noahthegrand presents with the help of ILoveStargirl:
THE AMAZING SLINGERS
A sequel to my Amazing Spider-Man pitch series
In my last article in this universe, I officially ended my run on Amazing Spider-Man by ending the book itself with Peter Parker, having prepared a new generation of heroes to take his place and been given the blessing of the spirits of Uncle Ben and Aunt May, retired from Spider-man to help the world as the CEO of Parker Industries and to raise his daughter alongside his wife Mary Jane. In a final battle in an alternate universe where Gwen Stacy lived, Peter realized that the past is the past and what matters is what he has in front of him now. Now matter how much this world seemed real, he never fully forgot Mary Jane. Mephisto is dead, and with this death, the world seems more peaceful. More quiet. With the marvel universe’s devil gone, nothing will ever be the same again….
On the side of the superhero team the Slingers, a team of Spider-Man based heroes, Miles Morales, the leader of the team, has stepped up as the official new Spider-Man of the marvel universe. At the same time, this older and wiser Miles Morales is training the youngest members of the team, the preteens:
May Parker aka Spidergirl
Normie Osborn aka Imp a symbiote connected grandson of Norman Osborn and best friend of May Parker
The Slinger team is also still mourning the death of Silk, who over the series had evolved into badass occasional SHIELD operative team mom.
The Slingers are
Miles Morales
Ben Reilly(currently missing)
Kaine Parker
Sarah Stacy
Post apocalyptic universe Anne Weying with Anti-Venom suit(currently on leave from the team though)
Post apocalyptic universe Phil Ulrich who was the heroic Spider-Goblin
May Parker
Normie Osborn
A second team, working in tandem or independently from The Slingers depending on the situation are the
Spectacular Six
A program created by Parker industries and organized by Doctor Octopus to help former supervillains do some good. Members are:
Doctor Octopus
Ana Kravinoff (Miles Morales’s former arch enemy turned friend who appears to have joined for the sole purpose of to stick it to her father… and mother….but not her Uncle , she liked him)
Sandman
Clash
Harry Osborn
Venom/Eddie Brock(currently off doing his own thing with post apocalyptic Anne Weying named Jackie)
I said I was finishing my run in Amazing Spider-Man, but I know some of you were interested into what things would look like in a world where Peter Parker has retired, so I’ve decided to come back, and alongside my co-writer for this series ILoveStargirl, show you what happened next!
I’m done with Amazing Spider-Man, as I ended that book in this universe with a definitive final issue, but, I can come back for another series in the marvel universe:
THE AMAZING SLINGERS
We’ll reenter this world with a bit of a time jump. It’s been three months since Peter Parker retired.
Our first arc:
Amazing Slingers Arc 1: A NEW BEGINNING
So, three months have passed. In this time, Ben Reilly has taken a leave of absence from the Slingers and has been missing for about a month. Ana Kravinoff has been visiting Silk’s grave in secret due to Silk being one of the first people to show her genuine kindness without asking for anything in return. Ana has friends within the Slingers now, but is still distant. Sarah Stacy, Kaine, Doc Ock, and Miles Morales have spent most of their time focusing on tracking down the fugitive Gabriel Stacy, former Goblin King of the Goblin Nation and the man who murdered Silk. Gabriel won’t be appearing in this article, I’m saving him and the story arc me and ILoveStargirl have planned for him for my next article, as I like to space out my uses of Gabriel in these articles to keep him compelling.
Harry Osborn has been meeting with his wife Liz Allen, currently in The Ravencroft Institute after she had a mental breakdown and tried to kill everyone who had ever had a goblin based secret identity except for Normie and Harry.
At the same time, Normie and May Parker have really brightened up the old Master Planner base the Slingers and the Spectacular Six both use with their youthful optimism. Spider Goblin has been making plans to integrate himself into earth 616 after his home world was destroyed, but doesn’t know how considering he has the same face as a known Supervillain and murderer. He plans to skip an upcoming trip to stay in New York to introduce himself to Ben Urich. Venom and Anti-Venom will be off doing their own thing as well.
This trip is part of a plan to get things back to the way they used to be with the team, Miles, Sarah, Doc Ock, and Kaine, the co-leaders of the team, have decided to use Parker Industries funds to fly both teams out to some land owned by Puma in the Mojave Desert where Puma will be training everyone.
Meanwhile in Hell, we learn why the changes to the world weren’t more catastrophic after Mephistopheles died. Loki, who due to things in his own book currently is in charge of hell, has been holding together many of the bigger deals Mephisto made for fear they will tear apart reality if they are reversed by his death. Mephisto has only died for a second and in that time the reality he had trapped Peter in where Gwen Stacy had lived had completely been annihilated.
As the story goes on, we’ll see what’s been happening with Ben Reilly. He’s moved in with the widow of Black Tarantula in Houston, Texas( who was consumed by ancient city of El Dorado’s crumbling structures as it sunk into the earth and is raising Black Tarantula’s son after being sworn in by the dying Black Tarantula as his son’s guardian. Ben Reilly is strangely similar to his original clone saga self and is missing most of his darker traits. We’ll discover this is because all those villainous traits are in The Jackal, a major crime lord in Texas who looks exactly like Dead no more era Ben Reilly.
