The Last Stand Part One

Spider-Man thinks about how death and guilt are old friends of his, dating back to when he was a little boy. He remembers one day he was in his room crying when his Uncle Ben came to ask what was wrong. It turns out that other than some bullying at school from Flash Thompson, there doesn’t seem to be much wrong at school. In fact, Ben figures that Liz Allan has a crush on his nephew when Peter says she might join them at the science exhibition at Oscorp that weekend. After teasing Peter a bit, Ben got down to business and asks his nephew what’s wrong. Peter says he was thinking about how his aunt and uncle are much older than the parents of kids at school and he is worried that when they die he’ll be all alone again.[1] Ben tells Peter not to worry as both he and Aunt May have long lives ahead of them. Ben promised Peter that the Parkers were of hearty stock and that he’d be around to look after Peter for years to come, just like he promised his brother. Unfortunately, not long after this, Ben was murdered, something that Peter has blamed himself for ever since.[2]

From there, Peter recalls how the next important person to die in his life was Gwen Stacy. He relives the moment when she was captured and brought to the top of the George Washington Bridge by the Green Goblin. In the middle of the fight, Gwen was knocked off the bridge by an exploding pumpkin bomb. Peter remembers how he fired a web-line in an attempt to save her life. He remembers the sickening sound of her neck snapping from the sudden stop.[3] He then thinks about all the other people who have died since he became Spider-Man and figures that he has been to more funerals than anyone he knows.[4] However, one funeral he refuses to go to next is that of Aunt May, he vows to find her alive no matter what it takes.[5]

Right now, he is racing to a meeting with the man who has kidnapped Aunt May. He is surprised to see that it is none other than Mac Gargan, his old foe the Scorpion. At first, Peter doesn’t recognize him and Gargan has to tell him who he really is. That’s when Peter’s anger kicks in and he grabs Mac and pins him up against the window the building next to them, cracking the glass with the force. He demands to know where May is, not caring if he is compromising his secret identity out in public. Cool as a cucumber, Gargan tells Peter that May is still alive and she’ll stay that way if he listens to what he has to say. He tells Peter that if he is threatened again, the old woman dies. Peter then demands proof that his aunt is still alive but Mac tells Peter that he’s in no position to be making demands. Realizing that he doesn’t have any choice he puts Mac down. Acting as though this altercation didn’t happen, Mac brushes himself off and suggests they go and grab some lunch. They end up sitting on the patio of a cafe where Peter asks Mac why Marvel Girl of the X-Men would think that his Aunt May might be dead.[5] Gargan says he doesn’t know and warns Peter against threatening him when Parker once again vows to kill him if anything happened to his Aunt.

They then get down to business and Peter asks when Mac learned his secret identity. Gargan says that he’s known for about a year. Peter asks how this all came to be, including the reward money he gave to the Daily Bugle if someone revealed Spider-Man’s secret identity.[6] Gargan then reveals that this was all part of Norman Osborn’s revenge scheme. Osborn told Mac everything and what to do in the event that Spider-Man brought him to justice.[7] When Peter says this isn’t a game, Gargan points out that it is — both Parker and Osborn wear costumes, Norman killed Peter’s unborn child and Peter killed his son Harry.[8] Peter corrects him, saying he didn’t kill Harry. This is all besides the point says Gargan, who explains that Osborn pretty much had this whole scheme plotted out since he first found out Peter Parker was Spider-Man.[9] Peter thinks this doesn’t make any sense, pointing out that Norman Osborn was afraid for his life the last time he saw him at Ryker’s Island.

Gargan says that this was just the tip of the iceberg, and asks Peter why he keeps fighting the same enemies over and over again. When Peter asks what he is talking about, Mac says that things have been doing on behind the scene for years. He says things all started back in 1949 when the wealthy elite became concerned that the growing superhero community would begin taking a closer look at how they acquired their wealth and shut them down. At the time, heroes and villains weren’t so clearly defined as they became and so these elites pitted them against one another, creating foes for the heroes to fight in order to keep them distracted. Most of the villains back in those days were ex-GIs that were assigned to fighting the same heroes over and over. He says that one or two organizers are assigned to each hero. They get the ball rolling, by manufacturing threats but eventually, things take a life of their own, pointing to the recent auction for the Venom symbiote.[10] Peter finds this all very hard to believe and asks what that hall has to do with Norman Osborn. Mac points out that Norman Osborn is a billionaire biochemist who has secured many military contacts, saying that he was one of their favorite contractors until he got a little too crazy. He then says that the last two presidents shut down any super-villain projects that were still in operation. Since this organization had a lot of important names on it, they decided that Norman Osborn needed to be killed in order to keep them from getting out. When Peter asks why they haven’t killed Osborn by this point, Mac explains that they have been breaking into Oscorp facilities to eliminate any paper trail. Now, they’re planning on using Doctor Octopus to murder him, and this is why Aunt May was kidnapped, as an insurance policy to force Spider-Man to break Osborn out of prison at midnight.[11]

Peter refuses, but Gargan says that this is the only way he will see his aunt alive again. Peter threatens to call SHIELD, saying they’ll lock the Scorpion up, but Mac isn’t afraid saying that doing so will guarantee his aunt will die. When Peter asks why Norman is going through all this trouble to get busted out of prison, Mac explains that Spider-Man kept upping the ante and this is his penance for ruining everything Norman has built for himself. Gargan then brags about the enhancements to his powers and costume over the years. Peter asks why Gargan thinks he’ll help out with this plan, Mac grins and says its because Peter has already put enough friends and family into the ground. This evokes memories of the day Gwen Stacy died. On his way home, Peter thinks about the precarious situation he’s in. When he arrives at the front door of his apartment building, he finds one of his students, Humberto, waiting for him. Peter has totally forgotten that he agreed to help tutor him that afternoon. Peter almost blows the kid off but sticks to his responsibility and goes over the subject’s chemistry book.

Meanwhile, Mac Gargan returns to the apartment where his new costume is waiting for him. That’s when someone else begins mocking the new outfit from the shadows. Gargan asks who's there and is told that they are his new best friend that will bring him out into the big leagues. That’s when the Venom symbiote comes out of the shadows and tells Mac that he’s never had a friend like it before.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Scorpion, Venom symbiote (in flashback) Uncle Ben, All-Winners Squad (Captain America, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner), Angel, Whizzer, Black Widow, Challenger, Black Marvel, Asbestos Lady, Doctor Crime

Continuity Notes

1. Peter’s concerns stem from the fact that his parents are dead. They died while on a government mission when Peter was still young as seen in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5. According to Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #6, Aunt May is 72 at the time of the present-day portion of these stories. According to the Marvel Chronology Project, this flashback happens-before Peter became Spider-Man (Amazing Fantasy #15) but after the Fantastic Four got their power (Fantastic Four #1). Based on this, this flashback happened roughly 11 years prior to the main story, putting May and Ben in their 60s at the time of this flashback.

2. Here we go, another dead Uncle Ben reference. Amazing Fantasy #15.

3. Gwen Stacy was murdered by the Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man #121.

4. Spider-Man goes through a litany of dead friends and family. Those he doesn’t mention are pictured in the sea of faces in a one-pages splash of Spider-Man mourning his losses. These people are:

• George Stacy, father of Gwen, he was killed pushing a child out of the way of falling debris during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus in Amazing Spider-Man #90.

• Harry Osborn is believed to have died due to complications from exposing himself to the Goblin Formula in Spectacular Spider-Man #200. However, unknown to everyone at the time, Harry survived and was secreted away to Europe by his father to undergo rehab, as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #581-582. He will resurface in Amazing Spider-Man #545.

• Jean DeWolff was one of the few police detectives since George Stacy who was a true ally to Spider-Man. She was murdered by the Sin-Eater in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #107.

• Bennett Brant is the brother of Betty Brant, Peter’s one-time girlfriend and long time friend. As far as Peter knows, Bennett was killed by Blackie Gaxton in Amazing Spider-Man #11. Unknown to Peter, Bennett actually survived and will resurface as the new Crime-Master in Venom (vol. 2) #1. How he survived is detailed in Venom (vol. 2) #21.

• Frederick Foswell was a reporter for the Daily Bugle who was fatally shot while trying to protect J. Jonah Jameson from the Kingpin in Amazing Spider-Man #52.

• Ben Reilly, was a clone of Peter Parker who was murdered by the Green Goblin as well in Spider-Man #75.

• Flash Thompson is depicted among the faces, however, he’s not dead. His inclusion here is because he’s confined to a wheelchair and in a catatonic state following a car accident orchestrated by the Green Goblin in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #44-47. He will remain in a catatonic state until Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3.

• Bluebird — aka Sally Avril — is actually one of Peter’s first people in his life to die after Uncle Ben. She was a girl in his high school class who thought it would be a good idea to moonlight as a superhero until she died in a car accident in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #13.

• Ned Leeds was a reporter at the Daily Bugle and was murdered by the Foreigner’s assassins under the mistaken belief that he was the Hobgoblin as seen in Spider-Man Versus Wolverine #1/Amazing Spider-Man #289.

• Lastly, there is Seymour O’Reilly, who was another classmate of Peter Parker when he was in high school. He was recently murdered by Venom in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #7 during their high school reunion.

5. Marvel Girl attempted to find out what happened to May in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #6. She thinks May is dead because May has actually been buried alive in her husband’s grave as we’ll see in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #12.

6. J. Jonah Jameson offered this reward in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #4, but retracted the offer last issue when Peter Parker convinced him that Spider-Man was his son, John Jameson.

7. The Green Goblin went to prison in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #1.

8. Ah, the Parker baby. Mary Jane revealed that she was pregnant in Spectacular Spider-Man #220. Tragically, Norman Osborn forced Mary Jane to have a miscarriage in Amazing Spider-Man #418.

9. Norman Osborn learned that Peter Parker was Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #39.

10. Eddie Brock auctioned off the Venom symbiote in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #5-8.

11. Osborn’s concerns were first raised in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #6 and a drugged up Doctor Octopus was seen in the previous issue. Is there some kind of grand conspiracy? Well there hasn’t been anything that proves this since as I write this (June 2020) one could assume that this was Norman Osborn fucking with everybody.

Topical References

• Mac Gargain states that when Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush found out about these programs they shut them down. This should be considered topical references as they both finished two terms as President of the United States and are no longer part of the US government, having retired from government service.