The Amazing Spider-Man #1

Welcome to Frontline. The only online newspaper that brings you the honest, on-the-street news, all the time at any time. Sponsored by the Daily Bugle.

I’m Sally Floyd.

Today is Day 200 of our Spider-Man watch and I’m here in Times Square, still looking for a certain arachnid-themed vigilante.

As some of our viewers may not know, if they’ve been living under a rock, covering their eyes and ears for the past six months, New York, the city known for its oddities, has been faced by its newest wonder: Spider-Man.

It all started a few scant months ago, as Spider-Man was the talk of every television station. Starting his career in professional wrestling, Spider-Man was staring in Variety hours on every channel and was on every talk show from David Letterman to Larry King. He was the hit TV sensation, but no one knew who he was. Before we could even get a chance to know who this masked mystery man was though, he vanished from every television show and public appearance. The next time the Web-Slinging performer was seen, wasn’t due to entertaining but to - get this - saving. Bringing in a known mugger and murderer to custody, Spider-Man helped the police with the arrest and soon decided to follow suit with a few repeat performances.

Since then Spider-Man has seemed to take it upon himself to become New York’s own spandex-clad guardian angel. Police and Fire Officials have spotted Spider-Man in hundreds of tense situations around the city, some even completely neutralized of danger before proper authorities arrived. Criminals have been webbed to flagpoles, children have been saved from fires, and even traffic accidents have been averted. These heroic deeds can only be described as super-human.

But the mystery remains, who is Spider-Man? Where did he come from? What does he want? And what this reporter wants to know above all else… is he single?

For online reporting brought to you, I’m Sally Floyd, and we’ve been on The Frontline, Sponsored by the Daily Bugle.




“’Who is he dating?!’ Are you kidding me with this crap, Ben?!” Sally Floyd shouted at her supervisor and editor, Ben Urich.

“Thanks at least for waiting for the all-clear before going on your latest rant,” Ben said with a smile as he gave the cameraman a gesture to head back to the news van.

“I am a legitimate reporter here. I wrote exposes about Congressmen and aired the dirty laundry of CEOs, and that’s some of my more modest stuff! Now I’m on… Spider-Man watch! This is crap!”

“This is what Jonah wants Sally. It gets ratings,” Ben said with a sigh. “Besides, you want the Spider-Man scoop, right?”

“Of course I do! But I’m not going to get it by… staring up at the sky like a lemming! Spouting chauvinistic drivel for fatties at their laptops in between World of Warcraft sessions!”

There was a small silence as Ben rubbed the tired out of his forehead.

“Fine. Let’s review the footage and then I’ll talk to Jonah-“

“THANK YOU!” Sally shouted with a dramatic sigh of relief. “I’ll stay on the Spider-Man beat, but through a legitimate means. None of this vampy crap anymore. I’m going to find Spider-Man, find out who is behind that mask, and then get the Pulitzers and book deals that are rightfully mine.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben asked with a smile as he pulled into the driver’s seat of the van.

“Oh yeah!” Sally said with a confident grin as she sat in the passenger seat and closed the door, glancing out the window.

“Where are you Spider-Man?”



“BEHIND YOU!”

The shouting thug in the hockey mask didn’t get to say much more though, as he suddenly was kicked in the face and sent flying to the asphalt. His similarly-clad buddies continued to run, as Spider-Man swung after them, singing a little tune to them as he sailed through the sky above them.

“He leaps through the air with the greatest of ease
Bringing the bad guys down to their knees!”

While he sang this particular verse, Spidey landed on two of the would-be sports shop robbers and slammed their heads together.

“What’s so great, about all his stunts?
He brings down every thug, baddie, and downright dunce!”

Pushing off of their shoulders, the two knocked out thugs flew into a guy behind them, simultaneously propelling the wall-crawler forward and pivoting off the ground with his hand and sweeping two of the other robbers’ necks with his feet.

“His life is a great big haaaaaang up, the bad guys get all baaaaaanged up,
I am the Spider-Maaaaaaan!!!!”

Standing in the middle of fallen bodies, Spidey looked around at the damage he caused and gave a small invisible smile. Unfortunately, it was soon followed by a long and tired sigh.

