DOCTOR OCTOPUS

In The Amazing Spider-Man #130–131 (1974), Otto Octavius stood at an altar, a priest in attendance and his mechanical arms at the ready, about to marry May Parker. It was not romance. A distant relative had died and left Aunt May an island off the Canadian coast — and on it, one of the world's most powerful nuclear breeder reactors. Octavius, who had once boarded in May's house and in whose mansion she had lately kept house, meant to take legal possession of the facility the respectable way: by wedding its owner.

May, who had never learned what her charming Dr. Octavius did for a living, said yes. Peter Parker learned of the plan from a private investigator's envelope and raced to the Westchester mansion as Spider-Man — arriving at the same moment as the crime lord Hammerhead, whose gang war with Octopus turned the ceremony into a gunfight. Bride, groom and wall-crawler were all soon flown north to the island reactor.

There the scheme quite literally blew up. Warned that the breeder could explode at the slightest vibration, Hammerhead charged anyway and rammed its control panel, triggering the blast. Spider-Man escaped with May — who promptly fainted on finding herself in a plane with the masked menace — while Octopus was believed killed. The issue's title said it all: "My Uncle... My Enemy?"