I'm a sucker for early to mid-1980s Spectacular Spider-Man. I got hooked on the series about the time Cloak and Dagger were introduced in issue 64 at the end of 1981. From then on, I was a regular reader of the title, which had a darker tone than ASM and only grew darker when Peter David took over as writer with issue 103.
Early in David's run, he wrote a peculiar story in Annual 5 featuring a former gang member, Ace Spencer, who seemingly had super-human reflexes like Spider-Man but also could somehow disrupt Peter's spider sense if he was in close proximity. I was fascinated by that annual and thrilled when David brought back Ace a year later in Annual 6.
So, I jumped at the chance to acquire this unused and unfinished (inks) title splash page from Annual 6 by Mark Beachum and Joe Rubinstein, who were also part of the creative team on Annual 5. According to the description, this page was scrapped due to contrast concerns of Spider-Man's black costume on a dark background. As you can see by the attached published page, the page was redone with a white background and included small changes in the title and Spider-Man's face.
