Amazing Spider-Man #5 was the first issue in the title to feature an already existing villain going up against Spider-Man. Maybe they needed a break from trying to create a new villain, but they sure got their creative juices flowing again next issue. You really couldn't find a better villain in the Marvel Universe for Spidey to face off against than Doctor Doom. Doom has always been the most feared villain in the history of the Marvel Universe and at the top of the Rogues Gallery of villains of the Fantastic Four. At first, Spider-Man versus Dr. Doom seems like a mismatch, but read on!

The story begins with a televised program with J. Jonah Jameson dealing with his views on why he thinks Spider-Man is a public menace to which there are many viewers including one Doctor Doom. Doom comes up with an idea that if he can persuade Spider-Man to join him, their combined forces will be enough to overcome his most hated enemies, the Fantastic Four. Doom uses an imprisoned spider to somehow communicate to Spider-Man through his spider-senses. This is never fully explained and just plain weird, but Doom does succeed in contacting the young Peter Parker. As Spider-Man, Peter has his first meeting with Doom and turns down his request to join up with him. Doom then warns him that they are now deadly foes, to which Spidey quickly attempts to web him up. Spider-Man is quickly surprised to learn that it was a robot of Dooms that he captured and not the real deal as the real Doom comes out of hiding. Doom next attempts to trap Spider-Man with a trap-door, but Spider-Man is too quick and agile for it. After dodging a blast from Doom's finger-gun, Spider-Man falls out a window and into the water below. Doom promptly blows up the building and escapes.

The next day, Peter arrives at the Daily Bugle where he first notices how pretty Jameson's secretary Betty Brant is (Introduced last issue). At the same time the fellow students of Peter's plan on playing a trick on Peter as Flash Thompson dresses up as Spider-Man using a costume sewn together by the girls in the group. Flash plans on scaring Peter dressed like Spider-Man unknowing that Peter is, in fact Spider-Man. Doom, on the other hand, has devised an instrument that reacts to a spider's impulse and will help him locate Spider-Man, and of all the coincidences, the real Spider-Man happens to be very close to Flash Thompson dressed up like Spider-Man the very moment Doom goes in for the capture by using sleeping gas on Thompson. Doom next interrupts everyone's televised programs for an important message: "Unless the Fantastic Four promise to disband and surrender to me, one at a time, Spider-Man will forfeit his life!". Peter next sneaks out of the house and puts on his Spider-Man duds setting out to find Doom.

The major battle of the issue takes place when Spider-Man does indeed find Doom in an abandoned factory.  After several traps and weapons such as guns, falling ice, iron projecting globes, a heat ray, an electrified field, another Doom robot, a disintegrating machine, and glowing flakes that blind Spider-Man, Doom suddenly flees from battle. No, it wasn't that Spider-Man was too much for him to handle, it was the arrival of the Fantastic Four. Spider-Man splits to leave Flash Thompson for the FF to deal with and the Human Torch recognizes that he has to be an imposter knowing the real one so well. The next day at school, Peter finds Flash bragging how he himself scared off that "crumb" Doctor Doom and that he ran out before he could get his "mitts" on him. Not exactly a great ending for Peter!

All in all, a nice story but just a tad below the importance of the surrounding issues. This is the first issue where there are no first appearances of importance and Spidey faces a Fantastic Four villain in which he will square-off against other times in the future, most notably in this title being Amazing Spider-Man #349 & #350 years later.

Reprinted In:
Marvel Tales #142
 Spider-Man Classics #6
 Marvel Masterworks Vol. 1
Spider-Man Essentials I