The team will be learning to be more in tune with their surroundings with Puma and for the spider-heroes to not rely on Spider sense in the story:
Crouching Puma, Hidden Raptor
May is a very attentive student, taking after her father.
In a humorous moment Puma will realize Ana Kravinoff appears to already know already know a lot of these techniques and is just being polite.
Harry takes his son Normie out on a trip to visit some nearby hiking trails, regretting that he couldn’t bring the wheelchair bound Stanley. Harry will reveal to Normie that his mother is getting better in the hospital, and the doctors think it might be safe to let her back into the world within the next few weeks.
Meanwhile in New York Spider Goblin will begin to discover that his Goblin like costume and use of fear against criminals has resulted in bad press for him and being branded a menace by the now run by Betty Brant Daily Bugle. Now, this would be one thing if it was just Jameson’s column, but it seems everyone in the city thinks he's one of the villains, police included. In fact, the revived in clone conspiracy Enforcers track Spider-Goblin down because their boss thinks he’s willing to work as a criminal enforcer. These Enforcers have been experimented on so that:
Montana can summon an energy lasso which strangles his victims getting even tighter around their bodies. Fancy Dan has the extrasensory ability to perceive the stress points, fracture planes, or weaknesses, physical or psychological, in all objects or persons around him. And last, but not least, Ox turned into a perpetually angry Ox-like humanoid.
The smart thing to do would be to go with them and find out who their boss is, finding out if the very powerful does have any weaknesses. Spider-Goblin takes out his anger over everyone thinking he’s a villain. The fight leads them into the daily bugle, where everyone thinks Spider-Goblin wants revenge. Jameson, who we should remember is currently spider-powered gets into the fight. Spider-Goblin at one point saves Norah Winters(she was trying to get her job back since she got fired for her connection to Phil Urich and he’s dead now, but unfortunately Betty still thinks it’s too controversial to rehire her at this time), while Ben Ulrich watches. Phil will lose to his four attackers but manage to escape, but will be tracked back to his apartment(paid for by Parker industries because people with serial killer faces can’t buy houses themselves) by Ben Ulrich, who recognized the voice and movements of his nephew’s doppelgänger. Phil will explain what he is and how on his earth his uncle Ben Ulrich taught him with great power comes great responsibility.
That night at the training grounds, Miles will have an odd awkward moment while doing some late night swinging on a nearby mountain with his former arch enemy turned ally and friend Ana Kravinoff, which will cause them both to wonder if there was an ulterior motive to all the arch enemy stuff.
Kaine and Sarah, staying in one of the cabins on Puma’s training grounds, will be attacked as the quiet night turns dark and rain stormy by Raptor aka Damon Ryder, who is looking for Ben Reilly and thinks Kaine knows where he is. Last time we saw Ryder he had been using sub-machine guns in combination with his velociraptor dna, but he’s since realized being part velociraptor kind of makes guns pointless. Damon Ryder is known in the comics for being a scientist working with Ben who had a falling out because he falsely believed Ben Reilly killed his family. In reality, while temporarily animalistic due to the Raptor dna he killed his family. He has no memory of this. Kaine and Sarah will battle Raptor out of the cabin and onto the side of a flooding canyon nearby. They will realize Raptor has continued to experiment on himself, making him even more like a velociraptor, and so fast that Spider-sense barely has time to sense him. When Raptor eventually learns Kaine doesn’t know where Ben Reilly is, he dives into the flooded river and makes his escape.
The teams will unite, Ana and Miles both returning from the desert, and join with Puma as Puma reveals he has been tracking Raptor, who has been on a killing spree since he escaped from a prison transfer truck, seeking out anyone connected to Ben Reilly and trying to find out where his enemy is. They head to Silicon Valley, where Carrie Bradley, a stockbroker, self defense instructor, and former neighbor/love interest of Ben Reilly has moved to. Thomas Fireheart and Carrie will bond a bit over their shared interests in martial arts and the big business and flirt a little. We will have a brief mention of Parker Industries, though I’m saving a more in-depth look into what’s going on there for later.
The heroes will separate to different areas around Carrie’s large and luxurious home and its perimeter, the power will go out, Raptor will attack, and eventually they’ll manage to track him down through the halls and catch him. As the heroes prepare to return to New York Puma will reveal to Doc Ock and Miles he looked into Ben Reilly and can’t find any signs of Scarlet Spider fighting crime since he disappeared.
We’ll go back to Ben Reilly and get to see how he came to Marina Caches in Houston to help her protect her son from various crime lords who want the son(Fabian) of Black Tarantula dead before he can accept leadership in the mysterious criminal empire run by his ancestors to now. Ben hasn’t been Scarlet Spider and has been focusing on Fabian. Marina has a job as a teacher but has over the years amassed some self defense knowledge. Her home is basically a fortress with steel lined walls, many locks, bulletproof windows, a safe room, and various hidden weapons. Ben has returned to the blond look to distance himself from the famous Peter Parker, ceo of Parker Industries and well known original Spider-Man.
