Amazing Spider-Man #619
Re-Appearing Act
Then
Carlie Cooper thinks about how everyone said her father was a good cop. This pulls up a memory from her childhood where her father, Ray Cooper, was doing an autopsy. Present were Captain George Stacy, Jean DeWolff, and Yuri Watanabe. As they were leaving, Carlie showed up to bring her father his lunch. She is interested on the corpse he is working on hoping that it had something to do with Spider-Man, but was disappointed to hear that it was just an ordinary mob killing. Seeing her daughter’s disappointment, he tells her that the corpse is still interesting, saying that every body is still a crime story that only a forensic scientist can hear. He then told her that dead men always tell the most interesting story.
Now
Carlie was just witnessing a clash between members of the Maggia and Mister Negative’s Inner Demons when she just receive the shock of her life. Her father, or someone who looks like him, had just confronted her. She can’t understand how he is standing here because as far as she knew, her father died in a drunk driving accident years earlier. He explains her that his death was faked using some of the best special effects and that the Maggia needed someone who worked in the system to pull off such a feat. That’s when they hear police sirens approaching on the scene. Roy tells his daughter that he will explain everything but they need to go somewhere else. Carlie puts down her gun and allows the man claiming to be her father to lead her away.
In the next room, the battle rages on. Among the Inner Demons is Hammerhead who left the Maggia to join Mister Negative’s gang cannot believe that his old boss Silvermane is leading the charge.[1] With his loyalties suddenly divided, Hammerhead thinks that people are playing with his mind and charges out of the building, smashing through a wall with his metal plated skull. That’s when Spider-Man arrives on the scene and unable to stop Hammerhead from escaping tags him with a spider tracer. That’s when police cars arrive on the scene and Captain Yuri Watanabe orders Spider-Man to stay and help stop the gun battle that is still ongoing inside.[2]
Taking a look inside the meat packing facility, Yuri is shocked to see a number of mobsters fighting with the Inner Demons that should be dead. Even more shocking, the Inner Demons who get shot suddenly get back up from seemingly fatal gunshot wounds to fight anew. When the NYPD come in with guns blazing, Silvermane orders a retreat. To cover their escape, he orders his men to shoot out the Inner Demon’s feet since they can’t seem to die. That’s when Spider-Man attacks Silvermane from above.
Observing the battle with Carmine Karnelli, who has been working with Mysterio to wrest control of the Maggie from his useless brother, Bruno. In reality, the entity they think is Silvermane is actually a sophisticated robot created by Mysterio. Controlling the robot, Mysterio gets one of the other mobsters to get into position so he can have the interfering web-slinger shot. When Spider-Man punches the mobster with the gun, he sends him falling over the edge of a catwalk and he crash lands on a pile of wooden crates. As the mobsters flee, one of the offices check their fallen comrade and announces him dead. Spider-Man is devastated at the idea that he took a human life. When the other officers ask what they should do about Spider-Man, Captain Watanabe hints that Spider-Man was too fast for them. Snapping out of his disbelief, Spider-Man catches what Yuri is saying and leaves. The other officers protest letting Spider-Man go, but Yuri doesn’t care after everything she has seen that evening and tells them to start looking for Carlie Cooper since she call it in.
Around the corner, Carlie hears all of this and debates what to do. Roy tells her he’s sorry for dropping all of this at once and disappears suddenly before he is found. Carlie meets up with the other officers and she is ordered to follow the dead body all the way to the morgue. Looking at the dead man, she is shocked to discover that he looks like the man her father performed an autopsy on years earlier.
Meanwhile, May Parker has returned to her home to discover that it was trashed while in the care of her extended family and Harry Osborn. They try to explain that the damage was caused by a super-villain attack but May, who had recently been corrupted by Mister Negative, doesn’t want to hear their excuses.[3] She is unsympathetic when she tells everyone the need to get out by the end of the week. When Harry says he has no other place to go, she tells him there are plenty of cots down at the homeless shelter. Harry is taken back by all of this because he has never seen May Parker act this way before.
