Ever wonder what happened to Doctor Octopus since his failed attempt to rid the world of Spider-Man by creating the Sinister Six from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1? Well many years later right inside in this issue you see right above these words, are the answers to that question! Another fine issue of Untold Tales of Spider-Man.

As we open this issue to the splash page, we see a very angry Doctor Octopus in the custody of the police about to begin his trial. Everyone is there from Peter Parker and his gang to the vast media. Ock's mechanical arms are present as evidence under a display case and the good Doctor insinuates that they are fakes and desires to see them more closely. As the display case is removed, Ock's mental control over his arms makes him whole again. He knocks out the police and breaks free stating to all of New York to "Beware, Doctor Octopus is free again, with a vengeance". Yea! we shall see!

At the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson wants Parker to get some pictures of a block party in Forest Hills since he lives near-by. While there, he several people of the town including Anna Watson, Sergeant Thompson and his son Flash, and Liz Allan. He finds some time to change to Spider-Man and gets extremely lucky in locating him in an engineering warehouse. He never finds Ock inside the warehouse, but what he does find are the police who accuse him of stealing from it. Later on the street, Aunt May runs into Doc Ock and recognizes him from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 and strangely invites him to dinner. After May tell Peter of their dinner guest, he quickly dashes away changing to Spider-Man. He finds Ock in a place where Peter has many memories of: The old Acme Warehouse where he captured his Uncle Ben's killer. Ock is inside where he is putting his finishing touches on a remote controlled flying bomb planning on sending it over the city until they acknowledge him as their master. Spider-Man crashes his little party and Ock sends his bomb flying. Spider-Man jumps on the bomb with Ock quickly following. They battle atop this flying bomb for quite some time with many on-lookers in town until the bomb's rotors are broken off by one of Ock's tentacles making it fall into a lake below where it detonates. The lake exploded water all over the place and all that can be seen is Spider-Man dragging very weak Doc Ock out of the water. Ock states that "Next time...I'll have a secret base...One that nobody can find!" How prophetic for Ock as he creates an under-water base in the classic Amazing Spider-Man #31-33.

The story end as Peter gets home to tell Aunt May that he ran into their dinner guest earlier and he won't be able to make it. Aunt May acts a little strange and states that she may invite her friend Anna Watkins over for company. Peter states to himself that something must be wrong with her if she is forgetting her best friends last name. This is great writing and explanation for the classic "mistake" in Amazing Spider-Man #18 where Anna Watson is referred to as Anna Watkins and Anna Watson thereafter. Long time fans have been wondering about this little inconsistency for a long time before this issue hit the stands.

Great issue that fills in some "gaps" in Spider-Man's history. Doctor Octopus makes his next chronological appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #31-33 in the great "Master Planner" storyline.