Amazing Spider-Man #23 (April 1965) – “The Goblin and the Gangsters” – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko
This one starts with Green Goblin trying to take over the mob of a gangster named Lucky Lobo. Naturally, Lobo is against the idea and a fight breaks out, attracting the attention of the cops. A reporter happens to be nearby and his story makes it sound like Green Goblin is some kind of crusader for public justice. At the Daily Bugle, Peter Parker sees Jameson rehire Frederick Foswell (aka the Big Man), who’s just gotten out of prison. Peter doesn’t trust Foswell
and tries to follow him, but can’t do it as Spider-Man because he washed his costume the night before and it was still not dry yet, so he had to leave it at home. I bet that never happened to Batman. Later, Foswell gets some info from an informer about Lucky Lobo’s secret finances and Jameson takes it to the cops before preparing to publish it. We see Green Goblin outside gloating, so he’s obviously wanted Foswell to get the dirt on Lobo so he’d be out of the way and Gobby could take over his mob. The police raid Lobo’s warehouse and Green Goblin helps stop some thugs from escaping, which mystifies Spidey (who finally got his costume back on). He follows Green Goblin, who notices him and leads him to Lobo’s headquarters, making it 
look like he’s fighting Lobo’s gang. Spidey pounds the gang and captures them all, but Lobo clues him in on the Goblin’s scheme. Spidey goes after Green Goblin and they mix it up a bit, but the fight ends with Goblin taking off after he runs out of pumpkin bombs and Spidey runs out of web fluid. Green Goblin’s feeling pretty good about himself until he finds out that all of Lucky Lobo’s gang have been arrested with their boss, which means there’s no gang left for him to take over. At the Daily Bugle, Jameson congratulates Foswell on getting the scoop on Lobo and Peter gets worried that Foswell might be smart enough to figure out his secret identity. He also wonders if there might be a connection between Foswell and the Green Goblin.
This is a pretty good issue, with another cool fight with Green Goblin and some good “Spidey vs mobsters” action. Taking over the city’s mobs seems a bit pedestrian for the megalomaniac that Norman Osborn will eventually
become, but maybe he figured he should start small. And Osborn is crazy, so maybe it only makes sense in his mind. Speaking of Osborn, we get our first look at him here as an unnamed character in the background at Jonah Jameson’s businessman’s club. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to suspect Foswell of being Green Goblin, but Peter certainly thinks there might be a connection. Having both Spidey and the Goblin run out of 
supplies during the fight was funny and it’s good to see Jameson isn’t afraid to publish exposes on mobsters. His motivations here seem selfish, but later we’ll see that he really does have a social conscience and wants to put the mobsters out of business for good. He certainly doesn’t seem worried about retaliation from Lobo here. The drama between Peter and Betty continues, with Peter seeing a letter from Ned Leeds on Betty’s desk and getting worried because she doesn’t mention it. There’s also a weird bit here where Peter leaves his home in Forest Hills to go to the library and ends up stopping at the Daily Bugle on the way. I guess he could’ve been going to the main library in Manhattan, but that seems like a hell of a long way to go; aren’t there any libraries in Queens?
Amazing Spider-Man #24 (May 1965) – “Spider-Man Goes Mad” – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko
This one starts with Peter trying to earn some money by taking photos of himself as Spidey. He bags some thieves but Frederick Foswell happens to be there, so he can’t sell the photos to Jameson since Foswell would remember that Peter Parker wasn’t there when the photos were taken. At the Daily Bugle, Peter finds out Betty has been writing to Ned Leeds in Europe and gets jealous. Jameson decides to do a story on how the average person on the street hates Spider-Man and when most people say they don’t, he manipulates them with leading questions so he
gets the kind of vitriol he’s looking for. One person whose loyalty to Spidey has never wavered is Flash Thompson and he gives Jameson shit for all his anti-Spidey rhetoric. Flash is so distracted, he doesn’t notice Liz Allan asking Peter to help with her science homework. As soon as Jameson publishes the negative opinions on Spider-Man, other people start thinking badly of him too. Jameson gets a visit from a European psychiatrist (Ludwig Rinehart), who says he thinks Spider-Man might actually be insane. When Peter reads that, he gets paranoid and wonders if it might be true. He heads out to see Rinehart but on the way he runs into Dr. Octopus, Sandman, and Vulture … or does he? They appear out of nowhere, can’t be touched, and fade away just as quickly as they arrived. Now Spider-Man really does think he’s losing his mind and worries he might hurt innocent 
people if he’s hallucinating. He goes to Rinehart’s office and gets more freaked out when some of the rooms seem to be upside-down. Rinehart tells Spidey that his double life is making him crazy and the only way to stop it is to tell Rinehart his secret identity and give up being Spider-Man forever. After a few more hallucinations, Spidey is about ready to spill his secret ID, but he’s saved by Jameson of all people, who has found out that Rinehart is a fraud. Flash Thompson shows up too, since he was trailing Jameson to give him shit again. In the confusion, Rinehart takes off but Spidey grabs him right away and unmasks him as Mysterio. When Jameson finds out he stopped Mysterio from unmasking Spider-Man, he feels like an idiot but Flash is ecstatic.
This is a pretty good issue, although it’s hard to believe Spidey would be driven to such desperate measures so easily. But I guess most teenagers are pretty neurotic and Peter’s sense of responsibility is deeper than most
people’s (his main motivation for seeking Rinehart’s help was because he was afraid of hurting innocent people). Foswell is the one who discovered Rinehart was a fraud, so I guess that kinda makes up for him screwing up Spidey’s photo-op earlier. It’s interesting that Spidey Recognizes Mysterio here; he must’ve been unmasked and photographed after one of their earlier fights. Mysterio says he’s wanted revenge on Spider-Man for years, but their first meeting was in issue 13, which would be less than a year ago in Marvel Time. Maybe Stan was talking about real time, or maybe Mysterio was referring to the fact that 
he was one of the fake aliens working with Tinkerer in issue 2 (although that fact isn’t revealed until much later). Rinehart’s office must be in Forest Hills since it’s not far from Peter’s house and Flash is hanging around the neighbourhood. There’s an earlier scene where Flash is following Peter and Pete uses his spider-signal to distract Flash so he can get away. A thought bubble mentions Spidey retrieving the signal, but as we’ll see next issue it’s actually still up on the roof.