Spider-Man: Black & Blue & Read All Over #1
Black & Blue & Read All Over
Peter Parker is sitting in a diner with his Aunt May. She notices he looks tired and asks him if he’s been having that dream again. He tells her how he keeps having a dream where he’s in prison and on the other side of the bars are all of his enemies. It has him thinking how pointless his career can be since he’s always putting away the Vulture only for him to break out of prison to battle him anew. Continuing his explanation, he tells May how in his dream he doesn’t know if he’s the prisoner or his enemies are.
In the dream he tries to climb over the bars, but no matter how high he climbs it appears that the bars go on forever. When May asks how often he has this dream, he tells her it has been going on since an incident that happened a few months back. He was fighting the Vulture and as his foe was about to get away, he figured the cop on the scene with a gun would stop him.[1][2] When the cop did nothing, Spider-Man asked him why he didn’t try to stop the Vulture. Ironically, the cop told Spider-Man that it was the web-slinger’s job, the same thing he told the security guard years ago when he let the burglar who would go on to murder Uncle Ben.[3] This has all led Peter to wonder what the point of it all is. Seeing what Peter is talking about, May tells him that if Ben could know the hero Peter grew up to become, he would have been glad he was murdered, willing to give up his life to know that Spider-Man would exist to protect others because of it, and so would she. She tells him that this city needs Spider-Man and that they need to know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man and that he’s a good person.
Lifting up the front page of the Daily Bugle, he shows her what the perception is in the city, thanks to J. Jonah Jameson’s anti-Spider-Man editorials. Peter also reminds her that his enemies are all murderers and that revealing his identity to the public would only put targets on her and Mary Jane’s back. However, May points out is that people will only ever understand him once they realize that he’s one of them. Peter says that he spent his entire career protecting his secret identity and May tells him that this is his parole and a chance to finally be free. Peter thinks this over and, later, pays a visit to J. Jonah Jameson at the Daily Bugle and makes him a deal: If Jonah will give him the first three pages of the paper to tell his story, he’ll reveal his identity to the public and give the Bugle the exclusive. Jonah thinks it over and decides that if Spider-Man somehow reneges on this dea it’ll only convince people that he’s been right about the web-slinger the whole time and agrees to shake on it.
Spider-Man’s three page story is published in the next edition of the Daily Bugle and Peter is apprehensive about the following day where he is going to have to be true to his promise and unmask. Mary Jane tells Peter that he could change how people perceive superheroes and quips that he might actually make the Avengers this time around.[4] Peter doesn’t sleep for the entire evening and heads to the Daily Bugle first thing in the morning to live up to his promise. However, when he arrives he quickly discovers other New Yorkers have arrived in Spider-Man costumes (including Aunt May) to tell J. Jonah Jameson that they are Spider-Man. Seeing the symbolic gesture that the people of New York are making, Peter gladly takes off his mask and tells people he is Spider-Man as well. Jonah gets fed up with all of this and returns in his office. The entire spectacle brings a tear to Peter’s eye, especially when he sees that one of the people who dressed up like Spider-Man was the cop who let the Vulture get away.
At the end of the day, Peter Parker returns home and is exhausted and tells May that he is going to go to bed. Mary Jane joins him thinking he was speaking in code and realizes that she’s going to have to learn to read him better since Peter falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Aunt May, Mary Jane Watson, J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson, Captain America, Iron Man, Vulture, Mister Hyde
Continuity Notes
1. Aunt May says she hadn’t kept track of Spider-Man’s battles until after she learned that Peter was actually Spider-Man. She learned this in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #35.
2. May says she isn’t sure how many times Spider-Man has fought the Vulture in the past. Not including this story, Spider-Man has fought the Vulture 37 times by this point. These battles taking place in: Amazing Spider-Man #2/Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 3) #1.3, Amazing Spider-Man #7, Untold Tales of Spider-Man #5, 12, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, Spider-Man: Blue #5, Amazing Spider-Man #63-64, Spider-Man/Human Torch #2, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #4-5, Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Negative Exposure #2, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #44-45, 56, Amazing Spider-Man #224, 240-241, Marvel: 1985 #6, Web of Spider-Man #3, 23-24, 45, Amazing Spider-Man #336-339, Spider-Man #18-23, Spectacular Spider-Man #186-188, Lethal Foes of Spider-Man #1-4, Amazing Spider-Man #386-388, Amazing Spider-Man #396, Spectacular Spider-Man #219, Spider-Man: Funeral for an Octopus #1-3, Spider-Man Unlimited #9, Spider-Man #62, Spider-Man Unlimited #10, Sensational Spider-Man #16-18, 27-28, Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #12/Peter Parker: Spider-Man #12, Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #15-16, Spider-Man’s Tangle Web #13, Spider-Man Unlimited (vol. 3) #3, Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #1-4, 10-11.
3. You remember Uncle Ben, right? Amazing Fantasy #15.
4. At the time of this story, Spider-Man has yet to be an official full time member of the Avengers. He attempted on a few occasions. These times were:
The first time was in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, when he was tasked with capturing the Hulk, but felt sympathetic for Bruce Banner and decided to intentionally fail this test.
The second time was in Avengers #236-237, but he was overwhealmed by the cosmic level threats the group faced.
He was granted reserve status with the team in Avengers #329, but never parlayed that into full time active service.
Spider-Man will eventually join the team in New Avengers #1-5.
