90. Spider-Man vs. Sinister Six (Amazing Spiderman Annual #1 vol. 1)
What a notion for the very first Annual in Spider-Man history! For Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, Spider-Man faced almost all of his (at that point) solo villains as a team!!! Doctor Octopus, Kraven, Electro, Sandman, Mysterio and the Vulture combine forces to take on Spider-Man!
The Sinister Six were such a major point in Spider-Man history that they did not even show up again as a team for almost 30 more years!!!
The plan in the issue was not exactly brilliant, but the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko issue made up for the villains’ fairly silly plan with the gusto in which Lee/Ditko executed it - especially Ditko, who did a marvelous job on this Annual.
The villains’ plot was that each one of them would fight Spider-Man one by one at a location best suited for each of the villains. The hope would be that after facing them all in a row, eventually he would tire and one of the villains later in the line would be able to take him out. Probably not as smart as actually using their numbers advantage to crush him, but hey, at least it is a plan!
The motivation for Spider-Man to follow their plan is that Aunt May and Betty Brant have been kidnapped. He is told he must defeat each villain and if he does, pick up a card telling him which one he has to face next and where.
Of course, complicating matters is that Spider-Man loses his powers early in the issue (he gets them back really quickly, but still - he begins the battles powerless!).
Each of the fights include one splash page by Ditko of Spider-Man fighting each of the villains.
Naturally, Spidey proceeds to beat each one of the villains and save the day, but at the end of it all, the novelty of six of Spider-Man’s villains getting together proved so popular that even though it was their only appearance for almost 30 years, people still remember it quite fondly.
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