“Man, is that it? Come on guys, you’re making this too easy. I mean, I’ve had harder time with my Aunt May then you guys,” Spidey taunted to the unconscious figures, confident that they couldn’t hear his current ramblings. “And I take the time to imagine up the best theme song ever, regale you with my singing talents, and you don’t even have the courtesy for a thank you? What’s this city come to….”

Shooting a web-line into the sky, Spider-Man pulled himself up into the sky and began swinging through the city, sailing past Times Square and the Garment district, before landing on top of a ledge in Midtown. Looking over his city, Spidey knew there was no view better.

“Yep… things are great. Crime is at an all time low, I’m raking in cash with the Bugle, and I’m still the stylingest, high-flyingest, ruggedly handsome super-hero in town. Life couldn’t get any- Oh crap! Is that time?! Lunch ended ten minutes ago!”



”I have discovered the next step in medical technology; the newest discovered energy source powered by tritium. I call it, Prometheum.”

A lone figure in the darkness shifted slowly, his eyes barely able to open from the months of misuse. His muscles feeling like jelly, and deep scarring from what could only be… radiation.

”This will be the next step in our future. By harnessing this energy, and learning to manage its mutagenic effects, we will be able to cure and even prevent what would be otherwise hopeless cases. We can create a better world.”

“Where… where am I?” “My God… he’s awake!?”

”As a human, I have a responsibility to help my fellow men, but as a scientist, I have a responsibility to humanity. I dedicate this experiment and its promise for the future to my darling wife Rosalie.”

“What, what has happened to me? Why do I feel so sick? I… can barely move….” Octavius said into the darkness as he reached up and removed the bandages from his eyes.

”These calculations show that my machine can’t handle these levels of radiation, we can’t-“ “Octavius, I have waited three years for you to finish this experiment. Baby steps are over. It’s time for you to man up, stop being such a weakling, and get with the program.”

“My God! What are these?!” he shouted as a metal arm expanded and stretched from Octavius’s abdomen. It suddenly shirked away at a mere thought from Octavius.

”The capacitors are overloading! Everyone must leave, I can’t control the energy spike- ROSIE! OH GOD NO!”

“No, no, no, no….” “Sir, please calm down-“ “I have become a monster!”

“We can create a better world.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!” Octavius shrieked to the sky, his metallic brethren seemingly following suit and giving off a mechanical moan with their master.



“Mr. Parker, can you tell me why you were late to class? Again?”

“Uhhh- traffic?” Peter said with a small grin.

“Ugh, just take a seat funny man.”

“Yes Mr. Dolhoff,” Peter said as he rushed to his seat.

“So, have you at least finished your English paper? I’m sure we’d all like to hear what you thought of Catcher in the Rye?”

“Of course, I finished it! But uh, my printer was playing hard to get this morning and I couldn’t print it!”

“I’m sure.”

The rest of English class dragged on for Peter Parker, as he was consistently reminded of his lack of participation lately. The only problem, the young fifteen year-old was having a hard time keeping up with his studies while he was simultaneously being Spider-Man.

Class dragged through the bell and Peter finally got the chance to leave the dagger-like sight of Mr. Dolhoff… and run into the heavenly vision that was Liz Allan. The beautiful blond was sifting through her locker, apparently getting the books for her next class. Or more accurately, Peter saw that she was ready for approach.

“Hey there Ms. Allan,” Peter said with a grin as he sidled next to her locker.

“Oh hi Petey. How are you?” she asked politely.

“Me? Never been better. In fact, I’m feeling so good, that I was wondering whether you’d-“ but before Peter could finish asking Liz out, his spider-sense suddenly tingled, signaling only on thing.

“Don’t even think about it, Puny Parker!” Flash Thompson said with a guffaw as he shoved Peter’s head into the locker, knocking his glasses off to shatter on the floor.

“You idiot, my glasses!” Peter shouted, rubbing his head as he pretended to be in pain from Flash’s attack.

“Aw poor Puny Parker. ‘My glasses, my glasses!’” Flash mocked with a loud chuckle. “Heh. Let’s go Liz, you gotta check out my new convertible…” Flash said as he quickly grabbed onto Liz like she were a floatation device and he was drowning.

