Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #19
Sandblasted Conclusion
Some Time Ago
The janitor at Midtown High is busy cleaning up the hallway after Spider-Man’s battle with Mysterio.[1] He comes across Principal Roger Harrington who is still locked in the AV Room. When the janitor frees him, Harrington is told that the danger of Mysterio is over. Suddenly, the janitor breaks his mop in half and fatally impales Harrington with the broken end. After licking the blood on the end of his broken mop handle, he wonders who will clean this up as he hates being a janitor, but fortunately, that will soon change.
Now
The Sandman’s father, Floyd Baker, has been accused of murdering a the Ben Parker from another reality. Having just discovered the helmed of the Spider-Man from the year 2211, Spider-Man and the Sandman are using it to track this other Ben Parker who is apparently still alive and somewhere within a 200-mile radius from them.[2] To get there, they have hitched a ride with Dennis, a young goth who originally found the helmet belonging to Spider-Man 2211. When the Sandman asks why they are bothering with a van, Spider-Man points out that since they are both fugitives from the law, this is the best way to move around without alerting the authorities or SHIELD to their presence.
At that moment, a prison official visits Floyd Baker in his cell at Riker’s Island with the prison chaplain. He tells Baker that his execution is being pushed up because Spider-Man and his son have been working together to try and free him. This surprises Floyd as he hasn’t seen his son since he was a kid. However, the prison official informs that his son is now the criminal known as the Sandman, something that comes as a complete surprise to Floyd.[3]
Elsewhere, Flash Thompson is driving Betty Brant home, upset that she got them thrown out of a fancy restaurant after drugs were found in the bathroom she claimed was infested with spiders. Betty insists that she was telling the truth and is almost convinced that Miss Arrow — the school nurse that Flash unsuccessfully tried dating — is trying to prevent them from going out. That’s when Betty spots Miss Arrow on the street corner waving at her. When she tells Flash to look he takes his eyes off the road long enough to accidentally rear-end a police car. When she tires to get out of the car to show everyone that Miss Arrow is following them, the police officer arrests her for not following his orders. When she looks again, Miss Arrow is suddenly gone. As the officer slips Betty into handcuffs, nobody notices the swarm of spiders retreating into a storm drain.[4]
By this time, Spider-Man and the Sandman find themselves outside of Midtown High. Spider-Man can’t believe it, but the helmet of his future counterpart confirms that the killer of Spider-Man 2211 is still there. When it asks what sort of justice he wants to dispense, Spider-Man isn’t entirely sure and decides to go with poetic justice. When Dennis tries to join them, Spider-Man orders the youth to stay in the van, promising to tell him everything that happened after. On their way into the school, Sandman asks what Peter’s Uncle Ben would think of him now. When he asks why Sandman says he is wondering what makes a father figure proud. He tells Spider-Man to forget it, prompting the web-slinger to quip that he misses the days when the Sandman would try and kill him. Inside the school, Spider-Man and Sandman hear voices. When Spider-Man asks how many people are ahead of them, he is confused when the helmet says there are eleven-thousand two-hundred and nine life signs 100 feet ahead of them.
That’s when Roger Harrington, the school principal, comes out of his office with a shotgun. He demands to know what’s going on. As the Sandman ensnares the man in his sandy form, Spider-Man tells him to hold up because he thinks the helmet might be malfunctioning, telling the Sandman about the eleven-thousand life forms it picked up. When he looks in the office he sees nobody inside, unaware that a bunch of spiders are retreating into the ventilation system. When he tells Sandman to let Harrington go, a second Sandman suddenly bursts free of the prison created by the first. When Spider-Man who this person really is, tey suddenly change shape into the Spider-Man of 2211. While Spider-Man is stunned by these startling transformations, the man who is now posing as Spider-Man 2211 attacks him, forces the real Spider-Man 2211’s helmet from his grasp and tosses it out a window where it is found by Dennis who is still hanging around outside. When his attacker changes back into the shape of Roger Harrington, Spider-Man asks who they are, but they refuse, wanting Spider-Man to try and figure it out on his own. Peter deduces that since they know about Spider-Man from 2211, he considers the fact in the future there is also a version of the Hobgoblin. Considering that fact and his foe’s shapeshifting powers, he asks if they are the Chameleon of 2211. Changing into the form of Ben Parker, the Chameleon confirms this is true, explaining that he managed to escape into the past along with the Hobgoblin when she broke out of prison and reveals that he murdered the real Roger Harrington not long after Spider-Man defeated Mysterio.
