Welcome back to the annotated adventures of Harry Osborn! So last time I posted a throwback Harry arc (all the way back in April, oops) Harry was getting political and he seemed to be well free of the drug issues that plagued him. Unfortunately… this next string of comics make it clear he’s using again.

First, let’s look at Marvel Team-Up #9, which came out early 1973. The team-up in question is Spider-Man and Iron Man! But we’re focusing on Harry here.

Jeez, he’s being a bit bad-tempered, isn’t he? What’s the deal? Well, Spider-Man goes off on a time adventure with Tony and thinks no more about it. But let’s jump forward to Amazing Spider-Man #119. (Which Marvel Team-Up #9 confirms is set after that one.)

“Harry has been acting odd lately,” Peter muses, before running into the man himself.

Harry has some sort of fainting fit. Peter catches him straight away, but all Norman can do is yell at Peter to “unhand my son!”

Norman clearly doesn’t want Peter involved in whatever’s going on with Harry. Peter puts the pieces together and realizes, oh no, Norman might be becoming the Goblin again.

He doesn’t stop to think Harry might be using drugs again, though! And this is, sadly, the case. In Amazing Spider-Man #120, while Peter is in Montreal, Gwen confirms it.

“Harry’s been into drugs again. Something about his father – some sort of pressure -” Gwen says tearfully. But she doesn’t state what, exactly, pressure Harry has been under. Audiences know a lot more now about Harry’s childhood and the emotional abuse Norman put him through, but that wasn’t as major a part of the story then.

Peter muses that what Harry needs most is a friend, and he hasn’t always been that friend. Being Spider-Man, he can barely stay in one place long enough to have a conversation. And think back to Marvel Team-Up #4, when he outright shoves Harry out the door.

Peter wonders if Harry’s problem is his fault. He could have been a better friend, but it’s not really down to him to prevent Harry from taking drugs… although it arguably is his responsibility to head back to New York and be there for Harry. But that will have to wait, he has a mysterious man to catch.

And this all sets the stage for the most famous Spider-Man comic of all time, The Night Gwen Stacy Died! Spider-Man’s world is about to be violently and devastatingly rocked.