Ben has become romantically involved with Marina in the process of being the guardian of her son, who admittedly, has some dislike of Ben Riley because he isn’t his father.) Ben has also been dealing with Richard Fitzgerald aka the new Jackal and a major crime lord in Houston. We don’t learn exactly how it happened, just that Ben is really guilty about it, Alistair Smythe was involved, and now all the parts of Ben Reilly that he felt guilty about having are in a clone body. We’ll have a story where the original Captain America villain Electro(the green robot with a red hammer and sickle painted on its chest) is sent after Fabian. It’ll attack his high school, Marina, teaching at her son’s school, will escape with him in her car as Ben battles the robot, returning to the public as Scarlet Spider. The Electro robot’s weakness, as Ben remembers from Peter Parker’s memories of Captain America Comics he read as a kid, Electro can run out of energy and needed to be recharged. So, he just has to outlast him. He can also be short circuited.
Marina and Fabian make it home, lock down the house, and Marian reveals her stash of weapons hidden in a compartment behind a bookshelf. The Electro robot will after about 15 minutes of punching the wall manage to get into the house, Ben realizes his original plan to just let it hit the house until it runs out of juice is no longer going to work, and Ben manages to short circuit it. The robot is taken away by what seems to be SHIELD but is actually agents of the new Jackal in disguise. It’s revealed Jackal was just testing for the strengths and weaknesses of his enemies and the robot will be repaired and it’s weaknesses removed later. He also has many more tricks up his sleeve for Ben Reilly. At this point, he removes his Jackal mask, revealing he’s had a holographic false face set up so he can walk in the public without being thought of as Peter Parker, and heads to a separate room where he has a press conference with reporters about how his genetics company has just donated millions of dollars worth of life saving high tech equipment to the cities hospitals, and we hint this is part of a larger plan.
Back in New York, we’ll continue the storyline involving Spider-Goblin. Ben Urich isn’t fully sure he believes everything the alternate Phil Urich said, but he doesn’t really have any other guesses, because he knows for a fact his nephew is dead. He ends up allowing Spider-Goblin to stay in his apartment in a guest room, and from Ben’s point of view, we’ll start seeing more of the bad press Spider-Goblin has. J J Jameson after having to reapply for a job at the Bugle is a reporter and is a popular part of the Daily Bugle Editorials at the Bugle. Betty Brant now runs the paper. Betty is currently having some disagreements with Jameson as he seems to still think he’s the boss around here. Norah Winters and Ben Urich both have given their case to Betty that Spider-Goblin is a hero, not a villain. Betty has decided that while Spider-Goblin seems to be doing good, he’s incredibly reckless and his goblin based costume is in incredibly poor taste. Jameson will no longer be allowed to write his very biased editorials at the Bugle, as it just spreads sensationalism and makes them look bad, but, since Spider Goblin is so dangerous, both Ben Urich and Jameson will be put on the case together to find out who he is and what his deal is. Ben really hopes this isn’t a trick by a somehow still alive 616 Phil and that Spider-Goblin is who he claims to be.
Ben will at work attempt to keep Jameson off his nephew’s trail and at home try to be the Uncle his nephew never had and train him to be a better hero. Spider-Goblin fakes insanity to appear more unstoppable and scary to his enemies, therefore, he should try to take this to the logical conclusion, and approach the Enforcers once more, pretending to be an ally, and figure out who their boss is. Spider-Goblin does so, and while Betty Brant, hard at work late into the night and stressed at her new job, tries to call Flash Thompson only to find the line is dead. Spider-Goblin, in his laugh and joke like a maniac act, convinces the enforcers(who he had attached Spider-Tracers to) that he just wanted to let off some steam, and is more than happy to get paid lots and lots of money by their boss. They bring him to their boss, who we discover is none other than: THE CRIME MASTER.
Betty suddenly gets a call on her office phone, and while she only hears the voice saying her name for a second before the line cuts, she recognizes it as: Ned Leeds.
Meanwhile, Miles returns home only to discover Ana hiding in a tree outside his house waiting to ask him on a date.
AMAZING SLINGERS ARC 2:
We’ll begin this arc in Vietnam. An ancient temple, crumbling in a massive cave, partly buried in boulders. A group of mercenaries look over the structure, commenting on its grandeur. A member of the group, a massive and hulking man, reveals himself to be Aleksei Sytsevich aka the Rhino, and enters the temple, dodging several traps until he’s found what he seeks: THE ALTAR OF CYTTORAK!
Meanwhile, at Parker Industries, we took a few issues to build up to this, and now we’re there. Anna Maria Marconi is at work in a lab alongside her husband, Otto Octavius. They’ve very nearly made a breakthrough in extra dimensional energy extraction when…. the machine explodes! Doc Ock tries to save Anna Maria but fails! She’s caught in the explosion! He cries out in anguish! Windows explode out of the Parker Industries building! Then…. the dust settles, fire alarms go off…. and Anna Maria is spotless and uninjured. Men in hazmat suits patrol the wrecked lab. One wonders if this is what he thinks it is as he performs energy scans. The Living Brain does similar scans on the machinery.
