Amazing Spider-Man #656
Resolve
A new madman named Massacre has appeared in town and taken a group of people hostage. When the police arrive on the scene, Captain Yuri Watanabe tries to negotiate with him. However, Massacre shoots one of the hostages and after telling the police that they are now playing by his rules sets off number of rigged explosives. The explosion is so loud, Spider-Man hears it from blocks away. The blast has killed seven more hostages and Massacre orders the police to shut down all cameras and alarms in a five block radius and clear out of the area in the next ten minutes or more people will die. When officers asks Captain Watanabe what they should do, Yuri isn’t sure.
That’s when Spider-Man arrives on the scene, giving officers hope that this situation will get sorted out by the web-slinger. However this confidence is quickly washed as Spider-Man’s webbing snagged plaster on the side of a wall that couldn’t support his weight causing it to snap loose and sending Spider-Man crashing onto the hood of a police car. Getting up, Spider-Man remembers that his spider-sense is gone after using a device to stop the Slayer Swarm and worries about the wider implications that losing one of his most trusted abilities may mean.[1] Apologizing for the damage, Spider-Man gets a quick update on what’s going on and heads inside to stop Massacre from killing any more people.
However, when Spider-Man tries to negotiate with Massacre his hostages plead with him to leave before any more of them die. Massacre also finds this intrusion by an Avenger unacceptable. He reminds everyone outside that he is the one in control and begins opening fire with an automatic weapon, prompting Spider-Man to leap back before he is sprayed with bullets. The web-slinger manages to dodge the bullets by dumb luck without his spider-sense and decides to tag Massacre with a spider-tracer. Unfortunately, he’s shot through the stomach in the process of doing so. Yuri can’t believe that Spider-Man actually got shot and risks her own life to pull him to cover. Once they are safely out of the line of fire, Spider-Man assures her that he’s fine and tells her to allow Massacre to escape because he can track him later.
Massacre leaves and, true to his word, nobody else dies. When they discover that he escaped into the sewers, they find more explosives rigged up to cover his escape. When Yuri asks Spider-Man if he picks up his spider-tracer, he remembers that the devices tune in to his spider-sense and are now useless now that this power is gone. He has to admit to Yuri that he doesn’t know which way Massacre went. Later, Spider-Man pays a visit to Night Nurse to get his wounds patched up. This time, he tells her that he intends to pay now that he is earning a good living now as Peter Parker.[2] As he exits out into the waiting room, Spider-Man is mocked by Paladin who is catching the news about Massacre’s escape. When he mentions how Spider-Man failed to save the mayor’s wife, Spider-Man gets angry and, after pinning Paladin to the wall, tells him to shut up.[3] Paladin tells Spider-Man to calm down and that he didn’t mean anything by it and tells him he needs to get some thicker skin. Paladin’s words suddenly give Spider-Man some inspiration.
Meanwhile, Mayor J. Jonah Jameson has called his old friend Joe Robertson at the Daily Bugle. He tells Joe that he has gathered more information about his late wife for a follow up on her obituary, hoping his old newspaper can run a week long series memorializing her. Unfortunately, Joe can’t spare the space because the paper is scrambling to get the scoop on the Massacre story. He apologizes to his friend because Marla’s death is old news and they’re focusing on Massacre. Jonah hangs up Joe without another word and puts on the news. That’s when Jameson’s secretary, Glory Grant, enters the room and tells him that he’s expected to give a press conference on the Massacre situation. J. Jonah Jameson gives a sombre news conference devoid of his usual bravado in the wake of his recent losses. After the press conference he spots a little boy crying in the crowd and learns that his mother was one of Massacre’s victims. Jameson asks to speak the boy alone that he understands his position because he lost someone he cares about recently as well. He then tells the boy that he is going to hear a lot of things, how this was all part of some divine plan or that his mother is in a better place. Jonah tells the boy something only he can say as mayor of the city and promises the boy that Massacre is a dead man.
