Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #21
Consuming Passions
The spider-creature called Ero has just kidnapped Flash Thompson before Spider-Man could stop her. Before he can pick up the trail he is approached by a police officer who tries to place him under arrest. Peter tries focusing his spider-sense to track Flash, ignoring the police officer. That’s when he hears Flash’s cell phone buzzing on the floor — it fell out of his pocket as he was kidnapped — and answers it. It’s Betty Brant checking to see if Flash is safe, and after webbing up the police officer’s gun, Spider-Man tells Betty what happened. He contemplates where she could have taken him and remembers he saw her cocoon in a deconsecrated church.[1] Telling Betty to stay put he hangs up and then confronts the police officer who is now going into his trunk to find a shotgun. The officer tells Spider-Man that he has called for back-up and orders him to give up. This angers Spider-Man and, disarming the officer and shattering his gun, telling the officer that giving up weighs heavily on his head 24/7. If he had given up his Aunt May wouldn’t have been shot.[2] and his wife wouldn’t be living in fear.[3] That would have also meant giving up on all the people he saved and criminals he stopped. He points out that Captain America gave up and he wound up dead.[4] When the officer still insists that Spider-Man is under arrest, the web-slinger gives up trying to convince this officer and swings away unaware that his whole speech was recorded by a man watching from his apartment.
By this point, Flash has woken up and discovered that he is webbed up to the wall of the church. When he starts freaking out, Ero tells him to calm down as things will all work out for him, at least for her that is. When he calls her a monster, Era explains that it is Spider-Man that is the monster because he disrupted the natural order by refusing to die and that she has been sent to restore order.[5] Suddenly, Ero begins convulsing in pain and drops to the ground. As Flash realizes that Betty was right about her, he calls her crazy.[6] She tells him to hold on and suddenly shoves her hand through her stomach and pulls out a massive egg clutch that is about to hatch. She reveals that she selected Flash as a mate to feed her children because due to his recent coming out of the coma, he has the necessary build-up of tantric energy to feed her children.[7] As a result, she can raise an army of creatures just like herself that can hunt down and destroy Spider-Man. She explains that she will shove the egg clutch down his throat and when her children hatch at dawn they will consume his body. She tells him that the release of tantric energy will merge the two of them together and he will live on inside her children. However, when she tries to force Peter to swallow the egg clutch he refuses to open his mouth. That’s when Spider-Man arrives and tries to pull the egg clutch out of her hands with a web-line. She then leaps at Spider-Man producing stingers from her wrists. Spider-Man responds to extracting his own stingers.
Meanwhile, at the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson and Joe Robertson have just received footage of Spider-Man’s earlier confrontation with a police officer and can’t wait to show it to the world. That’s when Joe Robertson thinks Jonah needs to stop and cut Peter a break. Jameson doesn’t want to let it go especially after Peter Parker tricked him for years. Joe doesn’t buy it, pointing out all the years that Peter has worked for them and how it was so obvious that Peter and Spider-Man were the same person and they refused to acknowledge it, particularly Jonah must have had some inkling and kept it secret because it helped sell newspapers. He then tells Jonah to look at the video again an see that this isn’t just some anonymous super-hero, but a co-worker and a friend who is in a great deal of pain. He suggests that maybe this one time the Daily Bugle doesn’t actively go out of its way to add to his problems. After finishing his speech, Joe tells Jonah that he can do whatever he wants since he is the boss.
Back at the church, the battle rage on and Spider-Man is glad for once to see his stingers are back in action. As they fight, Ero says that they represent a part of him that he rejects and that they only come out when they are fighting an entity such as herself. She then reiterates the fact that he is Spider-Man’s opposite, pointing out their various opposite traits. Spider-Man gets sick of her pontificating and says he knows all about darkness and impales her through the chest. This does little to slow Ero, who stabs Spider-Man back telling him that darkness is where she lives and he is just passing through. The venom from her stinger slows him down enough to get kicked into a pew. While Spider-Man is stunned, Ero decides that she will make her children consume Spider-Man instead since he is a much more suitable host to Flash. Grabbing her egg clutch, Ero then pulls up Spider-Man’s mask and tells Peter to open wide.
While back at the Daily Bugle, Joe Robertson goes to Jonah’s office to apologize for his previous outburst, as doing it in front of the whole bullpen was unprofessional. Jonah agrees and then tells Joe that he’s fired.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Ero, Flash Thompson, Betty Brant, J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson
Continuity Notes
Spider-Man spotted Ero’s cocoon in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14.
After Spider-Man revealed his identity in Civil War #2, the Kingpin ordered a hit on the wall-crawler and/or a member of his family. The sniper ended up shooting Aunt May in Amazing Spider-Man #238, and she has been on life support ever since.
Mary Jane is referred to as Peter’s wife here. However, not long after this story, their marriage is erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. In the new timeline, Peter would refer to Mary Jane as his fiancee instead of his wife.
Captain America surrendered in Civil War #7 when he realized the public supported the Super-Human Registration Act instead of his resistance who were against it. When Cap was being brought to court to stand trial he was shot by an assassin’s bullet in Captain America (vol. 5) #25. However, Cap wasn’t killed but sent on a constant look through history. He will return from the “grave” (so to speak) in Captain America: Reborn #1-6.
She is referring to the events of the Other: Evolve or Die (Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1-4, Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #19-22, and Amazing Spider-Man #525-528) Peter Parker was asked to embrace the Spider and shed his humanity and he refused, resulting in the Other (aka Ero) from being unleashed in his plane of reality to reset the balance. It’s later explained in Scarlet Spider (vol. 2) #14, that the Other had chosen Spider-Man to be her avatar. Spider-Woman (vol. 5) #3 later reveals that the Other is part of a trinity that includes the Scion and the Bride that were needed to prevent the Inheritors from destroying every Spider-Totem in the multiverse.
Ero was gaslighting Betty to prevent her from dating Flash starting in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #18.
Flash Thompson was in a car accident circa Peter Parker: Spider-Man #44-47. Her statement that he was a coma the whole time is not accurate. Flash was actually in a catatonic state from Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #1 to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3. Which is really splitting hairs because the end result is still the same, dude hadn’t busted a nut the whole time.
