Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #074 (1983)

“Fantasia!”

Rating: 4/5

Writer: Bill Mantlo
Artist: Bob Hall

The Owl steals some device (the uses of which aren’t made known). Doctor Octopus tries to steal the component device from Kingpin, but it turns out to be a fake.

Peter agrees to help Deb. The psychiatrist asks Peter to dress up like Spider-Man and Peter refuses, but says he’ll try to help her a different way. He talks to her kind of boyfriend Biff Rifkin and finds out she had a husband back in college who beat her and she had the typical abused wife mentality that “he’s really a nice guy” and couldn’t grasp the reality. Biff knocked out her husband once and took her to the hospital. He says that she sees people as they aren’t. Peter feels overly responsible for her current state of mind because of his neglect and complete lack of concern and attention. He decides to reveal his identity to her to show her that she’s not crazy.

He climbs onto her balcony and enters her room where he tells her he’s Spider-Man and Peter Parker. She takes off his mask and starts laughing and thanks him for putting on the absurd costume and shocking her back to her senses. She moves back to the Midwest to finally divorce her husband and move on.

The Black Cat shows up again to Spider-Man with the actual component device which she stole from Kingpin.