Amazing Spider-Man #554
Burned!
At a hidden meth lab, a drug dealer named Raymon hears police sirens nearby and opens the window to make sure they aren’t coming to bust his operation. Seeing that they are heading to where mayoral candidate Russell Crowne is giving a speech, he tells his meth cook to start making another batch with the windows open since the cops will be too occupied to notice them.
The police are racing to the scene of the speech because the Freak has gone on a rampage searching for Spider-Man. With his web-shooters suddenly clogged, Spider-Man has to leap in and pull Russell Crowne out of the path of a metal statue that was tossed by the Freak. Despite the fact that Spider-Man just saved his life, Crowne blames the wall-crawler for this battle starting to begin with. Needing to get the Freak out of the area, Spider-Man begins luring him away.[1] However, before the Freak can resume his attack he can smell the meth being cooked nearby and leaves to go get high. Although swatted away from his foe, Spider-Man manages to tag the Freak with a spider-tracer. Spider-Man then recovers his camera and then heads after the Freak. At the same time, Vin Gonzalez and Alan O’Neil call for a SWAT team for back-up.
When Spider-Man catches up with the Freak he is shocked to see the monster has murdered the drug dealer, and his cook and is now smoking meth. When their fight resumes, it knocks over some of the potent chemicals that are used to make the drugs causing a fire. At first, the Freak overpowers Spider-Man, shredding his mask to almost nothing, but stops in order to try and save the rest of the drugs from the fire. That’s when part of the roof collapses on the Freak, enveloping him in flame. As the floor collapses, Spider-Man doesn’t see the Freak suddenly form a new cocoon around his body. Unable to do anything for his foe, Spider-Man begins trying to find his way out. With police outside surrounding the building, Spider-Man has to quickly come up with a solution. Tossing his costume into the flames, Peter puts on Raymond’s large coat and comes out with is hands up. He tells the police that he is a photographer from the DB who went into the building to photograph Spider-Man’s fight with the Freak. They buy Peter’s story that Spider-Man fled after the fire started and that his clothes were burned off in the fire.
When Peter returns to the DB to sell his photos, Dexter Bennett is impressed and buys them from Peter for a large sum of money. While Bennett orders Betty Brant to write up Peter’s cheque, Peter convinces Dexter to promote her to the crime beat.[2] As Peter recovers his street clothes from the scene of the crime, Peter figures things are on the up-and-up since the photos he took of himself saving Russell Crowne will also prove to the public that Spider-Man is a hero. He also thinks the Freak is dead, unaware that the monster is still within his protective cocoon under the rubble of the burned down meth lab. Returning to Queens, Peter discovers that he has only one costume left. Sitting down to watch Dexter Bennett’s appearance on the news, Peter gets a call from Harry Osborn and Lily Hollister who invite him to a party being thrown for Lily’s father, Bill Hollister, who has just announced his bid for mayor of New York City. Peter’s good mood is spoiled when Bennett uses his screen time to accuse Spider-Man of attempting to kill Russell Crowne and that the Freak was actually trying to stop the notorious ""Spider-Tracer Killer”.[3] This upsets Peter who thinks about how J. Jonah Jameson was never this bad when he ran the Bugle, then remembers that Jonah is still in the hospital. He decides to pay him a visit as Spider-Man and attempt to bury the hatchet.[4]
When Spider-Man arrives at Jonah’s hospital room, the newspaperman thinks the wall-crawler has come to gloat. However, he begins to soften up when he sees that Spider-Man has brought him cigars. He assures Spider-Man that he’ll be back writing again as soon as he gets out of the hospital. This comes as a surprise and unaware that it’s been kept a secret, he lets slip that his wife sold the Daily Bugle to Dexter Bennett. Showing Jonah the latest edition of the DB is the final straw for Jonah who gets so upset he suffers another heart attack. This forces Spider-Man to give Jameson CPR until doctors can come in and take over. Spider-Man then makes a hasty exit before they realize that he is the real Spider-Man.
