Appearing in "El sobre comprometedor"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Mafia (once written "Maffia")
- Senator Roger Steves
- Unnamed gangsters
Other Characters:
- Harry
- New York City Police Department
- Unnamed drug dealer
- drug dealer's son (Mentioned)
- FBI (Mentioned)
- The Pope (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
Items:
- Jameson's safe
- The envelop
- Acid bottle
Vehicles:
- Mafia car
- Jameson's car
Synopsis for "El sobre comprometedor"
At the Clarín offices, Jameson demands current photos from Parker. An armed man then enters, delivers a letter to Jameson (whom he trusts as a respected journalist) and leaves. The letter says that he is a drug dealer but the mob has killed his son and, to avenge that death, he asks Jameson to deliver a document to the FBI. They are then visited by the famous Senator Roger Steves, who sees Jameson putting the letter in his safe; Steves says that someone was following him and entered the Clarín just to throw them off the scent. He hears gunfire and decides that the police must have caught the bandits and that he can go, even though Jameson thinks it's dangerous. Jameson is wary and suspects that Steves and the envelope are related; so he calls Betty Brant and Peter Parker: They will guard the letter, because no one will suspect them, and they will deliver it to the FBI the next day. Peter keeps the letter in his house, among his books.
The next day, Peter sees on the news that the drug dealer who gave them the envelope has been shot dead near the Bugle (possibly the shooting Steves heard) and goes to tell Jameson and Betty. He finds that someone has broken into Jameson's safe and turned the room upside down, possibly the Mafia; but Jameson is glad that Peter has the envelope in a safe place. Jameson meets with a lawyer, Matt Murdock, who requests to retrieve an envelope belonging to his client (Murdock does not want to give the client's name). Jameson, suspecting that Murdock might be with the mafia, says that the envelope is already in the hands of the FBI.
Peter goes with Gwen to a college masquerade ball, where she finds it distasteful for a stranger to dress up as el Hombre Araña. This fake Hombre Araña drags Gwen onto the terrace against her will, and punches Peter when he tries to stop him. Several other men, gangsters, beat up Peter, and kidnap him and Gwen, driving them to a lonely cabin, where they are tied up. The fake Hombre Araña reveals himself as Steves, and demands the envelope or else he'll throw a bottle of acid at Gwen. Peter decides to break the ropes to save her, even if he reveals his secret identity; but fortunately the superhero Diabólico, a former associate of el Hombre Araña, enters through the window and hits Steves, causing the acid to fall into the senator's eyes. The other gangsters are outmatched by Diabólico and Peter.
Diabolic explains to Peter that he had been following this gang for a long time, but he needed to read the letter to confirm his suspicions, so he secretly followed Peter, discovered where he had hidden the letter, and entered Peter's room when Peter was at the dance. Diabólico and Peter tie up the bandits and notify the police. Gwen admires Diabólico more than el Hombre Araña, and the police, arresting Steves and the others, are confused that el Hombre Araña had no part in this. Jameson discovers that Diabolico got hold of the letter and that the police had arrested the bandits; so Jameson is angry that other papers might get the story out before his, and he fires Peter for not stopping him or taking pictures of the moment. Secretly, however, Jameson is relieved that he and Peter might otherwise have been targets of the mafia.
Notes
- Peter recognizes Diabólico, and in turn Diabólico calls Peter by his name, referencing a previous collaboration.
- The newspaper mentions a Soviet space flight with two astronauts. This is confusing, as astronauts were NASA agents while the Russian Space Agency called his team cosmonauts. The headline may refer to a Soviet flight where, in a collaboration with America, NASA astronauts were involved; but this is unlikely in the 1970s, when the story takes place, due to the Cold War.
- The goons of the Mafia are called "gansters" (gangsters), not Mafiosi. In Spanish, the term "ganster" refers to any member of a criminal organized gang operating in a big city.