The Amazing Spider-Man #422

The cover of Amazing Spider-Man #422 makes a striking promise right on the cover copy: "Witness the Rebirth of One of Spidey's Greatest Villains!" — and the image delivers on that tension immediately. Spider-Man crouches in the foreground, looking up at a wild-eyed figure strapped into a massive, bolt-studded chair bristling with cables and electrodes, lightning crackling across the entire background. Cover artists Joe Bennett and Wellington Dias frame the scene with real menace, the strapped-down figure mid-scream as crackling energy surges around him. Writer Tom DeFalco's "Exposed Wiring" looks to be exactly the kind of charged, villainous comeback story that kept Amazing Spider-Man fans eagerly turning pages in 1997.