World Enough & Time

Peter Parker is woken up in the middle of the night by a telephone call, after remembering that Mary Jane isn’t home to answer it, Peter picks up the phone himself. It’s Betty Brant and she is in a panic. She tells him that she got too close to something she was investigating and is in serious trouble. Before he can get any details about what she is talking about there is a loud crash and the line goes dead. Peter ruses to put on his Spider-Man costume and soon swings toward Betty’s apartment. On the way, he finds the source of the large explosion, a strange vortex that as erupted from inside a nearby warehouse. When Spider-Man tries to enter the building he is pushed by gale-force winds that suddenly stop as soon as they started.[2] That’s when he hears Betty screaming inside and goes in after her. However, Betty is less than happy to see the wall-crawler and wonders how he is involved in all of this.[3] Before he can get answers from Betty, the wall-crawler’s feet are glued to the ground by the Trapster. Spider-Man is still confused as to how the Trapster is not in prison for the murder of Joey Z. The Trapster explains he managed to avoid a serious sentence by not naming Norman Osborn for ordering the killing and eventually got bored and broke out, which led to their recent clash when Spider-Man prevented him from assassinating Stuart Ward.[4]

However, before the Trapster can attack Spider-Man, the Wizard orders him to stop, saying that this will help with their plans. Attaching anti-gravity discs to both prisoners, the Trapster then shoves Betty Brant into the vortex. Spider-Man then breaks free and tries to attack is foes only to be shoved into the vortex himself. The Wizard then tells the Trapster that now the wait and learn. Inside the vortex, Spider-Man sees that he and Betty are falling through a dimensional rift. He tries to reach her with a web-line but with no gravity, his webbing is useless. When Spider-Man passes through the other end of the portal after Betty he hits something hard enough to knock himself out.

When Spider-Man wakes up he finds himself in an impossible situation: A horsebound knight has a javelin to his throat. Looking around and seeing a massive castle in the distance, the web-slinger cannot believe what has happened. The knight demands to know who Spider-Man is and whom he claims allegiance to. Growing tired of the wall-crawler’s jokes the knight tries to run Spider-Man through but the wall-crawler breaks the javelin with his bare hands. The knight then motions for his fellow soldiers to attack. However, the knights are ambushed by green-skinned barbarians who fight off the knights and carry Spider-Man to safety of the nearby wood. He is taken to Glara the tribal leader of the Green Folk. Once more Spider-Man is asked who he serves. Cutting to the chase, Spider-Man tells them that he is looking for Betty Brant. When he describes who she is, Glara tells him that she saw this woman being taken into the castle of the wizard. She warns that the castle is protected by powerful creatures. Spider-Man decides to go after her but Glara refuses to allow the web-spinner to go alone. When they arrive at the castle, Spider-Man uses a web line to help them across the flaming moat filled with monsters. Once on the other side, some of Glara’s warriors warn them that enemy forces are coming to face them.

Back on Earth, the Wizard is taking readings from the vortex and is pleased with the results. He is joined by Senator Stuart Ward who is concerned about his being exposed particularly with the involvement of the reporter, Spider-Man, and a third person they threw into the vortex. However, the Wizard assures Ward that there is nothing to worry about as all three are serving the purpose of their project. He tells Ward to go on to Washington and not worry as he has everything in hand. Stuart is not as confident as the vortex continues to grow unstable and flees as the Wizard decides to enter the vortex to see this new plane of reality for himself. Entering a waiting limo outside, Stuart Ward has video conference with his benefactors and assures them that everything is going according to plan and that they will soon usher in a new era on this world. His masters warn Stuart that if he fails they will destroy him as easily as he was created.[5] With the video conference over, Stuart orders his driver to leave as the vortex destroys the warehouse.

Back inside the other dimension, the battle between the Green-Ones and the enemy nights rages. While the guards are busy, Spider-Man frees Betty Brant from the dungeon. She tells him that they shouldn’t be fighting the knights and rushes outside. Spider-Man follows after her and they are confronted by the leader of the knights. That’s when Betty tells the knight to snap out of it as none of this is all an elaborate illusion. This snaps the knight out of his “character” and he removes his helmet. Spider-Man recognizes the man as Ranger, the mystery man who tried to assassinate Senator Ward earlier.[6] That’s when the Wizard arrives and reveals that this is all a complex virtual reality simulation. Between Betty and the Wizard, Spider-Man learns that the Wizard was testing a new form of energy, the actual cause of the vortex, and an unforeseen side-effect in tampering with these energies is risking the destruction of New York City. When Betty tells Spider-Man and Ranger to do something, the Wizard knocks them out with a blast from his Wonder Gloves. At that moment, Ward is flying a private jet to Washington and is monitoring the news of the warehouse fire and reports back to his masters to tell them that their goals are almost achieved.

