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Featured Characters:

• Spider-Man (Peter Parker)

Supporting Characters:

• Daily Bugle
  • J. Jonah Jameson
  • Joe Robertson
  • Glory Grant
• Flash Thompson

Antagonists:

• Black Cat

Other Characters:

• Barney Bushkin
• Randy Robertson
• Sha Shan
• Dawn Starr (First appearance)
• Jonas Harrow
• NYPD

Locations:

• New York City
  • Times Square
  • Daily Globe Building
  • Guggenheim Museum
  • Daily Bugle Building
  • Peter’s Chelsea Apartment
  • Black Cat’s Hideout

Items:

• Spider-Man’s Web-Shooters

Synopsis

Spider-Man sees a shootout taking place in the middle of Times
Square. A group of masked thugs in a van are being pursued at top speed
by the police. When the thugs spot Spider-Man, they start shooting at
him, but he snags their guns with his webbing. Then, after he web-swings
high out of reach, he yanks the rear axle out of the van with more
webbing, sending the vehicle crashing into some parked cars. The police
soon arrive and haul the hoodlums away. Spider-Man departs, unaware that
the Black Cat has been taking photos for her collection of Spider-Man
memorabilia from a nearby rooftop. 

The Cat heads north to the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum of Art. Dropping down on a rope through a door in the
roof, she muses that her Job should not take long, because she has
cased the place and knows all the guards’ schedules. 

As she relishes the
thought of adding the Golden Lovers statue to her collection, an armed
guard orders her to halt. The Cat blows him a kiss, and suddenly the
door behind him files open and knocks him out: another instance of the
“bad luck” that befalls anyone who crosses her path. As Spider-Man
web-swings above a police car, he overhears a bulletin about the Black
Cat being at the museum. So the Cat is alive, thinks Spider-Man as he
hastens away. He arrives in minutes and, seeing the Black Cat carrying
the statue, drops down on her from above, knocking her over. But she
acrobatically gets back on her feet, and they begin battling. Suddenly
the roof beneath Spider-Man’s feet collapses, but as he falls he manages
to snag the statue with his webbing. The Black Cat then sees the police
cordoning off the building and springs away. Spider-Man hands the
statue to the police, and then, tired, he heads for his apartment and a
night’s sleep. The next day at the Daily Bugle, Gloria Grant tells Peter
Parker about the change that has come over Joe Robertson ever since he
accepted the job of publisher. He has become surly to the point of
irrationality. Robertson yells at Peter and tells him to get out of his
office, and as Peter leaves he meets Randy Robertson, who is also
puzzled as to what has come over his father. In his office, as he barks
orders over the telephone, Robertson himself begins to realize that
something terrible is happening to him.

In a studio apartment across town, the Black Cat vents her rage
at a poster of Spider-Man. He would not have interfered, she thinks, had
he known the real reason that she steals.

At about the same time at the Daily Globe, Barney Bushkin tells
Peter Parker to try to control what he thinks is the hostile streak that
prevents Peter from working with April Maye. Bushkin is convinced that
Peter and April would make a dynamic reporting team, and he wants Peter
to like her. Peter says he will try, but he asks Bushkin to speak to
April as well. After Peter leaves the Globe, he walks by the Guggenheim
Museum, where the Golden Lovers statue is back in its place. His
spider-sense tingles, but he keeps walking. Unseen by Peter, Felicia
Hardy, not wearing her Black Cat costume, is among the crowd of
visitors. Annoyed that there are now more guards around the Golden
Lovers statue, she quietly hides a small package near the statue and
departs. Later that evening Peter prepares for a blind date that Flash
Thompson has arranged for him. Peter joins Flash and Sha Shan in Central
Park, and he meets his date, the gorgeous Dawn Starr. Dawn appears
quite interested in Peter, and they bid Flash and Sha Shan farewell.
Unfortunately, just when Peter’s social life seems to be taking a turn
for the better, he learns that Dawn will be one of his science students.
It would be unethical for him to date her, he says, and he strides
away, much to her chagrin. As he walks alone by the Guggenheim Museum,
his spider-sense tingles, and this time he does not ignore the warning. 

Leaping a fence into an alley, he quickly changes into his Spider-Man
costume and web-swings to the museum’s roof.

Surmising that the Black Cat is back for a second try at the
Golden Lovers statue, Spider-Man enters the building and finds all the
guards unconscious on the floor. The gas pellets that the Black Cat left
near the statue have done their work. The Cat is startled when
Spider-Man grabs her arm as she is making off with the statue, instantly
regaining her composure, the Cat flips Spider-Man over her back, and
they begin battling. 

The Cat hampers Spider-Man by threatening to
destroy various valuable pieces of art, which Spider-Man must protect in
addition to trying to capture her. She manages to kick Spider-Man in
the head, stunning him long enough for her to escape. 

Suddenly the Cat’s
“bad luck” power again seems to manifest itself, and a shelf of pottery
collapses on Spider-Man’s head, leaving him unconscious. The Black Cat
slings the Golden Lovers statue on her back climbs a rope out of the
gallery and gets away.

Meanwhile, J. Jonah Jameson regains consciousness in the alley
following his paranoid flight from the Daily Bugle. He has lost all
memory of who he is and how he arrived there, and as he ponders his
situation and shivers in the cold, a voice calls him from the street.
The voice says that Jameson is a friend, and when Jameson replies that
he does not remember the speaker, the speaker identifies himself as
Jonas Harrow. Soon, says Harrow, Jameson will remember him. The
auctioneer at a Jewelry auction in a gallery located at Park Avenue and
63rd Street announces that the Rajah Ruby is valued at $4.1 million and
requests an opening bid. “Two cents,” announces a voice from above, and
when the auctioneer and the attendees look up, they see the Black Cat. 

