Marvel's SPIDER-MAN

by David Liss

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Novels of the Marvel Universe by Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Novels of the Marvel Universe by Titan Books:

  Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr

  Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Dan Abnett

  Civil War by Stuart Moore

  Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha

  Spider-Man: Forever Young by Stefan Petrucha

  Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther by Jesse J. Holland

  The Marvel Vault: A Visual History by Matthew K. Manning, Peter Sanderson, and Roy Thomas

  Obsessed with Marvel by Peter Sanderson and Marc Sumerak

  DAVID LISS

  TITAN BOOKS

  MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN: Hostile Takeover

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785659751

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781785659768

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First edition: August 2018

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING

  Jeff Youngquist, VP Production and Special Projects

  Caitlin O’Connell, Assistant Editor, Special Projects

  Jeff Reingold, Manager, Licensed Publishing

  Sven Larsen, Director, Licensed Publishing

  David Gabriel, SVP of Sales & Marketing, Publishing

  C.B. Cebulski, Editor in Chief

  Joe Quesada, Chief Creative Officer

  Dan Buckley, President, Marvel Entertainment

  FOR MARVEL GAMES

  Isabel Hsu, Assistant Creative Manager

  Mike Jones, Executive Producer & VP

  Becka McIntosh, Senior Operations Manager

  Haluk Mentes, Executive Director, Business Development & Product Strategy

  Eric Monacelli, Senior Producer & Project Lead

  Jay Ong, Senior Vice President, Games & Innovation

  Bill Rosemann, Executive Creative Director

  Chuck Roquemore, Operations Manager

  Tim Tsang, Art Director

  Cover art by Alexander Lozano

  Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

  Marvel’s Spider-Man developed by Insomniac Games

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  For Claudia, my long-suffering wife.

  She had no idea what she was getting into.

  NEW York City had everything, and that was usually a plus, but not so much when that something was a snake store.

  Or was it still a plus? Maybe the weird, gross, and possibly dangerous implications of a shop dedicated to limbless reptiles embodied everything he loved about this city, Spider-Man mused as he swung through an open second-story window.

  He’d planned to land on the floor, but it was already occupied. So at the last moment he performed an in-air flip and clung to the ceiling, staring down at the dozens of hissing, slithering creatures.

  He’d set up his computer to monitor emergency channels, and then alert him when they picked up anything where he might make a difference—fires, robberies, and the all-too-frequent appearances of villains doing super-bad things. He’d also played with the coding to catch anything that might be, well… amusing.

  It was Saturday night, and his girlfriend Mary Jane was off doing something she didn’t want to tell him about, and he’d wanted to be diverted… so snakes. He’d chosen snakes, and he’d gotten snakes. There was a lesson in there somewhere, he thought. Maybe that when life gave you options, it was best to choose more carefully.

  In perfect New York style, Steve’s Serpent Storehouse wasn’t just a small curbside shop he could scan with a single glance. It was located in an old, narrow, multi-floored brownstone, with each of its many rooms dedicated to a different variety of reptile. Venomous, non-venomous, constricting—all your slithery needs in a single location. A true convenience for the busy snake shopper.

  And for the busy snake thief, if that was what he was dealing with here. He was beginning to wonder. All of the cages had been smashed, and while some of the animals might have been collected, he couldn’t tell for sure. To add to the confusion, he was starting to get a headache from the smell.

  Who knew that snakes even had a smell?

  Then he saw it. A shadow in the hallway outside the room. A person crouched low, holding something in his hand. Maybe a sack—which, under the circumstances, would likely be a sack full of snakes. The figure moved just enough that Spider-Man could get a better view in the light from outside the window.

  The shadow’s head jerked around, and then he dashed into the hall. Spider-Man pushed himself off the ceiling and clung to the doorjamb. There was no way he was touching the floor. He peered into the hallway and saw the snake thief—running upstairs!

  Who tries to get away by going up? Someone with a well-thought-out plan or someone with no plan at all. Spider-Man grinned under his mask.

  The chase was on.

  * * *

  HIS real name was Peter Parker, and eight years ago he’d been bitten by a radioactive spider. Only in New York, right? The encounter left Peter with abilities—spider abilities. He could leap incredible distances, cling to almost any surface, and sense when something threatened him, allowing him to leap, dodge, roll, or twist his way out of dangers others might not notice.

  While the spider bite had enhanced his body, giving him enhanced strength, stamina, and reflexes, Peter’s mind had done the rest. He’d designed his now-iconic red-and-blue suit which offered anonymity, protection, and comfort—all while making him look cool, if he did say so himself. He’d designed web shooters which helped to propel him across the city and enabled him to snare victims.

