Amazing Spider-Man #507
The Book of Ezekiel: Chapter Two
Peter Parker dreams about the night before when Mary Jane is telling him that she is auditioning for a play Off-Broadway. As he is encouraging her to pursue this new direction in her career, Mary Jane suddenly doesn’t feel very well. Suddenly, spiders begin pouring out of every orifice of Mary Jane’s face, much to Peter’s horror. She tells him that the pretender must pay the price and to beware before Peter wakes up and realizes it was all just a dream. That’s when Peter gets a phone call from Ezekiel who tells him to turn on the television. Peter does so and is shocked to see that the city is being invaded by a massive horde of spiders.[1] Hearing that the spiders have reached West 7th Street he remembers that where Mary Jane went for her audition and rushes there as Spider-Man.
At that moment, Mary Jane is in the middle of her audition and it is not going well. That’s when a car covered in spiders comes crashing through the door. As spiders begin pouring into the theater, Mary Jane tells everyone to run. As she tries to make her own way out, the director shoves past her leaving her at the mercy of the swarm of spiders. Thankfully, Spider-Man is nearby to scoop her up and carry her away to safety. He then heads deeper into the infestation to see where the spiders are coming from. Along the way, he runs into Ezekiel Sims who warns him that the Gatekeeper is searching for him and Peter’s only hope for survival is to come with him. However, Spider-Man refuses to leave people in danger and leaves Ezekiel to save a woman who is trapped on the roof of her car. As he tries to help her they watch in horror as a mountain of spiders taken on human shape. When Spider-Man tries to strike the Gatekeeper his fist goes right through the creature’s “face” and he is soon swarmed with spiders.
From the darkness the Gatekeeper speaks, it tells Spider-Man that people think they are standing on solid ground but, in fact, it is a ground that moves with the flow of insects. This world is dominated by the spider, which lives for the hunt and to drink the blood of its prey. It knows what Peter Parker asks himself all the time, why him? Of all the people in the room the day the spider was bombarded with radiation, why did it choose to bite Peter Parker?[2] It tells him that the spider chose Peter Parker because it saw him as a hunter without teeth, it chose him because of his rage. The rage that Peter held for everyone who teased and bullied him and the rage he held for himself for being unable to fight back. He was chosen because Peter thought that he would be able to protect himself if only he was stronger. The spider saw him as a being that would fight back and hunt those things that work in the dark and prey on the innocent, to fight back for those who could not defend themselves. Spider-Man asks the creature that if this is all true why is it attacking him and the city. It tells the wall-crawler that it is coming to get the protector and for him to open his eyes.
It then shows Spider-Man a scene from years ago, the day when Ezekiel Sims convinces his friend Miguel to carry out the bloodletting ceremony that gave him his spider-powers. Back then, Miguel warned Ezekiel that taking from the spider something that is not given free will one day come with a heavy price, telling Sims that there is only a single chosen one this generation and Ezekiel is not it. Ezekiel is able to force Miguel to carry out the ceremony because Sims used his wealth to protect Miguel’s village. Tied to the altar, Ezekiel is cut and begins to bleed into the spider-shaped impressions on the floor. It’s painful, but Ezekiel jokes that he can handle it. However, Miguel warns him that this is only a fraction of the pain he will feel when the source of the magic he is usurping come to finish the meal they have started this day. As Ezekiel is fed upon by a massive spider, Miguel tells him that when the Gatekeeper comes one day, he will have to offer up the true chosen one and eliminate him as competition in order to save his own life and retain the power he has taken.
Everything goes dark again and when Peter opens his eyes again he finds himself in the jungles of South America. Ezekiel is standing over him. Ezekiel apologizes to Peter, saying that it’s between the two of them now, to the death, and Ezekiel doesn’t intend to be the loser.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Gatekeeper, Ezekiel Sims, Mary Jane Watson, J. Jonah Jameson
Continuity Notes
J. Jonah Jameson is interviewed and he blames this all on Spider-Man. As you should probably know, Jameson has had a vendetta against Spider-Man since Amazing Spider-Man #1.
This is, of course, recounting Spider-Man’s origins from Amazing Fantasy #15.
Continuity Errors
The flashback to Peter’s origins depicts that Flash Thompson, Liz Allan, and Harry Osborn were present at the moment Peter was bitten by the radioactive spider and even suggests that Flash Thompson shoved Peter into the spider’s path. This is incorrect for a number of reasons. In Amazing Fantasy #15, Peter invites his classmates (which included both Flash and Liz) to join him to the demonstration, they flat out rejected. The other error is the inclusion of Harry Osborn. Harry did not attend high school with Peter Parker. In fact, although Peter met Harry first as Spider-Man, he would not regularly interact with as Peter Parker until they both started attending Empire State University in Amazing Spider-Man #31. Since this is the Gatekeeper showing Peter these events it’s probably likely that it uses the people Peter actually knew as points of comparison as opposed to them actually being there on the day in question.
