Superior Spider-Man #17
Let’s Do the Time Warp Again
Nueva York, 2099 AD
The Public Eye is evacuating everyone in a five block radius from the Alchemax Building. Witnessing this from a communter mag-lev, Miguel O’Hara decides to slip away and investigate this as Spider-Man.[1] After changing into his costume, Miguel starts to notice a strange energy coming from the building and recognizes it as a temportal energy distortion.[2]
As he approaches the Alchemax Building he witnesses the Public Eye struggling to contain the sudden arrival of World War I biplanes and dinosaurs coming out of the time distortion. Miguel correctly theorizes that he can send them back where they came from by making one of the planes collide with a tyrannosaurus rex. He then goes inside and finds some scientists at a time portal and asks them what they screwed up to create this current crisis.[3] That’s when Tyler Stone appears and explains that his scientists are actually working to prevent their timeline from being erased. When Spider-Man gets a good look at his mortal enemy he is surprised to see that he is being slowly erased from existence. Stone explains that something has happened during the age of heroes that is erasing him from existence. This is of great concern to Miguel, who secretly knows that Tyler Stone is actually his biological father.[4] When Spider-Man looks at the time monitors he sees that recent time travel incidents in the heroic age are responsible for what has happened and, astonishingly, they have somehow managed to break all of time.[5]
The scientists give Spider-Man a device that will help him track the event that will lead to Tyler Stone’s erasure from history. This leads to protests from both Stone and Spider-Man, although the web-slinger realizes that his own fate is on the line as well. That’s when the scientists reveal that Spider-Man has to go into the past because they already have a record of him going back in time and not doing so will cause a deadly time paradox. This leads Spider-Man to ask what is happening in the past they is causing all of this….
New York, The Present
Otto Octavius, who has stolen the life of Peter Parker, is participating in a baseball game with his colleagues at Horizon Labs.[6] With Anna Maria Marconi watching from the stands, Otto goes up to bat and shows off by hitting the ball out of the park. That’s when a government helicopter suddenly lands in the field and Max Modell is put under arrest.[7] Hector Beaz, Max’s husband and Horizon Lab’s lawyer, tells him not to say anything until he catches up. Otto watches this and wonders how something like this could happen to such a good person like Max Model. Suddenly, his spider-sense goes off warning him that they are being watched. He looks around but can’t see that they are being watched by Tiberius Stone, who is pleased his revenge scheme against Horizon is going according to plan.[8]
The news of Modell’s arrest leads to stocks in Horizon Labs to plummet. At the Daily Bugle, evidence of Max’s crimes have been forwarded to the newspaper by an unknown source. However, Joe Robertson advises caution after the paper’s credibility took a hit when it was revealed that Phil Urich was the Hobgoblin.[9] While in the Goblin Underground, Phil Urich — now the Goblin King’s Goblin Knight — begins to lose his patience and demands the opportunity to go after Spider-Man again. The Goblin King, however, is furious because Phil almost exposed the goblin-protocols he hacked into Spider-Man’s spider-boy army that allows them to operate anonymously and begins beating on him for it.[10] However, the Goblin King suddenly gets a moment of inspiration and thanks his Knight for giving him a new idea.
Back at Horizon Labs, “Peter Parker” gets informed what the charges against Max are all about, telling his colleagues that his memory has been fuzzy as of late to excuse not remembering his presence for all of these incidents.[11] When “Peter” asks why Hector isn’t at Max’s side, he explains that he is waiting for some special guests to arrive. That’s when Liz Osborn arrives with her colleagues, Mason Banks, Tiberius Stone, and her son Normie Osborn.[12] She tells them that her company, Allan Chemical, has just become a major shareholder of Horizon Labs and intends to fold the company into her own. Sajani Jaffrey is particularly upset about this because she knows that Tiberius Stone is responsible for all of their bad fortune recently. Tiberius doesn’t confirm this but gloats that all of their work for Horizon is not the intellectual property of Al Chem, including Peter Parker’s work for Spider-Man. Furious, “Parker” warns Stone that he will rue this day. Liz, unaware that Peter’s life has been hijacked by Doctor Octopus, says that she and Peter go way back and gives him a pass for his outburst.[13]
As the Al Chem people leave, Hector assures the staff that he will find a way to block it but tells them not to remove anything from the property. Grady knows that Tiberius is responsible for everything that happened and suddenly gets inspiration on how to prove it. However, when he tries to tell this idea to “Peter Parker”, Parker is gone. This is because Otto has decided to use extra-legal means to deal with Stone by coming at him as Spider-Man. Changing into costume, Spider-Man swings after the Al Chem limo in order to confront Tiberius directly.
