The Amazing Spider-Man #250
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAmazing Spider-Man #250 is the capstone of one of the Copper Age's most celebrated creative partnerships: Roger Stern's nearly two-and-a-half-year run with penciller John Romita Jr., a collaboration widely regarded as among the finest in the title's history. The issue lands at the dramatic center of the Hobgoblin blackmail trilogy—the ongoing mystery villain Stern had introduced in #238 and designed as a more cunning, calculating successor to the Green Goblin—and it packs in a landmark confrontation between Spider-Man and J. Jonah Jameson in which Peter Parker calls out Jameson's hypocrisy, a scene that cut to the heart of their decades-long antagonism in ways rarely attempted before. Because Stern left the title before resolving the Hobgoblin's secret identity, #250 became the final installment of his unfinished masterwork, scattering clues (notably Roderick Kingsley's anxious mention of his brother) that readers and creators would argue over for more than a decade, until Marvel brought Stern back in 1997 to deliver his intended answer in the Hobgoblin Lives miniseries.
In "Confessions!", Spider-Man, stripped of his spider sense and rescued by the Kingpin, races to protect Harry and Jonah from the Hobgoblin’s blackmail. With help from a long-forgotten mechanical spider tracer, Peter uncovers the villain’s location in a high-stakes showdown. Written by Roger Stern and illustrated by John Romita Jr., with inks by Klaus Janson and colors by Christie Scheele, this 1984 classic features a cover by Romita Jr. and Janson that captures the tension of a web-slinger at his breaking point.
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Roger Stern had taken over Amazing Spider-Man with #224 in January 1982, recruited by then-editor Tom DeFalco to inject direction into a title that had drifted after Marv Wolfman's run. Stern's working relationship with DeFalco was smooth, but when DeFalco transitioned off editorial duties and Danny Fingeroth took over, Stern found their approaches difficult to reconcile; simultaneously, Romita Jr. told Stern he planned to leave the book to focus on Uncanny X-Men, and Stern chose to exit with him rather than continue with a new artist under a new editor. Stern provided the plot for #251 as a courtesy handoff, and incoming writer-editor Tom DeFalco and artist Ron Frenz inherited the Hobgoblin mystery—a situation that would spiral into one of comics' most notorious editorial tangles when neither DeFalco nor subsequent creators could agree on a satisfying resolution.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated March 1984; on-sale November 29, 1983. Written by Roger Stern, pencilled by John Romita Jr., inked by Klaus Janson, colored by Christie Scheele, lettered by Joe Rosen; edited by Danny Fingeroth with Jim Shooter as editor-in-chief.
- Serves as Part 2 of a 3-part Hobgoblin arc ('Confessions!'), bridging ASM #249 and #251; Spider-Man must track the Hobgoblin without his spider-sense after it was chemically suppressed in the previous issue.
- Marks the final fully scripted issue of the acclaimed Stern/Romita Jr. run on Amazing Spider-Man—a collaboration that began with #238 and produced the Hobgoblin's creation, the Juggernaut two-parter, and 'The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man.'
- Key plot beats include: the Hobgoblin blackmailing New York's wealthy elite using Norman Osborn's journals; Spider-Man confronting each victim including J. Jonah Jameson, who resolves to publicly confess his role in creating the Scorpion; and Norman Osborn's journals being destroyed in a warehouse fire during the climactic battle.
- Contains an early layered clue to Stern's intended Hobgoblin reveal: a panicked Roderick Kingsley is seen at the Century Club asking where his brother is—a detail Stern planted as groundwork for his twin-alias twist, which DeFalco declined to use when he took over.
- The cover self-referentially bills itself as a 'Special Normal-Sized 250th Issue!' in a playful jab at the oversized anniversary specials Marvel frequently published, deliberately subverting the milestone-issue convention.
- Reprinted in Marvel Tales #260 (April 1992); collected in the 1992 trade paperback The Amazing Spider-Man: The Origin of the Hobgoblin, in Origin of the Hobgoblin (Marvel, 1992 limited series), in the 2011 Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin trade paperback, and in Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 23 (2021).
- The story's unresolved Hobgoblin mystery eventually prompted Marvel to invite Stern back for the 1997 Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives three-issue miniseries, which officially retconned Ned Leeds as the Hobgoblin and confirmed Roderick Kingsley as the true original villain Stern had always intended.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends #589 (1984), Eks almanah #436 (1985), Spiderman #66 (1985), Strange #195 (1986), Edderkoppen #10/1986 (1986), Spindelmannen #10/1986 (1986), L'Uomo Ragno #37 (1989), Marvel Tales #260 (1992), Origin of the Hobgoblin #[nn] (1992), Biblioteca Marvel: Spiderman #42 (2005), Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin #[nn] (2011), Marvel Héroes #44 (2013), Marvel Héroes #69 (2016), Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man #23 (2021), A Teia do Aranha #61, Die Spinne #109, El Hombre Araña / El Asombroso Hombre Araña #370, Homem-Aranha #69, Σπάιντερ Μαν [Spider-Man] #162
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