“See ya Petey!” Liz said with a sympathetic look, before grinning and kissing Flash on the cheek. “If it’s as hot as your last one, I know who’s giving me a ride home!”

As the “It” couple walked away, Peter stopped rubbing his fake bruise and picked up the ravaged corpse of his former glasses.

“And the cheerleader and the quarterback walk off into the sunset, happily ever after,” Carlie Cooper remarked sarcastically as she came up behind Peter.

“Oh-ho. Look who’s so funny.”

“What’s funny is you thinking that you could ask Flash Thompson’s girlfriend out without expecting some retaliation,” Carlie laughed as she opened her locker.

“Yeah, well… I could have sworn they were broken up…” Peter mumbled as he put the broken pieces of his glasses in his bag.

“They break up every other day. That doesn’t mean they actually ‘break up,’” Carlie said as she put her books away. “Sorry about the bifocules.”

“No, it’s fine. I haven’t needed them for a while,” Peter said more to himself than Carlie.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you! Check this out!” Carlie said excitedly as she pulled a petri dish from her locker and showed it to Peter.

“It’s… what?”

“It’s a spider-web. More accurately, Spider-Man’s web.” Carlie mentioned like it was Christmas.

“Oh… is that so?” Peter said as he stared closely, and realized that it was in fact a leftover of some of the webbing that he carried, right now, in his very web-shooters, buried in the bottom of his bags. “How can you be sure? It might just be some-“

“I’m sure. I’ve been tracking Spider-Man’s patterns of movement for months. He usually travels through Midtown, Queens, West and Lower Manhattan, and yesterday when he was in the Finance District, I scored some of this off a flag pole. And get this! This stuff dissolves when exposed to oxygen! Do you know any organic chemicals with such weak bonds? Noooooo…. because this stuff is artificial!”

“Is-is it now?” Peter asked as sweat started to run down his back in nervousness.

“This is some advanced stuff too. Spider-Man must be some sort of master chemist. Now all I have to do is find a chemistry expert, and then I'll know Spider-Man’s secret identity-“

“I have to go! Stomachaches! Don’t follow me!” Peter shouted as he took off, forgetting his speed for a moment and getting to the exit in seconds.

“Um… see ya.”



While Peter Parker deals with high school woes and secret identity issues, let’s check out another Parker family member, namely May Parker, Peter Parker’s doting aunt. So off in Forest Hills, Queens…

“Oh Anna, I have the best news!”

“What is it May?” May Parker’s best friend and neighbor asked giddily, as she walked into the Parker household and followed May to the kitchen.

“I have finally found a job!” May exclaimed as she poured her friend a cup of tea.

“Oh really? That’s wonderful May, but might I ask, what for?”

“Oh well… Peter has been doing such a good job supporting me ever since Ben passed, but I can tell the strain is getting to him,” May explained softly, as if Peter might be in the next room instead of halfway across town.

“Really? He was over at my house just the other day, visiting Mary Jane, and he seemed positively jubilant. One might even say carefree,” Anna remarked with a small smile.

“Oh I know, Peter tries his best to hide it, burying himself in his studies and work… but I know my nephew and lately he seems so, hyperactive! The only time he gets that way is when he begins to feel overwhelmed. I mean, when Ben died, he was barely in the house! Even during weekends! He just tries to keep himself so busy, but now I’m going to finally help him as much as he’s tried to help me,” May said with a strong and defiant voice.

“Oh good for you dear!” Anna remarked, caught up in her friend’s enthusiasm.

Suddenly the phone rang, causing May to suddenly shift demeanors and answer the phone in a genial and polite voice.

“Hello? Yes, this is she, oh my!”



Want to get back to Peter Parker? Too bad! We still have one more stop to make… namely the Daily Bugle! And you’re not the only one looking for May Parker’s fair-haired nephew.

“WHERE’S PARKER!?” J. Jonah Jameson shouted into his bullpen.

“It’s only 2:00 Jonah, he’s probably at school,” Joe Robertson, city editor, remarked calmly to his publisher and editor-in-chief.