J. Jonah Jameson then meets with Glory and the chief of police and asks for a status update on Alistair Smythe, the Spider-Slayer. When he is told that Smythe has been imprisoned on the Raft he demands them to give his wife’s murderer the death penalty. When they tell him that the governor and the district attorney will not go for capital punishment, Jameson angrilly tells them that he’s done pussyfooting and wants to enact a zero tolerance policy for murders in his city and that everything changes now.
Peter Parker returns to Horizon Labs to get to work on a new suit for Spider-Man to wear against Massacre. He works around the clock and when he finally emerges from his lab he is approached by his co-worker, Grady Scraps, who is concerned that Peter has been sending too much time locked away in his lab and needs some human interaction. However when he joins Tiberius Stone, Sajani Jaffrey, and Bella Fishbach he is upset to hear that they’re talking about some stupid internet video when people have just died in the city. Sajani tells Peter to back off, pointing out that he is getting upset over a handful of mostly white New Yorkers when there are atrocities that go on every day elsewhere in the world and tells him to stop playing high and might and let them enjoy something trivial instead of dwelling on depressing thing.
Seeing the situation getting heated, Uatu Jackson pulls Peter away and tells him to check out the new invention he and Max Modell have been working on. In the lab, Peter is surprised to see Captain Yuri Watanabe. Max is showing her a new app Horizon is developing, a new suspect identification software that uses facial recognition at a high speed to help law enforcement identify a criminal. She hands him a photo of Massacre and after the computer scans his face it pulls up a video recorded by Doctor Ashley Kafka, the head of the Ravencroft Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Overhearing this, Peter recalls his past interactions with Ravencroft as Spider-Man and knows that if Massacre was a patient there it can’t be good.
In the recording, Kafka tells the viewer about Marcus Lyman, the man who would become Massacre. Marcus and his wife Judy were happily married and enjoyed a profitable career as traders for a well-known Wall Street investment firm. Unfortunately for them, a disgruntled customer — who lost his life savings — planted a car bomb in their vehicle. While Judy was tragically killed in the blast, Marcus survived. However, he wasn’t unscathed as a large piece of shrapnel pierced through his skull and into the brain. Marcus could no longer feel anything due to the damage caused by the shrapnel. He now has no value for human life and there and his thought process is not put in check by moral values. It was Ashley Kafka’s opinion that Marcus Lyman be kept under observation for the rest of his life and to be transferred out of the facility. Watching this video, everyone agrees that the look in Massacre’s eyes almost seem like those of a dead man. The tense silence is broken when Yuri gets a phone call telling her that Massacre has been spotted on Wall Street. Hearing this, Peter slips away so he can confront the mass murderer as Spider-Man.
There is a steady downpour falling on the city when the chief of police reports to J. Jonah Jameson to tell him the scene has been cordoned off. From his limo, Jonah is told that there are seven hostages this time. Jonah decides that Massacre is a menace and orders that the chief to make sure he doesn’t make it out of this alive. Inside the investment firm where he used to work, Massacre waits for Spider-Man to arrive — having found his spider-tracer. When his former co-workers ask Marcus why he is doing this, he admits to them that he doesn’t know, suggesting it might be curiosity since this co-workers were the next closest people to Judy. Outside Yuri Watanabe arrives on the scene and is told that she is being taken off the case. So fire, the rain has prevented snipers from getting a clear shot when they suddenly spot what they think is Spider-Man but they can’t be sure.
It is Spider-Man, but the reason why they aren’t entirely sure is the fact that he is wearing a new black and yellow suit of armor. The web-slinger comes crashing in through the window and quickly fires webbing on all the bombs strapped to the hostages. As Massacre presses on the detonator, Spider-Man explains how the webbing is has been treated in a magnetic solution at interferes with th radio frequency of the remote trigger. Massacre then begins opening fire on Spider-Man, but his bullets bounce harmlessly off of his new armor. Spider-Man even shrugs off the blast of the weapon’s grenade launcher. He tells Massacre that there are so many to destroy and kill but there is always a way to win and Spider-Man intends to find a way to win every time. That’s when Massacre pulls out another detonator, saying it is rigged to another group of hostages miles away. Spider-Man responds by covering the detonator with webbing to block out its radio signals.