At that same moment, Mister Negative is torturing Hammerhead with a obedience device that was implanted in his head by Doctor Tramma when he got his powers upgraded.[4] He activates the device to remind Hammerhead where his loyalties lie. That’s when he notices the spider-tracer on Hammerhead’s back and crushes it. Deciding that Spider-Man has been a thorn in his side for long enough, Mister Negative goes into his safe and collects a vial of Dragon’s Breath that he made with Spider-Man’s blood.[5]
Elsewhere, Spider-Man has been following the Silvermane robot’s trail of destruction from the scene of the shootout. He still can’t believe he took a life and wonders how people like Wolverine or Flash Thompson can do it. As he approaches a moving company, his presence is picked up on Mysterio’s security cameras. The master illusionist assures Carmine Karnelli that he has the situation under control. Spider-Man is then attacked by a gang of thugs who appear to be lead by the Big Man, but Spider-Man can’t buy the idea that Frederick Foswell is somehow back from the dead.[6] When Spider-Man tries to knock out one of the mobsters with a web-ball, he starts shooting wildly, seemingly killing everyone except for the Big Man, who was only wounded. Spider-Man rushes up to the Big Man to see how badly he was hit. Removing Big Man’s mask, Spider-Man is shocked to see that he looks like George Stacy.
When the man tries to convince Spider-Man that he faked his death because he was a dirty cop working for the Maggia, Spider-Man refuses to believe it and starts beating on the man to try and get the truth out of him.[7] Spider-Man already has figured out that this is the work of Mysterio and let’s Mysterio (who he knows is watching via camera) that he’s figure it out. Carmine is concerned about this, but Mysterio assures him that he is still in control of the situation. Spider-Man then goes to the NYPD forensics lab to talk to Carlie Cooper. She hasn’t performed an autopsy on the man who is supposedly dead because she discovered that he is still alive because he took some kind of drug that made him seem like he is dead. She then tells Spider-Man about the encounter she had with the man claiming to be her father. Since he is the only link to Mysterio’s scheme, Spider-Man asks her that when she meets with this man again — whoever he is — to plant a spider-tracer on him.
Meanwhile, the phony Silvermane tells the rest of the Maggia that they need to lure out Mister Negative by taking all of their money store and put them in the right place. Hearing this, Carmine protests this as it is going against their plan. When it looks like Mysterio is going to double cross him he tries to let the others know that “Silvermane” is a fake, but Mysterio commands the robot to snap Carmine’s neck before he can reveal the truth. He then tells the other mobsters that this should be a lesson to them about how really pulls the strings.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Mysterio, Mister Negative, Hammerhead, Maggia (Carmine Karnelli, Bruno Karnelli), Carlie Cooper, Yuri Watanabe, Aunt May, Harry Osborn, Ray Cooper, Alexi Reilly, Amanda Reilly, Amy Reilly, (in flashback) Jean DeWolff, George Stacy
Continuity Notes
As explained last issue, Silvermane seemingly died when his cybernetic body was dumped into a car crusher some time ago. This isn’t the real Silvermane, but a robot duplicate. The real Silvermane is still alive and will turn up again in Superior Foes of Spider-Man #3.
Spider-Man recalls meeting Yuri not long ago, that was in Amazing Spider-Man #600.
May’s house was damaged when Peter was attacked by Raptor and Kaine in Amazing Spider-Man #610. May mentions she has been off on her honeymoon, that started after she got married in Amazing Spider-Man #600. Harry has been homeless since his father cut him off from the family fortune following the events of Amazing Spider-Man #595-599. He was allowed to stay at the old Parker home in Amazing Spider-Man #602-604.
Hammerhead’s powers were upgraded in Amazing Spider-Man Extra! #1.
Dragon’s Breath is a unique poison that only targets people with same DNA. He forced Spider-Man to give a sample of his blood when the web-slinger interfered with his attempt to wipe out the Karnelli faction of the Maggia in Amazing Spider-Man #547-548.
Fred Foswell was a reporter who dabbled in organized crime as the Big Man, as seen in Amazing Spider-Man #10. After serving time for his crimes, Foswell reformed and continued his job as a crime reporter for the Daily Bugle until he took a bullet for J. Jonah Jameson in Amazing Spider-Man #52.
George Stacy was killed when he pushed a little boy out of the way of falling debris during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. This happened in Amazing Spider-Man #90.
Topical References
When Spider-Man jokes about friending Yuri on social media, he asks if she’s on Facebook and Myspace. Watanabe says she is on Myspace. This should be considered a topical reference because both of these are real world social media platforms. Particularly Myspace which, although still being online, has fallen out of popularity in recent years.