They have heard her bid, she says, and they are free to raise it—if they
want to die. Suddenly she tosses the auctioneer two pennies, bounds to
the floor, seizes the gem, and crashes through the window. She makes her
way back to her apartment and settles down to relax on her bed. The
first two prizes are hers, she says; only two more must be stolen to
achieve her final goal.

Notes

• Spider-Man is surprised to learn that the Black Cat is alive. She seemingly perished in Amazing Spider-Man #195 (in Italy in URCSETT #21).
• Jonah Jameson recovers consciousness in an alley, with a footnote
  explaining he got there “last issue.” It was really the next-to-last
  issue, #202; the footnote is wrong and apparently #203; was a fill-in issue not dealing with this overall plot

Featured Characters:

• Avengers
  • Captain America (Steve Rogers)
  • Scarlet Witch (Wanda Frank)
  • Vision
  • Beast (Hank McCoy)
  • Iron Man (Tony Stark)
  • Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)

Supporting Characters:

• Quicksilver (Pietro Frank)
• Hawkeye (Clint Barton)
• Yellowjacket (Hank Pym)
• Wonder Man (Simon Williams)
• Jocasta
• National Security Council
  • Henry Gyrich

Antagonists:

• Django Maximoff (Real name first revealed) (Origin revealed)
• Toad (Illusion)
• Princess Python (Illusion)
  • Princess Python’s Precious (Illusion)
• Nighthawk (Kyle Richmond) (Illusion)

Other Characters:

• Donald Blake
• Romany (First appearance) (Only in flashback)
  • Marya Maximoff (First appearance) (Unnamed) (Only in flashback)
  • Numerous unnamed Romany (First appearance) (Only in flashback)
• Numerous unnamed European villagers (Only in flashback)
• Mr. Doll (Nathan Dolly) (Recap)
• Black Panther (T’Challa) (Photo)

Locations:

• Earth North America
  • • United States of America
      • New York
        • New York City
          • Manhattan
            • Midtown
              • Fifth Avenue
                • Avengers Mansion
            • Lower East Side
              • The Bowery
  • Europe (Only in flashback)
    • Romania (Only in flashback)
      • Muresul (Only in flashback) 
  • Russia (Only in flashback)
    • Vladivostok (Only in flashback)

Items:

• Captain America’s Uniform and Captain America’s Shield
• Hawkeye’s Bow and Trick Arrows
• Yellowjacket’s Suit
• Bio-Synthetic Wings
• Iron Man Armor Model 4
• Nivashi Stone (First appearance)
• Panther Habit (Photo)

Vehicles:

• Avengers Sky-Scooter

Synopsis

The bodies of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch lay inert and
lifeless in the Avengers Mansion infirmary. Doctor Blake has determined
that while they are not fully alive they are not truly dead either. He
says it is as if their souls have been stolen.

Elsewhere, despite having access to high-tech scanners once more
(thanks to the newly reinstalled security privileges), the Avengers can
find no cause for the twins’ current state. Jocasta pipes in that her
own cybernetic senses have detected an energy signature leading from the
mansion, across the city to the Bowery neighborhood.

Agent Gyrich is taken aback to realize that Jocasta is a sentient
being and not some pre-programmed robot. He insists that if she is
“alive”, she must have security clearance to reside at the mansion.
Jocasta rattles him with some self-deprecating humor, however. She asks
him if the U.S. government insists on having security clearance for
“mere machines.” Her question leaves Gyrich confused and he retreats.

The Avengers prepare to follow the trail, but the new security
procedures they’ve agreed to dictate that one team member remains behind
on monitor duty at all times. Hawkeye balks at missing out at his last
official mission as an Avenger. Wonder Man volunteers to remain behind,
and so the rest of the team head for the Bowery.

At that very moment in a seedy Bowery flophouse, a strange scene
unfolds. Wanda and Pietro’s life force has been transferred to two
marionette figurines kept in enchanted cages. A white-bearded man,
Django Maximoff, insists that they are his own long-lost children, Ana
and Mateo. 

The siblings deny this, though, stating that their parents
were the WWII-era heroes the Whizzer and Miss America.
Django, however, recounts a very different version of their childhood:
how he raised them as members of a Roma gypsy tribe and how they used
their powers (which Django believed stemmed from his magical runestone)
for the good of the caravan. 

Prejudice against gypsies and fear of the
siblings’ “witchcraft abilities” prompted superstitious villagers to
assault them. Django’s wife was killed and he believed his children were
dead as well until he read newspaper reports of the Avengers and became
convinced that they were his children. But as his tale ends, he senses
the approach of the Avengers.

The Avengers arrive in their sky-sled and Django uses a magical
runestone to animate mannequins in a nearby warehouse to attack them. 

They destroy them easily enough. But when they enter Django creates a powerful illusion to transform the room into a vast,
outer space void. 

And in this fantasy world, he conjures three
adversaries — Toad, Princess Python, and Nighthawk — to combat the
team.

Continued to next issue…

Notes

• In Django‘s
  flashback, he recounts that after he believed his family were all dead,
  he lapsed into bitterness and survived by carving marionettes which he
  infused with enchantments. He states that he realized his creations
  would sometimes be used for evil ends but didn’t care at the time. The
  panel art depicts him handing a carved figurine to a man. The man in
  question is the Iron Man and Spider-Woman villain Mister Doll and the marionette he gives him is that of the Brothers Grimm, a pair of villains from Jessica Drew’s original Spider-Woman series.