As we begin, Peter's still on the roof. It looks like he's going to be the narrator from now on, since Urich's dead. One thing that I didn't think was especially important to note before is that Urich's narration was written in a typewriter font, which is one of those little details that shows how much thought went into this. Anyway, Spider-Man thinks out loud about how he doesn't believe in magic, he believes in science, while he narrates about his "origin" thus far: he was bitten by a spider and given superhuman powers by a mythical spider god. Now he can shoot liquid silk out of his wrists, among other things. "There has to be a scientific explanation for this. Has to be." But it doesn't matter - he's going to use this gift to bring down the Goblin. He makes his way to Urich's place, thinking that Ben's going to help him whether he likes it or not because he can't do this alone.
There, he discovers Urich dead and his office ransacked. Even though he said he never wanted to see Urich again just yesterday, Spider-Man is shocked and saddened to the point of tears. "No. Not again. Please God, not again!" That makes the second father figure the Goblin's taken from him. He leaves, changes out of the Spider-Man costume, and comes back - this time, calling the police. As they investigate the crime scene, he sits sullenly outside the door. In a bit of dark humor, one of the detectives wonders if they can pin it on Peter. He's only shut down when someone points out that the D.A. wouldn't buy it since he called it in.
Shortly after arriving on scene, they judge the murder "unsolved." Urich was a drug addict into cocaine and heroin, and some of his articles didn't win him any friends. Maybe he ripped off his dealer or somebody didn't appreciate the bad rap he gave them; either way, who cares? They tell Peter to go home, and to try to think about anybody who might've done this. Narrator Peter knows it was the Goblin. He doesn't know who pulled the trigger, and he doesn't care, because the Goblin's the one behind it all.
Speaking of the Goblin, we cut to his office, where he tears a stack of papers in half. "This?! You come to me with this?" Jameson took all the dirt on Osborn he could find in Urich's place, but it's very little considering all the stuff Osborn knows Urich had. The Vulture makes his perch on Osborn's desk and Kraven's holding Jameson up by the collar in a manner recalling a Neck Lift. JJJ he swears that's all there was. He tore the goddamn place apart and it's all that was there. Osborn points his gun right in Jameson's face and asks him again, but gets the same answer. He tells Jameson to get out - he's got an editorial to write. As he leaves, Osborn muses to himself that somebody has those files... Who would Urich trust?
As Peter heads home, the doorman at the Black Cat invites him in. Felicia heard about what happened to Urich and wants to comfort Peter in person. Peter's spotted by the Ox, who just happened to be enjoying a drink in the place, as he enters Felicia's office. Once inside, we see Felicia is something of a Crazy Cat Lady, keeping several cats in her workspace (in addition to cat statues, tribal masks, naming her club "the Black Cat" and having the waitresses dress up as Cat Girls). Anyway, she's standing alone in the dark, clearly upset by Urich's passing. She says he called him just last night, telling her that Peter knew about the drugs and the money from the Goblin... "Ben was no saint. I know that better than most. But he was a better man than you think." she says, cradling one of her darling pets in her arms.
Turning to Peter and revealing that she's been wearing sunglasses the whole time, she tells him that Urich was very fond of him. He says he knows. Felicia counters by saying Peter doesn't know is that he was going to expose the Goblin, and that's why he's dead. Taking her sunglasses off, she reveals runs in her mascara from tears as she tells Peter that Urich died because of him. She doesn't appear to hold a grudge, however, because she then hands over all the files Urich had collected on the Goblin - he'd given them to her for safekeeping, and said if anything happened to him, Peter would know what to do with them.
Peter thinks he knows. Take them to the Bugle, right? Hardly; that's the last place he should take them. He's not to show them to anyone. No, they're for him to use. Urich told her Peter would know how. Taking the satchel with all the files, Peter leaves. He says if he knew what would happen to Urich, he'd never have pushed him, but Felicia isn't hearing it and tells him to go. Back at home, Peter sits in his room, the files strewn over his bed. Urich must've told Felicia he was Spider-Man. What else does she know? Why doesn't she want the Bugle involved? He curses Urich for not turning this stuff over six months ago - then the Goblin would be in the can and Uncle Ben would be alive.
Aunt May comes up to her nephew's room to give her condolences, but Peter snaps at her that Urich was a liar and a coward. She begs to differ - she may have only met him once, but she's quite the judge of character. Whatever he did or didn't do, he never did wrong by Peter - so Peter should do right by him.
Now we're at Urich's funeral. Attendees include Peter, Aunt May, Jameson and his secretary Betty Brant, Felicia, and her doorman (who is certainly some character, but I'm drawing a total blank on who. He's a large bald man with a large X-shaped scar over his mouth, in any case.) After the service, Jameson wants to have a chat with Peter. He says it's a tragic loss, and it must've been difficult to be the one to find him. After all, they'd been so close over the last week, right? Jameson wants to know if Urich, uh, took Peter into his confidence. It's clear by this point (if the fact that he's the murderer didn't tip you off) that his sympathy is insincere; he's hunting for those files. Peter gets this weird sense when he hears that question, as though something were creeping up behind him. He thinks Jameson's acting strange, as though he's afraid of something.
Jameson tries to sound a little less suspicious by claiming Urich was on an assignment when he was murdered, some real hush-hush undercover thing, and he just wants to know if he ever mentioned it to Peter. Peter says he didn't. Felicia glares at Peter when she sees him talking to Jameson. Anyway, Pete says he'll likely head back to college now, but thanks JJJ for the opportunity to work at the Bugle. Jameson says it's alright, but wants Peter to keep in touch in case he thinks of anything about Urich. Peter walks away, thinking Felicia was right - he can't trust Jameson, or anyone else. "This is something I have to do alone." he narrates as he hits the snow-capped rooftops as Spider-Man.
