Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #11
Off the Deep End
The Chameleon has discovered Spider-Man’s secret identity and has been poking around Peter Parker’s personal life.[1] After finding his foe’s hideout empty, he gets a call from the Chameleon who tells him that he has kidnapped Peter’s wife Mary Jane.[2] He tells Spider-Man that if he wants to see his wife alive again he should come and get her. After telling him where to go, Peter blames himself for everything as he makes a frantic rush to the Chameleon’s location, the George Washington Bridge. There, the Chameleon has Mary Jane blindfolded with a gun against her head. As Spider-Man rushes up to the top of the bridge all he can think about is that this is the place where his girlfriend Gwen Stacy died so many years earlier.[3]
Spider-Man confronts the Chameleon and tells him to let Mary Jane go. The Chameleon however mocks Peter’s tragic memories of this location and muses about how ironic it would be if it happened again. When Peter tries to inch closer, the Chameleon orders him to take off his mask. Peter complies, but warns the Chameleon that he is only going to ask him to release Mary Jane one more time. The Chameleon is somehow surprised that he actually loves her, and admits he would too if he were in Peter’s shoes. Realizing that his enemy is mentally unhinged, Peter changes the subject by saying he thought that the Chameleon was dead. The Chameleon admits that he thought he was dead too when he ran into his step brother, Kraven the Hunter. Kraven shot him with a tranquilizer dart. After he woke up, the Chameleon realized that this was Kraven’s attempt to tell him to make a new life for himself[4] He then tells Peter that he is going to take his life and that if Parker shows his face again he will kill him.
Thinking about the situation this whole time, Peter realizes that the Chameleon hasn’t really kidnapped Mary Jane. When Peter reveals he knows this he calls the Chameleon’s bluff. Sure enough, “Mary Jane” was actually a holographic projection that the Chameleon shuts off once he realizes the jig is up. He admits that Peter’s family was never in any danger and just wanted to talk to him man-to-man. The Chameleon reminds Peter of their first battle and he remembers how at one point the wall-crawler was ripping off the door to his helicopter. The whole time the Chameleon was frantically trying to prevent the helicopter from crashing and here was Spider-Man, ripping the door off the thing and calling him a commie.[5] He finds it funny beacuse he never mentioned to Peter who he was working for. Peter asks what the point of all of this is and the Chameleon then begins talking about how he spent the past few months working as a circus clown under an assumed alias of Eugene Tibbs. He was good at it and he loved performing for the circus until he fell out of love with it so he had to “kill” Eugene. He realized that he couldn’t be Eugene anymore because his life was a lie and that to truly find a new identity he would have to take the place of somebody else.
Peter doesn’t understand why the Chameleon would want his life and this insults his old foe. The Chameleon points out Peter’s idillic life with his super-model wife and doting Aunt, even Peter’s tragedies have substence. Peter doesn’t understand why he would want someone else’s life pointing out that having the ability to make a totally new identity without any the mistakes normal people make throughout their lives would be much easier. In fact, Peter is willing to let things go if the Chameleon wants to do that. The Chameleon decides to explain himself by telling Peter a story. It’s about a depressed man going to see a psychiatrist and telling him all his troubles. The psychiatrist suggests that this man should laugh more and recommends he go and see Grimaldi the clown. That’s when the man tells the psychiatrist tells him that he is Grimaldi.[6] He then tries to explain that he just can’t make himself happy until he was able to get Spider-Man’s attention. Curious, Peter wants to know what the Chameleon really wants to say. That’s when the Chameleon admits that he loves Peter. Parker struggles over how he should react to this but cannot hold back the sudden gales of laughter that come pouring out of his mouth. Realizing what he just said, the Chameleon stumbles to try and explain what he means — since he’s not romantically in love with Peter — and suddenly the two of them are laughing together like the best of friends.
After they are finished laughing, Peter asks what the Chameleon plans to do as an encore. The Chameleon tosses his gun to Peter and tells him he looks great when he smiles before walking off the edge of the bridge. Dropping the gun, Peter leaps after the Chameleon to try and catch him. Unfortunately, he is too late and the Chameleon hits the water below and disappears from sight. Shocked by what had just happened, Peter thinks about how his entire life is being lost on a sea of regret and he better start paddling.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Chameleon, Mary Jane Watson, Kraven the Hunter (flashback)
Continuity Notes
The Chameleon discovered that Peter Parker is Spider-Man during the events of Spectacular Spider-Man #241-243.
Peter and Mary Jane are referred to as husband and wife here. However, years later, their marriage is erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. As such they should be considered a common-law couple here.
Gwen Stacy was murdered by the Green Goblin atop the George Washington Bridge back in Amazing Spider-Man #121. Per the Sliding Timescale this happened roughly seven years prior to this story.
The Chameleon’s run in with Kraven the Hunter happened in Spectacular Spider-Man #243. He thinks this is his step-brother Sergei Kravinoff. However at the time of this story, the original Kraven had committed suicide in Amazing Spider-Man #294. This was actually his son Alexei as revealed in Spectacular Spider-Man #251-253.
The Chameleon first clashed with Spider-Man back in Amazing Spider-Man #1.
Yeesh you think someone has been reading The Watchmen?
