Amazing Spider-Man #684

Sep 5

Sep 5 Amazing Spider-Man #684

Sand Trap

The Avengers have just been defeated by the Sinister Six. While the villains a distracted a woman wearing a invisibility suit pulls the Black Widow from the wreckage of their downed Quinjet. The mystery woman takes the Black Widow to her own ship, telling her that it they must convince the Sinister Six that she is dead if they have any hope of creating a distraction for Spider-Man.

At that moment, Spider-Man is at the mercy of Doctor Octopus after the villain incapacitated his new suit of armor. Otto orders the other members of the Sinister Six to clear out the defeated Avengers so he can have a moment alone with his old foe. Spider-Man tries to get Doctor Octopus to reveal his true plans for the world when the bomb planted on the Quinjet explodes. While Doctor Octopus is distracted by the blast, the mystery woman pulls Spider-Man out of there. Unable to find the web-slinger, Doctor Octopus retreats back to his sub to return to their base.

The mystery woman who saved Spider-Man turns out to be none other than Silver Sable who was using a new stealth technology developed by her country of Symkaria. They quickly retreat back into Silver Sable’s cloaked ship. There Sable explains that she rescued Spider-Man because he is resourceful enough to stop Doctor Octopus. The Black Widow, on the other hand, was only rescued because she was closest. As Spider-Man strips off his armor, he wishes he had the confidence in himself that Silver Sable does as his months of preparation against the Sinister Six turned out to be a bust. That’s when he is contacted by Grady Scraps, from Horizon Labs. He is patched through to the rest of the team, who have relocated to Horizon’s cruise ship, the Zenith, after the company was forced to shut down their offices in New York. Max Modell offers Horizon’s resources to help and inform him how Doctor Octopus has been gloating over his victory at the G8 summet.

Spider-Man is patched in to the feed at the G8 where Doctor Octopus is having the leaders of the world to vote on accepting his device that will save the planet from man-made climate change. Otto has demands in exchange for all of this, wanting the criminal records of his fellow Sinister Six to be expunged and each one to be given two billion dollars each.[1] For himself, Otto wants them to construct the Octavius Academy a shrine to his achievements and a foundation that will train the next generation of scientists. When the Sandman asks the Rhino what he is going to do with his money, his teammate says that the money means nothing to him as he and Octavius have made another arrangement. The last thing Otto needs is for the leaders of the world to allow him to fit more microsatellites to various missiles located around the globe.

This information is relayed to Silver Sable via the Symkarian Prime Minister. The Black Widow recognizes one of the missile sites as an old AIM base and suspects that this is where the Sinister Six is hanging out. Heading to the Sahara Desert, Spider-Man works remotely with the staff at Horizon Labs to develop a means of dealing with the Sandman as he is the most likely to be defending the desert base. When they arrive they find the facility is under the control of the Octobots. However, when they destroy the robots they discover that this facility was a ruise. They are soon attacked by the Sandman, who has the entire Sahara to use at his disposal.

However, Spider-Man has determined that the Sandman’s consciousness is in a single grain of sand which controls all the rest and uses a special dye to pinpoint where it is. To single it out, the Black Widow and Silver Sable use an app on their cell phone to send conflicting signals to the Sandman’s form, disorientating him enough for Spider-Man can contain the single grain that is the Sandman’s identity. With the Sandman defeated, Doctor Octopus tells the people of the world that Spider-Man is attempting to stop his attempts to save the world and orders everyone to help hunt down the web-slinger, whom he deems a menace to the entire world.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Sinister Six (Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, Sandman, Rhino, Chameleon), Silver Sable, Black Widow, Max Modell, Grady Scraps, Uatu Jackson, Bella Fishbach, Sajani Jaffrey, Tiberius Stone, Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Spider-Woman, Red Hulk)