The Red Ghost! The weird Fantastic Four villain with 3 superpowered ape assistants tangled with Spidey back in ASM 223, and he’s back! Page one, returning penciler Ron Frenz borrows one of John Romita, Jr.’s common Spidey poses…
That figure swings down to the building, sticks to the wall, turns off the security system, and produces a glass cutter to sneak in, commenting as he does about how beautiful the apartment is. Has Spidey gone bad?
In some ways, it’s worse than that. The Black Fox has made a pretty substantial mistake, though, as the apartment he’s chosen to rob is the home of The Red Ghost and his Super Apes!
Meanwhile, an exhausted Peter Parker gets ready to go to bed. He’s not been home long from his adventure with Starfox, and he’s worn out. First, he does some laundry, including washing his new costume, pinning it up on a clothesline and everything (I mean, that has to be weird for it, in retrospect, right?). Then he tries to make a sandwich, but his bread is moldy (What do you know, Spider-Man really is just like me!). So he just gives up and, thinking he really should be out looking for Jack O’Lantern and The Hobgoblin’s Battlevan, crawls into bed.
Uh-oh! Back that the fancy apartment, The Red Ghost pours Black Fox some Brandy, hoping it will help him calm down, and introduces himself. Somehow, Black Fox has to be told this is The Red Ghost and His Super Apes, and then he’s even more scared because he’s heard of them. I mean… it’s a dude and some super apes. Get it together.
The… Cosmicizer. Not too good at naming stuff, this guy. He needs some more parts to finish it, and says he dares not leave the house until it’s done for fear of his many enemies. So Black Fox and The Super Apes are going to go steal the parts… or the apes will kill him. Back at Peter Parker’s place, he’s roused from his slumber by someone banging on the front door.
Uh-oh! He does try to call Aunt May, but Nathan answers, tells him he had his chance and he blew it, and hangs up. Harsh. Even Peter realizes he messed up, so he’s not mad at Nathan. With little else to do, he suits up and gets out there, wondering why he doesn’t feel rested at all in spite of sleeping all day. He wonders what Black Cat is doing tonight, and then gets down to the business of looking for Jack O’Lantern. But, at that moment, The Black Fox and His Super Apes are on the job…
Things go bad pretty fast, as the big one rips the door off the place, setting off an alarm. They proceed with the mission, mostly because the Apes refuse to run, and when the cops show, the one with magnetic powers just destroys their car. Black fox talks him out of killing them, but he’s had enough. He sets off a flash grenade and makes a break for it. Not far away, Spider-Man sees a couple of police cars tearing down the street and decides to follow. Back at the crime scene, the fleeing Black Fox is stopped by The Super Apes, and soon enough…
The Apes remember Spider-Man from last time, and just flee. That’s nice of them. Spidey tries to get some info out of The Black Fox, but he tries to run from Spider-Man, too. If he couldn’t lose a bunch of apes, how did he think he’d lose Spidey? Spider-Man demands answers, and when he gets them, he swings off, leaving a terrified Black Fox who hasn’t opened his eyes to notice yet…
Hang on, why were they stealing jewels? I thought they were after “Cosmicizer” parts. We’ll have to see what his unfinished business was in a second, because first we follow the Apes back to Red Ghost’s house. He’s very upset that they don’t have Black Fox with them, and even more upset when it turns out we’re not the only ones who followed the Apes home.
Spidey eventually maneuvers the gorilla into accidentally smashing “The Cosmicizer,” ruining The Red Ghost’s plans, and right about then, the cops show up. Someone called in a tip to them that he was here. Now, who could that have been? Red Ghost escapes as usual, swearing revenge. Spidey wonders how this night could get any worse.
Well, that’d do it. In spite of Black Fox getting away clean, this is not the last time we’ll see him trying to pull off “one last score” to retire on. It’s literally his only plot, which makes the amount of times he appears over the ensuing years pretty annoying, really. Unrelated: That drawing I said would be used extensively in advertising back in ASM 253 is already in this issue accompanying an ad. They didn’t waste time.