In Amazing Spider-Man #15 and Peter Parker Spider-Man #15, Peter leaves for Latveria in search of Mary Jane after receiving an anonymous call that informed him that she was being held captive in Doctor Doom's castle. The call is revealed to be a hoax and Peter does not find her there. More determined than ever, Peter returns to New York City and continues his search.

In Amazing Spider-Man #16, Peter finds out that Mary Jane's manager has disappeared and has cleaned out all of her accounts, thus leaving Peter and his Aunt in debt. May ends up crashing at Anna Watson’s place until things get better and Peter moves into a very dilapidated apartment building.

ACT 1: The story opens up with a group of heavily armed bank robbers fleeing the scene of their latest burglary. Unfortunately for them, they cross the path of the amazing Spider-Man, who, in a matter of five to ten minutes, apprehends all of them and hands them over to the police waiting nearby. Mission accomplished, he web-slings away and heads back to his new apartment, which happens to be nothing short of a hole.

ACT 2: The fridge is empty. The milk is sour. His bed breaks apart as he lays on it. And he's coming down with the flu. Unable to rest, Peter changes to his Spider-Man costume and web-slings into the night. Resting on the ledge of a roof, he is suddenly splashed with some sort of black smelly stuff. As he turns around, he comes face to face with the Squid and Ms. Fortune. Wasting no time, Spidey easily defeats them. Having taken care of them, he stands there pondering about how he is going to remove the Squid's ink from his costume. Suddenly, his spider-sense alerts him that something is standing behind him. He turns around and sees that he is surrounded by Razor Wire, Ogre and Lightning Fist, the other three members of the super-villain team known as the Wicked Brigade, which have somehow been hired to collect the bounty placed on Spider-Man's head. Spidey tries hard to keep himself from laughing, which aggravates them. A battle ensues. Suddenly, however, a large explosion incapacitates all of them, excluding Spider-Man. The source of the explosion, a villain bearing the name of Master Monarch, stands on a nearby rooftop accompanied by two henchmen. Apparently, this Master Monarch guy has been hired by somebody to help with the "bigger picture", whatever that is. Spidey, who is hanging upside down right underneath the ledge upon which Master Monarch stands, is on the verge of breaking down laughing. He web-slings away, wondering what the heck is going on with all these new super-villains showing up in New York City.

ACT 3: A few minutes later, he arrives at the offices of the Daily Bugle to visit Ben Urich. He finds Ben hidden underneath his desk, just like most of the rest of the Daily Bugle staff. Ben tells him that Venom showed up looking for Jonah but Jonah is nowhere to be found. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Venom appears behind Spider-Man. He grabs him and lifts him up from the ground. He tells him that he has no time for a fight with him as he has bigger fish to fry. Spider-Man would love to not fight Venom, but since the latter has been holding the Daily Bugle staff hostage for the past few hours, he has no choice but to initiate the battle. The battle rages on across the office cubicles, the two enemies destroying almost everything in sight. Spider-Man asks Venom why he was coming after Jonah. Venom replies that he didn't come after Jonah but after the Sandman, who, at that exact moment, emerges out of thin air. The Sandman reveals to Spider-Man that Venom has been chasing him all over the City to get revenge on him and the rest of the Sinister Six gang for what they did to him back in Peter Parker Spider-Man #12. Since the Sandman wasn't so sure he could handle Venom in a solo fight, he decided to come to the Daily Bugle, kill the lights, and hide in the ventilation system, waiting for Spider-Man to show up to give him a hand to finish Venom off. Spider-Man, however, does not want to be caught in the middle of this. Venom pushes Spider-Man aside and strikes a blow at the Sandman. The Sandman, however, instinctively changes his body into sand and absorbs the punch like a knife through butter. Furious, Venom literally takes a bite out the Sandman, which causes the Sandman to lose some of his sand mass and flee the scene in a panic. Spider-Man, who reluctantly jumps in the melee, tries to take down Venom but the latter is just too strong for him. Ben Urich, who is hiding nearby, takes out his lighter and throws it at Spider-Man. Our hero ignites the lighter right in Venom's face, knowing that the symbiotic half cannot tolerate fire. Venom/Eddie Brock freaks out as the symbiotic half tries to separate itself from him. Using the lighter, Spidey ignites a bunch of rolled newspapers lying on the ground and flaunts them at Venom, making him run for his life and crash through a window (leading him outside the building, where he takes off rapidly).

ACT 4: Ben Urich gets the credit for getting rid of Venom but Spider-Man is happy for him. As expected, J. Jonah Jameson reappears and blames Spider-Man for all that has happened in the office. Spider-Man/Peter suddenly realizes that he has forgotten to pick Aunt May up in Queens and take her to a doctor's appointment. He picks up a phone lying on the ground and dials her number. Jameson is yelling at him to put the phone down so Spidey webs Jonah's mouth shut. Spider-Man/Peter apologizes to May for forgetting about her appointment. May tells Peter to calm down since the appointment is not until the next day and she adds that she is well capable of getting there by herself. She tells Peter she has to go since she has someone over so she hangs up the phone. Spidey waves goodbye at the Daily Bugle staff and makes his way out of the building where he takes off on a webline.

Act 5: Moments later, we find Peter/Spider-Man in a dark alley, standing next to a large barrel in which a fire is lit. For a second, it looks as if Peter is about to give up his life as Spider-Man by throwing his mask into the fire. Suddenly, however, a smile appears on his face and he puts the mask back on, saying that "being Spider-Man is kind of cool". He then jumps right up onto a nearby rooftop and lands right onto a box of jelly donuts belonging to none other than Ben Grimm, a.k.a. the Thing. The issue ends with the Thing yelling his trademark saying "It's clobberin' time". The funny thing is that Spider-Man had just been thinking about the cliché of hero versus hero over some silly mistake!