The Collaborator

In the basement of a walk-up apartment building, a man named Marvin Krolnek works on a suit of armor. Pinned to the wall of his workshop with a knife is a photo of Spider-Man. He pauses to watch a news story about the Amalgamated Bank of New York City, which is unveiling a new security system. Having been in development for four years and the work of four engineers, the bank boasts that it is the most sophisticated and unbeatable security system of its type. This makes Krolnek laugh as he packs up his armor. As he goes back upstairs to his room, Marvin is stopped by some of the tenants of his building who ask when he is going to make repairs to their apartment. Krolnek makes excuses or outright ignores them. In his apartment, he hears a bunch of banging and finds his daughter Heather jumping up and down on her bed. He tells her to stop making noise as it is already 1 in the morning and people need to sleep. He’s even more upset to see that his daughter has posters of Spider-Man on her wall and tells her to take them down. When she refuses, Marvin angrily rips them down off the wall, telling her that he pays all the bills and therefor gets to decides what gets hung on the wall. This upsets Heather who tries to tell her father that Spider-Man is cool but Marvin thinks Spider-Man is a freak. Ignoring the girl’s tears, Krolnek tells his daughter to go to sleep and leaves her room.

A short time later, Marvin leaves his apartment, just like he has done over the last few lights. Heather doesn’t know why but as soon as he is gone, she gets back out of bed and puts her torn up posters back together with tape. She wonders what Spider-Man looks like under his mask and figures he looks like an attractive Hollywood actor. Listening to the radio, Heather becomes interested when the music is interrupted for a news bulletin the police clashing with a new villain called the Stag Beetle near the apartment building where she lives. Thinking they are talking about the Beetle, Heather checks her scrapbook where she keeps the information about Spider-Man and his foes and confirms that the Beetle is in jail and this must be a new villain. Excited, she decides to sneak out of the apartment and see the Stag Beetle for herself.

When Heather arrives on the scene, the police bar her from getting close enough to the battle to get a look. Sneaking around the cops, Heather manages to neak into the building the Stag Beetle had broken into — the Amalgamated Bank. Seeing the damage done, Heather quickly runs for cover when the villain retreats back into the bank. Bleeding from gunshot wounds, the Stag Beetle collects his duffle bag full of money and prepares to escape. That’s when Spider-Man drops down from the ceiling in front of Heather .Stunned to see her idol all she can do is meekly point out what direction the Stag Beetle went. After Spider-Man leaves, Heather suddenly remembers where she saw the Stag Beetle’s duffel bag before, it was the one her father was carrying earlier that night when he told her to get back to bed. She suddenly realizes that the Stag Beetle was actually her dad.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man

Continuity Notes

1. One of the posters in Heather’s room is an advertisement for a live appearance of Spider-Man. This is likely from back in Spider-Man’s early days when he used his powers to get into showbusiness. This was prior to the murder of his Uncle Ben that convinced Spider-Man to use his powers to fight crime. For more on Spider-Man’s career in showbusiness check out Amazing Fantasy #15-17, and Spider-Man: With Great Power #1-5.

Topical References

• Heather figures that Spider-Man looks like actor Benicio Del Toro under his mask. This is a topical reference since Del Toro was in his late 30s and was a bit of a pretty boy. Not so much anymore. Interestingly Del Toro would go on to play the Collector in the Marvel Studio films Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy.