Spiderman 1 (34 page)

Hell, yes,
he thought bitterly.

He picked up a copy of the
Daily Bugle
off the kitchen
table, hoping that perhaps the want ads in that newspaper
would be more productive than the washouts the
Trib's
clas
sifieds had provided. He flipped open the front page, look
ing for the index, and stopped dead.

He focused on the headline, his eyes widening in disbe
lief.

Harry's father was saying something to him, but it wasn't
registering. Instead he was staring at the crude sketch of
Spider-Man's face, under the headline,
wanted: photo
graphic proof! bugle offers reward!

"Parker!" Osborn repeated, commanding Peter's attention, "Do you have any other skills?"

With a small smile, Peter said, "I'm thinking of some
thing in photography."

XVI.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

The 35mm camera had been carefully suspended in the
cornice of the third floor of the building. Peter peered
through the lens one more time to make sure it was properly targeted and working. The words
auto shutter
flashed in
red in the lower right corner of the viewfinder.

The view through the lens was a wide angle, giving him a nice view of the entire front of the bank. Moments later,
the doors of the bank burst open and three robbers burst out,
waving guns. Pedestrians fell back with terrified screams.

"Showtime," Peter muttered beneath his mask.

Battling Jack Murdock, still walking with a limp after his encounter with Bone Saw McGraw months ago, was on his
way into the Citibank when he stopped dead in his tracks.
He couldn't believe it. It was the kind of thing he saw only
on television or in the movies.

The robbers charged out of the bank, shouting for people to keep back. Jack was no fool. This was no wrestling ring. This was real life. So he stayed right where he was, making
no sudden moves, lest he draw their attention.

Police sirens sounded in the near distance and the robbers, all of whom were masked in ski caps, looked at each
other nervously. Obviously they hadn't expected the cops to get so close, so fast. The fourth of their crew was at curbside in what was obviously the getaway car, and he was madly
gesturing for them to hurry the hell up. But traffic was bot-

tlenecking all around them—this was midtown Manhattan,
after all—and they might not make it far enough away be
fore the cops drew within distance. Plus there were witnesses who could identify the license plates and put the ,
police on their tracks all too quickly.

All this went through Jack's mind in a heartbeat, and sud
denly one of the robbers pointed a gun at Jack and snarled, "You! Come with us!"

"M-me?" said Jack, his voice going up an octave.

"In the car, now!"

Oh, my God, I'm a hostage,
thought Jack.

Suddenly there was a collective shout, gasps, people point
ing upward. Despite the fact that there were armed robbers standing on the sidewalk, they had abruptly become of sec
ondary interest compared to the sight that presented itself now.

A lithe figure in tight-fitting red and dark blue descended
from on high like an avenging angel. He wore red boots, a
red belt, and a pattern that ran the length of his torso and
down his arms, and his mask was frightening with its wide,
silver-white eyepieces that obscured his face completely. An intricate, slightly raised web pattern ran along the red mate
rial, and there was an image of a spider on his chest. The rest
of the costume was dark blue, although it was shimmering
as he descended and appeared to have black highlights. He
was swinging on gossamer strands of webbing
...
a gigan
tic spider crossed with Tarzan of the Apes.

He'd been heard about, rumored about, speculated about.
But no one had ever seen him clearly in broad daylight. No
one ... until now.

It was Jack who spoke first, crying out in a startled voice,
"Spider-Man!"

Immediately the bank robbers, as one, started firing right
at him. Except he was no longer there. Releasing the web
line so that the arc of his swing couldn't be tracked, Spider-

Man somersaulted through the air. Even as he did so, he
crisscrossed his arms and unleashed sprays of webbing.
With pinpoint accuracy it nailed the guns of the three rob
bers, gumming up the works and causing the weapons to ad
here, useless, to their hands.

Spider-Man landed on the sidewalk right in front of them.
They came in fast, the three of them converging as one. All
they managed to do was slam into each other, because Spider-Man—having barely touched the ground—immediately bounced up as if he were on strings. Before they real
ized it, he was behind them. He grabbed the respective heads
of two of them and slammed them together with a resound
ing crack. The duo went down as if they'd just been slammed
with a two-by-four.

The third, the burliest one, swung his webbed-up gun
hand, trying to use it like a club. Spider-Man ducked under
each sweep, and as he did so, he said jovially, "Shall we dance? Cha-cha-cha..." It was as if he weren't in a life-
and-death struggle and all. As if the whole thing were just a
game to him.

