ASM 21-40 & Annual 2, UTS 24-25 & Annual ’97, Untold Tales of Spider-Man: Strange Encounter, Daredevil 16-17. Steve Ditko’s tenure as ASM’s plotter/artist comes to a close as he gets so fed up with Stan Lee that he leaves without drawing a cover for #38. But not before he graduated Peter from high school, introduced Gwen Stacy & Harry Osborn, and introduced and setup Norman Osborn to be revealed as Green Goblin, even though it was John Romita who ended up drawing the big reveal. Romita has said he thinks Stan wanted Spider-Man to appear in Daredevil as a try out for John to replace Ditko on Spider-Man, since Ditko did the book completely on his own and refused to talk to Stan for more than a year. But then Ditko quit, anyway, so John was up. Also in this period, Betty Brant & Liz Allan, competing for Peter’s affection, meet Mary Jane almost 2 years before he does, but Ditko keeps her face hidden. Ned Leeds proposes to Betty, Peter and Betty break up, Liz is written out of the book, big shake-ups. Green Goblin tries to take over Lucky Lobo’s mob, but accidentally gets them all arrested. Spencer Smythe brings JJJ his first Spider-Man hunting robot, The Crime-Master almost takes over New York’s mobs. Maybe the single most famous Spider-Man story of all time, ASM 31-33, in which Spider-Man must lift an impossible weight to get a life saving serum to a dying Aunt May, which had been stolen by Dr. Octopus. Spider-Man teams up with Human Torch to fight The Beetle, with Dr. Strange to fight Xandu, and with Daredevil to fight… well, each other, because The Masked Marauder tricked them into it. Introductions for Molten Man, The Looter and Robot-Master. Plus, JJJ rehires disgraced reporter and former mob boss Frederick Foswell, and Spider-Man fights The Circus of Crime, Scorpion, Kraven, The Cat, and a guy named Joe who went crazy and got powers for an afternoon. And, of course, Norman Osborn learns Peter’s secret and kidnaps him to fight him to the death, but then gets zapped with a ray that conveniently makes him forget the entire last few years. Whoops! A couple color variants here, like Strange’s cape having maroon accents and Green Goblin’s boots not matching the rest of his outfit. DD, Spider-Man & Goblin all copied from John Romita, Sr. Originally drawing #50.