Amazing Spider-Man #679
A Date With Predestiny
Spider-Man has been trying to stop the destruction of the city after seeing the aftermath in Grady Scrap’s time portal. Things are down to the last minute and the web-slinger is wracking his brain to figure out how to stop the catastrophy. That’s when the clock strikes 3:11 pm and nothing happens. Spider-Man reports back to Grady Scraps as he realizes that he was looking at an analogue watch he took from that future and realizes the destruction happened at 3:11 am, not 3:11 pm as they originally thought giving them more time.
This upsets Grady who thinks that he is useless to change anything. To try and prove this, Grady enters the portal and is horrified when Spider-Man’s dead body appears in the rubble of Horizon Labs. Horrified, Grady comes back to the present day and is relived when the dead Spider-Man vanishes. This grim vision of what might come to be makes Grady realize that he is needed, but he doesn’t tell Spider-Man the horrific image he saw. He goes back to the newspaper they got from the “good” version of the future to look for more clues as to what caused this disaster to happen. He finds nothing, and suggests Spider-Man do what he would normally do since, whatever happened, wasn’t reported in the newspaper. As Spider-Man begins to go on patrol his spider-sense begins going off.
Down below the Symkarian Pride Parade is in full swing with guest of honor, Silver Sable riding in a limo with mayor J. Jonah Jameson. When Sable spots Spider-Man swinging along the parade route she suspects trouble and after sending a silent signal to her undercover opeartives slips out of the limo without Jameson noticing. Not far away, Flag-Smasher and his ULTIMATUM operatives are setting a bomb. They are quickly spotted by Spider-Man and Silver Sable who quickly take them down. When Sable tries to disarm the bomb, Spider-Man steps in to do it instead, relying on his spider-sense to tell him the right wire to cut. With the danger over, J. Jonah Jameson and his security detail arrive and decide to cover this up so it doesn’t ruin the day. Spider-Man is upset that he isn’t going to be celebrated for saving the city, until SIlver Sable kisses him as thanks for what he has done for her countrymen.
Back at Horizon Labs, Grady is worried when Spider-Man doesn’t immediately responds to his questions. That’s when his colleague Bella Fishbach comes up and asks about his latest invention. He tries to tell her that it is too complicated for her to understand, she gets offended and storms off. That when Spider-Man gets back on the line and confirms that Jameson covered up the bomb plot, hence why it wasn’t in the paper. This gives Spider-Man inspiration and he pays a visit to Joe Robertson at the Daily Bugle. He tells Joe to report everything he has done in tomorrow’s edition. That’s when Madame Web appears and tells Spider-Man that this won’t change the contents of the paper they have at Horizon Labs. Realizing that this won’t work Spider-Man takes off. Seeing Madme Web suddenly appear and disappear before his eyes does nothing but confuse Joe Robertson, who has no idea what’s going on.
With time running out, Spider-Man orders Scraps to keep an eye on the time portal while he goes around town and does everything he can to help in the hopes that something he does changes what happens tomorrow. Unfortunately, nothing Spider-Man is doing is changing anything. Grady begins to stress out when Spider-Man lets him go to answer another call. This call is from Mary Jane. She is asking if he is interested in meeting up, he is about to cancel when she says it isn’t the end of the world, this prompts Peter to change his mind. He quickly meets up with Mary Jane at a diner and starts probing her to see if there is any kind of new revelation in her life that might give him a clue to the coming catastrophe.[1] They get to talking about things and Mary Jane admits to him that she doesn’t worry about what tomorrow will bring because Peter will be around to protect her. This suddenly gives Peter the solution he’s been looking for. He rushes out telling Mary Jane that he’s got to save the city.
As he rushes to Horizon Labs, Peter calls Grady and tells him to shut down the time door. Scraps can’t understand why and Peter explains that everything changed when he walked through the portal earlier and that the reason why Tuesday hasn’t changed is because they have kept the time portal open the whole time. As he enters the lab, Peter quickly explains that it is the time portal itself that causes the explosion and they quickly shut it down with seconds to spare. They then wait out the final few seconds and are relieved when the explosion doesn’t happen. With the crisis over, Peter calls Mary Jane and leaves her a voice mail to say everything worked out and asks to meet up with her for breakfast. Meanwhile, Grady calls Bella Fishbach to apologize for earlier and asks for her help with his latest invention. As Peter and his colleagues work on fixing the problem with Grady’s time portal, Julia Carpenter checks her daughter’s temperature and is pleased to see that her fever has broken.
By this time, Peter, Grady and Bella are leaving Horizon Labs. On their way out they bump into Max Modell who is coming in for the day. Peter comments on his watch, which confuses Max because Peter commented on it earlier. As Max goes into the break room to put some coffee on he is confused when he turns around and discovers that his newspaper is gone. As it happens, the past version of Grady Scraps snatched the paper through the time portal while his back was turned.[2]
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Silver Sable, ULTIMATUM (Flag-Smasher), Grady Scraps, Joe Robertson, Madame Web, Mary Jane Watson, J. Jonah Jameson, Max Modell, Bella Fishbach, Rachel Carpenter
Continuity Notes
Peter mentions how his Aunt May once learned she inherited a nuclear reactor. Believe it or not this was a plotline that ran from Amazing Spider-Man #119 to 131. You know, the one where Doctor Octopus tries to marry Aunt May? That one.
So this story deals with two possible futures. One of the disaster that Spider-Man and Grady were trying to stop and a variant on that one where Spider-Man is seen dead in the ruins. At the time I write this, October 2020, Marvel has yet to assign reality numbers to these possible futures that, although they were prevented from being the future of Earth-616, would still exist as part of the Marvel Multiverse as parallel realities.
