Marvel Team-Up (1972 series) #98

Late at night, Spider-Man comes upon Black Widow on a rooftop, watching illegal weapons being loaded into a truck; he grabs her from behind and she flips him. He wants to insert himself into her investigation, where she already has a partner, NYPD’s Simon Stroud, on the inside. Spidey departs but only so he can leap onto the roof of the truck as he knows that, with Black Widow involved, something big must be up. He reaches the truck’s destination and watches through a skylight as a dapper red-haired man named Cricket appears to be supervising for a “hit” planned for the following night. Black Widow arrives and surprises Spidey; she gives the go-ahead to Simon via radio and the two heroes crash through the skylight, striking out in all directions. Cricket tosses a lighter into a pile of explosives and Spidey’s Spider-Sense tingles so he grabs Natasha and leaps out of the way. Meanwhile, Simon pursues Cricket, who shoots him and, seeing he’s only wounded, takes him away as a hostage. Inside, Spidey has wrapped himself and an unconscious Natasha in a huge fire-proof cocoon. When she recovers, she panics, thinking Simon is still in the blazing building. Spidey has to block the entrance with a web while he tells her Simon wasn’t in the building. They spot bloodstains and realize Simon is a captive….

But the good guys have a captive from the gang, a guy named Trout; Spidey webs him up high on the Brooklyn Bridge and cuts the lines one-by-one until he reveals the scheme, explaining that all the city’s gangs are banding together for a secret purpose. They drop him off with the police and try to track down the big boss. So they split up. Spidey nabs a snitch named "Loose-Lips" Lonigan who reveals there’s a big gang meeting at Long Tom Stoneham’s estate on Long Island. Meanwhile, Black Widow crashes a gang hideout and beats the same info out of these hoods….

And so Spidey and Natasha link up at the Long Island mansion. They break in and end up fighting an army of gunmen. Fleeing, they encounter the big boss: the Owl, in a life-support module, who reveals that he is assembling all the gangs to sabotage the electric company and, under cover of the blackout, rob the city blind. Owl then fires lasers from his automated chair and Spidey ducks and dodges while Black Widow holds off the Owl’s team of bodyguards. Meanwhile, Simon Stroud escapes from his bonds and reaches the main battle as Spidey webs the Owl’s chair and sends him spinning out of control through the mansion, crashing through a big window and over the lawn. Spidey knows he can’t catch up to him but Simon shows up and, with two expertly placed gunshots, cripples the bad guy’s chair. They head back inside to discover that Black Widow has beaten up the rest of the gang singlehandedly….