Narrating, he says it makes sense now. Being bitten by that spider... there was a purpose to it. He's going to be going out there every night and hit the Goblin where it hurts. The files tell him everything he needs to know, all the locations of all the operations. Every two-bit thug he associates with. He'll be there... he'll be everywhere, for as long as it takes. As he says all this, we get shots of Spider-Man acting on all this information. Catching bootleggers and drug runners in the act, stopping shakedowns and muggings about to happen, with a combination of his new physical abilities, his strong, sticky web nets, and Uncle Ben's service revolver. When he catches a bad guy in a web, he leaves a calling card with a spider and a web on it so the Goblin will know who's doing this to him.
On the next page, we see a copy of the Daily Bugle featuring two front page stories on Spider-Man - both, naturally, negative; the front page picture is an artist's conception of the Spider-Man based on eyewitness accounts, and it's a horrific spider creature with a gun. The other article features this charming headline: "Terror on the Street - Masked Vigilante Injures Citizens." There's also a note about Norman Osborn donating $20,000 to a charity benefiting widows and orphans.
Anyway, somebody's reading that Bugle, and it's Osborn. "ENOUGH!! Enough of this! I want this freak's head in a jar! RIGHT HERE ON THIS DESK!" It turns out he's meeting with a local underboss, who agrees wholeheartedly - but insists the Goblin make it sooner than later. He deals with Osborn because he claims to have the city sewn up. Osborn protests that he has the cops, the mayor, the port authority, the unions, the Bugle... he has the city. The other guy admits he's impressed, but that doesn't mean Spider-Man isn't giving both of them a headache. If Osborn can't take care of one guy making trouble in one week, they'll be taking their business elsewhere.
Osborn's furious. Spider-Man knows too much. He can't be guessing, he knows. Kraven imagines he has Urich's files, and Osborn agrees. That, or whoever has them is tipping him off. There's a cute little moment here where Kraven's monkey straightens the papers on Osborn's desk. Aww. Anyway, Osborn thinks it's either Felicia Hardy or that Parker kid who has the files. Ox mentions that he saw Parker go into Felicia's "private boudoir" the day after Urich died. Osborn condescendingly thanks Ox for sharing this information with them long after they needed it, but in his defense he probably didn't guess the connection. Anyway, Osborn says he wants Parker in his office immediately; it's time to clean house.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man is perched on a gargoyle as he reads the Bugle, featuring a scathing editorial in which Jameson rails against the Spider-Man as a villain. No doubt this is how the public sees him, however, since he's tackling the Villain with Good Publicity types who aren't widely known to be criminals. Well, that and their primary source of news has been demonizing him. Spidey's disgusted, and thinks it's time Jameson explained "how a man of grit and integrity" can turn into a spineless mouthpiece for the Goblin.
Ha, this is pretty funny. Spider-Man actually practices that "grit and integrity" line as he leaps from building to building to reach Jameson's office. He wants it to sound just right for when he says it to the man himself. Anyway, when he gets there, he notices the lights are off. Opening the window, he enters to find Jameson's been shot. Spidey asks if the Goblin did this, but Jameson just says "he's the master of disguise... you won't believe your..." before dying. The police burst into the room, and we're back at the beginning of the story. I don't know about you, but when I first read this I was worried Spidey really did shoot Jameson.
He makes his escape as seen in issue #1, but we get narration this time. He bemoans the fact that he was set up, even though he only went to Jameson's office on a whim. Okay, it probably wasn't a set up in light of that fact, but it might as well have been, since even Jameson thought he was there to kill him. He gets home, heading inside to the attic from the roof. He then notices that one of those cops' bullets grazed his arm. "I didn't even feel it. That bullet could've gone through my head." Anyway, he thinks he's missing something about Jameson. What did the Goblin have on him to bend the poor guy to his will? He leafs through Urich's files for a clue.
And finds one. "Freak Show, Coney Island - 1928." Therein he finds pictures of the men recruited into the Goblin's inner circle. Kraven, the Vulture... Peter recognizes them all as the Goblin's men. Except for one. Later that night, Spider-Man sneaks into the morgue, finds Jameson's body, and presses his hand to Jameson's face... leaving an imprint as though it were made of clay. "Whoever performs the autopsy on this corpse is in for a big surprise." It's Dmitri Smerdyakov, alias the Chameleon. Kraven's half-brother, with the ability to mold his features into a perfect imitation of any subject. He's the guy Peter didn't recognize from the Coney Island file. One of the pictures even explains "Jameson"'s last words, featuring a promo for the Chameleon's attraction - "He's the Master of Disguise, you won't believe your eyes."
Spidey's impressed. This must've been the Chameleon's greatest performance. He's been impersonating Jameson ever since Urich turned his back on the Goblin; that's what Osborn meant when he was talking about being two steps ahead. But it raises the question - where's the real J. Jonah Jameson? Don't worry, we get our answer: the Goblin's got him locked up in a dungeon in a cage adjacent to that of Kraven's pet tiger. He's chained to the ground by his ankle as Kraven prods him with a stick and mocks him. Osborn tells Jameson to relax - his discomfort will be alleviated soon enough. As if on cue, Ox and Montana arrive with Felicia Hardy bound and gagged. Osborn's ecstatic that more company has arrived. Now, only one guest remains.
At Peter's house, Aunt May goes into her nephew's room, looking for him - while the Vulture hangs from one of the rafters, ready to pounce.
End of issue 3
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