At that same moment, Floyd Baker is being walked to the electric chair. Along the way, he insists that he is innocent but nobody is willing to listen to him. Back at the school, the Chameleon explains that he can change into anyone he wants, provided he consumes some of their DNA. Hearing this, Spider-Man deduces what happened. The Ben Parker from another reality encountered the Chameleon who then killed Ben Parker and took his shape. Shortly after, Floyd Baker came across Ben Parker as he was dying from the gunshot wounds and that’s why he claimed was killed by himself. When Spider-Man asks what kind of person could do something so callous. That’s when the Chameleon reverts to its true form, a massive reptilian looking creature, and asks who is calling it human. As he attacks the pair, the Chameleon gloats how easily he was able to fool Spider-Man’s spider-sense with his disguises, but notes that a woman who is far more powerful than the web-slinger was able to see through it. Spider-Man tries to ask who the Chameleon is talking about but gets choked by the monster’s tail. That’s when Dennis comes charging in wearing the helmet of Spider-Man 2211 and tosses it at the wall-crawler. Spider-Man slams the helmet on the Chameleon’s head and orders it to dispense justice. Suddenly, the Chameleon and Floyd Baker switch places just as his executioner is throwing the switch on the electric chair. When the prison staff removes the electrode helmet from the body they are shocked to discover that Floyd Baker has been replaced with someone whose face is an amalgam of everyone the Chameleon disguised himself as while in this time period.
Finding himself in the hallway in Midtown High, Floyd Baker is confused about what happened. That’s when the Sandman explains what happened and learns that his father was moments away from being executed in the electric chair before they saved him.[5] As the Bakers are happily reunited, none of them are aware that Miss Arrow is watching them from a ceiling vent.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Sandman, Floyd Baker, Chameleon 2211, Roger Harrington, Flash Thompson, Betty Brant, “Miss Arrow”
Continuity Notes
After Peter Parker revealed his secret identity in Civil War #2, Mysterio attempted to attack Spider-Man at Midtown High as seen in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11-13.
There’s a lot to unpack here. Previously, in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #8-10, the Hobgoblin from 2211 brought the Ben Parker from Earth-6078 to Earth-616 as part of a scheme to alter reality to suit her whims. She was killed by one of her own Retcon Bombs. Later, both Ben Parker and Spider-Man 2211 were murdered by the Chameleon of 2211, as we’ll find out later on in this issue.
Floyd’s surprise is explained in further detail in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Annual #1, which reveals that the Sandman often spent time in prison with his father, but never revealed his true identity to him.
Issues #21-22 of this series reveals that “Miss Arrow” is actually the Other, an entity made up entirely of spiders that is attempting to force Spider-Man into fully embracing the spider.
The Sandman mentions how he last saw his father at Coney Island and thought he was dead until recently. These details are explored in detail in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Annual #1.
Making Sense of the Death Penalty In This Story
The way this story arc is written, the death penalty is a necessary component as it establishes a ticking clock as well as foreshadowing the ultimate conclusion to the story. As such, it can’t be simply dismissed as a topical reference as it is integral to the plot.
That said, the Earth-616 Universe exists in a world that typically mirrors real-life history, only with superheroes. This fictional universe operates on a Sliding Timescale, in order to prevent the aging their characters a whole lot. As such, often facts that were true at the time of publication are later considered topical references and should be ignored or generalized. That makes Floyd Baker’s looming execution somewhat problematic, particularly that the State of New York decided that the death penalty was unconstitutional and abolished it in 2004. Death row inmates were commuted to life sentences the following year and, in 2008, all execution rooms were dismantled.
This story was published in 2006, making it already 2 years out of date with respect to the death penalty. So how do you explain this story where, not only is Floyd Baker sitting on death row, but he is brought to the electric chair and nearly executed? Marvel doesn’t really provide any explanation for it.
I have a theory: In Superior Spider-Man #11-13, J. Jonah Jameson uses his power as mayor of New York City to reinstate the death penalty for the sole purpose of executing the Spider-Slayer for murdering his wife, Marla Madison. In the real world, the mayor of New York wouldn’t have the authority to reinstate the death penalty, that’s something that is decided at the State level. However, this is a world where superhumans exist and the vast majority of them exist in New York City. I wouldn’t be surprised if the law in New York City in this world operates with a bit more autonomy than the rest of the state likely due to how much the super-hero population affects this city (everything from property values to insurance rates) I could see the State of New York giving the city a greater deal of autonomy so that the expenses incurred by the city doesn’t get downloaded to the state.
In last issue, when two prison guards were talking about executions, one of them says that it is an election year. A mayoral election later becomes a major plot point in Amazing Spider-Man from issue #546-591, ending with Jameson getting elected mayor. Per the Sliding Timescale, a year of Marvel TIme elapses between this story and Jameson getting elected for mayor.
My theory is that the city of New York can instate or abolish the death penalty autonomously from the rest of the state and that this decision is made at the municipal level because of large amount of superhuman related crime. At the time of this story, I figure the mayor was using capital punishment as one of his platforms and after this story — where the Chameleon was executed instead of Floyd Baker — raised enough questions for the death penalty to be abolished until J. Jonah Jameson became mayor and reinstated it to execute the Spider-Slayer in Superior Spider-Man.
