Jonah Jameson

Amazing Spider-Man #25

by Steve Ditko, 1965

In Amazing Spider-Man #25, an inventor named Spencer Smythe comes into the Daily Bugle hoping to pitch Jonah on his contraption designed to defeat Spider-Man. At first, Jonah refuses to hear him out, but Peter (seeing an opportunity to embarass J.J.J. in public) convince Jonah to watch the demonstration. Smythe's robot is designed to sense a spider's presence anywhere. It moves about on rollers, can extend its limbs to climb walls, has a frictionless oily surface to prevent it from being webbed up, and it has a dozen flexible steel coils intended to entangle and trap Spider-Man. Best of all, the robot has a remote control mechanism that will allow Jonah to operate the robot and watch the robot's progress through its viewscreen.

Jonah agrees to rent and operate Smythe's robot. After Smythe makes a few last minor adjustments, they release the robot on the city. Immediately, the robot picks up on Spider-Man's presence and heads toward Mid-Town High.

After a long chase over the rooftops of Manhattan, the robot finally captures Spider-Man. Jonah and Smythe leave the Bugle offices to track down the robot. Once they arrive at the scene, Jonah is shocked to find that the robot's coils contain only an empty costume. Spider-Man managed to access the robot's control panel and escape. Plus he left his costume there just to taunt Jonah.