“Good evening,” I replied. Not wanting to waste a minute, I launched into my questions about the events of recent days. “How did you finally tame Rhino after he escaped from prison?” “When did you find time to round up the convicts set loose by him?” “What role did the villains Mysterio and Dr. Octopus play in the attacks?”
A rippling chuckle slipped from him and he raised one hand. “I will answer everything. No need to rush.” And suddenly he was gone, scrambling up a tenement wall and into the gathering gloom of an early summer evening in Manhattan.
An Interview with a View
I was dejected, but the feeling lasted less than a second — a silvery line sliced through the air with a thwip! and affixed itself to my back. It then pulled me to the roof, where my red-and-blue friend idly sat on a ledge, watching pigeons flutter over each other in a nearby coop as his webbing retracted into his wrist. He turned to me once more as I settled in next to him. “This is better,” he said. “More privacy.”
I pulled out my recorder and turned it on, but a flick of webbing shut it off. “I assume you brought a pen and paper?” he asked. I sheepishly pulled them out of my jacket. I was about to repeat my questions when he launched into his story.
“Rhino set in motion a plan I didn’t fully understand when he broke out of prison,” he explained, “but my ability to double-jump allowed me to avoid his shockwave attacks as well as the charge attacks he used after the police trapped him in that containment field. Even though he was able to escape, my Spidey sense told me I’d see him again.”
The Adventure Deepens
“But what about those prisoners who fled with him?” I asked.
“Some of them were still nearby, so I rounded up those jokers before heading downtown,” he replied. “My search also gave me the opportunity to seek out some of the exotic spiders that had earlier escaped from OsCorp Laboratories and hid around the city. It was vital that I collect all of them during my adventures — who knows what would have happened if just one remained missing and began biting innocent citizens.”
“I suppose then there might be more than one of you,” I said.
I thought I saw a smile break out under his mask. “Your boss would really have conniption fits then.” He was referring, of course, to our esteemed editor-in-chief, J. Jonah Jameson, who has written many editorials decrying Spider-Man as a danger to New York City’s inhabitants.
The light-hearted moment ended and he resumed his tale. “As I continued my adventures, I nabbed the other prison escapees as I came across them. After my battle with Rhino, I apprehended several of Dr. Octopus’ thugs as they tried to rob First National Bank. Ock escaped too, which led to my battle with Puma, but that fight turned out to be a diversion.”
Rescuing Someone Special
“Right,” I noted, flipping through a few handwritten comments. “A woman named Mary Jane Watson was kidnapped by Dr. Octopus’ men while you tackled Puma. Is she someone significant in your life?”
He didn’t respond, but it seemed that he swallowed a lump in his throat, and his voice cracked slightly as he continued. “I couldn’t reach her until I had finally captured Puma and Rhino and then defeated Mysterio and his legion of robot fighters. After that I ventured into Doc Ock’s underground lair, where he had hidden MJ. Once I brought him to justice, I was able to save her, and the villain rampage was over.”
“MJ? So you know her quite well, then. My sources tell me that you also took great interest in the welfare of an elderly woman named May Parker when you were at First National Bank.” I looked down at my notes. “It turns out that she is the aunt of Bugle photographer Peter Parker, who always seems to be lucky enough to snap amazing page one shots of your fights. What is your — “
I glanced up, but he was gone, a tiny figure receding into the red-rimmed evening sky as he effortlessly swung from building to building on slender threads.
