PREVIOUSLY: Several issues ago, the Arranger hired Roland Rayburn, a mutant with the ability to persuade others to do his will, and experimented on him. The outcome of the experiment was Rayburn getting his powers of persuasion amplified and being given a new name: The Persuader. In turn, on the Arranger's orders, the Persuader kidnapped and hypnotized the Punisher to assassinate the Lobo Brothers, two Latin-American crime lords operating out of Dallas. The Arranger's evil scheme failed thanks to Spider-Man but the Lobo Brothers decided to come to New York to avenge their honor. A gang war erupted shortly after their arrival and Eduardo Lobo was ultimately killed when Hammerhead and the Chameleon's goons ambushed the Lobo Brothers and the Kingpin during a peace meeting.

In Spectacular Spider-Man #164, the Arranger double-crosses the Beetle, recently released from prison, by setting him up to fight (and kill) Spider-Man against his wishes (The Arranger doesn't want the Kingpin to find out about a deal he made with Spider-Man while he was at war with the Lobo Brothers). The Beetle fails, obviously, and at issue's end, the Arranger must face his employer.

Across town, in East Rockfort, members of the maggia have gathered together to discuss their continuing economic crisis. At the head of a round table, surrounded by the likes of the Kingpin, Tombstone, Hammerhead and other prominent members of criminal organizations, the Chameleon explains, using graphical charts that, in the market he and his partner, Hammerhead, share with the Kingpin, business has not been very good as of late. Surprised by these allegations, the Kingpin tells the Chameleon that this is nonsense. The Chameleon replies that figures don't lie and goes on explaining that the Kingpin's profits in drug trade and the protection racket are off by 50% and that he's lost effective control of his territorial stronghold, Manhattan Island. In a flagrant attempt to destroy the Kingpin's reputation, the Chameleon continues explaining that not only have several super-villains assaulted the Kingpin's Tower over the last few weeks, but his second-in-command has also been killed and his safety was secured only by the intervention of his mortal enemy, Spider-Man. At the other end of the round table, Hammerhead whispers to Tombstone that by the time the Chameleon is done, the other maggia bosses will be begging them to take over the Kingpin's crime empire. Hammerhead adds that he, Tombstone, is lucky to be working for them and orders him to get him a cup of coffee. Without saying a single word, Tombstone heads into the next room to get his employer a cup of coffee. When he enters the next room, he is confronted by one of the Kingpin's henchmen who offers him a job with the Kingpin. Surprisingly, Tombstone declines the offer and throws the man through the wall and into the conference room where the meeting is taking place. Standing tall in front of the gap in the wall, Tombstone explains that the man slipped. Having witnessed the whole thing, the Kingpin finds it interesting that Tombstone did not accuse him of trying to buy him. Wondering why Tombstone did not, the Kingpin realizes that he might still have an ally in Tombstone and hopes to have a chat with him.

Later that day at the Kennedy International Airport, Peter gets ready to board the plane that is going to take him to London but Mary Jane has a hard time letting him go. After exchanging some warm embraces and some heavy kissing with his wife, Peter boards the plane and takes off to London, leaving a teary MJ at the airport. On her way out of the airport, MJ unexpectedly runs into an old actor friend of hers by the name of Jason Jerome. After exchanging some quick pleasantries, Jason asks MJ out to dinner the next day so they can talk acting and careers. MJ accepts, not wanting to eat alone, but Jason’s thoughts reveal that he has ulterior motives to asking her out.

