PREVIOUSLY: In Spectacular Spider-Man #139, Joe “Robbie” Robertson left a tape recording and some files for Peter Parker revealing his connection with the mobster known as Tombstone (a.k.a. Lonnie Lincoln). While Peter/Spider-Man listened to the tape, which described how Robbie first met Lonnie and how Lonnie intimidated Robbie into silence about a murder he committed some 20 years ago, Tombstone and the Arranger – the Kingpin's assistant – kidnapped Roland Rayburn, a mutant with the ability to persuade others to do his will, and subjected him to drugs so as to brainwash him to do their bidding using said abilities. At issue's end, Robbie met Tombstone at Battery Park and tried to kill him but Tombstone broke Robbie's back, leaving him to be found by Spider-Man.

In Spectacular Spider-Man #140, Joe Robertson is lying in a hospital bed and there is chance that he may have suffered irreversible damage to his spinal chord. Friends and family are in shock and Peter Parker blames himself for what happened. Once everybody is gone, Joe gets an unpleasant visit from Tombstone who threatens Robbie into keeping his secret or else.

Peter and Mary Jane pay another visit to Joe Robertson at the hospital. While MJ tries to comfort Martha, Robbie's wife, Peter has a talk with Joe who tells Peter to burn the tape he gave him back in SPSM #139. Peter refuses but Robbie explains how Tombstone came in his hospital room and threatened him and his family. As Peter exits the room, Robbie implores him to burn the tape. Peter and MJ make their way out of the hospital, discussing the whole tape situation and Robbie's connection with Tombstone. Unbeknownst to them, a shadowy figure hidden in a nearby room is eavesdropping on their conversation.

While at the Daily Bugle, Peter is given a phone number that he has to call back. He calls the number and the shadowy figure seen earlier tells him to meet him on Liberty Island in one hour. Peter switches to his Spider-Man costume and makes his way there. He arrives at Liberty Island and within minutes, he is being shot at presumably by the shadowy figure (the individual was waiting for Peter Parker and seeing that Spider-Man was there instead of Peter, he decided to scare off Spider-Man, but the wall-crawler doesn’t scare easily). Using his amazing web-slinging abilities, Spidey manages to tackle the gunman who turns out to be The Punisher. The Punisher pulls a gun out and points it at Spidey, telling him to hand over the tape and demanding that Spidey tells him where he can find Tombstone, or else.

Between Spectacular Spider-Man #140 and Spectacular Spider-Man #141, The Punisher and Spider-Man make peace.

In Spectacular Spider-Man #141, The Punisher and Spider-Man meet aboard The Punisher's yacht to discuss what they know about the hitman known as Tombstone. The Punisher explains that he's been tracking down Tombstone from one city to another for months and that he knows that Robbie Robertson has an audio tape containing information about Tombstone's crimes that might put him behind bars for the rest of his life. The Punisher also explains why he's been after Tombstone and how he found out that he was now in New York City. Spider-Man asks The Punisher to give him until sundown that night to talk to Peter Parker who, in turn, will talk Robbie Robertson into giving them the tape, which is just a ruse because Spider-Man IS Peter Parker and HE has the tape. The Punisher reluctantly agrees. Inside a nearby sedan parked at the wharf where the Punisher's yacht is anchored, Tombstone orders his men to handle The Punisher while he takes care of Peter Parker and the Robertson tape.

Ben Urich is getting closer to finding out the whole story behind the incriminating tape and confronts Robbie about it at the hospital. Robbie denies everything but Ben knows there’s more than meets the eyes.

Back aboard his yacht, The Punisher is suddenly attacked by Tombstone's henchmen. One by one he takes them out and finds out, from one of them, that they are working for Tombstone and that they were hired to prevent him, The Punisher, from following Tombstone to the Cloisters on the West Side. Against Spider-Man's wishes, The Punisher decides to take matters into his own hands.

Peter tries to get Mary Jane to help him decide what he should do with the Robertson tape but Mary Jane tells him that she can't handle the pressure of such a decision. Peter apologizes and makes his way to the hospital to visit Robbie, while MJ contemplates her life as the wife of a superhero. After Peter leaves for the hospital, Tombstone shows up at his apartment building and checks the mailboxes in the lobby to confirm where the Parkers live.

