Amazing Spider-Man #29 (October 1965) – “Never Step on a Scorpion” – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko
This one starts with Scorpion (who you’ll remember from issue 20) escaping from prison and immediately wanting revenge on Spider-Man and Jonah Jameson. Peter is at the Daily Bugle when the cops come to warn Jameson that Scorpion has been making threats against him and is now on the loose. JJJ pretends he has nothing to worry about (since he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s responsible for creating the Scorpion), but Peter knows he’s full
of shit. Jameson figures he can goad Spider-Man into going after Scorpion by publishing a story claiming they’re working together. Jameson is so selfish it never occurs to him that Spidey might help him out of plain altruism, but we know better. Spider-Man swings around trying to attract Scorpion’s attention, but that just leaves Jameson unprotected, so Scorpion heads there first. Spidey realizes his mistake and gets to the Daily Bugle just in time to stop Scorpion from wasting Jameson. They engage in a long fight, wrecking the office and freaking out Betty Brant. When the cops show up, 
Scorpion takes off and Spidey goes after him, eventually dragging him into the river, where Spidey’s endurance outlasts the Scorpion. He leaves Scorpy for the cops and heads back to the Bugle, where Jameson is about to print a story about how he stood up to the Scorpion and Spider-Man and scared them both off. Later, Peter calls Betty but Ned Leeds is there, having taken her home after the fight. Peter is so worried about Ned and Betty, he doesn’t realize Aunt May isn’t feeling well and almost passes out.
This is a great issue with another classic fight between Spidey and Scorpion. I like how Ditko showcases Scorpion’s various powers and has him use them
intelligently to give Spider-Man a real challenge. I’m not sure if Peter knows yet that Jameson actually paid to create Scorpion, but he definitely knows there’s a connection there. When Scorpion breaks out of prison, he thinks about how he pretended to be crazy (yeah right, pretended) in order to get his costume back. But as far as I know, Scorpion still has his super-strength even without his costume, so technically he could’ve busted out anytime. Maybe he needed the tail to propel him over the prison wall. The return of Ned Leeds puts a crimp into Peter’s relationship with Betty, but that wasn’t 
going so well anyway. Ned takes care of Betty during and after the fight at the Bugle and is probably a better match for Betty anyway. Aunt May’s illnesses will become tiresome, but it does inject a little drama into the story. I think Ditko was plotting the stories by this point, but Stan’s dialogue does set up some future stories with Foswell talking to Jameson about a recent string of burglaries and some thefts of scientific equipment (which I’m assuming are meant to represent separate crimes).
Amazing Spider-Man #30 (November 1965) – “The Claws of the Cat” – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko
This one starts with Spider-Man out patrolling the city, but missing the elusive Cat Burglar who’s been making a name for himself lately. The Cat robs Jonah Jameson’s penthouse and Jonah is so pissed off he immediately offers a $1,000 reward for the Cat’s capture (which is about $10,000 in today’s money). Meanwhile, Spidey finds a garishly-dressed gang of thieves robbing a truck full of uranium. The thieves are so well-prepared that they manage to get away with the loot, but it’s obvious they’re working for a mastermind.
(Because Stan and Steve weren’t really talking to each other at this point, there’s some confusion here because the gang are said to be working for the Cat. But they’re actually working for someone called the Master Planner, who seems rather familiar with Spider-Man.) When Spidey hears about the reward, he tells Jameson he’s going to bring the Cat in. Jameson doesn’t want Spider-Man to claim the reward, so he tells Foswell to use all his underworld contacts to figure out who the Cat is, not suspecting that Foswell will be 
doing so in his Patch disguise. (I’m assuming Jameson doesn’t know that Foswell is Patch, but when he calls Jameson later he identifies himself as Patch, so maybe Jonah does know? Or maybe Patch is pretending to be one of Foswell’s contacts.) The next day, Peter runs into Liz Allan, who asks him to get Flash Thompson of her back because he’s been following her to see where she works. Peter distracts Flash but has to knock him out when he sees someone with a gun prowling around on a nearby roof. It turns out to be some disgruntled asshole, not the Cat, so Peter has to change back and lie to Flash when he wakes up. Peter goes to see Betty later and finds out Ned Leeds has just proposed to her. Peter figures he can trump that with a proposal of his
own, but when Betty mentions how much she wants a quiet life with a stable man (not out seeking adventure like that awful Spider-Man), Peter realizes things are never going to work with them and storms out. On the way home, he foils one of Master Planner’s robberies, though he doesn’t know who’s behind it. That night, the Cat is seen trying to break into an apartment and Spider-Man goes after him. The Cat uses all his tricks to get away from Spidey, but ends up being caught by the cops, which makes Jameson ecstatic.
This is a good issue, although the Cat is a minor villain at best and Aunt May’s health woes are still dragging on. The main story here is the end of 
Peter and Betty’s relationship, which has been foreshadowed for a long time. Betty could never accept Peter’s life as Spider-Man and Peter could never give it up, so they were doomed from the start. Peter must really love her (or thinks he does) since he was ready to reveal his secret identity to her, but he should’ve known she’d never go for him as Spider-Man. We get our first look at the Master Planner’s gang (despite the confusion where Stan refers to them as Cat’s gang) and some thought bubbles seem to indicate that the Master Planner is along on one of the robberies, but that’s not the case. It was nice to see Liz and Flash again and we’ll be seeing plenty more of Flash starting next issue when he and Peter start at Empire State University.