Spider-Man: Secret Wars #3
This story takes place during the events of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #9…
Galactus is preparing to consume Battleworld to replenish his waning energies. As he prepares his machines, the heroes gathered by the Beyonder rally together to try and stop Galactus before he kills all life on the patchwork planet. Leading the charge into battle is none other than Spider-Man in his classic red-and-blue costume…. or is this what’s really going on?
One Hour Earlier
As the heroes are rushing to the scene to face Galactus, Mister Fantastic briefs the group on what to expect. He warns them that Galactus is a cosmic being of immense power and that everything will not be as they seem. He warns that Galactus has the ability to alter the perceptions of those around them and will attack on many levels of reality. He can fight them with everything from illusions to killer robots and has the power to reduce them into dust. As Spider-Man listens to this speech the scene around him changes. One minute he is aboard the attack craft, the next they are on a military helicopter. The next instant they are in a castle with Reed dressed like Dracula. As their location continues to shift, Spider-Man becomes aware that the Enchantress is among them. When he points this out the other heroes consider her a hero and think that Spider-Man is being confused into thinking he lives in an alternate reality where she is their enemy.
Spider-Man is deeply confused but joins the Human Torch in going to a nearby village. There they meet Johnny’s new lover, the alien woman known as Zsaji. Johnny tries to communicate with her and her people and get them to evacuate the area before the attack. Spider-Man heads into one of the domiciles to see if there is anyone inside. He suddenly finds himself transported to a massive apartment in Manhattan where the Enchantress is waiting for him. She is glad to see him because she wants to spend a night together and promises to make him a pasta dish she has always wanted to try. She also tries to convince Spider-Man that they have been roommates since college. However, Spider-Man quickly deduces that this is all some kind of illusion. The Enchantress explains that Spider-Man is already fighting Galactus with the others and this illusion has been created by their foe. The Enchantress continues to appear to him because as a god she is more rooted in reality than he is.
As the scene switches between the apartment and the battlefield, the Enchantress explains the nature of Galactus and that his power is driving his comrades mad. Suddenly, Spider-Man begins to start dissolving into bubbles. The Enchantress tells Spider-Man to fight back by focusing on the moments in his life that define him. Spider-Man then relives a number of moments from his life that have defined him, only this time the Enchantress is there. The first memory he relives is the death of Gwen Stacy,[1] next he relives the spider bite that gave him his powers.[2] Next, he relives the moment when J. Jonah Jameson hired him to work at the Daily Bugle[3] before shifting back to the day he allowed the burglar who later murdered his Uncle Ben get away. During these memories, Spider-Man becomes aware of a huge shadow looming over him.
This allows Spider-Man to snap back to reality where he is fighting a pair of robots. The Enchantress is still there and tells Spider-Man to stop concentrating on Galactus’s identity and on his own as he starts looking at him again. Once again, Spider-Man senses the large shadow looming over him. That’s when he suddenly relives the memory of the first time he met Mary Jane Watson.[4] Things shift ahead to one of his encounters with the Black Cat.[5] Time shifts backward again to when met Captain America and the Avengers.[6] Suddenly, Spider-Man finds himself in a dark alley surrounded by three looming shadows.
He then snaps back into reality again as Mister Fantastic and the X-Men charge past him. Reed Richards tells the wall-crawler to snap out of it and keep his head in the battle. Spider-Man joins the battle he finds himself pulled back in time, this time to moments before the fight against Galactus. He witnesses as the Hulk uses a device to repair the damage done to Thor’s costume. This was a moment before Spider-Man passed by and was told about this machine. Since his own costume was in tatters, Spider-Man went in to repair his own outfit. The web-slinger then realizes that his past self used the wrong machine. He then watches as his past self uses the other machine which deposited a black sphere that then formed into his new black-and-white costume. Still, the future Spider-Man doesn’t really understand the significance of this event.[7]
Spider-Man then snaps back to the present and discovers that he’s the only person that is not in a trance.[8] Once more the large shadow is looming over him and he asks the Enchantress if this is the Beyonder. She doesn’t give him a straight answer and when she kisses him on the cheek he begins to be enveloped in a black tar-like substance. As it does so, Spider-Man begins to shrink in size as the other heroes snap out of their trances and rush past him. The Enchantress tries to warn him of poison — a venom if you will — that he will have to fight off and banish. She hints that sound will be the way to drive it off, but Spider-Man has no idea what she is talking about.[9]
Spider-Man snaps out of this hallucination when the others tell him to focus on the battle again. This time when Spider-Man snaps back to reality he is wearing his new black-and-white costume. Eventually, the gathered heroes destroy the world-devouring device, driving Galactus away. In the aftermath of the battle, Spider-Man tells the Human Torch about the strange experience he had in the middle of battle. Johnny understands how Galactus can mess with your mind, revealing your inner demons then compliments Spider-Man on his new costume.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Enchantress, Avengers (Captain America, Wasp, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk), Hulk, Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Human Torch, Thing), X-Men (Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Rogue), Galactus, Zsaji
Continuity Notes
Gwen Stacy died in Amazing Spider-Man #121.
The spider bite and the burglar scene are from Amazing Fantasy #15.
Peter Parker was hired by J. Jonah Jameson back in Amazing Spider-Man #2.
Peter met Mary Jane the first time in Amazing Spider-Man #42.
At the time of this story, Spider-Man was dating the Black Cat. The pair were together from Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #75 to 100.
This moment is from when the Avengers offered Spider-Man membership if he could capture the Hulk in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3.
Spider-Man got his black-and-white costume in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8. What Peter doesn’t know is that this is actually a symbiotic creature. He will learn it’s actually alive in Amazing Spider-Man #258. For more on how the symbiote got there, to begin with, see Venom Super Special #1.
While most of the heroes are spouting jibberish, some of them are actually making some important statements:
The Hulk is telling Betty that he’s “off to work”. He is referring to Betty Brant, Bruce Banner’s long time love. It should be noted that at the time of this story the Hulk retained the intellect of Bruce Banner. See Incredible Hulk #272-297.
Reed Richards keeps muttering “the calculations Victor.” This is a reference to Reed’s days at State University. At the time, Victor Von Doom was working on a device that would allow him to communicate with his mother in the afterlife. Reed discovered some errors in Victor’s equations which Victor ignored resulting in his experiment blowing up in his face and sending him down the path of becoming Doctor Doom. Doom has since blamed Reed for the accident. See Fantastic Four #5.
Cyclops mutters “But she’s lying so still… Barely breathing… Almost no pulse.” which is exactly what he said just after the Pheonix passed out after first manifesting her powers in X-Men #101.
This is alluding to the fact that the Venom symbiote is vulnerable to sonics, which he will learn in Amazing Spider-Man #258. When the symbiote tries to bond with him again in Web of Spider-Man #1, he will use church bells to seemingly destroy the creature.
