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When you think of the Marvel Villain Doctor Doom you probably associate him with The Fantastic Four. However in The Amazing Spider-Man issue 5 we get to see Spider-Man vs Doctor Doom. As with many of Spider-Man’s foes, Doctor Doom is a genius. This gives him a certain advantage that is particularly different than his other enemies who simply rely on their super powers. So how did this situation come about? Why the beef against Spider-Man?
Amazing Spider-Man issue 5 starts off by revealing that Doctor Doom did not die from his last encounter with the Fantastic Four. Although he fell out of a plane he managed to use gadgetry to safely land. After hearing about Spider-Man’s trouble with the public Dr Doom hatches a plan to lure Spider-Man toward him and convince him to join forces. He does this by somehow harnessing the communication ability of spiders and contact Spider-Man on the same wavelength. When Spider-Man responds to the message and confronts Dr Doom he rejects his offer and escapes the building.
At this point Doctor Doom comes up with a new plan. He decides that he is going to capture Spider-Man and threaten to kill him unless The Fantastic Four relinquish themselves one by one. Dr Doom creates a device to find Spider-Man but mistakenly kidnaps Flash Thompson instead since he was wearing a Spider-Man costume as a prank. Spider-Man investigates where Dr Doom is hiding and sneaks past his traps by sliding down an air vent. This is when we get to see Spider-Man vs Doctor Doom. Starting on page 13 Dr Doom uses his finger gun to try and kill the real Spider-Man but fails. Another trap involves dropping liquid from above intended to turn him frozen solid. And finally Doom tries fire from the floorboards. It’s not until Spider-Man lands on an electrified section of the floor does he get trapped. Since we know that electricity is one of his weaknesses this is not surprising. Spider-Man counters by shooting Doom with some web fluid, causing conduction and shocking Doom.
Spider-Man begins to get tired and after Doctor Doom throws something in Spider-Man’s face he goes blind. He is pretty much done for until The Fantastic Four conveniently comes to the rescue. Other interesting things happen in this issue, like we start to see some love interest between J Jonah Jameson’s secretary Betty Brant and Peter Parker. Since Amazing Spider-Man 5 is so valuable and expensive I recommend you buy (Affiliate Link) Marvel Tales 142 which reprints the story. Leave a comment with your thoughts.