Writer: Stan Lee
Penciller: Don Heck
Inker: Chic Stone
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Plot Summary
While hard at work in his lab, scientist and size changing superhero Hank Pym receives an urgent call from his teammates on The Avengers. Responding to the call, Pym begs for a little extra time before attending the meeting, but his pleas are rejected by fellow Avenger Thor. Upon completing the call, Pym turns around to find out his experiment has gone bad, much to his frustrations.
Once at the meeting, Thor informs the other members that one of their own, Iron Man, has gone missing. The Golden Avenger has presumably gone to track down the murder of his boss, Tony Stark. Captain America suggests The Avengers take a short break while Iron Man is gone, which is seconded by Rick Jones. Cap objects, noting that Rick does not actually have the standing required to participate. Quickly, Giant Man joins in, agreeing with Cap in principle, but instead suggesting that The Avengers may still be required and that they should instead grant Iron Man a leave of absence until his business is concluded.
Meanwhile, in the year 3000, Kang reveals that he has been carefully studying The Avengers. Having observed their recent fight against Wonder Man, Kang concludes that The Masters of Evil were on the right track, but lost because Wonder Man wasn’t completely loyal. Kang instead decides to create a robot capable of defeating The Avengers. Though he is tempted to just duplicate all of the numerous villains in existence, he instead opts for a single duplicate of Spider-Man.
After he successfully creates his loyal duplicate, Kang sends him back in time to a place where he has set a trap for Captain America. As Cap is assaulted by various thugs, Spider-Man steps in and neatly webs up all of Cap’s attackers. Spider-Man then proceeds to inform Cap of his desire to join The Avengers. Having learned from their previous encounter with Wonder Man, Cap is reluctant to allow Spider-Man to join, and informs him that the whole team must vote on such a matter. In order to facilitate this, Cap returns to Avengers Mansion with Spider-Man so that he can plead his case to the assembled heroes.
Spider-Man finds his reception less than welcoming and so quickly decides to depart. However, as he is leaving, he lets slip that he knows where to find Iron Man and that until this point, he had been willing to help The Avengers locate their friend. The team is understandably angered by Spider-Man’s flippant response, but are able to convince him to provide more details and The Avengers are quickly on their way to South America.
Traveling separately, Ant-Man and Wasp are the first to arrive at the Aztec temple that Spider-Man described. Shortly after entering the temple’s interior, the pair are ambushed by none other than Spider-Man. Though they manage to escape initially, Spider-Man is soon able to disable both heroes, and lies in wait for the next Avenger to arrive, Thor. The God of Thunder is able to hold his own, however Spider-Man webs up both Thor and his hammer, Mjolnir. With the pair separated for greater than 60 seconds, Thor is transformed back into Donald Blake. Finally Captain America arrives. While even Spider-Man recognizes that he is no match for Cap, he is able to momentarily distract him, which is all he needs to hurl Cap from the top of the temple.
All the while Kang is watching from the year 3000. Everything is going according to plan until Kang notices that Captain America has fallen safely into a net made out of Spider-Man’s webbing. Confused by the actions of his robot, Kang orders the robot to contact him immediately. Although he attempts to do so, Kang’s robot Spider-Man is confronted by the real Spider-Man who has been following the impersonator ever since he showed up. Immediately a fight ensues between two equally powered combatants. Of course, because he has far more experience with is powers, the real Spider-Man manages to triumph over his robot imposter. As The Avengers muster once again, Captain America informs the rest of the team of what has transpired and that the real Spider-Man was good all along. Finally, a defeated Kang quietly hangs his head in disappointment and walks away from his computer monitor.
Avengers
Ant-Man
Captain America
Thor
Wasp
Villains
Kang
Some Assembly Required 