Asto-Nuts

This story takes place during the events of Infinity #3…..

New York City is being invaded by aliens and Spider-Man and Luke Cage are on the front line trying to repel these invaders.

While at the Cloisters Museum, Sylvia Prell is studying historical books when she is told that the building is being evacuated. Engrossed in her reading, she dismisses the danger and insists on staying to read some more. In her opinion, people would be much better off taking things slower.

Back on the ground, Luke Cage orders everyone to start working faster. Spider-Man, on the other hand, thinks this is inefficient. He deduces that the alien invaders would need special conversion units to survive in Earth’s environment and begins ripping them off some of the aliens. Sure enough, they begin to choke on Earth’s atmosphere as soon as these converters are removed.

As this is going on, Sylvia finishes her reading and decides to leave, resigning to her fate of living in the modern world. Unfortunately, when she gets to the museum door she discovers it has been locked. Suddenly, a strange mist comes creeping through the cracks in the door and envelops her.

Outside, Spider-Man is joined by Spectrum, and the two trade quips about how long it will take to clean up the city after this invasion is over.

Back at the museum, Sylvia has been encased in a cocoon and suddenly emerges from it as a being of pure energy.

By this time, Spider-Man has knocked out the last of the aliens in the area when he is contacted by one of his spider-bots informing him of a non-human incident uptown. As he races to that location he looks at the chaos below and can’t believe how, not long before he took over Peter Parker’s body, he had similar destructive ambitions for the city.[1]

When he arrives uptown he finds Sylvia racing around the city in her energy form in a panic. Spider-Man tries to get her to stop but she ends up hitting him. Spider-Man is shocked on contact while Sylvia pleads with him to both get away from and help her. Spider-Man then uses a damper field to get the girl to control her powers.[2] He quickly discovers that this woman doesn’t just control electricity, but is electricity. When he asks how this happened to her, Sylvia explains that she is just a student of medieval studies and how this strange mist transformed her into the being she is now. While Spider-Man is interested in examining her further, he has an alien invasion to deal with. He asks her to accompany him to Times Square to check in with the rest of the Avengers. When Sylvia expresses concern for her safety, the wall-crawler points out that in her current form it would be very difficult to harm her and suspects her power could help forge a better world. Seeing that the girl is struggling with her new reality, he tells her to use a simple psychological trick to cease thinking of herself as Sylvia Prell, a college student, but a totally new persona. She decides to start calling herself Fulmia, as it is the Latin word for electricity. When she asks how she can get to Times Square quickly, Spider-Man coaches her on how to use city powerlines to travel the city.

When Spider-Man arrives in Times Square, Luke Cage is still fighting it out with the invaders. When Luke asks Spider-Man where he was, he tells Cage about Fulmia and that she could help them with the battle. That’s when Luke turns his attention to the electronic billboards above them. They are covered with messages asking Spider-Man for help as Fulmia is trapped and can’t get free. Spider-Man tries looking for Spectrum to try and get her to help Fulmina escape the electrical gird.

Suddenly, Fulmia is able to contact Spider-Man via his com-link and she tells him that she has suddenly realized her true destiny and how to make the world a better place. She intends to shut down all electronics in the world so the world can go back to a simpler time. Spider-Man thinks this is crazy and tells her that nobody could possibly roll back human advancement that far. However, Fulmia thinks she can and as a show of power uses her power to cause all of the electronic billboards in Times Square to explode.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Fulmina, Luke Cage, Spectrum

Continuity Notes

1. Doctor Octopus attempted to destroy the world as his last act before his body died on him. This plot was thwarted by Spider-Man. Later, Octavius cheated death by stealing Spider-Man’s body. For more on this see Amazing Spider-Man #600, 682-687, and 698-700.

2. Spider-Man states that he developed the device to control Electro. Otto captured Electro in Avenging Spider-Man #18. A note here tells readers to see issue #5 for more on Spider-Man’s plans for Electro.