Amazing Spider-Man #571
Opposites Attack
While Spider-Man was attempting to stop Venom from attacking the FEAST Center, Spider-Man finds himself in the clutches of Anti-Venom who is trying to purge Spider-Man of any trace of the Venom symbiote that may still be in his system. However, the process is also risking to strip Spider-Man of his powers and he struggles to get free. At that same moment, on one of the nearby rooftops, Menace confronts Norman Osborn. The new villain tells Osborn that it has plans for the power structure in New York City and they don’t want him interfering. In response, Norman orders the Thunderbolts to converge on his location. This prompts Menace to attack him before he can give confirmation codes to release Bullseye.[1] However, Osborn is more than ready to deal with this threat and after saying a verbal code, Menace’s glider self-destructs.
By this time, the Thunderbolts have arrived on the scene and with no word from Osborn, Songbird takes command and orders her team to recover Venom from the battleground. Seeing this, Anti-Venom drops Spider-Man. Radioactive Man and Songbird then attempt to use a symbiote’s typical weaknesses — loud sonics and fire — they discover that Anti-Venom is immune to both. Inside the Thunderbolt’s ship, Bullseye demands to be let loose, but without direct orders from Norman Osborn, the soldiers refuse to do so. While inside a nearby building, Osborn continues to battle Menace. Thinking that he is facing his son, Harry, Norman mocks Menace with personal insults which only make the new villain angry.[2] Back at the scene of the battle, Songbird spots Spider-Man and turns her attention to him,[3] while Radioactive Man is busy fighting Anti-Venom who is furious over the possibility that his foe’s powers could be giving people cancer.[4] It’s during this fight that Spider-Man’s powers begin going on the fritz and realizes that being close to Anti-Venom cancels out his powers now.[5]
Meanwhile, Menace and Norman Osborn continue to fight it out. By this point, Norman figures out which one of his weapon caches that Menace raided and wonders what interest Menace has in politics. In fact, when Menace explains it is trying to stop Norman from boosting Randall Crowne’s campaign by capturing Spider-Man, Norman admits he could care less about politics and only wants to get the wall-crawler. infuriating Menace even more[6] Menace is furious and beats on Norman. They cannot believe that Osborn could have all the power and status and all he wanted to do was use it to destroy Spider-Man. Deciding that Osborn is not worth their time, Menace flees the scene. Recovering from the attack, Norman found the entire situation educational but decides to focus his attention on his Thunderbolt’s continued attempts to capture Spider-Man. By this time, Spider-Man webs Songbird in the face and flees the scene. Norman orders his Thunderbolts to withdraw, but as they leave they are unaware that Anti-Venom is following after them. Meanwhile, Spider-Man has changed back into Peter Paker and goes back to the FEAST Center to check on Aunt May. He discovers that she is fine and cleaning the place up, and Peter is touched when she tells him that she is more concerned with Eddie Brock than she was of her own safety. While across the street, a group of sickly sweatshop workers wait in a nearby alley for the crowds to disburse so they can get help from the so-called miracle shelter.[7] While at the Red Cent Diner, Ben Urich and Sally Floyd meet with their source on the Randall Crowne sweatshop scandal. It turns out to be Harry Osborn, who hands over documents that show that his father’s company, Oscorp, was responsible for whatever was going on there. While Urich and Floyd are thankful for the information, they tell Harry they have to verify it.
Later, Harry goes to the hospital to check on Bill Hollister after he was attacked by Menace earlier that day. There he comforts Lily, telling them that he’ll be there for them as he cares about Bill more than his own father. When Lily asks Harry what his own father did to him, Harry can only think of his father’s many battles with Spider-Man as the Green Goblin and tells her it’s nothing. While back at Osborn’s penthouse, Randall Crowne is furious because they found another spider-tracer killer victim, but Osborn assures them that he will capture Spider-Man, pointing out that the time of death of this recent body dates to before the Thunderbolts arrived in town. After Crowne leaves, and unaware that Anti-Venom is spying on them from the shadows, Norman calls a meeting with his Thunderbolts. He shows them Peter Parker’s photos of the battle between Spider-Man and Anti-Venom that were found on a camera that Norman recovered from the scene. He reveals that his technicians have discovered that all of the photos were centered on the wall-crawler perfectly revealing that Spider-Man has some kind of sensor on that allows the camera to automatically focus on him. To demonstrate how they can exploit this, Norman has Bullseye toss projectiles at all of the television screens displaying the pictures.[8]
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Anti-Venom, Thunderbolts (Norman Osborn, Venom, Songbird, Radioactive Man, Bullseye), Menace, Aunt May, Harry Osborn, Ben Urich, Sally Floyd, Carlie Cooper, Betty Brant, Vin Gonzales, Bill Hollister, Alan O’Neil
Continuity Notes
Menace jokes about Norman riding on the end of the glider which almost led to his death. This is a reference to Amazing Spider-Man #122, when Norman was impaled with his own goblin glider. For a year he led everyone to believe he had died but was secretly operating in Europe during this time, as revealed in Spider-Man: The Osborn Journal #1. Osborn revealed to the public that he was still alive in Spectacular Spider-Man #250.
Norman’s theory that Menace is Harry Osborn is wrong, as we’ll learn in Amazing Spider-Man #585-586, Menace is actually Lily Hollister.
Spider-Man quips about how he and Songbird used to team-up and that they once helped stop the Enclave together. This is a reference to the time that Spider-Man team-up with the Thunderbolts in Spider-Man Team-Up #7.
Venom is furious over the possibility that Radioactive Man is giving people cancer is because Eddie Brock has just recently gone through his own cancer scare recently. He was tricked into believing he got cancer in Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #4. He was seemingly cured in Amazing Spider-Man #568. However, this was later revealed in Venom (vol. 4) #11 to be a manipulation on the part of the Venom symbiote in order to make Eddie more dependent upon the symbiote.
Spider-Man angers Songbird by drawing parallels to the Thunderbolts “following orders” to the Nazis and asks if she learned that from Baron Zemo or Norman Osborn. Baron Zemo originally founded the Thunderbolts back in Thunderbolts #1, Zemo is the son of a Nazi scientist. Norman Osborn only recently became leader of the Thunderbolts in Thunderbolts #110.
They refer to Spider-Man as the spider-tracer killer here. Since Amazing Spider-Man #547, the wall-crawler has been accused of being responsible with a series of deaths in the city where the deceased have been found with spider-tracers on them.
The FEAST Center has been called a place of miracles as people have been miraculously cured of their afflictions that started in Amazing Spider-Man #563.
Peter put a device in his Spider-Man costume that allowed his camera to focus on him during his battles in Amazing Spider-Man #553. Why Osborn doesn’t make the obvious conclusion — that Peter Parker is Spider-Man — is due to the spell that was case to erase everyone’s memory of Spider-Man’s secret identity. This spell was cast by Doctor Strange, as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #641. It is later explained in Amazing Spider-Man #673 that the spell also prevents anyone from making a connection between Parker and Spider-Man unless Peter reveals his identity to them directly.
