Posted by  Pete Albano - July 3, 2014

It's the major Marvel hero against a major Marvel villain: Spider-Man vs. The Thinker.

And here's our thinking villain right now:

Doesn't Rodin have a copyright on this pose ? Look at them books; the Thinker's prison cell looks like a library. This is the best thing of all: The Thinker may be in prison but in a very real sense he's not.

Because of his technologically aided thought projection ability, the Thinker can literally escape from his prison cell. I also like that the Thinker recounts his past battles here, with major names from Marveldom. This guy isn't some cheap two-issue villain - this is an iconic Marvel bad guy.

So the Thinker, because he's always thinking, happens to train his thoughts on Spider-Man. Specifically, Webhead's spider sense. The Thinkers main problem is he keeps losing because of what he terms an 'X-Factor'. So the Thinker is thinking. That's right, the Thinker is thinking, that a 'spider-sense' is just the thing to handle his 'X-Factor' problem, so he sends Battle Droid 12 to do some "spider research". Incidentally, Battle Droid 12 is a class of robot that has been able to give battle to the likes of the Fantastic Four.

Peter is always swinging around. He understandably finds it a welcome break from the travails of being the hapless Parker. What I didn't know, yet it makes total sense, is that Spider-Man has his favorite haunts.

Apparently, he even plays timed games with himself. Neat.

Here comes Battle Droid 12.

Flamethrowers!

Very close to the crown jewels, more depends on his spider-sense than even Peter realizes.

Charged particle beam.

The close-up panel on the left reminds me of Jack Kirby.

Spider-Man creates a very spider-like counter: A web trap. Here's some information about how strong that web is.

Strong enough for the Green Goliath, that's very strong indeed. The Battle Droid pushes and pushes and the web doesn't break, but the droid topples everything the web is attached to. End result?

That's it for Battle Droid 12.

This issue has JRJR (John Romita Jr.) art before John transitioned to his latter, polished and stylized art. I don't like the early JRJR very much but this Spider-Man panel caught my eye.

By the way, JRJR shares art credits with Kevin Dzuban.

We can't end without a cliffhanger so here it is.

When did Pete become such a girl magnet?

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