At that same moment, Grady Scraps has reactivated his time door to let them look into the past and get the proof they need of Tiberius Stone’s wrong doing. He assures his colleagues that he has worked out the kinks since he last opened the time door. However, when he activates the device there is a sudden burst of light as the Spider-Man from 2099 comes through the portal. When he confirms that he has arrived in the right year, he ignores the fact that nobody knows what Alchemax is in this era, or that he doesn’t know what Horizon Labs in order to track the anomaly and save his timeline.
Outside, Spider-Man forces the limos carrying the Allan Chemical staff to stop. While Mason warns his boss that Spider-Man could be a threat, she assures him that he and Spider-Man are also friends, pointing out how the web-slinger has saved her life on countless occasions. Normie Osborn, however, does not like Spider-Man at all.[14] Spider-Man confronts Tiberius and tells him that he is going to stop whatever it is the rogue scientist has planned. However, before he can strike Stone in the face, the Spider-Man from 2099 arrives to stop him as he has just identified Tiberius Stone as his grandfather and the man in this era that he has to save.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Tyler Stone, Max Modell, Hector Baez, Grady Scraps, Bella Fishbach, Sajani Jaffrey, Uatu Jackson, Liz Osborn, Tiberius Stone, “Mason Banks”/Goblin King, Normie Osborn, Goblin King, Menace, Anna Maria Marconi, Joe Robertson, Sally Floyd
Topical References
This story states that the “present” day parts of this story take place in the year 2013. This date should be considered topical.
Continuity Notes
One of the billboards in the city advertises something called Blade ‘98. This is a reference to the 1998 film Blade, based on the Marvel character of the same name. It is the first fdilm based on a Marvel property that was considered a commercial success and paved the way for future film adaptations of popular comic books.
Going to get this out of the way. Miguel makes a lot of references to having experienced time distortions, Stark-Fujikawa’s time travel tech, and will talk about his past encounter with Peter Parker. Both of these events were chronicled in Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man #1.
Miguel makes reference to Virtual Unreality, an Alchemax creation that allowed them to pull John Tensen (of Earth-148611) to their reality. See Spider-Man 2099 #13.
In the original series, Miguel learned that Tyler Stone was his father in Spider-Man 2099 #25. This reference is quite complicated to explain, see below.
The monitors show three distinct events, the are:
The appearance of the original X-Men, who were pulled forward in time to the present in All-New X-Men #1.
The Hulk working as an agent of TIME circa Indestructible Hulk #1.
Lastly, an image of Kang, who has been messing with history in the pages of Uncanny Avengers #6-23.
Uatu Jackson laments he can’t play because the game is between Horizon staff who were turned into spiders during Spider-Island (Amazing Spider-Man #666-673) and those turned into lizards (Amazing Spider-Man #688-691)
There are a bunch of charges here they are:
Harboring criminas is reference to the fact that Max allowed both Michael Morbius and Curt Connors use his lab. Morbius had been secretly using Max’s facilities to try and find a cure until his presence became known in Amazing Spider-Man #679.1. Connors on the other hand was allowed to use the lab in Amazing Spider-Man #688-691.
Storing hazardous material: is reference to two dangerous inventions. Sajani Jaffri’s synthetic vibranium which was created in Amazing Spider-Man #648 until Spider-Man destroyed it in issue #650. Grady Scrap’s time door is another dangerous invention that almost destroyed New York in Amazing Spider-Man #678-679.
Human experimentation: is reference to the Spider-Island vaccine (Amazing Spider-Man #666-673), and the experiment that created Alpha (Amazing Spider-Man #692-694)
Tiberius Stone used to work for Horizon Labs as a plant for the Kingpin circa Amazing Spider-Man #651 until he was exposed and fired in issue #697 of that series.
Phil became the Hobgoblin in Amazing Spider-Man #651 and sold footage of his criminal activities to the Daily Bugle until he was outed by Spider-Man in Superior Spider-Man #15-16.
The Goblin King hacked Spider-Man’s spider-bots back in Superior Spider-Man #10, making anyone wearing a goblin mask or a Goblin Nation tattoo invisible to Spider-Man’s spider-bot army. Phil, as the Hobgoblin almost allowed Spider-Man to learn of this due to a series of brazen bank robberies, see Superior Spider-Man #14-16.