Anna Maria is being checked out by doctors in the infirmary. Doc Ock is demanding to see her. Anna Maria tells Doc Ock to be calm. She’s fine. Doc Ock proclaims that’s why he’s worried, when suddenly, a figure enters the room, silhouetted by the light at first before revealing himself as…. Peter Parker.(with an Spider-Girl comics style goatee.) Peter tells Doc Ock that he’s been looking at the readings, and he’s seen this before. It’s Uni-Power. Both of them seem worried about this, then Anna Maria, behind glass, approaches to tell Peter he’s still too young for that goatee. Mary Jane arrives, claiming she came just as soon as she heard, and Peter explains to Anna Maria that the reason she’s still alive is because she’s been granted the powers of Captain Universe, a powerful cosmic force that temporarily gives you unlimited energy when it senses a great danger that no other hero can defeat. He’s had to deal with it before. And with that setup, we get…
UNSTOPPABLE FORCE/ IMMOVABLE OBJECT
Parker industries will search for major threats that could be the reason Anna Maria has her new invulnerability. We’ll focus this story mostly on Doc Ock and Anna Maria, how Doc Ock is still a bit arrogant but apologetic about it to his friends and allies. We’ll see how both him and Anna Maria are worried. But we also get some stuff with the Parkers. Peter will attempt to do his best to explain to Anna Maria what the Captain Universe powers entail. After finding no sign of the great threat, Peter heads home for the night, shaves because he isn’t that old yet, and greets his daughter, doing late night homework after spending all day on a Slinger’s mission. Peter sits down and helps her out, then decides to give her a break if she promises to finish in the morning. He gives her a flash drive from Doc Ock, which she runs off to plug into a smaller Living Brain Jr. model Doc Ock built for her as a gift.
We will then learn MJ and Peter like to still swing around the city sometimes even though they’re no longer heroes. Meanwhile, Anna Maria will be trying to test out her powers at Parker Industries, discovering her ability to fly, manipulate energies, super strength, and invulnerability as Doc Ock watches and documents to study later. Peter will get a call from Parker Industries and learns a crimson Rhino/Juggernaut hybrid is attacking in Houston, Texas. This issue was more character heavy, but this is a two issue arc. The next issue is more action packed. The Swingers and Superior Six(really only 5 right now since Venom is off doing his own thing with Anti-Venom, implied to be some sort of crazy and badass adventure )
Peter, having a bit of personal relations to Rhino, will come to try and negotiate with him to stand down first, landing a helicopter in the middle of his unstoppable path of destruction. Peter speaks to Rhino over a megaphone, trying to calm him down, and we learn Rhino is going after Richard Fitzgerald, a wealthy philanthropist and geneticist in the area, claiming he’s Ben Reilly, the one who killed Oksana. Peter tries to tell Rhino this isn’t what she would want, but it doesn’t go well as Rhino charges towards him. Peter flips over him, has to save the helicopter pilot, and calls in the Slingers to try and fight Rhino. It doesn’t go great, and as Juggernaut-Rhino destroys downtown Houston as he makes his way to Richard Fitzgerald’s penthouse, Anna Maria, despite not being fully trained, leaps into battle in full Captain Universe costume generated around her! The other heroes evacuate the city, encountering Ben Reilly aka Scarlet Spider doing the same. Kaine is still mad at him for when he almost destroyed several states with a giant magnifying glass designed by nazis while he had had the conscience part of his brain shut down by Spider Slayers( another reason Richard Fitzgerald is so dangerous) The battle between Anna Maria and Juggerrhino is epic and destructive on a 90’s comic book level. Peter, wanting to check out if what Rhino said was true, goes with Doc Ock and Ana Kravinoff as they go to get Richard Fitzgerald under their protection and out of the city. Peter notices Ana calling Miles. We’ll discover Richard is extremely charming, doesn’t trigger Peter’s Spider sense at all, and almost immediately becomes a good friend of Peter’s.(because he has Peter’s memories. He knows what he likes)
Anyway, Ben Reilly, as the battle begins to near the suburbs where Marina lives with Fabian, decides to unmask and lead Juggerrhino away by pretending he’s The Jackal-Ben Reilly from Clone Conspiracy. He gets Rhino away, but now he’s in danger, until Captain Universe, in an effort to curb the destruction, grabs Juggerrhino and flies him into space. Without oxygen, he becomes unconscious, and the day is saved. Anna Maria’s powers begin to fade away.
Ben Reilly explains to everyone in the aftermath after they’ve just allowed Richard Fitzgerald to go home that Richard Fitzgerald is not a clone, but is basically a Doppelganger, an evil twin of yourself, violent and malevolent, made in a lab by Alistair Smythe, pure evil with his face and memories, except the darker emotions amplified. It was Alistair Smythe’s last invention, because it killed him shortly after. Richard Fitzgerald is different then clones, because he’s artificial, he’s like a spider-slayer, but also a psychic being within his shell, connected to Ben Rielly, and he doesn’t activate Spider-sense because of this. The Slingers offer to help Ben deal with Richard, but he refuses their help, telling them this is dark half, he should deal with it himself.
Peter, back in New York, goes for a swing with MJ over the city after May goes to bed, and as they pass Parker Industries and Peter discusses his near brush with death in Houston, he reveals the new neon logo on the building: Parker/ Watson Industries.
