The Amazing Spider-Man #118

From March 1973 comes this action-packed chapter of Marvel's flagship series, with a cover by John Romita that puts Spider-Man square in the middle of a three-way clash. The imposing, glowing Smasher dominates center stage, fists flying, while the masked Disruptor lunges in from the right and Spidey scrambles on the left — the cover copy promising "a shock ending, too!" makes this one hard to set down. With Gerry Conway and Stan Lee on the script and a full artistic team including Jim Mooney and Tony Mortellaro on inks, "Countdown to Chaos!" delivers exactly the kind of kinetic, crowd-pleasing energy that made Amazing Spider-Man essential reading in the early seventies.