One-Shot

Queens

A football game is being played at Midtown High. The coach calls a stop to the game to issue a penalty to quarterback Craig Williams for doing an illegal tackle. Craig tries to argue the penalty but ultimately gets off the field. His coach, Flash Thompson, wants to know what he was doing out in the field.[1] Craig insists that he did what he was trained to do, but this is not something that Flash taught him and benches Craig for the rest of the game. Craig’s father is also furious about the call. Later, after the game, Craig’s dad slaps him upside the head for screwing up. He reminds his son that he needs to do better if he wants so score a sports scholarship. He then tells the boy that he’s not going to be a taxi for losers and makes him walk home.

Brighton Beach

The Punisher is exchanging gunfire with a mobster named Mikhail Kapuchin, a member of the Russian mob. As Kapuchin tries to escape down an alley he is snared in a web set up by Spider-Man. Spider-Man orders him to talk and with the Punisher’s knife at his throat, the young mobster agrees to talk. He says his boss, Sergei Kapuchin is running drugs out of the Saint Dunstan Church, and a shipment is expected tomorrow night. The Punisher is about to run Mikhail through when Spider-Man demands they let him go. The web-slinger then reminds the Punisher is that they’re playing by his rules and that means they are capturing the crooks, not killing them. The Punisher abruptly leaves without saying another word.

Midtown High

The following morning Craig Williams is back at school and begins selling drugs out of one of the school bathrooms. The sales are brisk until Noah Tilbert comes to use the bathroom. Fearing that Noah will narc on them, the other kids runs off. Furious over this, Craig demands to know who he is and learns that the kid just transferred to school this week. Craig and his buddies give him a swirlie. Craig then warns him not to tell or Noah will be in trouble. When Tilbert gives him an ugly look, Craig kicks him as hard as he can. However, his fellow teammates on the football team pull Craig away so he doesn’t kill the kid. Deciding that he’s made his point, Williams and his buddies leave Noah alone in the bathroom.

Little Odessa

That afternoon, Craig Williams arrives at Saint Dunstan Church where he meets with Mikhail Kapuchin. Neither man is aware that the Punisher is watching them from across the street preparing to fire a rocket launcher at the church. Inside, Craig is brought to Sergei Kapuchin, who is interested to hear that Craig wants to start selling stronger product.

That’s when the Punisher blasts open the front door, giving an opening for him and Spider-Man to charge inside. As the mobsters exchange gunfire with the Punisher, Spider-Man begins disarming and taking out the ones closest to the door. Meanwhile, Craig Williams takes cover under the pews. That’s when Spider-Man realizes that the Punisher is using live rounds and not the rubber bullets he asked him to use. When Spider-Man confronts him with this, the Punisher says he didn’t agree to those terms and tosses Spider-Man into the pews. This frightens Craig who jumps up into the Punisher’s line of sight, a big mistake.

Spider-Man gets between Punisher and Craig, not wanting him to shoot the kid. Craig tearfully explains that he was just there to pick up some drugs and swears to go straight. The Punisher allows the kid to leave with a warning never to come back to Odessa again. By this point, all of the mobsters are webbed up or need medical attention. Spider-Man then prepares to call the authorities, much to the Punisher’s chagrin because Spider-Man never takes things far enough.

Several Days Later

Craig William’s brush with death has given him an appreciation for Spider-Man and the web-slinger has inspired him to become a better person. He begins clipping newspaper stories about the web-slinger and putting up posters of Spider-Man in his room. When his old man comes in and starts mocking him over his new hero, Craig stands up to his father for the first time.

The next day at school, Craig’s football buddies suggest they go steal some lunch money, but Craig has had a change of heart and decided that he doesn’t feel like it. When he turns around he is shocked to see Noah Tilbert pointing a gun in his face. He has snapped after all the bullying he has received since coming to Midtown High and now he wants to kill Craig to make it all end. He gets Craig to get down on his knees and beg for his life. Before Noah can pull the trigger, Peter Parker gets down in front of him and convinces the boy to put the gun down.[2] He tries to relate to the boy, by saying that he too was bullied when he was a kid. However, eventually, both Peter and his bully grew up and now he and Flash Thompson are friends. Noah doesn’t want to become friends with Craig. Peter convinces the boy to hand over the gun by pointing out that Craig is pretty scared. Noah surrenders and Peter takes him to the office to sort things out.