On the fifth swing, he caught the arm effortlessly. The
robber was stunned, unable to believe that he was being immobilized with so little effort, and then Spider-Man literally
turned him upside down. "You know," Spider-Man said to him conversationally, dangling him by his feet, "when you
open a new account here, they give you a free toaster.
Should have settled for that. Let that be a lesson to you: Get
a toaster
...
or be toast."

And with that, he tossed the robber on top of the heap of
his already fallen associates. He started to get up, but a
quick, casual spin kick from Spider-Man knocked him out.

The getaway car driver hit the gas, tried to pull out, but he
was already too late. Spider-Man bounded over to him and
called, "Nice car! I might buy it! Mind if I kick the tires?!"

He delivered a powerful kick to the right front tire that blew it out as quickly as if it had slammed into a concrete median
strip.

Immediately the driver tried to leap out of the front seat
in hopes of getting away ... except he found himself
webbed to the seat. Spider-Man cheerfully waggled his fin
gers at him. "When Spider-Man's putting on a show," he called, "there's never a dry seat in the house!"

And then, with the flashing lights of the police cars ap
proaching, barely a block away, Spider-Man took a running start, bounced off the roof of the car and fired a web line all
in the same motion. An instant later he had swung up and out
of view, leaving behind four criminals and a wave of spon
taneous applause from the onlookers.

Moments later Jack was at the nearest pay phone, dialing
frantically. It rang on the other end and then picked up. "Hello?"

"Matt!" Jack burst out. "Son, wait'll I tell you about the
genuine daredevil who saved your old man ...!"

"Spider-Man."

The man who'd been introduced to Peter as Joe "Robbie"
Robertson was looking him right in the face, and for a mo
ment Peter thought that he'd been seen through just that easily. That this newsman had figured out that Spider-Man was,
in fact, a nervous college kid who was trying to pull a fast
one on the largest tabloid newspaper in New York.

But then Robertson looked back at the picture and said,
"Spider-Man
...
he really exists," and he shook his head in amazement. "I was starting to think he was an urban legend.
If you hadn't had us develop the negatives ourselves, I would
have thought you doctored these with a computer or some
thing."

Relaxing a bit, Peter said, "I thought you might think that.
That's why I did it this way."

"Bright lad."

They were standing in the middle of the newsroom. Re
porters made it a point of passing by, glancing over Robert
son's shoulder with interest as he flipped through the stills.
Word had spread quickly; unsurprising, since these were re
porters, after all. Robertson pretended to be unaware of the
fact that everyone was stopping by to sneak a look, first at
the photos, and then at the unassuming young man who had
snapped them. Peter forced a smile but then started looking
down self-consciously and kept his attention focused on the
floor.

Spider-Man swinging, flying, web shooting ... they were all there, everything any newsman could ask for. "They're
good. Very good. How'd you get 'em?" asked Robertson.

"If I tell you, you'll send your own photographer. Am I hired?" he asked.

"It's not up to me," said Robertson. "Mr. Jameson hires
all staff personally."

That was when they heard shouting from an office down
the hall. The person doing the shouting sounded as if he could out-holler a cement mixer.
"Is that what I said?! Is
that what I asked? I said a picture, Eddie, not an ink blot!
Why the hell can't anybody bring me decent art on that
freak?! Get the hell out of here!"

Peter didn't know which was more shocking: the volume
and vehemence of the person shouting, or the fact that no
one else in the newsroom really seemed to be reacting. "He
fires 'em that way, too," Robertson said mildly. When he saw
Peter's incredulous reaction, he seemed to intuit what was going through the lad's mind. "It's like living beneath an el
evated train, son. After a while, the shock just wears off, and
you barely hear it anymore."

A young man with dirty blonde hair, a camera slung
around his neck, and a generally shabby appearance,
emerged from the hall and stalked across the newsroom. He

stopped when he saw Peter staring at him, saw the camera bag slung over Peter's shoulder. "What're you lookin' at, greenhorn?" he asked in a voice filled with pure venom.

"And Brock! Would it kill you to get a decent suit!? "

The bellowing voice's owner had appeared at his office door. How anyone could reach that volume while still keep
ing a cigar in his mouth was beyond Peter's ability to under
stand. His mustache was bristling as furiously as his flattop
haircut. He looked like an angry porcupine.