Smoke & Mirrors

Using a Silvermane robot, Mysteiro has tricked the Maggia into bringing all of their money to the old Empyrian Opera House. They think this is to lure Mister Negative into a trap, but in reality, Mysterio is attempt to hustle them. To help sell this double-cross, he also has the members of the Maggia rigged up with squibs of fake blood as they think they are all going to fake their deaths as well. This is all to convince the mobsters that they are players in the deception instead of the people being played.

Meanwhile, Carlie Cooper meets with the man who claims to be her father, Ray Cooper. She doesn’t buy that this man is anything more than an impostor since her father died in a drunk driving accident years earlier. Especially since this man claims that Ray Cooper faked his death because he was secretly working for the Maggia to help fake the deaths of key members of the mob. However, the fact that Mysterio is involved in all of this leads her to believe that this is all some kind of fakery and asks him to prove that he is really Ray Cooper. He tells her that he lost faith in law enforcement when he couldn’t afford the treatments that would have kept his wife alive and now Mysterio is coming up to his big payday and he is going to get a cut so he can provide his family with the future he feels they deserve. Since his daughter doesn’t believe him, Ray gets up to leave but she stops him by calling him dad and hugs him. He assures her that once it is all over they’ll never be separated again. She hopes not. However, this moment of affection is merely a means for Carlie to plant a spider-tracer that was given to her by Spider-Man. After, she calls Peter Parker to ask him to send a message to Spider-Man. Playing dumb, Peter asks her what’s going on. Carlie refuses to go into detail and then chastises Peter for using his friends to get what he wants. This really hits close to home to Peter because Carlie isn’t wrong.

At that same moment, as Hammerhead is undergoing more surgery at the hands of Doctor Tramma, Mister Negative is preparing a batch of his Dragon’s Breath using a sample of Spider-Man’s blood.[1] He is preparing the poison because he wants no interference when he gets his final revenge against Silvermane.[2]

At that same moment, Ray Cooper is collecting his share of the money, Mysterio applauds him for checking the money for any tricks or bugs. He also warns Mysterio that if anything should happen to him he has arranged for details of Mysterio’s schemes to go out to every major news outlet. As Mysterio’s technicians are rigging the Silvermane robot with C4 explosives, Ray asks why Mysterio is only going for the short con. The master illusionist explains that he lives for the gag and that a long con only works for so long until a random variable comes and interferes. It’s at that moment the alarms go off, warning Mysterio that Spider-Man has arrived on the scene. This annoys the villain because he hadn’t expected Spider-Man to find him so soon but he is ready to deal with the wall-crawler. Ray Cooper takes this as his cue to leave and wishes Quentin Beck all the luck in the world.

When Spider-Man enters the building, mobsters begin opening fire on him immediately. When he tries to fight back the mobsters seemingly shoot themselves, but Spider-Man isn’t falling for it them faking their deaths this time. The Maggia men then get up and admit they went overboard with the fake guts and blood squibs and the battle resumes. That’s when the Silvermane robot enters the fray.[3] As Spider-Man fights the robot his spider-sense begins going crazy, announcing the arrival of Mister Negative and his Inner Demons. Luckily, the rival mobster announces that he has brought the Dragon’s Breath, allowing Spider-Man to take a deep breath before the room is filled in the gas that is deadly only to him. Spider-Man then has to fight his way to the exit before his breath runs out. By this time Mysterio’s men have swapped out the Maggia money for counterfeit bills and he stages his escape by having the Silvermane robot attack Mister Negative and leaves it open for attack. When Negative slashes the robot with his sword, Mysterio — motion controlling the robot — then puts on an act of dying before triggering the explosives inside the robot. His spider-sense warning him of the explosion, Spider-Man leaps out of the building moments after the NYPD arrives with Carlie Cooper in tow. As he catches his breath, Spider-Man fills in Carlie and Yuri Watanabe on what is going on inside. After confirming that her father wasn’t inside, Carlie tosses Spider-Man a gas mask so he has protection against the remaining Dragon’s Breath inside the building.