The Punisher shows up at the Cloisters and easily takes out a couple of armed guards, which strikes The Punisher as being odd. He then makes his way across the lawn when he decides to use a fresh clip in his weapon. In that moment of carelessness, a half-dozen professionals ambush him. Meanwhile at the Parker apartment, MJ is attacked by Tombstone who is looking for Peter.

Back at the Cloisters, The Punisher fights off the half-dozen professionals that are attacking him. When no one is left standing, The Punisher heads towards Tombstone's black sedan parked nearby. He opens the door and comes face to face with the Arranger and Roland Rayburn, now referred to as the Persuader. Using his powers of persuasion, the Persuader convinces The Punisher to drop his gun and then he continues persuading him to crawl on the ground. Meanwhile at Midtown Hospital, Peter is trying to convince Robbie not to destroy the tape but Robbie refuses to change his mind. While there, a nurse comes running into Robbie's room to inform Peter that Mary Jane has been brought into the emergency room (courtesy of Tombstone). Peter runs off to the ER, leaving Joe Robertson behind, his eyes filled with tears.

Back in Atlanta, we learn from Spider-Man that once he arrived at Mitchell Books for the book signing, there was a message waiting for him from Tombstone, who directed him to bring the tape and a recorder to the tenth floor of Tara Place at sundown that night. Now on his way towards Tara Place, Spidey informs the reader that he tried to contact The Punisher to let him know what was going on but was unable to track him down. In fact, The Punisher is back in New York City, strapped into a chair in some kind of laboratory and screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to fight off the powers of persuasion of the Persuader. The Arranger is also present and is very much disappointed that the Persuader hasn't been able to break the Punisher, even after trying for ten consecutive hours. The Persuader replies that The Punisher's will is terribly strong and hard to break. The Persuader concentrates harder and starts emmitting a very powerful glow directed towards The Punisher. Suddenly, The Persuader collapses to the ground exhausted. The Arranger is not at all pleased with the Persuader's pathetic attempt and thinks he's failed miserably. But the Persuader tells the Arranger to have a closer look at The Punisher. The Punisher is now staring blankly in space, sweating profusely. With a grin on his face, the Arranger talks to the Punisher and welcomes him in the Kingpin's team.

Meanwhile at Midtown Hospital, Robbie Robertson is refusing to go along with his physical therapy reasoning that Tombstone broke his back. The therapist replies that he didn't break his back but only bruised and compressed his spine. Having said that, he pushes Robbie's wheelchair between the parallel bars, which are used by people with back injuries to learn how to walk again. Randy Robertson, Robbie's son is there to encourage his father because he knows that his dad needs it more than ever. Robbie holds himself up using the bar and prepares to walk but as he does so, he starts to hallucinate a vision of Tombstone standing at the other end of the parallel bars, taunting him and telling him that he should have kept his mouth shut and that he should have stayed in bed. Furious, Robbie charges the vision and the image of Tombstone disappears. Robbie falls to the ground, his son Randy and the therapist rushing to his aid. Randy asks him if he's all right and Robbie replies that he's better than he's been in week and he tells Randy to call J. Jonah Jameson to let him know that his editor-in-chief has a story for page one.

Meanwhile at Baxter High School in Lansing Michigan, a pretty blonde who bears a striking resemblance to Gwen Stacy, comes out of the school after staying late grading papers for her history class. She makes her way to her car and just as she unlocks the passenger door to put some stuff in the car, a yellow beam hits her car, making it glow. As she turns around, she comes face to face with some kind of hover ship driven by two individuals in armoured suits. One of the individuals tells the other one to be more careful because the High Evolutionary wants her intact. The blonde takes off running, the ship blasting at her. Luckily for her, one of the blasts puts a hole through a chain-link fence, which allows her to escape through it and disappear into a drainage pipe, all the while thinking about Peter Parker coming to her aid. Why is she thinking about Peter? Well, because, if you haven't figured it out yet, she is a clone of Gwen Stacy!