Meanwhile, Sergei Kravinoff, also known as Kraven the Hunter, has been spending his time traveling the globe as a mercenary killing off new Inhumans, unable to die unless Spider-man kills him, both enraged and miserable over his disappointment in his entire dead family and his last living relative, Ana Kravinoff, his daughter. His inhuman daughter, who disgraces the family name everyday by fighting alongside the ones who ruined her family in the first place: The Spiders. He’s been living in the family ancestral home, a large and dark gothic mansion in the Russian wilderness, regretting choosing Ana as his favorite child, and wishing he had gone with the now deceased Alyosha or Vladimir. He’s been mostly in depressing solitude this entire time, until today, when his mistress Calypso who he also kind of hated, resurrected in Dead No More, returns. There’s a brief confrontation until Calypso explains she’s here to help Kraven. He’s wallowed in his own self pity for too long. The only way for him to finally be happy with his life again is to kill all of his enemies, starting with his treacherous daughter, and then create a new better family with Calypso. We then reveal a hulking two headed figure in the shadows behind Calypso.
In Ravencroft, Harry is taking Normie to visit his mother, the Imp symbiote currently taking the form of a backpack. We’ll notice how Harry always wears sunglasses in public to hide his gobliny eyes, the result of the deceased Norman Osborn’s curse coming back to haunt the family in the form of Goblin serum infecting his young son and temporarily turning him into a supervillain a few years before this. Normie meets with his mother Liz Allen, who seems alright now, but very regretful and missing her family. Though, at the same time, still a bit out there, but she’s being prescribed medication to deal with the nightmares and delusions in one of the few cases of a comic book asylum actually doing its job.
In a darker underground area of the Institute is a Jane Doe. A woman discovered years ago in the wreckage of a shootout and massive explosion, who refused to reveal her identity to the ambulance drivers, and promptly killed them. A woman with half her face horribly scarred. A woman who has shown no signs of violence since then, and has been a model, if completely silent, patient. Anyway, we’ll get back to that later.
Right now, Betty Brant has left work early in the evening, leaving the Bugle somewhat in disarray without her, and tracked the call of Ned Leeds to a pay phone, but there’s no sign of him. Then, a nearby hobo waiting creepily under a street lamp reveals he’s a disguised Ned Leed and leads her away, where explaining that for the past few years the only way he’s been able to watch over her without being noticed by anyone has been by living on the streets. She wants to know what he’s running from and he tells her, the one who is after him sent the Hobgobin to kill him and discredit him, but instead he was able to convince the Goblin to let him live if he faked his death and never returned to New York. He was “killed” because he had discovered the crime master’s identity. The only reason Hobgoblin agreed to go through with the plan was he told the Hobgoblin as well who Crime Master was. Betty tells Ned that The Crime Master is dead, Ned reveals that Crime Master aka Bennett Brant is still alive.
Meanwhile, we’ll get to see how the Slingers have made New York better, since some of our recent storylines have been in different settings, and we need to get back to the city Spider heroes came from. Crime is at an all time low, there’s Spider-Man based hysteria in the streets, Parker Industries is helping to fix poverty and establish new more efficient forms of energy and transportation. Repentant ex-Supervillains are being trained by Doc Ock to become productive members of society and reserve members of the Spectacular Six. Everyone loves the Slingers.
Meanwhile, The female Electro is meetings with Richard Fitzgerald as he has a master plan involving the Electro robot being in New York. Francine will question Jackel on if he can still bring people back to life, then questions if he can just bring back the brain.
We then get the original Spider-Man Electro trapped in the Electro robot body being bossed around constantly by Francine, having to take her orders because he’s been programmed to. This is Francine’s revenge for killing her. Francine will try him out, forcing him to mock himself, clean out her home, and the like, Francine’s first mission will be sending the robot to go rob a bank for her, since she needs money to get back tattoos she lost while being regrown in a new body by Dead No More Ben Reilly. This new robot is solar powered and more resistant to being short circuited, with a few new weapons included like mini-Electro bombs and jackhammer arms as well as Electricity powers. Max Dillion’s mind, trapped in the machine, is pretty angry about all this, and despite being entirely subservient to Francine, is a very pissed off robot. The Slingers will battle the Electro robot, and Miles and Ana, while being some pretty highly trained teenagers, are still just teenagers. Miles almost gets some people hurt trying to save Ana, and while they eventually defeat the robot, something could have seriously gone wrong, which leads to Miles questioning the relationship.
Electro will be broken out by Francine, who insults and belittles him for failing to rob a single bank, but as Richard Fitzgerald watches on a body cam on the robot, he releases it from Francine’s control, having gotten the data he needs on the Slingers. We cut to black as Max Dillon attacks, leaving what happens next uncertain.
Anyway, our next story will deal with Ana being attacked by her brothers Aloysha and Vladimir while on a rooftop, returned to life and transformed into a monstrous conjoined twin by black magic. Vladimir is the more savage and animalistic of the two due to his man-lion like state before he died, but Aloysha is consumed by a sense of wanting revenge on Ana, who killed Aloysha to please her father before she broke away from him.
Deciding to deal with this alone and not involve any of the Slingers, she doesn’t call for backup and fights THE GRIM HYBRID by herself, reasoning she’s taken down giant monsters herself. But, relationship trouble with Miles due to the Electro’s story, combined with long repressed childhood trauma, make the fight much more difficult. She almost manages to win, but realizes that the Grim Hybrid hasn’t been fighting to kill, it’s been leading her down from the rooftop they were fighting on, into Central Park, where a trap is sprung by Calypso, who uses her magic dust to paralyze Ana. The Grim Hybrid takes her to carry to a mysterious rendezvous point, as Ana remembers a knife fight between her mother and Calypso the first time Calypso visited their home.
