When I read this at the time (and previously, in my younger days), I didn't think much of it since the Tiger was a curiosity and not a character with whom I was terribly familiar. But now, with the benefit of having seen his earliest appearances in DEADLY HANDS and some of his struggles in SPECTACULAR, Stern's callous treatment of the Tiger and his family, characters into whom Bill Mantlo clearly had invested a great deal of his energies and interest (and into whom George Pérez had injected biographical tidbits from his own life and family), reads differently, and is perhaps a blemish on his otherwise wonderful run.
But I'll let you decide! Following are my looks at the White Tiger backup serial Stern used to set up his Gideon Mace tale, and then Spider-Man's battle against Mace himself, originally posted here way back in the summer of '14:
PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN: THE WHITE TIGER SERIAL
PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #52
But if, after reading these stories, you think Roger Stern was rough on the Tiger, just remember that a couple decades later, in the pages of DAREDEVIL, Brian Bendis had him framed for a crime he didn't commit, after which he was gunned down and killed by cops while trying to clear his name.
So that's it for the White Tiger, but we're not quite finished with this saga yet. There's still one last big dangling plot left over from the final days of DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU, so I broke out the Comicraft fonts and prepared a little "primer" to get you ready for it:
