Spider-Man

  All this went through Jack’s mind in a heartbeat, and suddenly one of the robbers pointed a gun at Jack and snarled, “You! Come with us!”

  “M-me?” said Jack, his voice going up an octave.

  “In the car, now!”

  Oh, my God, I’m a hostage, thought Jack.

  Suddenly there was a collective shout, gasps, people pointing upward. Despite the fact that there were armed robbers standing on the sidewalk, they had abruptly become of secondary interest compared to the sight that presented itself now.

  A lithe figure in tight-fitting red and dark blue descended from on high like an avenging angel. He wore red boots, a red belt, and a pattern that ran the length of his torso and down his arms, and his mask was frightening with its wide, silver-white eyepieces that obscured his face completely. An intricate, slightly raised web pattern ran along the red material, and there was an image of a spider on his chest. The rest of the costume was dark blue, although it was shimmering as he descended and appeared to have black highlights. He was swinging on gossamer strands of webbing … a gigantic spider crossed with Tarzan of the Apes.

  He’d been heard about, rumored about, speculated about. But no one had ever seen him clearly in broad daylight. No one … until now.

  It was Jack who spoke first, crying out in a startled voice, “Spider-Man!”

  Immediately the bank robbers, as one, started firing right at him. Except he was no longer there. Releasing the web line so that the arc of his swing couldn’t be tracked, Spider-Man somersaulted through the air. Even as he did so, he crisscrossed his arms and unleashed sprays of webbing. With pinpoint accuracy it nailed the guns of the three robbers, gumming up the works and causing the weapons to adhere, useless, to their hands.

  Spider-Man landed on the sidewalk right in front of them. They came in fast, the three of them converging as one. All they managed to do was slam into each other, because Spider-Man—having barely touched the ground—immediately bounced up as if he were on strings. Before they realized it, he was behind them. He grabbed the respective heads of two of them and slammed them together with a resounding crack. The duo went down as if they’d just been slammed with a two-by-four.

  The third, the burliest one, swung his webbed-up gun hand, trying to use it like a club. Spider-Man ducked under each sweep, and as he did so, he said jovially, “Shall we dance? Cha-cha-cha …” It was as if he weren’t in a life-and-death struggle and all. As if the whole thing were just a game to him.

  On the fifth swing, he caught the arm effortlessly. The robber was stunned, unable to believe that he was being immobilized with so little effort, and then Spider-Man literally turned him upside down. “You know,” Spider-Man said to him conversationally, dangling him by his feet, “when you open a new account here, they give you a free toaster. Should have settled for that. Let that be a lesson to you: Get a toaster … or be toast.”

  And with that, he tossed the robber on top of the heap of his already fallen associates. He started to get up, but a quick, casual spin kick from Spider-Man knocked him out.

  The getaway car driver hit the gas, tried to pull out, but he was already too late. Spider-Man bounded over to him and called, “Nice car! I might buy it! Mind if I kick the tires?!” He delivered a powerful kick to the right front tire that blew it out as quickly as if it had slammed into a concrete median strip.

  Immediately the driver tried to leap out of the front seat in hopes of getting away … except he found himself webbed to the seat. Spider-Man cheerfully waggled his fingers at him. “When Spider-Man’s putting on a show,” he called, “there’s never a dry seat in the house!”

  And then, with the flashing lights of the police cars approaching, barely a block away, Spider-Man took a running start, bounced off the roof of the car and fired a web line all in the same motion. An instant later he had swung up and out of view, leaving behind four criminals and a wave of spontaneous applause from the onlookers.

  Moments later Jack was at the nearest pay phone, dialing frantically. It rang on the other end and then picked up. “Hello?”

  “Matt!” Jack burst out. “Son, wait’ll I tell you about the genuine daredevil who saved your old man … !”

  “Spider-Man.”

  The man who’d been introduced to Peter as Joe “Robbie” Robertson was looking him right in the face, and for a moment Peter thought that he’d been seen through just that easily. That this newsman had figured out that Spider-Man was, in fact, a nervous college kid who was trying to pull a fast one on the largest tabloid newspaper in New York.

  But then Robertson looked back at the picture and said, “Spider-Man … he really exists,” and he shook his head in amazement. “I was starting to think he was an urban legend. If you hadn’t had us develop the negatives ourselves, I would have thought you doctored these with a computer or something.”

  Relaxing a bit, Peter said, “I thought you might think that. That’s why I did it this way.”

  “Bright lad.”

  They were standing in the middle of the newsroom. Reporters made it a point of passing by, glancing over Robertson’s shoulder with interest as he flipped through the stills. Word had spread quickly; unsurprising, since these were reporters, after all. Robertson pretended to be unaware of the fact that everyone was stopping by to sneak a look, first at the photos, and then at the unassuming young man who had snapped them. Peter forced a smile but then started looking down self-consciously and kept his attention focused on the floor.

  Spider-Man swinging, flying, web shooting … they were all there, everything any newsman could ask for. “They’re good. Very good. How’d you get ’em?” asked Robertson.

  “If I tell you, you’ll send your own photographer. Am I hired?” he asked.

  “It’s not up to me,” said Robertson. “Mr. Jameson hires all staff personally.”

  That was when they heard shouting from an office down the hall. The person doing the shouting sounded as if he could out-holler a cement mixer. “Is that what I said?! Is that what I asked? I said a picture, Eddie, not an ink blot! Why the hell can’t anybody bring me decent art on that freak?! Get the hell out of here!”

  Peter didn’t know which was more shocking: the volume and vehemence of the person shouting, or the fact that no one else in the newsroom really seemed to be reacting. “He fires ’em that way, too,” Robertson said mildly. When he saw Peter’s incredulous reaction, he seemed to intuit what was going through the lad’s mind. “It’s like living beneath an elevated train, son. After a while, the shock just wears off, and you barely hear it anymore.”

  A young man with dirty blonde hair, a camera slung around his neck, and a generally shabby appearance, emerged from the hall and stalked across the newsroom. He stopped when he saw Peter staring at him, saw the camera bag slung over Peter’s shoulder. “What’re you lookin’ at, greenhorn?” he asked in a voice filled with pure venom.

  “And Brock! Would it kill you to get a decent suit!?”

  The bellowing voice’s owner had appeared at his office door. How anyone could reach that volume while still keeping a cigar in his mouth was beyond Peter’s ability to understand. His mustache was bristling as furiously as his flattop haircut. He looked like an angry porcupine.

  “What?” he shouted at Peter for no discernible reason.

  Without a word, Robertson held up the photos so Jameson could see them. Jameson blinked, squinted, then looked questioningly at Robertson. Robertson slowly nodded, silently affirming that these were the real deal. Jameson looked at Peter in disbelief, then shrugged and waved them into his office.

  The moment Peter was in, Jonah practically pushed him into a battleship-gray chair in front of the desk, which creaked in protest. Peter looked around. The office didn’t look as if a new stick of furniture had been put in there since before the Nixon administration.

  Robertson spread them out on Jonah’s desk as Peter tried not to pass out from the cigar smoke that clung to everything in the office. He glanced up an
d saw a smoke detector, hanging disassembled from the ceiling. That pretty much said it all.

  “They’re crap,” said Jameson briskly, flipping through each one. “Crap. Crap. Megacrap.”

  Peter couldn’t believe it, particularly after Robertson had been effusive in his praise. “But …” he managed to get out.

  “Completely static,” said Jameson. “You didn’t follow the action at all. It looks like you shot them all from a third floor office window and were too paralyzed with fear to move your point of view around.”

  Peter gulped loudly. That was way too close to the truth for comfort. “There was a lot going on,” he said, sounding lame even to himself.

  “A real news photographer doesn’t keep a safe distance,” Jameson growled. “You and your camera should have been right in the middle of this action.”

  Well, I was, Peter thought grimly. Then he noticed that Robertson was winking at him, sending him a silent but distinct message: Hang in there. And Peter tumbled to the fact that Jameson was being a hardcase, probably to lowball him.

  “I’ll give you three hundred for all of ’em,” snapped Jameson.

  Subtly, Peter’s glance went over to Robertson. Robertson nonchalantly had his hand near his face, as if scratching his chin. And then, very slowly, he extended all five fingers as a mute signal to Peter.

  Feeling buoyed, Peter said with confidence, “That seems a little low.”

  “Then take them somewhere else,” Jonah said brusquely.

  Peter shrugged, stood up and started to gather up the photos. But before he could, Jonah Jameson slammed his hands down on them and scowled furiously. “Sit down! All right, all right.” He sighed as if he was offering to open up his chest and scoop his own heart out with a spoon. “I’ll give you five hundred. That’s the standard freelance fee.”

  Robertson nodded ever so slightly and Peter automatically imitated. Not realizing where the cues were coming from, Jameson scooped up the shots, making sure to keep one in particular on top. He tapped it. Peter noticed there appeared to be ink under Jameson’s fingernails and wondered if it was there permanently. “Tear up page one,” Jameson was saying to Robertson, “run that shot instead.”

  Peter couldn’t believe it. Page one? He was going to be on the front page of the Daily Bugle!

  No. Not him, he reminded himself. Spider-Man. He had to remember that. Spider-Man was exciting, mysterious, interesting. Peter Parker was none of those things, and if he valued his sanity, it was going to stay that way.

  “Headline?” asked Robertson.

  Jameson held his hands up as if envisioning the words on a movie theater marquee. “ ‘Spider-Man, Hero or Menace? Exclusive Daily Bugle Photos!’ ”

  Immediately Peter was on his feet. “Menace?” he said incredulously. “Sir, he was protecting that bank from those—!”

  Jameson rounded on him, scowling. “Tell you what, Atticus, you take the pictures, I make up the headlines. Okay? That all right with you?”

  It was everything Peter could do to control himself. He wanted to shout that no, it was not all right with him, and that Spider-Man had been putting his butt on the line while Jameson was sitting on his, up in this ivory tower, making pronouncements that might frighten people, turn them against him… .

  But he controlled himself. That wasn’t going to accomplish anything. And besides, people didn’t believe everything they read in newspapers, right? They’d know that Spider-Man was one of the good guys. Why, Peter would fight that perception himself, bringing in photos of Spider-Man helping people. Who cared about the words in a headline? Weren’t pictures louder than words?

  “Yes, sir,” Peter said, although his fist was clenched and shaking slightly. “I … would like a job, sir.”

  “No jobs!” snapped Jameson, much to Peter’s dismay. “Freelance. Best thing in the world for a kid your age. Bring me shots of that newspaper-selling clown and I might take ’em off your hands.” He made shooing motions toward the door. Come on, get out of here! I got deadlines!”

  Dear Mom and Dad:

  I feel like I’m totally screwing myself.

  For weeks now, I’ve been bringing pictures into the Bugle. Pictures I’ve been snapping of myself in action as Spider-Man. And with each new set of shots I figure, maybe this’ll be the one that turns Jameson’s opinion around.

  Instead there are always new headlines about what a creep I am. Not me . . . the other me. And it’s all Jameson. Robbie . . . that’s Joe Robertson’s nickname. I feel weird calling a man old enough to be my dad by a nickname, but he insisted after a while. Anyway, Robbie told me on the QT that Jonah Jameson personally skews the slant of all the coverage. There was one headline that was originally “NY Cheers Costumed Hero.” And Jameson changed it to “NY Fears Costumed Coward.” Robbie got so tired of having his headlines changed that he stopped making suggestions. So Jameson rose to the occasion and came up with things like “Spider-Man: Super-Hero or Super-Zero,” “Big Apple Fears Spider Bite!,” and, my personal favorite, “Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?”

  Robbie started getting curious about my “luck.” He took me aside one day and said, “Care to tell me how you’re doing it, son? Do you monitor police band frequencies? Do you have people who alert you when they see the wallcrawler? Do you have some sort of deal worked out with Spider-Man himself, so he tells you where he’s patrolling and you split the money from the photos?”

  I just shrugged and smiled and said, “A magician never reveals his secrets, Robbie.”

  Robbie just kind of shrugged, and didn’t push it. As for Jonah Jameson, it doesn’t matter to him. As long as the pictures keep rolling in, he couldn’t care less.

  One day I couldn’t take it anymore. I admit, when I first met Jameson, I was totally intimidated. But I got so fed up that I buttonholed him in his office and asked him why he was so hard on someone like Spider-Man who was clearly on the side of the law?

  And he said, “He thinks he is the law. There’s no place in this society for vigilante justice. Once one person takes the law into his own hands, it’s anarchy.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I mean, I don’t think I’m taking the law into my own hands. It’s not like I’m going around executing people or stuff. I’m just stopping bad guys. But how am I supposed to change Jameson’s mind? It’s not like I can tell him what’s going through Spider-Man’s head. I asked him if I could do something other than Spider-Man pictures, but he said no, I should stick with what I’m doing.

  To my relief, Robbie stepped in. I think he realized how uncomfortable I was getting with the situation. “J. J., we need someone to cover the World Unity Festival. Let’s send Peter.”

  Jonah kind of snarled and said, “World Unity Festival! Another epic display of OsCorp self-aggrandizement!”

  “I thought you and Osborn were friends,” said Robbie.

  “We are! You should hear how I talk about my enemies.”

  I didn’t need to. I knew already. It was in the headlines . . . and Spider-Man had never even done anything to him.

  Finally Jonah said, “Fine, send him,” and then turned to me and snapped, “but I never said you have a job! Meat! I’ll give you a box of Christmas meat! Best I can do! Now get me more pictures!”

  Christmas meat. There’s something to live for. Knowing him he’ll wait until it’s on sale for half price, like during Easter. It’ll be delivered in a hazardous waste container. Christmas meat. Sheesh.

  I suppose the one joy I’m getting out of all this—aside from making money off the very thing that cost me my internship—is the knowledge that J. Jonah Jameson is paying me to take pictures of myself. He’d probably have a coronary if he knew.

  XVII.

  THE

  FESTIVAL

  Norman Osborn looked out across the New York skyline, of which he had a splendid view from his office at the top of OsCorp corporate headquarters. He stood there, taking in the fresh morning sun, feeling as if he could literally reach out and scoo
p up the entire city in the palm of his hand and say, “Mine. All mine.”

  There was some pronounced throat clearing behind him. He turned to them, his board of directors, all lined up like little ducks in a row, with their leather-bound folders open in front of them as they followed his description of the current state of affairs. Smiling over having made them wait, he slipped back into his chair at the head of the table and continued as if he’d never stopped talking. “In addition,” he said, “we’ve secured three major new government contracts, and I’m proud to announce that—as of today—OsCorp Industries has surpassed Quest Aerospace as principal supplier to the United States Military. In short, ladies and gentlemen of the board, costs are down, revenue is up, and our stock has never been higher.”

  As one, the board members closed their folders, and Osborn sat back in his chair, arms folded, smiling. He remembered the legendary story of the host of a radio kid’s show who—at the conclusion of one day’s broadcast—ostensibly didn’t know that he was still on the air when he muttered into a live microphone, “There. That should hold the little creeps for another day.” That was exactly how Osborn felt at that moment.

  Balkan leaned forward, a smile etched on his face. “That’s wonderful news, Norman.” He cleared his throat and added, almost as an afterthought, “In fact, it’s the reason we’re selling the company.”

  It took a moment for the words to fully register on Osborn. When they did, he was on his feet instantly. “What?!” He looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh in their faces or scream in them.