  Peter had always loved science, inventing and tinkering practically from the time he started crawling—in the traditional sense—and while it helped him chase shadows up a narrow and twisting stairway, life was mor
e than the endless glamor of catching snake thieves.

  In his “day job” he worked in a laboratory, which allowed him to focus his mental skills on challenging and important research that, in its own way, made a difference. Though exciting, it was way more than a forty-hour-a-week job.

  So Peter had to find the time to be Spider-Man. More than a desire, it was a responsibility, and he dedicated every minute he could to helping his city any way he could. He stopped bank robbers and carjackers and muggers, rescued people trapped in collapsing buildings and rushed victims to the hospital.

  He also seemed to be spending more of his time facing guys who wore suits and possessed their own unique abilities—criminals like the Rhino, the Scorpion, the Lizard, Shocker, Electro… the list went on and on. It seemed as if there were more of these “super villains” every day. They, like Peter, had been granted powers by chance, fate, or design, but unlike Peter they didn’t choose to use those powers to help others. Someone had to keep them in check. That sometimes meant spectacular confrontations. Broken glass, brick, and concrete turned to powder, fire, electricity, explosions, and mayhem.

  Somehow, he didn’t think tackling the snake thief was going to be quite that dramatic. This was going to make for a funny story when he told MJ—the only person he’d trusted with his secret. No, this was shaping up to be a relatively uneventful night.

  Shouldn’t think that, he told himself as he leapt up another flight of stairs too fast for an ordinary eye to follow.

  I might jinx myself.

  * * *

  SPIDER-MAN launched himself onto the fourth and topmost floor in time to see the thief dashing into a room at the end of the corridor.

  The guy was fast. Not super-powers fast but definitely track-star fast. The ambient light was still bright up here, and he caught his first glimpse of the thief. Probably not even twenty. He had short hair dyed the color of a tennis ball and big brown eyes and the barest hint of a mustache. His face was round and babyish, though, and he might as well have been wearing a T-shirt that said, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING.

  As the Web-Slinger entered the room, the guy reached into an open tank and grabbed a snake, which he hurled at his pursuer.

  The thief had a good throw. This was a big snake, too. As thick as his arm and twice as long. It had been balled up, probably comfortably sleeping and dreaming its snake dreams, when the thief grabbed it. Now it unspooled and twisted in serpentine alarm as it came hurtling toward Spider-Man.

  It would’ve been easy to dodge, but it was a living creature, and even slithery things deserved soft landings. He was no snake expert, but Spider-Man seemed to recall that the big ones usually weren’t poisonous. Anyhow, if he grabbed it the right way, it couldn’t bite him. Propelling himself forward, he caught the reptile in midair, placing a hand just under its head. He landed, dropped the creature, and lurched backward while shaking off whatever the snake might have left on his glove. He knew the answer was nothing, but it was a snake and it was icky.

  With the snake safe, Spider-Man turned in time to see the thief leap out the open window as if he could fly.

  Seriously?

  Sprinting to the window, he stuck his head out in time to see the snake thief land on an awning two stories down, bounce onto another, lower awning, and then stick the landing on the street. With his bag o’ snakes clutched in one hand, he glanced up, spun, and raced in the direction of the river.

  Shooting his webs onto the side of a building, Spider-Man hurled himself forward, then again, and then again. It was as close as he could get to flying, and it never got old. He had a mic and earpiece embedded in his mask, so while he propelled himself westward he toggled his phone to give MJ a call. There was no better way to begin a conversation with your girlfriend than, “I’m chasing a guy holding a bag of snakes,” but—once again—she didn’t answer.

  Briefly he lost track of his quarry, then he saw that the thief, who had a decent head start, was making his way toward the Manhattan Cruise Terminal. It seemed like a pretty stupid destination. He could hide out in any of the docked or decommissioned ships there, but there’d be no escape except the river. Besides, Spider-Man’s aerial view would make it almost impossible for the thief to elude him.

  He’d never been to the cruise terminal—or on a cruise ship, for that matter—so this would be a novelty. Sort of like the snake store, but without the icky part. He imagined an impossibly luxurious place that—during the daytime—would be filled with men in top hats and women who cooed while feeding treats to their tiny lapdogs.

  The reality was more like a giant parking garage spotted with poorly maintained buildings that flaked paint like eczema. Docks that reminded him of hastily set bones jutted out into the river, some of them sporting dark ships that loomed as inert as felled trees.

