Getting Ahead

While on patrol, Spider-Man thinks about how he read a book called “Getting Head” which said the key to success was having a smile on your face and being as honest as possible so you could sleep at night. He muses that while he’s always been honest, he doesn’t sleep very well at night. However, he thinks he is entitled to sleepless nights ever since Mary Jane died. Despite the fact that he has accepted this, he still catches himself keeping a lookout for her, hoping that one day he’ll just happen to find her.[1] Just recently he has been questioning everything after his recent battle with the Green Goblin, who boasted that Spider-Man would never defeat him and wonders if Norman Osborn is right.[2] This gets him thinking about why Mary Jane hated him being Spider-Man so often, thinking that perhaps she understood what Norman Osborn only recently made him realize, that the lines he vowed never to cross are starting to blur and he’s heading down a path of no return. Perhaps she feared that Peter wasn’t going to lose his life, but she was afraid that he was going to lose himself. He is in the middle of deciding to give up being Spider-Man when there is an explosion in a building below making him decide that he’ll consider it tomorrow.

Lowering himself into the street of Time Square below, Spider-Man discovers that an electrical surge has caused all the electronics on the block have gone haywire. Once there, the web-slinger is put on the defensive as the massive electronic billboards on Times Square begin firing bolts of electricity at him. Running on instinct, Spider-Man finds the main power source and pulls a wire that feeds electrical current to the signs. As one of the billboards go dark, Spider-Man briefly sees a pixilated image of a face and a message asking for his help. Although he only sees it for a moment, Spider-Man is certain that the image was of Mendel Stromm, aka the Robot Master. He recalls how Mendel Stromm was once business partners with Norman Osborn who betrayed him leading to Stromm becoming the Robot-Master.[3] He thinks about all of his encounters with Stromm and how he is a psychopath with little regard for human life.

To investigate the source of the electrical surges, Peter pays a visit to one of his old science teachers, Daphnie Smith. Saying that he is researching a story for the Daily Bugle, he asks Smith about what could have caused the power surged in Times Square the night before. Putting their minds together they both deduce that the electronics in the square couldn’t generate the necessary power to cause such surges and they would have burned out if they did, yet they have not. Daphnie suggests the electricity had to have come from the grid somehow and that the power company could look into it. After, Peter asks Daphnie for advice on how to cope with the death of Mary Jane. When he tells her that his friends are pressuring him to let go and move on, Smith tells Peter that he shouldn’t do that unless he wants to.[4]

The following day Long Island is hit by a power surge and as usual pixilated image of Mendel Stromm has made an appearance. In order to get to the bottom of things, Peter has his roommate Randy Robertson to the help of his hacker friend Shea Tinker to hack into the electrical system so they can learn where the surges are coming from.[5] With Shea’s hacking skills, Peter is able to pinpoint the power surges to a power station at the Shea Relay Station. Arriving there as Spider-Man, the web-slinger immediately has to run for cover as the transformers begin surging with electricity. He finds cover in the station house where he begins following a tunnel full of wires to their source. Surprisingly, the wires come to life and try to squeeze the life out of the arachnid. Pulling all the wires loose, Spider-Man is then attacked by Mendel Stromm’s two robots. After easily destroying these robots, Spider-Man then rushes into the next room where he finds the severed head of Mendel Stromm attached to machines. Weakly, Stromm asks Spider-Man for help.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Robot Master, Randy Robertson, Shea Tinker, Daphnie Smith

Continuity Notes

1. Everyone believes Mary Jane had died in a plane crash in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #13. However, she survived as we will learn in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #29.

2. Spider-Man’s most recent battle with the Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #25/Peter Parker: Spider-Man #25

3. Mendel Stromm’s history with Norman Osborn was detailed in Amazing Spider-Man #40. Peter is right that Norman took over his whole company but that was the only after he caught Stromm embezzling money from the company. Stromm became the Robot-Master in Amazing Spider-Man #37.

4. Daphnie refers to Mary Jane as Peter’s wife. However, years later their marriage was erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. As such, Daphnie would refer to Mary Jane as Peter’s fiancee instead.

5. Shea brags that he was part of the Microsoft hack. He is referring to a massive hacking incident that happened on October 27, 2000 when hackers managed to break Microsoft’s corporation’s computers This should, obviously be considered a topical referece.