Schrödinger's Catastrophe

Peter Parker wakes up and realizes it is Monday morning. However, he is looking forward to the day ahead thinking about how, as Spider-Man, is a member of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and has a good-paying job at Horizon Labs as Peter Parker. Getting ready for the day, Peter heads to Horizon Labs and decides to walk into work since it is such a nice day. Along the way he bumps into Bambi Modica and helps a tourist with directions. When he arrives at Horizon Labs, Uatu Jackson asks what is bringing Peter in so early. He explains that he has double-check duty on Grady Scrap’s latest invention.[1]

Grady is excited to show Peter his latest invention and shows him a doorway. All Peter sees is the Horizon Lab’s break room. However, Grady says that they are looking at the break room as it will appear tomorrow. Peter can hardly believe that Grady made a time machine but Grady proves it by going into the break room and retrieving a newspaper with tomorrow’s date that features a front page story about J. Jonah Jameson shaking hands with Silver Sable as part of a celebration of New York’s Symkarian population. Peter can hardly believe that he is looking at Tuesday’s newspaper. When Grady suggests that Peter try it out. When Peter steps through the portal the scene suddenly changes and Peter finds himself standing in the ruins of what was once Horizon Labs.[2]

When Grady tries to cross through, Peter tells him to stay on the other side and begins searching the rubble for clues. He finds a watch that stopped at 3:10 pm, confirming when this disaster happened. Peter then returns to the present day and tells Grady that they must work together to prevent this disaster from happening. Theorizing what happened, Grady explains that the device makes whoever goes through the portal they skip ahead 24 hours, hence why the tomorrow changed when Peter crossed over. Grady didn’t affect the future because he doesn’t do much but Peter, whom Grady knows is “friends” with Spider-Man altered the future by crossing through the portal. However, the disaster has remained even though Peter returned suggesting that whatever caused this disaster is still destined to happen. That’s when Peter remembers that they still have the newspaper from the “good” Tuesday. Peter heads off to “get’ Spider-Man and tells Grady to examine the paper for clues that might tell them the event that caused the disaster in the “bad” version of Tuesday.

As Peter heads out of the lab he bumps into Max Modell who is surprised to see him leaving so suddenly. Peter recognizes the watch on Max’s hand and recognizes it as the one he found in the wreckage of tomorrow. Peter rushes out to a nearby alley to change into his costume when he is approached by Madame Web, who had to come to him ot of costume because she was taking care of her daughter, Rachel, who is home with the flu. She tells him that her visions of the future tell him that Spider-Man can’t enlist his allies and deal with this crisis on his own as anyone else who learns about this it could make things worse. Peter is upset by this, especially since Madame Web can’t elaborate due to the rules around her clairvoyant abilities. Madame Web understands Spider-Man’s feelings and returns home to care for her daughter.

Arriving in Rockefeller Plaza, Spider-Man calls Grady Scraps and has him tell him what tomorrow’s edition of the Daily Bugle says about his activities over the next day. With Grady’s guidance, Spider-Man stops eleven purse snatchers, stops an out of control limo, helps a pregnant woman deliver a baby, and takes down FACADE. However, they are getting close to 3:10 pm and the future in Grady’s portal has not changed.

As they wonder what they could be missing, J. Jonah Jameson is addressing the press for the Symkarian Pride Parade with Silver Sable. As the parade begins nobody is aware that Flag-Smasher and his ULTIMATUM operatives are planning to plant a bomb on one of the parade floats. Meanwhile, not far away, Spider-Man grows frustraited because Grady has reported in and nothing about the future has changed. As the seconds continue to tick down, Spider-Man stops and begins wracking his brains to figure out how to stop the tragedy that will happen mere minutes from now.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Grady Scraps, Max Modell, Uatu Jackson, Madame Web, Rachel Carpenter, FACADE, ULTIMATUM (Flag-Smasher), J. Jonah Jameson, Silver Sable, Bambi Modica

Continuity Notes

1. Peter mentions how “double-check duty” at Horizon Labs is to make sure nobody pulls a “Doctor Doom" and blows their faces off. This is reference to the accident that scarred Doctor Doom’s face while he was in University. See Fantastic Four #5.

2. For the purposes of time travel in the Marvel Universe even though Peter ultimately prevents this future from happening it would still exist as an alternate timeline. However, as I write this in October 2020, Marvel has yet to index this timeline with a reality number.

Topical References

• Outdated pop-culture references: Uncharted 3, Bluetooth