  The thief chose one of the docks and hurried toward what looked like a decommissioned ship that was speckled with massive patches of rust and algae. There was no way onto the ship, however, so it looked like the end of the line. Swinging forward, Spider-Man let loose with a blast of webbing that wrapped around both the thief and one of the dock’s concrete posts.

  Mission accomplished.

  Sort of.

  This was one of the things that made being Spider-Man frustrating. He’d caught this guy in the act and he’d apprehended him, still clutching his bag of stolen reptiles. He would now call the police, but chances were the thief would never be charged. He could argue that Spider-Man had abducted him and planted the evidence. It would be hard to prove otherwise. Yeah, the guy was just a snake thief, but people guilty of much bigger crimes had gotten away after he’d put everything he had into stopping them.

  One criminal in particular had gotten away with far too much—something that never ceased to haunt him.

  One problem at a time. Spider-Man took the bag from the webbed-up thief and opened it. He expected to find a nauseating, slithering mass of scales and peering eyes and flicking tongues, but there was nothing alive in there at all. At first, he thought the snakes were dead, but then he realized they’d never been alive.

  The thief had been running with a bag of rubber snakes.

  * * *

  “THE accumulated wisdom of my life experience tells me I really shouldn’t ask,” Spider-Man said, “but I’m going to ask anyhow. Why did you break into a snake store to steal a bag of rubber snakes?”

  The webbing that coiled around his torso really didn’t do much to make the thief look any less clueless. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Really?” Spider-Man asked. “What am I paying my PR team for?”

  “You’re one of them super heroes!”

  “So is the ‘who are you’ more of a philosophical question?”

  “Sorry,” the thief said. “I just get nervous sometimes, you know?”

  “Perfectly normal, given that you’ve been apprehended while committing a stupid felony,” Spider-Man assured him. “Now, let’s start by talking about why you would steal a bunch of rubber snakes.”

  “I didn’t,” the thief said.

  Spider-Man sighed. “Okay, let’s start over. I’m Spider-Man.”

  “I thought you were Daredevil.”

  “Do I look like Daredevil?”

  “Kind of,” the thief said. “But kind of not. Less horns and more… uh, webs.”

  Spider-Man went for the theatrical cough into his balled fist. “How about you tell me your name.”

  “Andy!” the guy said brightly. He looked pleased to know the answer.

  “Okay, Andy, I caught you, after you broke into the snake store, and you ran away clutching a bag of rubber snakes. Walk me through this.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to steal anything,” Andy said. “You showed up and messed with the plan. So I didn’t do anything wrong. The rubber snakes in there are mine. I paid for them.”

  Don’t ask, Spider-Man told himself. There is nothing to be gained by asking. He asked anyway. “And you brought them with you why exac
tly?”

  “So the snakes I put in the bag wouldn’t get lonely.”

  The Web-Slinger made a deliberate decision to spare Andy’s feelings and not face-palm in front of him.

  “I had a list,” Andy continued. “A guy was looking for particular snakes.”

  “No ordinary snake would do,” Spider-Man prompted.

  “Right, but you showed up, and then things went bad, so I didn’t steal anything. So I’m not in any kind of trouble, right?”

  “What, for breaking into a store and destroying private property?” Spider-Man asked dryly. “Surely there’s no law against that.”

  “Come on, S-Man,” Andy protested. “No harm, no foul.”

  “Actually, there’s plenty of harm and foul, not least of which is calling me ‘S-Man.’ You broke the law, and I’m going to call the police. You’ll stay webbed up until they arrive.”

  “But I didn’t do nothing.” Andy’s face was a mask of cartoonish terror.

  “I think we’ve covered this already,” Spider-Man said. “Maybe you want to review your notes.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have done it,” Andy said. “It was my brother’s idea. He said it would be easy money, but I guess I should have known he wasn’t being straight. He just didn’t want me around because he was off doing stuff for Scorpion.”

  “Wait a minute…” Spider-Man might have been letting his thoughts wander a little there, but now Andy had his full attention. “Scorpion. Like the Scorpion? Big guy? Anger problems? A tail?”

  “That’s him.” Andy brightened. “You know him? Are you guys, like, friends?”

  “No, we’re not friends, because—and this may have escaped your notice—I’m a good guy, and he’s a bad guy. Those sorts of dynamics don’t usually promote lasting friendships. But you don’t seem so much evil as… let’s say, misguided. So how about you tell me everything you know about the Scorpion, and if it seems useful, I can let you go.”

  “I don’t know nothing,” Andy said plaintively, “except that he’s using this construction site as a hideout or something. He’s, like, stashing his equipment and plans and stuff there.”

  “That actually seems like a decent amount of knowledge.”