Back in Atlanta, Spider-Man has been waiting for forty minutes for Tombstone to show up. Sitting on a girder, flipping Robbie's tape up in the air, he begins wondering if he scared off Tombstone because Tombstone was expecting to meet Peter Parker, not him. All of a sudden, the elevator starts coming up the elevator shaft. For a second, Spidey thinks Tombstone must be in it but his spider-sense suddenly warns him that it is a trap so he jumps aside, dropping the tape down the elevator shaft in the process. On cue, a steel hook on a chain comes swinging exactly where he was standing. One story above, Tombstone is seen looking down at him. Then he boldly throws himself down towards Spider-Man whom he tackles completely off of the safety of the building.

Back in New York at the hospital, Robbie tells J. Jonah Jameson, Kate Cushing, Ben Urich and his family that he feels as if he's betrayed them all but that what he did, he did because he was afraid. Back in Atlanta, Tombstone and Spidey are falling towards the ground at a very fast pace so Spidey has no other choice but to shoot a webline to save both of them. The webline snags a corner of the building but Tombstone uses the momentum of the swing to slam Spidey into the girders. Tombstone then grabs an iron pipe lying on the unfinished floor and strikes Spidey in the stomach with it. He hits him another time in the stomach and Spidey is sent flying into the chain link fence surrounding the elevator shaft.

Back in New York Robbie continues explaining how he spiked an article for his high school newspaper and how a few years later, while working in Philly, he witnessed one of Tombstone's murders and kept quiet about it until now. Meanwhile in Atlanta, Tombstone continues beating on a helpless Spider-Man using the iron pipe. He hits Spidey so hard that the chain link fence breaks, causing Spidey to dangle over the edge of the elevator shaft. Tombstone then proceeds to position the pipe against Spidey's head and then he takes a golf-like swing, which sends Spidey falling down the elevator shaft.

Back in New York, Robbie explains that when Tombstone showed up in New York, he made a tape, which he left for Peter Parker, and then he confronted Tombstone alone, with a gun, and we all know the rest of the story. Back in Atlanta, Tombstone stares down and sees Robbie’s tape lying on top of the elevator. But something bothers him: Spider-Man's body is nowhere to be found. As Tombstone looks further down, Spidey suddenly emerges from underneath the floor and kicks him right in the face, which sends him flying back and landing on the floor. Spidey advances towards Tombstone, who is standing back up, and dispenses one punch after the other, in the face, in the stomach, and in the face again. Tombstone is shaken up but still has some fight left in him. He rises up and launches himself at Spidey but Spidey moves sideways just as Tombstone is about to tackle him. Tombstone ends up running head first into a steel column, which almost knocks him out. As he tries to stand still, he stumbles back and forth and sideways, and can't believe that Spider-Man is winning against him. Spidey asks him why he didn't kill Robbie Robertson when he had the chance to which Tombstone replies that he couldn't kill Robbie because Robbie's his friend. On that note, Spidey delivers the coup de grace, which causes Tombstone to fly off the building and to fall to his death...that is until Spider-Man halts his descent using a webline. But only long enough to align him with a dump truck filled with concrete in which Tombstone falls headfirst. Spidey swings down and lands on top of the truck. He tells Tombstone to cheer up because a big, good-looking guy like him will make lots of new pals in prison. Having said that, Spidey, who miraculously has the tape in his hands, ponders about the fact that Tombstone may go free if Robbie won't talk.

Back in New York, Robbie explains that he asked his wife, Martha, to call the Justice Department so that he can give them his deposition against Tombstone. He goes on explaining that after that, his legal situation will get complicated since, in a very real way, he's an accessory to murder. He adds that, under the circumstances, he will resign as the Bugle's editor-in-chief. Jonah refuses to accept Robbie's resignation and tells him to show up to work on Monday morning or he'll dock his pay.

Meanwhile at the Kingpin's headquarters, the Arranger watches news footage of Tombstone being taken away the police. The Arranger is quite disappointed to have lost Tombstone but is pleased with the fact that Tombstone was at least able to draw out The Punisher to New York. The Arranger proceeds to press on a button located on a remote control sitting atop his desk and a nearby door opens automatically. The Arranger asks the shadowy figure standing in the doorway if he is ready to assume his responsibilities. The shadowy figure emerges from the shadows and tells The Arranger to point him where to go, to tell him who to kill.

To be continued.