The next day in London, England, Peter, as Spider-Man, is web-slinging across the city to try and find the headquarters of Scotland Yard, the British equivalent of the police in the United States. After scaring the crap out of a cab driver and spoiling a bank robbery, Spidey meets Inspector MacDougal of the Scotland Yard, whom he befriends and follows back to his office to try and locate Knight and Fogg. MacDougal tells Spidey that the Yard's been after them for years while Spidey explains that he’s certain they killed the Arranger. MacDougal replies that he needs proof to arrest them and tells Spidey the story of Knight and Fogg: "This happened some years ago, in a place on the Mersey River by the name of Liverpool. Liverpool is a working-man's city Spider-Man, and the people who live there are an honest breed. But twenty years ago, life in Liverpool was hard, made harder for some by two boys named Malcolm Knight and Thomas Fogg. Young Knight and his brother Leo were orphans adopted by Fogg's father, a bitter drunk named Edgar Fogg. Leo was all right, but Malcolm Knight and his friend Fogg were a pair of hooligans. Old man Fogg couldn't control them. The only voice they heard belonged to Thomas Fogg's sister Evelyn. At several occasions, Malcolm Knight promised Evelyn he would stop behaving badly but he didn't, because young Fogg was young Knight's only friend, and to a lonely fatherless lad like Malcolm Knight, friendship mattered more than life or love. As you might expect, bad boys grew into bad men and with Fogg picking their jobs, they ended up contract killers for a Liverpool mobster, or so rumor has it. Five years ago, they took a job to kill a man named Lewis, Professor Henry Lewis, a physicist whose love for horse racing led him to borrow somewhat unwisely. Though a terrible judge of horseflesh, professor Lewis was apparently a brilliant physicist. So brilliant, in fact, his work on particle-wave theory has yet to be fully deciphered, not even by Reed Richard or Stephen Hawkings. We may never know what Lewis was working on in his laboratory when Knight and Fogg paid their visit." As MacDougal explains this, a flashback sequence shows Knight and Fogg entering professor Lewis’s laboratory and shooting him, and accidentally triggering some kind of machine that exposes them to large amount of unstable particles. MacDougal continues with his story: "I've heard one theory that Knight and Fogg were reduced to their quantum structures in those microseconds while the professor's particle cannon went wild, whatever that may mean. Sliced and diced, as you yanks might say. All we know for sure is that the laboratory exploded and when the dust cleared, Knight and Fogg were somehow still alive, but they weren't quite human anymore. And as bad as they'd been since that night, as you can imagine, they've been quite a bit worse." Again, a flashback sequence shows Knight and Fogg being transformed into their new selves. MacDougal finishes off his story by telling Spidey that the theory has it that they've become what each imagined himself to be – Fogg, a slippery ghost of mist and Knight, some medieval man in armor. Spidey asks MacDougal if he knows where he can find them. MacDougal points at a map on the wall and tells Spidey that Knight and Fogg are like pigeons; they always come home to roost: Liverpool.

The Black Bell Inn in Liverpool. Evelyn Fogg is helping her old dad to make his way back home, as he's had too much to drink once again. As they walk across a nearby bridge, Spider-Man can be seen hanging from the structure's beams up above, peering down at them. Spidey's spider-sense suddenly kicks in, just as Fogg materializes out of thin air right behind him and begins strangling him, which seem to be a trademark of his. He then pushes Spidey off of the beams and onto the steel deck below, holding on to his neck. At that moment, Knight shows up, grabs Spidey in a chokehold and prepares to impale him with his retractable blade. Just then however, Evelyn yells at Knight to stop and implores him to not kill Spider-Man – not knowing that the man underneath the armor is the man she has fallen in love with. Confused about his feelings for Evelyn, Knight puts off killing Spidey and throws him off the bridge towards the water below. Half-conscious, Spidey tries to twist around so as to make a dive and cut the water but he ends up hitting a barge floating nearby and plunges unconscious into the water. Meanwhile, back in New York City, Mary Jane Parker suddenly awakens from having a nightmare about Peter falling, drowning and then darkness. She tries to tell herself that it was just a dream, but she can't shake the feeling that Peter is in trouble.

Back in Liverpool, Peter Parker awakens aboard a fishing boat, a young man named Scott hovering (figuratively) around him. As Scott hands him coffee, he asks him what his name is. For the life of him, Peter cannot remember his own name.

To be continued.