He’s back! And we’re supposed to actually find out more about who he is this time! We open on Spider-Man spotting Tiny, his long-missing classmate, working at a gas station downtown, and apparently so surprised that he yells his name.
Seems they do, at that. I still question this book’s decision to have the running internal monologue. It’s a very not-1960s-concept for stuff meant to slot into 1960s continuity. The 2 guys keep fighting for awhile until Spider-Man decides to just leave, but Scorchy’s not having that, burning his webs and keeping him close to shoot more fire at. He eventually makes it to the river, where he dives down low enough Scorcher can’t get him, and just waits him out. Emerging to safety, he’s already got other things on his mind.
Peter is off to a date with Betty, seated outdoors at a restaurant. It’s going nicely til Peter notices a shadowed figure watching them from down the street, and notes he’s thought someone was following them all night. Netty suddenly remembers she has something to do and leaves, despite him trying to get her to talk about it. Peter is not having a good time lately. And the next day at lunch, it gets worse, as Jason returns to school for the first time since Sally died, and the lunchroom goes quiet.
Two “not you!!!”s thrown at Pete in 2 issues of this title. Ouch. That night, he confides to Aunt May that he feels like everything’s going wrong, and she gives him a pep talk, telling him to pick just one thing and make it go right to lift his spirits. Inspired, Peter becomes Spider-Man and heads down to where Tiny works. He just wants to try once again to convince Tiny to come back to school, but then he obviously sees The Scorcher show up and go into a secret room beneath the cleaner part of the floor he noticed last time. He shoots a web to keeps the doors from shutting and…
They get into it, Scorcher blaming Spider-Man for losing his cushy old gig (Working for Osborn, though he doesn’t say that), Spidey not feeling at all sorry for him. Meanwhile, Tiny notices the opening in the floor and wanders down to see what it is. Spider-Man gets a very angry Scorcher talking about what got him here…
On the one hand, it seems awfully convenient that Tiny found the one job in all of New York offered by a Spider-Man villain, but on the other, a villain seems more likely to pay a high school age kid under the table.
Nice and neat. Is Scorcher really dead? Of course not, the internet sez he’s appeared in a truly mindboggling 45 comics. But this is it for him in this title, at least. Kind of random. Barely got to know who he was, didn’t even learn his first name, and he’s done. The back of this issue includes a reading order for this title and the early ASMs. It reveals the really frustrating decision to make UTS 5-7 and 10 take place between scenes in ASM 10 and 12, respectively. Why make it so complicated? Why make it too hard for me to do what I’m doing, reading them between issues? Silly. But, they didn’t ask me, so it’s too late. Next post, it’s back to ASM.