“%#%@ LAZY KIDS! Ms. Brant, get in here!” Jameson shouted into the intercom, unnecessarily since Betty Brant and everyone else at the Daily Bugle could have heard Jonah Jameson over a herd of buffaloes.

“Yes, Mr. Jameson?” Betty Brant, Jonah’s secretary by day, Girl Friday by night, asked calmly.

“You’re dating Peter Parker, aren’t you? Tell me, why hasn’t that boy been in my office, with pictures of Spider-Man, for over six weeks!?”

“Umm, it’s only been three weeks, and… to tell you the truth Mr. Jameson… Peter and I kind of… stopped seeing each-“

“Well that explains it! Parker’s too afraid to come into the office and face you Ms. Brant! More importantly, that means he won’t come in, and get me some front page photos! WHY DOES EVERYTHING BAD HAPPEN TO GOOD, LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS LIKE ME!? I PAY MY TAXES LIKE EVERY GOOD-“

“I think that’ll be all Betty,” Robertson whispered to Betty, giving her the chance to slip out of Jonah Jameson’s office.

While Jameson’s muffled voice rings through the Bugle from Jonah’s office, in a completely separate part of the Bugle, Sally Floyd and Ben Urich sit together editing their footage from the earlier morning’s filming.

“God, I have fat thighs…” Sally remarked softly.

“You can’t even see your thighs in the shot,” Ben remarked calmly but unenthusiastically.

“You can totally see my thighs and they’re two tree trunks jutting from my hips!”

“Sally, you were just remarking this morning that you weren’t being taken seriously as a journalist, now you’re remarking about your thighs?”

“What’s your point?” Sally asked pointedly.

“My point is I have three Kingpin exposes to be working on. So instead of complaining, you could actually help me get this footage finished and posted to Frontline before I go into withdrawal from going this long without a smoke,” Ben said as he cut some background audio from the shot.

“WAIT! Stop that frame!” Sally said suddenly.

“What? What is it?” Ben asked still deep in his lethargic state.

“Move it back like seven frames…” Sally asked Ben who quickly complied.

“There! Right there!” Sally said, pointing a nail-bitten finger at the screen to a red and blue blur.

“It’s a blob,” Ben said tiredly.

“A red and blue blob? In the sky? Right behind me?” Sally asked leadingly.

A long pause followed as Ben continued to stare at the screen, until finally: “Spider-Man.”

“Bingo!”

“Oh my God! Spider-Man got caught in our shot!” Ben remarked, his enthusiasm suddenly bursting. “This is the most screen time anyone’s gotten out of him, except for that Parker kid! And that’s kind of sad…” Ben said, his enthusiasm suddenly waning at his own words.

“Oh, I’m going to find out who you are you wall-crawling little weasel.” Sally remarked to the screen, a salacious smile on her face.



Finally, back to the guy who’s on the cover of this little mag. swinging across town, Spider-Man spoke on his cell phone to a certain acquaintance of his.

“Tiger, where are you? It sounds so windy.”

“Really? Huh. That’s weird,” Peter Parker remarked as he flipped over a Daily Bugle billboard before zipping out another web-line.

“Anyway, if you still hear me, I just wanted to ask if you’d be able to come to my show tonight. I’ve been working on it for months and this is the last night with my cast…” Mary Jane Watson asked in a careful tone.

“Oh, MJ, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s at the Lincoln Youth Center, right?” Peter asked sheepishly.

“Ugh… no Tiger, the Kennedy Youth Center. I’ve only told you about ten times,” Mary Jane remarked with an invisible roll of her eyes.

“Sorry, I’ve got a lot on my plate recently,” Peter said as he landed on the back of a bus heading north.

“Well, as long as you make it to my show, I’ll forgive. It’s at eight, that’s three hours from now, can you make it? I’ll ask again for emphasis. Can. You. Make. It? Say no if you’re not sure-“

“MJ, it would take a force of nature itself to stop me,” Peter said in his most smarmy voice possible.

“Then I’ll see you in the front row, Tiger.”



“How are his vital signs?”