Anyway, after Ana goes missing for about 24 hours, Miles goes looking for her, and with the help of Kaine, is able to track Ana’s movements to Central Park.
At the same time, in a storyline called:
YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’VE SEEN A GHOST
Betty Brant has convinced Ned to come with her to meet Flash Thompson, promising he can protect Ned from Crime Master. Betty is skeptical her brother, who she shot herself, could still be alive. She does believe there is a new Crime Master though. Spider-Goblin will continue his attempt to trick the Enforcers and Crime Master that J Jonah Jameson and other news sources were right about him being a criminal menace, but finds difficulties in this plan when Crime Master asks that Spider-Goblin probe his loyalty by killing Jameson, who recently brought down one of Crime Master’s organization’s allies. Spider-Goblin will claim he doesn’t work for anyone unless he can know their identities, and Crime Master promises to reveal his true face, but only if he’s able to make it into the inner circle of the Crime Master Crime family.
Ben Urich and Jameson will go on the hunt for Spider-Goblin’s identity, and Ben will try to lead Jameson away as Jameson, using his contacts on the street and the areas Spider-Goblin often patrols, determines Spider-Goblin lives somewhere on the block Ben Urich lives on.
Norah Winters waits for Betty to get back at the Daily Bugle along with a comically long line of others who need Betty Brant, to ask again for her job back, encountering her ex Randy Robertson in the massive line, who recommends she just find a specialty in the news world and create a website.
Spider-Goblin joins with the Enforcers and attacks Ben Urich and Jameson, Spider-Goblin knocks Jameson out of the battle in an attempt to tell Jameson he’s a good guy and to fake his own death so he can stop the crime master, and Jameson does so. The Enforcers and Spider-Goblin return to Crime Master, and Crime Master is about to reveal himself to Spider-Goblin when… Jameson, despite no longer being able to do editorials at the Bugle, uses his professional website to release news about his Spider-Goblin experience and how Spider-Goblin is not only a criminal menace, but a lazy coward who can’t even follow through with his criminal assassination jobs. This gets picked up by a lot of news station and papers. The Enforcers try to kill Spider-Goblin, he escapes, and eventually unites with the Slingers(minus Kaine and Miles) but not the Spectacular Six(who are doing something else.)
He explains what’s been happening, and they prepare to suit up,
Kaine
Sarah Stacy/ Ghost Spider
May/Spider Girl
Spider-Goblin/ Phil Urich
Normie/ Imp
When Peter Parker arrives with Agent Toxin/ Flash Thompson, Ned Leeds, and Betty Brant. Peter is just here to introduce everyone to his companies Spider-team after getting a call for help from Betty and has to leave right after to run his company. He hugs his daughter, tells her to be careful and to stay near Normie, asks if anyone knows where Miles is, they say he’s off on a personal mission with Kaine, then Peter makes a few jokes and leaves.
The Slingers plus Agent Toxin Head into action after The Crime Master and his Enforcers, who at this point we imply were genetically changed by Richard Fitzgerald.
We get a cool fight, they storm the Crime Master’s compound, where an army of gangsters and The Enforcers wait. The Enforcers probe difficult to handle, especially Fancy Dan, as he’s able to use his powers to figure out the symbiote weaknesses to fire and vibration. Eventually, the Enforcers are defeated, and Agent Toxin tracks down his old enemy, who he notices sounds just like Bennett did. Could it be true. The Crime Master kills himself, and The Slingers unmask him, revealing a random thug. Meanwhile, Betty Brant talks to Ned Leeds at home about his life on the run, and Ned and Betty both begin to realize they’ve changed last since before, and both are almost different people. Then Crime Master attacks their apartment, shoots Ned non-lethally, and reveals he’s Bennett Brant under his mask, before speaking the title of this storyline. With a captive audience, he explains that he had a dupe given surgery to look like him killed by Betty, while he was safe miles away giving him a script to speak through an earpiece. The mysterious ancient order that chooses Crime Masters that he mentioned when they last met had wanted to have her take a test to see what she was willing to do, and killing her own brother was in this field of expertise, an A+ grade. Bennett prepares to kill Ned Leeds, but is stopped just in time when Betty tackles him out the window to save Ned. Flash Thompson returns to Betty’s home and discovers Ned, who tells him Crime Master has taken Betty.
On our secondary story in this arc, Ana Kravinoff is brought to an abandoned mansion, the same one Kraven killed himself in many years before. Calypso reveals to Ana she’s created a new family with Kraven that includes the Grim Hybrid(locked in a large cage right now) as their first child, who they will raise here to be the ultimate hunter. Kraven makes his dramatic appearance, somewhat sullen and uninterested about all of this, but going along with it because it will allow him to finally purge himself of his families weakness by killing Ana. Calypso comments about Ana’s relationship with Miles Morales, which further angers Kraven. Outside, Kaine and Miles, who we’ve been exploring some differences between the two in this, Kaine being the older and more cynical one, but also pretty relaxed about Miles and Ana’s secret relationship, telling Miles to just do whatever makes him happy. They end up running into some traps and a lion pit, Kaine is injured and sends Miles to go on without him while he recovers, and Miles bursts through a stained glass window as Calypso begins an ancient sacrificial ritual that will end with Kraven stabbing Ana. Ana remembers a moment from her childhood where she snuck into Calypso’s home library, discovering some books of ancient magic involving the creation of something like the Grim Hybrid, a ritual similar to the one happening now, before getting caught by Calypso and yelled at.