Later that evening, Peter meets up with Harry and Lily at the party. Peter is convinced that Lily is flirting with him as she asks him to act as her spy at the DB, which is supporting Randall Crowne, but decides to dismiss the idea.[5] When Bill Hollister later gives a speech, he takes the time to say that, if elected, he will crackdown on costumed vigilantes like Spider-Man.[6] Later, while making small talk with Carlie Cooper, Peter learns that she has been working with Curt Connors while she was investigating the strange cocoon that was reported in the city recently.[7] Peter is surprised to hear that Connor’s in town and decides to pay him a visit as Spider-Man. The next day, Spider-Man and Connors compare notes and Peter learns that the Freak appears to evolve after every near-death experience making him invulnerable to whatever almost killed him before. Connors stresses the importance of capturing the creature, saying that a quick-lime solution should be able to put the creature into stasis. Spider-Man figures the monster is still in the rubble of the drug den. Curt figures that the sudden cold snap and coming snowstorm will give them time to get the creature and stresses that Spider-Man needs to keep this secret as Connors could lose his job if his employer finds out about this. As he leaves, Spider-Man realizes that the Freak is the drug addict he tried to bust a few days prior for stealing the donation box at the FEAST Center.[8] He blames himself for a moment, then decides that Freak was responsible for making his own mistakes.[9]
However, when Spider-Man arrives at the scene of the fire, he discovers that the building has already been gutted of all the rubble. As it begins to snow, Spider-Man calls Connors who tells them that the snow will work in their benefit, keeping the Freak dormant. As Spider-Man begins his search he thinks about all of his mounting problems and is glad for the snow at least, as it will make the city look clean for once.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Freak, Vin Gonzalez, Alan O’Neil, Randall Crowne, Dexter Bennett, Betty Brant, Harry Osborn, Lily Hollister, J. Jonah Jameson, Carlie Cooper, Curt Connors, Bill Hollister
Continuity Notes
Spider-Man wonders if his web-shooter was damaged when it was in the possession of a mugger. This would be the Spider-Mugger who stole one of his web-shooters when robbing Peter in Amazing Spider-Man #546. Spider-Man recovered the web-shooter in Amazing Spider-Man #548.
Peter convinces Dexter Bennett that Betty is Marlon Brando’s great-niece. This should be considered a topical reference.
Spider-Man has been accused of being the so-called “Spider-Tracer Killer” after a number of bodies have turned up in New York with spider tracers planted on them. This has been happening since Amazing Spider-Man #548.
J. Jonah Jameson suffered a heart attack in Amazing Spider-Man #546. While he was recovering his wife sold his shares to the Bugle to Dexter Bennett in the following issue. J. Jonah Jameson has had it out for Spider-Man since pretty much the beginning as we saw back in Amazing Spider-Man #1.
Lily complains about the photos that the DB took of her father recently and is glad that they weren’t photos taken by Peter. She is referring to the pictures taken the last issue. Actually, Peter did take those photos it’s just that Dexter Bennett is notoriously bad at names to the point that he even miscredits people in his own newspaper.
Bill Hollister mentions how Spider-Man has failed to register under the Super-Human Registration Act. That’s not entirely correct. The act was put in place during the course of Civil War #1-7. Spider-Man, in fact, supported the act until about Amazing Spider-Man #535. When he publicly renounced the act in the following issue he was branded an outlaw.
It was Curt Connor’s lab that was broken into by the Freak in Amazing Spider-Man #552. After discovering the break-in, Connors went to Carlie Cooper to get a sample of the cocoon in the following issue. Peter tells Carlie that he was once Curt Connor’s lab assistant. That’s not entirely accurate. Peter attended classes taught by Curt Connors during his time at Empire State University back in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #38-42. However, Peter’s experience with Connors dates back to his early days as Spider-Man when he first cured Connors of his transformation into the Lizard back in Amazing Spider-Man #6.
The Freak was eyeing the FEAST donation box back in Amazing Spider-Man #546. He later tried to steal it in Amazing Spider-Man #552. He ended up finding Connor’s lab after fleeing Spider-Man and injected himself with the stem cell research materials thinking they were drugs.
Spider-Man begins itemizing the things he needs to do to get his life in order. One of these things is to win a Pulitzer Prize or two. However, Peter has got a Pultizer as we saw back in Sentry/Spider-Man #1. Peter probably forgets here since people’s past memories of the Sentry have often been erased whenever the Sentry went dormant (as seen Sentry #1-5, New Avengers #7-10)
