Spider-Man swings over to his Aunt May’s house for a
Christmas celebration. He changes into Peter Parker on the roof, grabs his bag
of presents, and goes in to join the party with Aunt May’s fiancé Nathan Lubensky
and her friends. After a while, Pete notices that Arthur Chekhov looks
upset so he asks him why; Chekhov is concerned about his granddaughter Bette, his
only relative, who said that maybe she would attend the party and he is despairing.
Then Pete finds his Spider-Sense tingling and he goes outside…and suddenly it
is snowing heavily and he is in his Spider-Man outfit, facing the Watcher, whom
he has never seen before. The huge silent figure shows Spidey a crystal with the
face of Bette Chekhov appearing within….and then the giant fades away. Spidey
knows that he is being asked to find her and that, somehow, it is urgent (a
point Watcher reiterates at length for a page and a half).
Spidey calls directory assistance to find an address for
Bette Chekhov and, after some confusion, he is directed to a building in
Brooklyn Heights. He goes there and discovers the police bringing out a dead body;
a talk with an abrasive detective reveals that the dead woman’s name was Sheila
Fiori, there was a stash of cocaine, and the woman’s roommate, Bette Chekhov,
is missing. Spidey takes off and swings aimlessly around the neighborhood
without finding anything of value so he sits on a rooftop and mopes; he is
spotted by Captain America who gives him encouragement so that Spidey takes off
again with new resolve. He looks at the jewel the Watcher gave him and it
displays the image of a sleazy bar called Jimmy’s Corner; Spidey enters, intimidates
the crowd, and terrifies an informant named Joe Face who knows nothing. It turns
out, however, that Bette Chekov is in the apartment over the bar with Buck, her
boyfriend who has stolen cocaine from the mob; she tells him they killed Sheila
and now Buck, fed up with her panic, intends to silence her before she can
lead the mob to him. Spidey, alerted by Buck’s loud voice, crashes through the
window and clobbers Buck as Bette runs away with the bag of cocaine. She is
spotted by the gangsters who chase her into a dead-end alley. Spidey swings
down and beats up the hoods and Bette is shot by one of them. Spidey takes down
the gunman and discovers Bette is dying. The Watcher appears and Spidey throws
the crystal at him, it bursts against a wall and suddenly Bette is breathing easier.
He rushes Bette to the hospital where the doctors save her life; Pete calls Mr.
Chekhov and he sits by his granddaughter’s bedside. Pete goes on the roof and
breathes a sigh of thanks to the Watcher….
Epilogue: Watcher wraps it up by telling us that small
things like this are why he is fascinated by the human race….