He then lands a single blow on Massacre, refraining for his usual witty banter as he has decided that Massacre doesn’t deserve it. The blow sends Massacre reeling toward the hole in the wall made by Spider-Man’s entrance. The chief of police then orders his snipers to take the shot. However, to the surprise of everyone, Spider-Man shields Massacre’s body to deflect the shots. This is because Spider-Man has decided that from now on nobody will die on his watch, not even a mass murderer like Massacre. As Massacre is being wheeled out of the building in a gurney, J. Jonah Jameson rushes up to Spider-Man and demands to know why he saved Massacre’s life, pointing out that he might break out of prison to kill again. Spider-Man tells Jonah that if that happens he will be there to stop Massacre, saying that his new rule is that nobody will die on while he’s around. Jonah considers this for a moment and tells Spider-Man that he no longer thinks the web-slinger is a menace, but that he’s a fucking idiot. As Spider-Man swings away, Jameson tells him to get the hell out of his city.
Spider-Man stops on a nearby watertower and is confident that he now has the resources to make sure that another person will never die if he can help it and vows to everyone he lost that he’ll live up to this new code.[4]
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Massacre, Yuri Watanabe, J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson, Max Modell, Bella Fishbach, Grady Scraps, Sajani Jaffrey, Uatu Jackson, Tiberius Stone, Night Nurse, Paladin, Ashley Kafka (in video)
Continuity Notes
When facing foes that had similar early-warning senses, Spider-Man developed a weapon to scramble these powers. He was forced to activate the device manually, making him fall victim to its effects as well. See Amazing Spider-Man #654.
Peter started working at Horizon Labs in Amazing Spider-Man #648, a company that pays him very well.
Marla Jameson was murdered by the Spider-Slayer. This also happened in Amazing Spider-Man #654.
Peter makes a promise to a number of people in his life that are now dead. They are:
Uncle Ben, because obviously, Amazing Fantasy #15.
George Stacy, who died in Amazing Spider-Man #90.
His daughter Gwen who was murdered in Amazing Spider-Man #121.
And of course, Marla who we already talked about.
Topical References
Outdated pop-culture references: YouTube
On Captial Punishment in the Marvel Universe
The death penalty becomes a subject in the ongoing plotlines that involve Massacre and the Spider-Slayer from here on out. At the time these comics were published the death penalty had been abolished in the state of New York. Obviously, for the sake of storytelling the writers are playing it fast and loose with how state and municipal laws work (it is a comic book after all)
Still, stories that take place in the “Modern Age” are usually reflective of the present we live in the real world, meaning that stories need to be viewed in the context of today and anything that doesn’t fit with today is considered a topical reference that cannot be taken at face value. Such is the case with capital punishment in the Marvel Universe. In past stories where capital punishment was on the law books in the state of New York, it was often mentioned as a punishment for crooks that are arrested, those references had become topical when New York abolished the death penalty in 2004.
However, with J. Jonah Jameson becoming mayor of New York it kind of changes the dynamic of what happens in the fiction and in the real world. Prior to Jameson becoming mayor in the comic the mayor of New York was basically whoever was in power at the time the story was published or just a generic title when those references became dated. In other words, the politics of the real world were what was reflected in the Marvel Universe, this was the first time a fictional character took on the role of government in that universe opening up the potential for them to break from exterior conventions.
In the real world, It seems very unlikely that the mayor of New York City could dictate the policies on capital punishment for the entire state. I would assume that, in the Marvel Universe, New York City has a greater deal of autonomy than the rest of the state because of the high concentration of superhumans that exist in that city.
