It was 1984 and Jim Shooter was writing the Secret Wars story line. Mike Zeck and Bob Layton were penciling with Christie Scheele coloring in between the lines. The 12 issue series was not only a big hit for a full year, from May '84 through April '85, but also left us with a new item that would influence the entire Marvel universe from then on out. It was Spider-Man's black suit.
Many ask, "where did he get the symbiote?" While many uber geeks answer in irate, and in unison, "The Secret Wars! Duhh!!" But... but, even the uber geeks don't ask the one question that nobody has ever asked, which will be asked at the end of this post.
The Beyonder, some big cosmic dude, chooses a group of heroes and supervillains for combat (think of when the Metrons pulled Kirk the reptilian Gorn captain from their respective ships to a desolate planetoid, forcing the two captains to fight each other) and teleports both heroes and villains to in a planet in a distant galaxy dubbed "Battleworld," which just so happened to be stocked with alien weapons and technology.
You can read the rest of this post on our blog at Memorable Moments in Comics - Spider-Man's Black Suit