Invincible Iron Man #7

This issue is titled as an epilogue to The Five Nightmares. But I think that's more likely due to the current abhorrence for single-issue stories.

I thought Iron Man stopped the suicide bombers exploding in Long Island last issue. So I didn't think the Stark Industries HQ was as damaged as it appears here, apart from the e-m pulse crippling its electronics.

Ben Urich was a Daily Bugle reporter introduced in Daredevil #153. Given his job, he spent a lot of time in Spider-Man comics as well as Daredevil's. At then end of Civil War he left the Bugle to head a less biased newspaper and website Front Line.

I don't think the Spider-Man/Electro fight referred to here refers to any actual battle in any actual comic.

I'm guessing we're seeing a side-effect of Spider-Man's Brand New Day here. In Amazing SM #641 we learn that Dr Strange, Reed Richards and Tony Stark arranged that everyone forgot they ever knew Spidey was Peter Parker. In order for no-one to ever suspect the connection this would require some slective editing of memories. (The actual events like Peter Registering his ID during Civil War still happened, but no-one can remember them that way.)

Tony took Peter under his wing during that period, which ended when Spider-Man swapped sides later in Civil War. I guess this has been transmuted to the idea that Peter worked for Stark and then quit.

Spider-Man's reluctance to make money from his inventions is probably also tracable back to the fact that his Uncle Ben died while Peter was making money from his spider-powers.

Spidey has just come off a run of Amazing Spider-Man that ended with #583. However the 2nd story in that issue, involving Chameleon pretending to be Barack Obama, is put back until much later after Secret Invasion. For my last guess of the issue I'd say that if it happened at this point it might get too confused with Skrull fakes.
But before SI the Marvel Chronology Project puts ASM: Short Halloween, which tells us what part of the year this is all happening in.

Tinkerer goes all the way back to ASM#2, which ended by suggesting he was an alien in disguise. He was then forgotten about for more than a decade until ASM#160, where it turned out the alien-ness was a ruse to throw Spidey off the scent. Since then he has been a regular supplier of technology to super-villains.

Jackson Weele was also a Spidey villain, who fist appeared in ASM#182 and got his signature tech from Tinkerer in #183. He was then forgotten about for even longer than Tinkerer, and has only appeared in Spider-Man Unlimited #12 and Civil War: Front Line #8.

But looking back at #4 I can now see Jackson Weele and Tinkerer involved in the trail that took Stark's discarded armour bits to Sasha Hammer and Ezekiel Stane. That trail started with Gross and his daughter in that issue. The daughter herself had previously been seen in New Avengers #7, where she had to be rescued from the Wrecker who wanted his enchanted wrecking bar back from her father.

Gross the collector seems to be particularly obsessed with Spidey villains. In this issue he is simultaneously wearing bits of Rhino, Beetle, Vulture, Kraven, Shocker and Green Goblin' outfits, and I think I see a Mysterio suit in the background.

From here it's a race to Secret Invasion. Iron Man will convene the Illuminati in their #5, where Black Bolt will be revealed as 1 of the Skrull fakes. That leads him naturally to bring the bad news to the Inhumans in SI:INH#1, but before that he reviews Skrull history with Maria Hill in SI Saga. And then it's SI#1 itself before 'guesting' back in his own other mag's #33 to give War Machine his orders for its final 3 issues.

***** The rest of the comments after this are an old copy of parts of this comment.

I'm guessing we're seeing a side-effect of Spider-Man's Brand New Day here. In Amazing SM #641 we learn that Dr Strange, Reed Richards and Tony Stark arranged that everyone forgot they ever knew Spidey was Peter Parker. In order for no-one to ever suspect the connection this would require some slective editing of memories. (The actual events like Peter Registering his ID during Civil War still happened, but no-one can remember them that way.)

Tony took Peter under his wing during that period, which ended when Spider-Man swapped sides later in Civil War. I guess this has been transmuted to the idea that Peter worked for Stark and then quit.

Spider-Man's reluctance to make money from his inventions is probably also tracable back to the fact that his Uncle Ben died while Peter was making money from his spider-powers.

Spidey has just come off a run of Amazing Spider-Man that ended with #583. However the 2nd story in that issue, involving Chameleon pretending to be Barack Obama, is put back until much later after Secret Invasion. For my last guess of the issue I'd say that if it happened at this point it might get too confused with Skrull fakes.
But before SI the Marvel Chronology Project puts ASM: Short Halloween, which tells us what part of the year this is all happening in.

Tinkerer goes all the way back to ASM#2, which ended by suggesting he was an alien in disguise. He was then forgotten about for more than a decade until ASM#160, where it turned out the alien-ness was a ruse to throw Spidey off the scent. Since then he has been a regular supplier of technology to super-villains.

This issue is titled as an epilogue to The Five Nightmares. But I think that's more likely due to the current abhorrence for single-issue stories.

I thought Iron Man stopped the suicide bombers exploding in Long Island last issue. So I didn't think the Stark Industries HQ was as damaged as it appears here, apart from the e-m pulse crippling its electronics.

Ben Urich was a Daily Bugle reporter introduced in Daredevil #153. Given his job, he spent a lot of time in Spider-Man comics as well as Daredevil's. At then end of Civil War he left the Bugle to head a less biased newspaper and website Front Line.

I don't think the Spider-Man/Electro fight referred to here refers to any actual battle in any actual comic.