Spider-Man #96

Part three of "The Gathering of Five" crossover finds Spider-Man in serious trouble, as the cover makes vividly clear — a determined wall-crawler scrambles across a rooftop while an enormous, ghoulish figure of Madame Web looms over him in ghostly blue, her presence inescapable and deeply unsettling. Norman Felchle's cover art captures a striking contrast between Spidey's frantic movement below and the spectral menace towering above, hinting at the psychological weight of "Web of Despair." With Howard Mackie writing and Scott Hanna on inks, this 1998 installment promises high tension at the midpoint of one of that era's most ambitious Spider-Man storylines.