10 Comic Book Covers That Totally Lied To You
3. Spectacular Spider-Man #199
Marvel has always used 'big' issue numbers as a reason to hit the fans with thicker books and more riveting storylines, and that's especially true of everyone's Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. His bicentennial issue was something to see, but before Marvel could drop it on the fans, it had to lead up to it.
The Spectacular Spider-Man #199 was the issue to set everything up, but despite what's depicted on the cover, it only manages to be confusing. The cover art shows the X-Men and Spider-Man, all beaten and bloodied as they lay bruised and battered among piles of rubble.
Standing over them, clearly, the architect of their destruction is the Green Goblin. While the cover art is certainly impactful, it doesn't depict anything that happens in the comic. The book does feature a crossover with the original X-Men and Spider-Man, but that plot is resolved about halfway through, and Gobby had nothing to do with it.
The latter half of the book sets up the Green Goblin story that would debut in the following issue, but that was next month's Spider-Man problem. It had literally nothing to do with the events of Spectacular Spider-Man #199, making this cover a complete fabrication.