Time to find out what’s up with Flash while also spending the whole issue worried it’s gonna be racist, even if it’s not. Romita inks himself on this one with assists from Tony Mortellaro, an arrangement that will continue for awhile. We pick up where last issue left off, Spidey now following the car that picked up Flash. It seems to be driven by a couple of military guys. And it is soon intentionally cut off in traffic by a semi truck, and the driver starts throwing smoke bombs at them.
The smoke only serves to help Spider-Man as he sets to picking off everyone but Flash until he knows what’s going on. But as he’s trying to unmask one of the gasmasked assailants, a huge dude dressed as a chauffeur knocks him to the ground.
Spidey webs everybody up, noting all the guys attacking the car are Asian and the guys driving it are American military. Then he more or less kidnaps Flash.
Flash recounts a story from his time in Vietnam. He was wounded and wandering lost in the jungle, passing out. When he woke up, he was being cared for by two locals, an old guy and a young woman, who said he’d be safe in their hidden temple. They helped him heal, and he was impressed by their kindness.
When he was back on his feet, he left the temple, the young lady showing affection for him. When he got back to his unit, though, they were just about to start shelling the area the temple was in. Flash couldn’t convince them people lived there, so he ran back to warn them, but they didn’t believe Flash’s army buddies would harm innocent people, and then the whole temple exploded.
Now Flash has a price on his head, and people are obviously coming to collect.
Flash says he has a feeling there’s more to his story, something that happened while he was blacked out after the temple exploded. Spidey lowers him to the army guys’ window in a federal building and swings off. Flash is able to convince them he was trying to help. Spider-Man swings back home, remembers Aunt May was coming to visit, and then we get to an infamous panel that gets passed around the internet a lot…
Gwen is worried sick about Flash. She knows he’s at that federal building somehow, so Aunt May suggests Pete & Gwen go check on him. When they get there, they’re naturally not allowed to see Flash, but Peter sees the giant dude from the fight earlier, and makes a lame excuse to follow him. He’s trying not to change to Spider-Man because he thinks Gwen is suspicious (Am I the only one who’s not forgotten his intention to unmask and propose about 10 issues ago?), so he crawls on the wall outside to get a trace on the big dude through a window. As soon as he does, though…
Pete sees they have Flash and dives in the window, hoping the dark will cover his identity, and starts mixing it up with the big guy, who everyone just called “The Giant One.”
The Giant One takes Peter down, and the goons escape with Flash. Then the MPs and Gwen burst in. And Peter saying the explosion blew his shoes off while he was going to the phone actually works somehow. But…
Uh-oh! How’s Pete gonna get out of this one? This could have been way more cringe-y. All the Vietnamese guys talk in pretty stilted language, but then, so do a lot of Stan Lee characters, if we’re being honest. In these times more prone to stereotyping, it’s at least nice that Flash encountered such kind people. The way they live and speak may be a white guy’s made up idea of life in Vietnam, but at least it’s not the shameful caricatures of the Japanese in 1940s comics, you know? And it was pretty interesting to ship Flash off to Vietnam in general. This was all way before the idea of sustainability was factoring into how comics were made. Vietnam dates the book in a way no amount of bellbottoms will, but it’s also such a facet of peoples’ lives, why not use it to make the book seem more real?
A couple of noteworthy items in the back of this issue. First, the Bullpen Bulletins page features Stan hyping people up to check out Marvel’s newest hero, Luke Cage! His first series began the month this issue was released. Also, this issue features a letter from David Michelinie, who will go on to be a beloved writer of comics like Iron Man and Avengers, creator of the Scott Lang Ant-Man, and most important to us, a long-time Spider-Man writer and creator of Venom. So many comic creators’ first time published in comics was letter writing. It’s always fun to see them. Next month, things with Flash get even stranger.