Miles unties Ana, Ana reveals to Kraven Calypso is trying to combine her into the Grim Hybrid as a third head, and Kraven begins to, taking in all this information after getting punched in the face by Miles, have a psychological breakdown about everything he’s been doing with Calypso the past few days.
Kraven the hunter, disgusted by the horror Calypso brought in the form of the twins and decides he refuses to be part of this freak show any longer, so he calls Calypso a witch with no honor or ability to distinguish between what is good and what is an abomination, then stabs her. Now enraged, Kraven goes after his daughter, promising to kill her the right way, honorably in a great hunt, leading to a brutal fight between the two. Miles Morales gets involved, we get some really cool bits of art of the two young heroes fighting the muscular villain, Kraven tries to stab Ana, Miles webs his knife wielding hand up, Kraven attempts to taunt Ana psychologically, telling her about how weak she is and how she’s he knows she’s trying to escape her family name to gallivant around with Miles, and how he can’t die anymore, he’s going to keep coming back, and he will never stop until her boyfriend is dead, she’s going to know what it’s like for him, what it’s like to lose everything! Miles uses his Venom Strike ability on Kraven’s back, leaving Ana with enough time to regain her senses while Kraven is yelling in pain and trap Kraven in his own net.
The Grim Hybrid uses unnatural strength to break out of its cage and escape, and we hint that at least Alyosha is beginning to regain some of his intelligence as a person beyond just blind vengeance and subservience to Calypso.
Peter Parker and Spider Goblin visit Jameson so Peter can explain to him as a friend that Spider Goblin is in fact a hero. Jameson admits to his mistake and apologizes for that, but is adamant that he still considers Spider-Goblin reckless, dangerous, and thinks his costume and name are in bad taste. So, he will no longer call Spider-Goblin a criminal, because he is trying to do good, but he will continue to call him a menace until that’s proven otherwise. At this point, Spider-Goblin, having seen how much the Slingers are loved by New York, decides to quit the team and be a solo hero in order to avoid bringing them down in the public’s eyes.
Meanwhile, Peter meets with Miles to talk to him about how the Ana-Miles thing might be dangerous, mentioning times in his and several superhero friends of his lives that dating a former supervillain have gone wrong. Now, if he wants to, it’s okay, but the biggest issue is this might put a target on everyone’s backs if Kraven ever gets loose again. So, it’s a lot of responsibility. Miles meets with Ana, they decide they can handle it and Kraven the Hunter shouldn’t have to be a factor in this.
Kraven, imprisoned in The Ravencroft Institute, speaks to a psychiatrist as For the longest time, he had been lost and miserable, but now he finally has a reason to live.
On on the lawn of Ravencroft, Liz Allen steps out into the sunlight with a box of her personal items as Harry, Normie, and Stanley wait to greet her.
In the underground area of Ravencroft, the woman with the half scarred face mutters to herself “Phil Urich”. An attendant comes in to bring her food, and she immediately attacks him and runs out through the halls, taking down guards with martial arts. A guard reports on a speaker that the Jane Doe is loose before being attacked from behind and told “the name isn’t Jane…. it’s Angelface”
SCARLET SPIDER MINISERIES
SCARLET SPIDER: GUARDIAN OF LAMUERTO
So now, after showing what Ben Reilly was doing in Slingers, I’m spinning him off into a miniseries where he fights crime in a Houston Texas being rebuilt by Richard Fitzgerald’s company after JuggerRhino attacked and at the same time, being filled with crime by The Lobo Cartel, which The Jackal has recruited to work under him as his personal assassins. Carlos and Esmeralda Lobo both have the mutant ability to transform into werewolves under the full moon. Carlos is the charming one, Esmeralda is the crazy one. They’re both really cool characters and even when not werewolves, they’re still awesome assassins. Also in Jackal’s entourage is Silas Burr, former Cyber and Hornet, who Ben Reilly has had to deal with before. We’ll have Ben Reilly dealing with them while The Jackal, in the process of providing miracle genetic cures to the public, rebuilding the city, and having a personal team of super powered individuals, becomes sort of an evil mirror of Peter Parker as he manipulates his way into controlling more and more gangs and public officials while never directly even battling Ben Reilly. Instead, he just begins to turn the public against vigilantism and paying corrupt officials to put out a warrant for the hero’s arrest. In his home life, Ben will attempt to bond with Fabian, taking him to soccer games and continuing to try and teach him self defense, and Fabian will begin to actually like his protector and mother’s boyfriend. But the big thing happening in this miniseries is Scarlet Spider having to separately battle The Lobo siblings, and then Hornet, as Richard has sent all of them after him in an attempt to capture, but not kill his other half. See, these two aren’t clones, I’m doing something different, and because of this, they’re connected on a psychic level. They feel each others pain. If one dies, so does the other.
