Amazing Spider-Man #21 (February 1965) – “Where Flies the Beetle” – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko
This one starts with the Beetle being released from prison (after fighting Human Torch in Strange Tales 123). When Johnny (Human Torch) Storm finds out he immediately flames on and goes to look for the Beetle, leaving his girlfriend (Doris Evans) rather upset. The Torch can’t find Beetle so he puts on a show for some onlookers, which pisses Spider-Man off since the public are scared to death of him. The Human Torch heads back to Doris’s place, not suspecting that the Beetle is following him. When he gets back, Doris gives him shit for flying
off and making a spectacle of himself and makes him swear to go 24 hours straight without becoming the Human Torch or she’ll dump him. Johnny agrees, still unaware that Beetle is lurking outside and listening to the whole thing. You can probably guess what’s going to happen with Torchy and Beetle, but where does Spidey fit in? Glad you asked. The next day, Peter Parker runs into Doris Evans (who he’s never met, despite what the story in issue 8 would have you believe), helping her with some dropped packages. He ends up returning her lost wallet and she’s so impressed by his manners and overall 
demeanour that she mentions it to Johnny. He decides to go give Peter shit for talking to his woman, which upsets Betty, which causes Peter to give the Torch shit. Since Torch believes Peter is just some average high school kid, he can’t retaliate and leaves. Peter is pissed off at the Torch and since Betty’s already mad at him, he figures he might as well change to Spider-Man and go see Doris again, just to piss Johnny off. Unfortunately, the Beetle is outside Doris’s house waiting for the Torch to arrive and jumps Spidey. Doris calls the Torch to beg for help, but he figures she’s bullshitting him to make him break their deal. Spidey and Beetle’s fight carries them into the house where Beetle grabs Doris as a hostage and takes off with her, followed
closely by Spider-Man. When Johnny shows up he quickly realizes Doris wasn’t lying and goes after Spidey because of the webbing lying around her place. I’m not sure why he assume Spidey took her when Doris mentioned the Beetle too, but Johnny’s impulsiveness gives us another classic Torch/Spidey fight. Eventually, Spider-Man leads the Torch to the Beetle and Johnny finally realizes what’s up. He and Spidey team up to bag the Beetle, but Doris is still scared of Spider-Man, which is just one more thing on the list of Spidey’s problems.
This is a good issue, with some great action sequences when Spidey fights 
the Beetle and when he and the Human Torch mix it up. I kinda like how Doris finds Peter attractive, although she technically making the same mistake as Betty assuming he’s just some quiet bookworm. At the end, Johnny admits he doesn’t really hate Spider-Man and thinks to himself that he could understand if Doris was attracted to him instead of Peter Parker, which is rather ironic. There are a couple of scenes here where Johnny’s flame is close to dying out from overuse, which was an ongoing theme at the time. I wonder if he had to eat extra calories to keep his metabolism up like Wally West? That’s never been shown as far as I know, but it would kinda make sense. When
Beetle is released from prison, the cops give his Beetle armour back and he says there’s no law against someone owning an armoured costume … but shouldn’t there be a law like that? I guess it depends what you use it for and how many offensive weapons it contains, but this is still early in the Marvel Universe so they probably hadn’t gotten around to legislating on super-villain attire yet.
Amazing Spider-Man #22 (March 1965) – “Presenting the Clown and the Masters of Menace” – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko
This one starts with Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime (who you’ll remember from issue 16) in a hotel room, planning their next score. They’re interrupted by Spider-Man, who tells them he’ll be watching them and surreptitiously plants one of his spider tracers in Ringmaster’s hat. After he leaves, the rest of the Circus (including newcomer Princess Python) decide Ringmaster is not a good boss and kick him out of the group, electing Clown as their new leader. Later, Betty and Peter make up after
their fight last issue and she invites him to an art show being sponsored by Jameson. Naturally, the Crime Circus show up at that show to steal some paintings from the back room while Clown distracts the people at the show. Peter recognizes the Clown but can’t do anything in front of everyone and when Jameson hears something suspicious, he heads to the back to check and gets knocked out by the Human Cannonball. After taking Betty home, Peter changes to Spider-Man and tracks down Ringmaster, who he still thinks is 
in charge. He finds Ringmaster at a police station, being cleared of any charges in the art robbery and follows him. Spidey soon figures out what’s up and hypnotizes Ringmaster with his own hat to get the Crime Circus’s hideout. He heads over and we get another of those classic Ditko fights where Spidey deals with multiple opponents. He’s doing pretty well until Princess Python steps in and grabs him. Spidey can’t bring himself to deck a woman, so he gets jumped and has to fight his way out again, saving something special for Cannonball. He tries again to capture Princess Python and she suggests they
get together and run off with the loot. That pisses Clown off and he decides to run off with all the loot, but he’s knocked out by the recovered Ringmaster, who wants to—you guessed it—run off with all the loot. But the cops have tailed Ringmaster and show up to arrest everyone, including Princess Python after Spidey ties her giant snake in knots. Jameson recovers and buys the photos Peter took of the Crime Circus being arrested and he’s so happy he wants to put on another art show.
This is a pretty good issue, although I’ve always thought the Crime Circus were a bit too goofy to be taken seriously. They must’ve agreed with me since they try to change their name to the Masters of Menace here, which isn’t much better and won’t last. We get our first look at Princess Python 
here (although she talks like she’s been around for a while) and we see that Spidey is too chivalrous to rough up a woman. I’m not sure why he didn’t just web her up right away, but by the time he thought of that she’d wrecked his web shooters with the electric prod she uses to train her snake. I’m wondering if Clown and Princess Python are supposed to be a couple here? She’s the one who suggests him as the new leader and he gets really pissed off when he overhears her coming on to Spidey and suggesting they run off together with the loot. Seeing Ringmaster hypnotized with his own hat was cool and I like how Ringmaster kinda caused the Circus’s defeat even though he wasn’t a member anymore.
Noticeable Things:
- Spidey still uses the radio receiver to track his spider tracers.
- Peter is reading about Hank Pym’s latest biochemistry discoveries in
a school textbook. The texts at Midtown high must be really up to date; all my science texts in school were at least ten years old. - At the art show, we see a painting of a foot with a hole in the sock and an unknown guy wishing he could draw feet like that. No, it’s not Rob Liefeld, it’s meant to be Steve Ditko, who apparently had trouble with feet too.