Craig, meanwhile, has pissed his pants and all of the other kids are laughing at him. He tells them to stop looking but his social status has already been ruined. Later, Craig meets with Coach Thompson who decides to pull him from the team after hearing how he has been bullying others. Craig can’t believe this, saying that he’s the victim since Noah pulled the gun on him. Flash points out that it was Craig’s bullying that led to Noah bringing a gun to school and can’t stand for that kind of behavior. Craig lashes out by knocking off everything on Flash’s desk. As he storms out of the coach’s office he warns Flash that his father is going to be really mad when he hears the news.

Back home, Craig’s father already knows what happened because the news is all over town. He is furious that his son would allow himself to humiliate himself like that. When Craig’s father hits him, Craig is inspired by how Spider-Man stood up to the Punisher and fights back for the first time. He easily overpowers his father and decides to take all the money out of his wallet. As he walks out, Craig’s father tells him that he is no son of his. This makes Craig smile, as this is the nicest thing that his father has ever said.

Craig then heads down to Odessa to buy more drugs from Mikhail Kapuchin, who managed to evade capture. He explains that he didn’t get captured because the bust by Spider-Man and Punisher happened because he set it up because he wanted to take control of his father’s operation. He is impressed with Craig’s ambition and invites him into his new gang, offering him undreamed-of weatlh. He lays out his plan to hook teens on drugs and then jack up the price, leaving these kids to take risks to get the money to feed their habit. He likens the life of a drug dealer to that of a shark, you keep moving forward or die.

Soon, Craig is a valued member of Mikhals’ gang. One night, they are planning to steal some merchandise and Craig asks why they don’t just keep making money off drugs. Kapuchin explains that they are getting too much heat from the Punisher. When Craig mocks him for being afraid of a guy he “paid off”, Mikhal pulls a knife and threatens Craig until he complies with his orders. However, when they are making their heist, they are caught by Spider-Man. Craig has the opportunity to shoot Spider-Man but doesn’t. When the web-slinger webs him up as well, Craig can’t understand it because he still sees Spider-Man as his hero. When he tells the web-slinger this, Spider-Man says he doesn’t see him as anything more than a thug, and a thug is why he became who he is.[3]

Eventually, Craig ends up getting sent to Ryker’s Island. His day in the other prisoners mocks and jeer at the new “fish” as Craig is led to his cell. There he tearfully realizes that he spent his whole life doing what others told him to do and decides from now on, he’s going to do things his own way and never look back.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Punisher, Flash Thompson

Continuity Notes

1. Per the Marvel Chronology Project, this story takes place after Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11, a period when Flash still had both of his legs and was a coach for Midtown high. He got the job back in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3.

2. Peter Parker was also a teacher at Midtown High at the time of this story, having taken on the job in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #31. He will continue being a teacher until Sensational Spider-Man (vol. 2) #28.

3. This has been yet another Uncle Ben referece. Amazing Fantasy #15.

Topical References

• The Punisher says here that a lot of Russian mobsters spent time living in gulags in the Soviet Union. This should be considered topical because the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. As the Sliding Timescale moves forward it will become impossible for Russian characters to have lived during the Soviet Union. Modern readers should instead interpret the Punisher as talking about Russia instead of the Soviet Union. (Honestly, there’s not much difference between the two these days anyway.)

• Craig specifically states that he just came to buy marijuana from the mobsters. This should be considered a topical reference since marijuana has since been legalized or decriminalized in many states at the time of this writing (January 2021) with New York State looking to make it legal in 2021. While this doesn’t eliminate the black market, it would seem unlikely for mobsters to sell weed to a teenager once this new law passes.