Kidnapped

Up and coming council electorate Brian Daley has been using his "Family Man" image to boost his campaign, earning the ire of his wife Marjory for exploiting the family in such a manner and neglecting them of any real family rearing. Going out to take his son Brian Jr. for a walk for appearances sake, Daley begins promoting himself on the streets. As he has a small crowd distracted with a speech, Daley's child is stolen out of his stroller by a poor woman named Conchita Hernandez. Hernandez's baby napping is not noticed until she is long gone, prompting Brain Daley to cause a media frenzy to try and find his child and stir up voter sympathy.

Spider-Man meanwhile is on his way to the hospital as Felicia Hardy is going to be released that day. Along the way he reflects on his witnessing the Punisher experiencing a nervous breakdown in the middle of his court arrangement and wonders if he too will eventually share this fate. Arriving at the hospital he finds that Felicia is ready to leave the hospital with her mother. Felicia is eager to resume being Spider-Man's partner in fighting crime, however Spider-Man cautions her that she is still on the mend and has to wait until she is fully healed before she resumes her costumed crime fighting. When Spider-Man asks a nurse how much Felicia's medical bill is, he is surprised to find that they treated her free of charge on the account that she and Spider-Man saved the city.

Parting ways with Felicia, Spider-Man travels to the Daily Bugle to report to work as Peter Parker. There he is surprised to find that the office has been turned into a make shift news set. J. Jonah Jameson, a staunch supporter of Brian Daley has hired a news crew to put on a televised appeal for the return of Brian Jr. Offering a substantial reward for the child's safe return. The emotionally distraught Marjorie Daley accuses her husband of using this as yet another political stunt to win votes. Peter decides to go and try to find the child as Spider-Man.

Swinging across the city, Spider-Man searches for leads on the missing child. Conchita meanwhile has gone grocery shopping and returned to her slum apartment in the northern fringe of the city. A couple of junkies led by a man named Malo, who hang out on the stoop of her building recognize the child from the front page of the newspaper and decide to try and collect the reward themselves. As Spider-Man smashes up an arcade that is a front for a shooting gallery to try and learn the location of the child, Conchita's apartment is forced into by the junkies who beat Conchita and take the baby.

Spider-Man meanwhile is flagged down by a young kid who will only agree to give the Wall-Crawler his tip if he gives the reward over to him. Unimpressed by this greed, Spider-Man is hard pressed and agrees. Learning that Conchita had taken the baby, he arrives at her apartment too late. Listening to the woman's sob story about how she had a child of her own who started crying but then suddenly stopped, the Wall-Crawler is mortified to find a dead baby in the crib. Realizing that Conchita is not well, he tells her to call the hospital and promises not to tell anyone that she kidnapped the child and agrees to go after Malo.

Spider-Man tracks Malo's goons to an abandoned tenement and rounds them up one by one, but Malo makes a break for it with the child. Chasing the child into the ruins of a collapsed tenement, Malo falls into the foundation of the ruined building. Having shielded the baby from harm, but breaking his ankle Malo is at Spider-Man's mercy. Before Spider-Man can collect the child, they are attacked by a pack of wild dogs. Fighting off the dogs, Spider-Man is then handed the baby.

Later when the child is reunited with it's family, Marjorie makes a fool out of her husband before the media cameras by grabbing Brian Jr. from her husbands hands and publicly blaming his lack of concern for his family lead to this whole fiasco from happening. As Spider-Man watches from above, he contemplates the the "happy ending" this story has taken: Jameson once more being humiliated in the media, Daley's campaign ruined, a junk in jail, a greedy kid wasting his reward money on arcade games, and a poor beaten and disturbed woman who only wanted to prove that she could raise a child.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Black Cat, J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson, Ben Urich, Lance Bannon, Lydia Hardy