If you haven’t figured it out, Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s body circa Amazing Spider-Man #698-700. Previously, he had access to all of Peter Parker’s memories but was forced to sacrifice this knowledge to seemingly destroy the last remnant of Peter Parker’s consciousness from his mind in Superior Spider-Man #9.
Unknown to everyone “Mason Banks” is actually Norman Osborn in disguise. We’ll learn this in Superior Spider-Man #31.
Liz Allan’s relationship with Peter Parker dates back to when they went to high school together waaaaay back in Amazing Fantasy #15. Per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616, they have known each other for about 14 years at the time of this story.
The number of times that Spider-Man saved Liz Allan and/or her family is too countess to list here, however Normie has had a hatred toward Spider-Man dating back to Spectacular Spider-Man #200 when the web-slinger seemingly fought his father — Harry Osborn — to the death. Harry later turned up alive again in Amazing Spider-Man #545, but that has done little to soften Normie’s opinion on the web-head.
Making Sense of 2099 Continuity
According to the Spider-Geddon Handbook #1, the Spider-Man 2099 seen here is the one that comes from Reality-928, a reality that has previously been indexed as belonging to Marvel’s original 2099 comics from the 1990s, including the entire run of Spider-Man 2099 volume 1. However, there are elements of this story that contradict facts laid out in that series.
Particularly, the dynamic in this story between Spider-Man 2099 and Tyler Stone, his father. Miguel O’Hara learned that his biological father was Tyler Stone in Spider-Man 2099 #25. It should also be noted that this version of Spider-Man 2099 also has had a meeting with Peter Parker, an event that happened in Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man #1. In the following issues, Miguel goes on a road trip that takes him to Nightshade and Mexico in issues #26-33. In issue #34, when on his way back home, he learns that Doctor Doom has become President of the United States and Tyler Stone becomes one of his ministers, Stone also gets shot by Miguel’s mother. A bunch of other stuff happens. Basically, there is a lot of stuff that happens after the revelation that Tyler Stone is Miguel’s father that places the events of this story at odds with established 2099 continuity.
Based on the facts present in this story, the only logical place where Miguel could have gone back in time when (a) he knew that Tyler Stone was his father and (b) Tyler was not disabled and still head of Alchemax. In addition, this would have to also take place after Spider-Man 2099 met his modern-day counterpart.
Per the Marvel Chronology Project, the events of Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man #1 take place between Spider-Man 2099 #26 when Miguel agrees to go on a road trip to Nightshade, and issue #27 when Miguel ends up in Nightshade. Thus, the events of this story would have to have happened between Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man #1 and Spider-Man 2099 #27. This point of divergence is somewhat confirmed in the Tyler Stone entry in the Secret Wars Official Guidebook to the Marvel Multiverse #1. That entry also references stuff that happened in Spider-Man 2099 #27 onwards, suggesting that Miguel ends up back and resumes the proper timeline as it was originally published. However, that entry was written before Spider-Man (vol. 3) concluded which ends with Miguel making it back to his home reality (or one like it) on New Year’s Eve 2100. It also doesn’t take into account that Earth-928 gets replaced with a new version of 2099 AD in the 5th Volume of Amazing Spider-Man and that the Miguel O’Hara of Earth-928 ends up retiring on a private island on modern-day Earth-616 with Tempest Monroe and their baby. In other words, Spider-Man 2099’s timeline confirms that Earth-928 diverged at this point and anything from Spider-Man 2099 #27 onwards happens on a divergent reality due to the rules of time travel in the Marvel Universe, the instance of Miguel going back in time to the modern age would have created a divergent reality separating it, as we saw was the case in Exiles #75-76 when a time travel event interrupted the pre-established history of Reality-928. The divergence would work like this:
Per the Spider-Geddon Handbook, Marvel has decided that everything after the divergence in Superior Spider-Man #17 is now indexed as Earth-928, as such everything from Spider-Man 2099 #27 onward would be considered a different reality. As yet, Marvel has yet to confirm this divergence let alone make a distinction between the two, so this should be considered my opinion for the time being.
That said, moving forward to make the distinction between this divergent point I am referring to the original Spider-Man 2099 run as being Earth-928-1.0, and the divergent version circa Superior Spider-Man #17 as Earth-928-2.0.
Things only start to get murky when Strange appears in Spider-Man 2099 (vol. 2) but we’ll get into that later.