Rushing back inside, Spider-Man confronts Mysterio and when asking how he cheated death, the master illusionist tries to confuse the situation.[4] Having had enough, Spider-Man smashes Mysterio’s fishbowl. That’s when it appears that Mysterio is being affected by the Dragon’s Breath and tells a confused Spider-Man that he is actually the web-slinger’s cousin. This, obviously, is just a deception to get Spider-Man close enough to sucker punch and makes his escape. At that same moment, Mister Negative has dug himself out of the rubble and orders his Inner Demons to retreat. Although he failed to steal the Maggia’s money, he is confident that they have been crippled and orders a retreat. While outside, the NYPD is securing the area when Carlie Cooper gets a text message from her father asking if she’s coming. While not far away, Mysterio is trying to make his escape on a trash barge when Spider-Man suddenly climbs aboard the ship. Quentin tries to convince Spider-Man to let him go since he intends to retire after this caper. However, the web-slinger knows better, reminding Beck that he commits his crime for the thrill and won’t give it up. Mysterio then has his men pull a rocket launcher out of the trash and fire it at the police officers onshore. Luckily, Spider-Man snares the missile on a web-line and redirects it back at the garbage scow. Although he and the crew manage to dive overboard, Mysterio is nowhere to be found after the explosion, however Spider-Man knows that his foe got away.

Swimming to shore, Spider-Man is given a towel and a warm cup of coffee by Carlie Cooper. He tells her that he can’t track her father anymore because he probably ditched the spider-tracer. That’s when Yuri Watanabe comes to show Spider-Man what Mysterio’s next scheme was. She is annoyed that they were going to fake the return of Jean DeWollf as their next “resurrected” dirty cop.[5] As Carlie walks away, Yuri tells Spider-Man that they did good work together and offers the resources of her department in the future. Spider-Man thanks her for being upfront, saying that he wouldn’t want to mess with anyone’s head to get what he wants. At that moment, Mysterio is drinking a martini on the rooftop of a building in front of a huge billboard advertising tropical vacations when he is confronted by a woman who appears to be Jean DeWolff. Mysterio sees right through the disguise and welcomes the Chameleon and asks what he wants. The master of disguises tells Quentin that he has been making new friends and they are dying to meet him.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Mysterio, Carlie Cooper, Yuri Watanabe, Mister Negative, Maggia, Hammerhead, Doctor Tramma, Ray Cooper, Chameleon

Continuity Notes

1. Dragon’s Breath is a poison that is lethal to a specific type of DNA. Negative collected a sample of Spider-Man’s blood after the web-slinger interfered with his attempt to eliminate the Karnelli crime family in Amazing Spider-Man #547-548.

2. Some facts here about the relationship between Silvermane and Mister Negative:

   • Mister Negative used to be a Snakehead that smuggled illegal immigrants to the United States from China. When Silvermane took control of the human trafficking in New York, the future Mister Negative was taken to Ellis Island to be experimented on by a new type of synthetic heroin. It turned him into Mister Negative, hence his hatred of the Maggia. See Dark Reign: Mister Negative #1-3.

   • The man everyone thinks is Silvermane is actually a robot duplicate created by Mysterio. At the time of this story, Silvermane is thought to have died after his cybernetic body was dumped into a car crusher, as seen in Amazing Spider-Man #618.

   • However, the real Silvermane is still alive and he will turn up again in Superior Foes of Spider-Man #3.

3. Spider-Man makes mention of Silvermane’s various transformations over the year. They are:

   • “The time you shrunk down to a baby”: This was when Silvermane used the Tablet of Life to try and gain youth and immortality. At first, it rapidly de-aged him until he was reduced to nothing. This happened in Amazing Spider-Man #73-75. The process reversed itself until he was a middle-aged man as seen in Daredevil #120-123.

   • Silvermane was later targeted by the vigilantes known as Cloak and Dagger. In order to survive the attempt on his life, Silvermane’s was given a cybernetic body. That was in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #69.

4. Mysterio’s return here is somewhat confusing and won’t be sorted out until much later. The facts:

   • Mysterio committed suicide after being diagnosed with a brain tumor in Daredevil (vol. 2) #7

   • He later appeared as an undead entity in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11-13.

   • Although this is the first Spider-Man has become aware of Mysterio’s survival, it is later revealed he has been active since Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #3, committing crimes in the Ultimate Universe using a robotic proxy, as revealed in Spider-Men #1-5.

   • How Mysterio came back from the dead remained unexplained until Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 5) #1, which revealed that Mysterio was resurrected by the undead entity calling itself Kindred.

5. Jean DeWolff was a police captain and ally of Spider-Man who was murdered by the Sin-Eater in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #107.

Topical References

• Outdated pop-culture references: The Saw films, Michael Bay special effects, eBay