Of Mists and Mirrors

On a cold winter day, Spider-Man stops to pick up the latest edition of the Daily Bugle from a newsstand as he swings across the city.[1] As he scans th front page he finds a newspaper advertisement for a new television service called Mystery Vision. Although he finds the advertisement interesting, he doesn't have a television that allows him to check it out. With his break over, Spider-Man swings back to the Daily Grind the coffee shop where he works in his civilian identity of Ben Reilly. As he does so, he thinks about his recent encounter with Armada and how he wishes he could find a line on him and recover the stolen DIT Chip the villain took from Professor Ramirez. Inside, the only customer is photography student Jessica Carradine. As Ben whips her up a latté she notices how dead the shop is, more so than usual even though it is the Christmas holidays. Shirley Washington figures it must be the new Mystery Vision as her son Devon is obsessed with the service since it came on the air.

When Ben serves Jessica her beverage, he notices that she has books on photography and he tells her that he used to dabble in photography himself.[2] The two get to talking and when he asks why she hasn't gone home to be with her family for the holidays like the other students at Centennial University, she tells him that both of her parents passed away. She particularly talks about her father, who treated her great but died while she was still a teenager. She then quickly changes the subject back to photography, inviting him to join her on campus as she has photos that need to be developed. When Ben tells her that he still has a few hours left on his shift, Shirley lets him take the rest of the night off since the place is dead. He then joins Jessica back to campus where she shows him her workstation. He is surprised to see that she has photos of Spider-Man all over the walls and suddenly recognizes her as the woman who took the wall-crawler's photo the night before. She tells him that she is fascinated with the web-slinger, hence why she has taken all the photos and expresses an interest in photojournalism. Ben tells her she should try and show her work to the people at the Daily Bugle, saying that they are a good bunch. On their way out to the university darkroom, they run into Professor Ramirez, whom Ben recognizes as the creator of the DIT Chip that whose life he saved as Spider-Man. Seeing how frantic Ramirez looks, Ben makes an excuse about having to go back to the Daily Grind so he can slip away and change into his alter-ego.

Paying a visit to Professor Ramirez in his lab, Spider-Man notices that he is in some sort of trance. Looking at the television screen he notices that it is tuned to Mystery Vision. His spider-sense warning him of danger coming from the video broadcast and quickly looks away. Knocking over Ramirez's briefcase he notices it contains a bunch of newspaper clips containing reviews of Mystery Vision. Somehow, the two-day-old television network is managing to beat all the major networks, something that is quite impossible. Realizing that something is up, the wall-crawler webs up the television screen which causes Ramirez to snap out of his trance. With his free will back, Professor Ramirez tells Spider-Man his fear that Mystery Vision has gotten ahold of his DIT Chip and is using it to enthrall viewers. Suspecting that the inventor is on the right track, Spider-Man decides to swing out to Mystery Vision's head office to investigate. He finds that they are located inside an old abandoned movie studio that is run down. However, on the inside, he finds a modern looking office. The secretary tells him that illusions are what Mystery Vision is all about. This makes the web-slinger even more suspicious and he decides to sneak back into the building through an open window in one of the upper floors.

Sneaking around upstairs, Spider-Man is caught by a man named Rudolph Hines, the president of the company. She offers to give the wall-crawler a tour of the facility. He also shows off a new experimental virtual reality headset that the company is planning on incorporating with their television studio. Spider-Man puts it on and is impressed with the display, but ultimately finds nothing malicious going on. That's when the room fills with green smoke and "Hines" suddenly turns into Mysterio, who had been jamming Spider-Man's spider-sense since he entered the building. He then tells the wall-crawler that he has serious threats to deal with. Suddenly, a cartoon reindeer leap out of one of the television screens and smashes through the wall and begins terrorizing people in the street. Spider-Man leaps the window to stop it, thinking about his first battle with Mysterio along the way.[3] When Spider-Man leaps out the window, he sees that the cartoon reindeer has been joined by giant cartoon versions of Santa Claus and an elf. Mysterio watches from the hole in the wall, completely enthralled by the merging of fantasy and reality, calling it the greatest show on Earth. However, the wall-crawler isn't admiring the entertainment value below as his web-fluid has frozen inside his web-shooters, jamming the mechanisms. He quickly realizes that if he doesn't do something quick he will fall to his death.

This story is continued in Amazing Spider-Man #408...

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Mysterio, Jessica Carradine, Shirley Washington

Continuity Notes

1. Spider-Man wonders if J. Jonah Jameson is going to go after Mother Theresa. This should be considered a topical reference of the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616 as she died in 1997.

2. At the time of this story, Ben Reilly thinks that he is the real Peter Parker who took photos for the Daily Bugle starting in Amazing Spider-Man #2. Ben was told he was the real Peter Parker in The Spectacular Spider-Man #226. However, this is a deception orchestrated by the Green Goblin as revealed in Spider-Man: The Goblin Legacy #1. Ben has all of Peter Parker's memories up to Amazing Spider-Man #149.

3. In actuality, it was Peter Parker's first battle with Mysterio which happened in Amazing Spider-Man #13.