them with whatever crazy nonsense scheme they're up to. Absolutely must, no backsies. Of course if it's someone like the Jackal, it's probably going to get weird sooner than later. From 1975, Amazing Spider-Man #147, "The Tarantula is a Very Deadly Beast!" Written by Gerry Conway, pencils by Ross Andru, inks by Mike Esposito and Dave Hunt.

After a kind-of cool shot of Spidey hitchhiking on a passing helicopter, somebody gets yelled at! Peter gets an earful from Jonah, for coming back from Florida without pictures of Man-Thing and getting what he considers a free vacation. Yeah, who would want a free vacation to Florida? I keep telling you, in the Marvel U. I don't think there's anything to see there but Man-Thing. He probably has his own special district, too...Peter does have a brief word with Ned Leeds, who may have found something out regarding the returned Gwen Stacy. (Achewood from Chris Onstad.)

Meanwhile, in prison, here's a plot-point I was going to say was more common in DC books, but it's pretty common on both sides: the Tarantula, on a twenty-to-life bid, uses the prison workshop to complete his villainous gimmick--wait, he uses the "prison shoe-shop" to make spiky shoes! Look, Lex Luthor would've taken apart a transistor radio to build an anti-gravity stool; our guy here makes shanks for his feet. It's not as impressive. He also didn't have his usual drugs to tip the points with, so has to settle for merely "stunning" a guard. Yeah, technically I guess kicking a four-inch spike in a guard's chest would 'stun' him...Tarantula does the heavy lifting of his escape himself, but his amigo was waiting for him with a truck: the Jackal!

After a couple subplot pages, where Aunt May gets out of the hospital for a change, and Mary Jane feels a little hurt that Gwen's return has come between her and Peter; Spider-Man seems to be having a swing to clear his head, that does not work at all. The lab report Ned showed him said 'Gwen' was a clone, identical in every way, even memory, up to a point shortly before her death. Spidey wonders, what if there was more than one clone? What if a hundred Gwens showed up at his door--"all of them wanting a piece out of my life--" and Spidey freaks out a bit, smashing up a mirror store! The cops show up remarkably quickly, but are stabbed by the Tarantula--and presumably killed? Spidey does well enough in the fight, but notices Tarantula has been fighting him in a circle, trying to keep him in position for something: namely, catching a bus! While the passengers are terrified, the bus driver is disturbingly undisturbed: while the passengers flee screaming, the driver continues his route, even stopping to pick up a seemingly-hypnotized Gwen. The driver unmasks, Batman/Mission Impossible latex mask style, revealing himself to be the Jackal.

The route continues to the Brooklyn Bridge--I don't know why I thought Gwen died at the George Washington Bridge, except that may have been a mistake somewhere later--and Jackal tells Spidey he and Gwen will just head on up, "I'm sure you know your way." Spidey of course responds, leaving himself open to a kick from the Tarantula. Poisoned and knocked-out, Spidey awakens chained-up, on top of the bridge, with the Jackal, Tarantula, and Gwen. At long last, the Jackal would avenge Gwen Stacy--by having Tarantula knock him off the bridge!

This wasn't called the "Clone Saga" back then, but it still has a couple issues to go. Mainly I think because Spidey not only has to get out of this, but wrap up the Tarantula; he's not in to the end here. But there's an aspect of this I had forgotten: Ned and Mary Jane, and presumably everyone else then, knew Gwen had returned? Ned at least would know the truth (before it was retconned, then un-retconned) but was there a cover story or something for the clone? Or did Peter tell people something like "that wasn't my Gwen, the Gwen I knew is dead" and everyone assumed he was being overdramatic?