Back in New York, Spider-Man, Betty and Ranger are restrained while the Wizard reveals the true purpose of his experiments: to open a portal to the Negative Zone. This is all to prove that he is just as much of a genius as Reed Richards and to show the world he intends to sacrifice New York City by sending it into the distortion zone where the city will be destroyed. The Wizard then orders the Trapster to eliminate their prisoners. The Trapster decides to start with melting Ranger’s face with solvent, but despite being restrained, Ranger manages to knock the Trapsters hand aside the solvent melts through Spider-Man’s bonds, freeing the wall-crawler. Spider-Man quickly incapacitates the Trapster and rushes after the Wizard. In the ensuing struggle, the wall-crawler manages to get ahold of the portal controller and tosses it into the void. Not willing to lose his work the WIzard flies after it and the portal violently closes before it can destroy the city. Pulling himself out of the rubble, Spider-Man catches Ranger using a device on Betty. As Ranger leaves, Spider-Man asks why he was trying to kill Senator Ward. Ranger has no answers to give, telling Spider-Man to watch and be ready. When Betty wakes up, she is fine although she has no memory of what happened, nor Senator Ward’s involvement.

Elsewhere, Stuart Ward reports to his masters about the Wizard’s failure but tells them while access to the Negative Zone would have been helpful it is not necessary to achieve their ultimate goal. Getting out of his limo, Stuart tells his driver that he is going to stretch his legs and get some fresh air. Instead, Ward walks to an innocent-looking house. Opening the door it reveals a portal to another domain where someone is waiting in the shadows. Stuart tells this other that everything is going according to plan. The being in the shadows is pleased and believes they can enact their plans in earnest.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Betty Brant, Ranger, Trapster, Wizard, Stuart Ward

Continuity Notes

1. Peter refers to Mary Jane as his wife. However, years later, their marriage is erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. As such they should be considered a common-law couple here.

2. Peter goes over some of his past history with Betty Brant they are:

   • That she started her career at the Daily Bugle as J. Jonah Jameson’s secretary. She first started her career in Amazing Spider-Man #4

   • He also mentions how Betty was his first romance. The pair dated from Amazing Spider-Man #6 to 18.

     • Lastly, he mentions that Betty, more recently, became a reporter for the Daily Bugle in Web of Spider-Man #91.

3. Betty has disliked Spider-Man as she blames him for the apparent death of her brother Bennett Brant in Amazing Spider-Man #11. She is unaware that Bennett survived, something she will not learn until Venom (Vol. 2) #21.

4. Some facts about the Trapster’s recent stint in prison:

   • Norman Osborn hired Trapster to frame Spider-Man for the murder of Joey Z in Spider-Man #88. Spider-Man eventually forced the Trapster to confess to these crimes in Spider-Man #92.

   • Spider-Man states that the Trapster should have faced the death sentence for murdering Joey Z. This should be considered a topical reference per the Sliding TImecale of Earth-616 as the state of New York abolished capital punishment in 2007.

   • The Trapster mentions his last battle with Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #4

5. The identities of these masters is unrevealed. Moreover their involvement with Stuart Ward doesn’t make any sense when the Senator’s schemes are (sort of) explained in later stories. Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #20-24 reveals that Ward' was trying to infect the world with an alien pathogen created by the Z’Nox.

6. Ranger attempted to assassinate Stuart Ward in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #1.

Making Sense out of Nonsense

As the continuity notes point out, none of this stuff makes any sense in the grander scheme of the Stuart Ward story arc. In fact, the Stuart Ward arc doesn’t make any sense at all. In a nutshell, Stuart Ward is infected with a Z’Nox pathogen and has been attempting to rise in the government ranks to become President of the United States. The Unofficial Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe tires to make sense of all of this here.

However, I have my own and they are this: I think in the end Stuart Ward was attempting to infect high ranking members of the US government to pave the way for a Z’Nox invasion. The interest in accessing the Negative Zone would probably because the Z’Nox homeworld was banished there during X-Men: The Hidden Years #8-9.

But who are these shadowy figures? My best guess is that these are humans whom Ward convinced to work with him. The only people that would have been interested in accessing the Negative Zone around this time would have been the Gideon Trust who first appeared in Fantastic Four (Vol. 3) #35 and they could have been tricked by Ward into working with him.