The “Superior” Six: Sinister Once More?

Spider-Man has lost control of his Superior Six. Waking up restrained by the Sandman, he is confronted by various Spider-Man foes who accuse of Spider-Man for letting him die. Otto realizes that this is the work of the Chameleon when he tries using Octavius’ dying body to try and haunt him.[1] Although Mysterion suggests they just kill Spider-Man and be done with it, Electro and the others want to make him pay for enslaving them.

Electro then orders the others to bring him Lightmaster. Lightmaster is still alive but has given up on life after what happened to his daughter, Sun Girl. Spider-Man blames himself for her death. The Sinister Six order Lightmaster to show them how the QPE device works. All he can ask is why Spider-Man couldn’t save his daughter. In response, the Vulture carries Lightmaster high above the city and drops him to his death. As Lanskey falls to his doom, Spider-Man blames himself for unleashing the Sinister Six on the city.

However, Sun Girl has survived and rematerializes in the Bowery. She is surprised to be alive and learns that Spider-Man’s battle is happening over by the Empire State Building. Sun Girl races back to the scene and saves her father from certain death. She arrives just as Electro is about to channel his powers through the QPE generator. Spider-Man warns him not to do it as his powers are vastly different than Sun Girl’s were and they cannot predict what will happen. Electro ignores this and after channeling his power through the device causes it to flare out of control wildly, threatening to destroy the entire island of Manhattan.

Luckily, Sun Girl manages to free Spider-Man by blasting the sand that is restraining him. Spider-Man then takes down the Chameleon and Electro. However, while he attempts to disable the device the Sandman, whose mass was increased by sand that was teleported to this location, shakes up the building. Realizing that he is in over his head, Mysterion asks Sun Girl if he can go and she allows the coward to flee. Spider-Man tries to reason with Sandman, but the villain is furious over his previous enslavement that he is unwilling to listen to reason. That’s when Sun Girl fires a light beam through Sandman’s head. As his form crumbles to dust, the Sandman tells Spider-Man that the part of him that once believed in the wall-crawler is now dead.

Before Spider-Man can tell Sun Girl how to deactivate the QPE, Electro blasts him from behind. Sun Girl manages to knock him out with a single punch and then revives the wall-crawler. However he is still too out of it to tell her what needs to be done. With the QPE about to overload and destroy the city, Sun Girl takes a chance and blasts it with her sun gun. In the aftermath of the battle, Sun Girl blames Spider-Man since he allowed this to happened and flies off, regretting ever calling him a hero. With the danger over, Otto surveys the damage to the city he caused and is haunted by the vow he made to Peter Parker that he would become a superior version of Spider-Man.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Superior Six (Chameleon, Electro, Mysterion, Sandman, Vulture), Sun Girl, Lightmaster, Avengers (Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye), Future Foundation (Dragon Man, Mik, Korr, Ant-Man, She-Hulk), Liz Allan, Tiberius Stone, “Miguel O’Mara”

Continuity Notes

1. Chameleon’s references are pretty outdated since the villains he chooses to “haunt” Spider-Man have all cheated death. They are:

   • The Green Goblin: Norman Osborn was seemingly killed after being impaled on his own Goblin Glider in Amazing Spider-Man #122. Osborn actually cheated death and went into hiding for years, as explained in Spider-Man: The Osborn Journal #1. He later resurfaced in Amazing Spider-Man #412.

   • Kraven the Hunter: Blew his brains out in Amazing Spider-Man #294. He was later resurrected by his family in Amazing Spider-Man #636.

   • Lastly, there’s Doctor Octopus. Who had been suffering from a degenerative illness since Amazing Spider-Man #600. However, Otto cheated death by stealing Peter Parker’s body as seen in Amazing Spider-Man #698-700.