Time, Run Like a Freight Train...

After battling the Enchantress in Asgard, Spider-Man and Gargoyle are glad to be back on Earth and decide to spend some time together. Gargoyle explains his origin to Spidey, and the two rescue an elderly woman from some thugs, whom Spidey webs up to leave for the police. Gargoyle offers to escort the woman, Sadie Bass, back to her apartment, while Spidey decides to visit his Aunt May at Restwell Nursing Home. Gargoyle finds out that Sadie’s daughter has been trying to prolong her life by making her see various doctors, but Sadie feels that her time has come.

Meanwhile, Peter Parker learns that Aunt May’s fiancée, Nathan Lubensky, has left her and the nursing home after the death of another one of the old friends from his vaudeville days. Gargoyle takes Sadie and her daughter, Beatrice, on a flight around the city to relieve their burdens. They return to Sadie’s apartment, where Beatrice agrees to stop forcing her mother to see doctors.

Meanwhile, Spidey deduces that Nathan might have returned to the boarded-up theater where he and his vaudeville friend used to perform on stage. Nathan paid an attendant from Restwell named Jose to bring him to the theater, but Jose flees when they are confronted by the same group of thugs that Spidey and Gargoyle had encountered earlier. The police never arrived to arrest them, so they escaped after Spidey’s web dissolved. Spidey arrives to find the thugs harassing Nathan and webs up two of them without the others noticing.

Aunt May, having been informed of Nathan's whereabouts by Jose, arrives and threatens the thugs if they don’t leave her fiancée alone. Spidey appears from the shadows behind May and Nathan, which frightens the thugs away, but he doesn’t reveal himself to the elderly couple and lets them think that they drove the thugs off themselves. Back at Sadie’s apartment, Sadie decides to take a “rest” and passes away peacefully while holding Beatrice and Gargoyle’s hands. Leaving Beatrice alone to grieve, Gargoyle departs and runs into Spider-Man again. The two are unable to put what they’ve just experienced into words and sit quietly together on a rooftop.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Gargoyle, Aunt May, Nathan Lubensky

Continuity Notes

• The narrative of this story states that it occurs immediately after Spider-Man's adventure in Asgard with the Defenders in Defenders #109.

• Issac Christians recounts the events that led to his transformation into the Gargoyle. These events were first depicted in Defenders #94. He also recalls his recent bout with suicidal depression that ended following his battle with Null the Living Darkness in Defenders #103.

• Peter recalls how his Aunt May and Nathan Lubenski are leaving Restwell to live on their own again. They decided this in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #68.

• References to Nathan Lubenski being a Vaudvillian actor that performed in the 1920s should be considered topical references per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. Likewise, the depiction of the original twin towers at the site of the World Trade Center should be considered topical. Those towers were destroyed in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The timescale has pushed forward enough that the modern age begins well after that date.