"--YOU!" "HIM!" "WHO?"

Fred Hembeck, of course! This is an issue I've known of for years, but not sure I'd ever read until just now! From 1984, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #86, "Bugs!" Written by Bill Mantlo, pencils by Al Milgrom and Fred Hembeck, inks by Al Milgrom and Jim Mooney.

This was the (in)famous Assistant Editor's Month at Marvel, as the regular editors were all at San Diego Comic Con...for the whole month? Whatever. (We saw the Thing from that month some time back, and that's the only issue we've seen from then? Huh.) Assistant Bob DeNatale has a vision (not that one!) for this issue, and instead of usual artist (and Fanfare editor!) Al Milgrom, goes with...Fred Hembeck instead?! The first five pages are largely Al complaining about this, which is a sort of funny look at how the sausage gets made, but I'm not sure how well it went over at the time. It also might be twofold: plotwise, this one would've been a little thin otherwise; but the next issue was going to lay the melodrama on pretty thick, so they needed to have a funny one here.

The Human Fly was back in town, although he was losing the "Human" part and becoming more and more flylike, as in, eating a lot of rotting garbage. He knew it was gross, but couldn't stop himself; so it was time to seek vengeance on the archetects of his misfortune: Spider-Man and J.Jonah Jameson! JJJ had approached shady scientist Dr. Stillwell about creating a super-hero to rival Spidey; and kidnapper Rick Deacon volunteered for the job, to get back at Spidey. It didn't turn out the way he wanted, and he had since killed Stillwell (maybe?) and wanted the other two. Meanwhile, Spidey and the Black Cat are working through a bit of a rough spot--honestly, I feel like all we saw of their relationship was rough spots? Like any moment of them happy with each other wasn't dramatic enough and got cut. Spidey ends up taking her to the Daily Bugle, to show her where he works; which confuses her: why wouldn't he be Spider-Man full-time, 24-7? Why would you want anything else? Since Peter hadn't revealed his secret identity to her yet, she probably hasn't realized he's poor, either...

Luckily, the Fly buzzes past them, to attack JJJ. Seven page fight, with the Fly defeated in a brawl by the Bugle's printing press, as he refuses to give up a stolen cheese sandwich. Spidey tells off JJJ, to fix the Fly; I'm sure he spared no expense...I'm kidding, the Fly would get shot by Scourge in Amazing #276 two years later. Regular editor Danny Fingeroth returns at this point, and figures Jim Shooter is gonna lose it when this mess hits the stands, unless Al can pull their fat out of the fire by nailing the dismount: The Cat asks Spidey to take her home, back to his place, and instead of hearing "bow chicka wow wow" he has to have a massive internal debate. Overthinking is a killer; but he's right, it would be a problem. I don't know if Felicia thought he was going to look like Tom Selleck, but next month she acts like Peter looked like the Fly...