Amazing Spider-Man, The (1963 series) #139

On a late August day, Spider-Man swings around, ruminating on everything that he’s been through the last few months, with Gwen’s death and his apartment getting destroyed. He comes to the sobering conclusion that whether or not things go well, he still seems to be unhappy. He arrives in the Chelsea section of the city and changes back to Peter, meeting up with Liz, who may have found an apartment for him. They’re shown around the place by the superintendent’s wife, Mrs. Muggins, and Peter isn’t exactly thrilled, especially with his “nice view of the river” that ends up just being of the building next door. Still, not really being able to pass up a decent place to live, Peter agrees to take the place.

A few hours later, Peter arrives at the Daily Bugle, pleasantly surprising Betty that he hasn’t quit after all! Just as Peter starts chatting with Robbie, they hear a large commotion coming from the elevators and a man in a bear costume calling himself the Grizzly smashes his way into the newsroom! The Grizzly starts trashing the whole office, causing everyone to evacuate, except for Peter, Robbie, and Betty. Robbie sends Peter to get help and tries to protect Betty by holding off the Grizzly himself, but gets easily swatted away! J. Jonah Jameson exits his main office to see what the commotion is all about, before quickly retreating back inside once he sees the Grizzly! Outside, on the side of the building, Peter has just changed to Spider-Man when he sees Jameson get thrown out of the window! Spidey spins a web net to catch Jameson, who of course is convinced that Spider-Man is somehow in on it. Spidey heads inside to confront the Grizzly and is shocked to find that his punches have no effect! Spider-Man keeps it at and is eventually able to hurt the Grizzly but gets grabbed and slammed against the wall! With Spider-Man seemingly defeated, the Grizzly lumbers off and Spidey places a tracer on him, revealing that he was only pretending to be unconscious, knowing that the webbing holding up Jameson would be dissolving soon.

Spidey rescues an unappreciative Jameson, and heads out to track down his tracer signal. Around midnight, Spidey is still swinging around, and realizes that all the excitement earlier prevented him from sinking back into his pessimistic thoughts. Spidey eventually tracks the signal down to a fancy place in Washington Square. He decides it might be better to approach as Peter Parker, but just as he rings the doorbell, his spider-sense starts to buzz. He pretends to need to use the phone, but as soon as he enters, he’s sucker punched and knocked out by a mysterious assailant! When Peter eventually regains consciousness, he finds the Grizzly, along with the Grizzly’s partner and his assailant, the Jackal! The Jackal exclaims with glee that where Peter Parker is, Spider-Man won’t be far behind, and Peter realizes his problems have only just started! To be continued!