Meanwhile, while Scarlet Spider is distracted with this, Jackal goes searching for the mysterious mystics that have advised the LaMuerto family for generations, a group of mystic shamans that Maximo LaMuerto, the younger brother of Fabian’s father, is a member of, as all siblings of a former Black Tarantula are. The organization has been in disarray without a Black Tarantula to lead them, as Marina refuses to give her son over to them for the mystical process that gives a Black Tarantula its magic superpowers, and has been hiding from them. Jackal promises them Fabian, and reveals the family hides in Houston, Texas. Jackal will kidnap Fabian pretending to be Ben Reilly, only to reveal himself and terrify the boy, who tries to fight Jackal and escape, with his spider powers before letting him go.
Fabian, traumatized by this, will then be approached by his Uncle Maximo, who claims he’s trying to defeat Jackal and take Houston for the Black Tarantula’s gang to control. But, he needs Fabian to join him for a ritual to become the Black Tarantula, only then can they move on Jackal, and Fabian will have the power to defeat Jackal himself.
Since Jackal hired Hornet (Silas Burr) as his elite assassin, Ben Reilly allied with the original Slingers (Prodigy, Riochet and Dusk) plus Red Hornet (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Melinda_McDonough_(Earth-616)) the niece of the original Hornet.
I see this as about 2 issues of the miniseries where they’re the big guest stars, as a fun return to these characters for their fans and a progression in these guys story. Last time we used them they were mind controlled for most of it so let’s have them shine as heroes. They’ll come from their home in Vegas to Houston because they heard about Silas Burr, defeat Silas Burr and with him dealt with, they’ll go off to defend Las Vegas.
Fabian is taken and put through a torturous ritual, ganging his body on a genetic level and causing the growth of four retractable Tarantula legs that come out of his back, similar to Mattie Franklin. Maximo, making an attempt to backstab Jackal, informs Fabian the only way to kill Jackal is by killing Ben Reilly, because the two are one and the same. Ben Reilly and Marina will work together to try and find the missing Fabian, tracking down the Black Tarantula Mystics and the Jackal, just as they are together about to place the souls of all the former Black Tarantula’s into his body. Marina will shut all this down, shoot Maximo for hurting her son and allying the Black Tarantula Syndicate with someone like Jackal. Maximo will crawl off to lick his wounds and return another day, Fabian will attack Ben Reilly before snapping out of it and realizing he’s been misled as part of Jackal’s and Maximo’s opposing attempts to take over the Black Tarantula syndicate. Ben, for the first time in this story gets a chance to fight Richard Fitzgerald, and the two duke it out, Ben not caring if it hurts him too because he’s so mad Jackal would attack Fabian. Ben is basically destroying himself in the process of fighting Jackal, and has to be pulled back by Marina, as she promises they’ll find a way to deal with him another day. The mystics then split off into about 50/50 groups, half siding with Maximo and Jackal, who promise control over both North and South America, and half with Marina, who has decided that someone has to lead the crime syndicate and she can bring it back to the way it used to be, a criminal empire that fought honorably and negotiated peace treaties, a criminal empire that still helped the people and ensured people like Jackal never got too powerful. And so, two new organizations are formed from the Black Tarantulas. Ben Reilly, revealing maybe he has a bit of darkness in him as well despite him thinking it’s all gone into Richard, decides that his only choice here is to stay with Marina and support her as she becomes a new criminal Queenpin. Ben Reilly has been a hero and a villain, and now he’s somewhere in between, though definitely leaning more hero. Marina doesn’t like her new role, and never liked the world of Black Tarantula, but this is the only way to protect her son. But, on the bright side, they’ve dealt a blow to the Jackal’s empire, prevented one of his major plans from coming to fruition, and has caused the Jackal to fall back on Houston and fall into retreat. Also, the once loner clone who roamed America as a drifter without a friend in the world now has a family, which is great for him.
In the desert, Maximo and Richard have come to meet with a mysterious group, referenced as “Masters” These individuals, dressed in suits, ties, gloves, and fedoras, tell Jackal that if he has allied himself with the Black Tarantulas, he no longer has their blessing to operate in the states. He must move his men over the border. We get the idea that Middle and South America is the land where Black Tarantulas have dominion, and this group is in charge of crime in North America.
So that’s all I’ve got this time, as I’m just trying to get my readers back into the world and get you guys excited, but I will be releasing some more articles very soon, involving
-a conclusion to the Crime Master storyline
-a sequel to
-the explaination of the location of Eddie Brock and Jackie/the alternate universe Anne Weying
-the return of Aaron Davis
-and the return of Gabriel Stacy!
So stay tuned for that!
And, on a bit of a sadder note, I would like to say:
Rest In Peace Steve Ditko. You will be missed. You inspired millions, no billions with your work and your creations, and you co created one of the most popular Superhero characters of all time. Besides co-creating Spider-Man, you helped to create many of the members of his supporting cast and rogues gallery, characters with immense staying power that are still popular today, decades later. You also, worked on other characters besides Spider-man, like
Dr. Strange
The Question
The Creeper
Hawk and Dove
Blue Beetle
Thank you for everything Steve Ditko.