“Stronger than ever. That’s the problem, I don’t know what to do! Mr. Hammer hasn’t returned any of my calls, and this guy is ten minutes from waking up and killing us all!”

“Just keep him pumped up with sedatives-“

“Don’t you get it? Any medicine, including sedatives, has to circulate the body, but those metal arms grafted to his skin are acting as… some kind of filter for anything we give him!”

“He mustn’t awaken until we’ve had more time to study his physiology. How long until he awakens?”

“NOOOOOOOO!!!”

All that was said next by the two scientists are surprised gasps and then-



BOOOM!

“Whoa! Big explosion!” Spider-Man remarked as he suddenly redirected his course and swung toward the source of the noise.

Landing on top of a flagpole, Spider-Man peered at the scene to find a tall chrome building made of stainless steel and shining in the afternoon sun, suddenly with a gaping hole in its side and a large smog of smoke and debris.

“There might be people who’ve been hurt! I better investigate. But first.”

Pulling the tiny mounted camera unit from his belt, Peter quickly webbed it to lamppost and set the automatic timer, before hopping into the smog.

“Hello? Is anyone hurt?”

”GFHGFHDGF”

“What? Is someone there?”

“GET AWAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!”

Suddenly, a metallic tentacle seemingly flew out of nowhere and caught Spider-Man before his spider-sense could warn him of any danger. Pulling on his body into the building, a second similar tentacle suddenly shot into the web-head’s chest, though it’s claws were closed together, creating a sharp, jabbing point that causes Spider-Man’s chest to give a loud CRACK!

“ARGGGHH!” he screamed aloud, feeling like his heart was suddenly being pushed up against his ribs.

“You… you are like the rest of them… aren’t you? An assassin who’s come to kill me. You can’t fool me! You can’t take me!”

“Buddy, I’m not going to take anything. This is our first date, and I don’t even… can’t…” I can’t even finish this joke because my heart’s about to explode out of my throat! Spider-Man thought as he gave a very loud gurgle.

“I have been betrayed all I tried to do… was make this world a better place, but people just used me.” the mysterious figure mumbled, walking as if in a daze, while his arms continued to crush our arachnid-themed hero.

Suddenly, with the smoke clearing and hearing his voice, Spider-Man stopped his understandable groaning and flailing, and said two words in realization: “Doctor Octavius?”

The haze of madness and drugs suddenly cleared from Octavius’s mind, as that simple question seems to take him back to a simpler time. A time when he was a good man, a gentle man, and a man of science and not a monster. The sudden flashback is enough to shock Octavius back into a small amount of sanity, his arms releasing the hold on Spider-Man’s abdomen and they’re pressure on his chest.

As if breathing for the first time, Spider-Man gives a loud cough of air, not even feeling the pain that shoots up through his legs as he lands right on his knees from eight feet up, where Octavius had previously been holding him. He doesn’t even care as his practically shattered chest falls to the ground with a loud thunk. All that matters, is he can breathe again and Spidey tries to enjoy every second of it.

“I must must go he is innocent of these crimes.” Octavius mumbled to himself as his arms carry him away by subconscious thought, to the street where he rips open a sewer cap and crawls away to the darkness.

An unconscious Spider-Man meanwhile couldn’t hear, as suddenly the cell phone located on his belt rings, going to voicemail after it’s out-cold owner doesn’t answer.

“Peter, this is your Aunt May. I just got a call from you English teacher. We need to talk, right now. You have some explaining to do, mister.”

Then, almost immediately after that, five more rings follow with another call.

“Tiger, I hate to be a nag but my show starts in ten minutes and you’re not here yet no worries, I’m sure you’re just caught in traffic. But please, please don’t let me down.”

“Blergh.” the unconscious super-hero mumbled, as he became surrounded by officers of the NYPD.



Cliffhanger? You bet it is! Bet this wasn’t the heroic Spider-Man tale you were expecting, was it? Well, that’s what we’re about in this business, excitement and surprises! And caffeine… lots and lots of caffeine. Join us next month as Spider-Man has his rematch against Doc Ock, deals with a new force in the NYPD, and most importantly… faces the dangerous wrath of women scorned in Aunt May and Mary Jane! ‘Nuff Said.