by Len Wein
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
MAYHEM IN MANHATTAN
STUPENDOUS! Of course it’s stupendous. It’s ol’ Spidey himself in his first—yes, first—full-length novel.
SINISTER! When a baddie drops out of a sky-high window (Did he jump—heh heh—or was he pushed?), Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson wants Spider-Man to take the rap. Has the wall-crawler come to the end of his rope? Does his life hang by a slender thread?
GLOBAL! To swing clear of this one, he’s got to snoop on an international oil conference. There’s blackmail! Radioactivity! And a welcoming committee of death-dealing arch villains!
DIABOLICAL! Who’s behind it all? Think hard, ’cause we’re not telling. But it just might be that too much tendril looms large in Spidey’s formidable future!
AN INSTANT COLLECTOR’S ITEM: SPIDEY’S FIRST FULL-LENGTH NOVEL!
It’s Spider-Man !!!—
Ready to Battle
His Greatest Arch-Rival . . .
“You mean you still don’t know who I am, Web-slinger? I’m astonished. You’re more ignorant than I would ever have thought possible. Who else could have lured you into such an obvious trap? Who else could have conceived such a delicately woven tapestry of intrigue and counter-intrigue? Who else but I?”
A sudden, slight hum to Spider-Man’s left, and the Web-slinger whirled as a steel panel slid up from out of sight to reveal a frighteningly familiar figure standing behind it.
“You,” said Spider-Man. “I should have known.”
Another Original publication of POCKET BOOKS
POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of
GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION
1230 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, N.Y. 10020
Copyright © 1978 by Marvel Comics Group, a division of Cadence Industries Corporation. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Marvel Comics Group,
575 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022
ISBN: 0-671-82044-3
First Pocket Books printing April, 1978
Cover Art by Bob Larkin.
Printed in Canada
To my Father PHILIP,
for being there.
L.W.
and
To the memory of my Mother,
who believed.
M.W.
Introduction
It took a long time.
It was 1963 when Spider-Man first saw the light of day, as a feature in a comic book. Actually, I had dreamed up the character more as a private joke than anything else. He was to be my silent protest against the stultifying sameness of most of the other larger-than-life heroes so blithely cavorting through the pages of countless adventure magazines.
But then a funny thing happened.
Shortly after the web-spinner made his initial appearance, the press began to take note of him. In New York, the Village Voice was the first to headline him as an anti-hero while soberly analyzing his foibles and hangups. Then our ubiquitous wall-crawler suddenly found himself the darling of the nation’s press. You could hardly open a newspaper without tripping over some thoughtful, penetrating, well-reasoned article devoted to the reasons for Spidey’s burgeoning popularity and newly found status as America’s newest college cult hero.
Though not the first of the many characters I’d introduced during the birth of Marvel Comics (having been preceded by the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk), Spider-Man quickly became the best-known and best-selling of our colorful coterie of costumed derring-doers. He grew to symbolize our entire line of superheroes, and his round little face-mask design represents every Marvel publication to this very day.
But the magazines are only part of the story. Once our friendly neighborhood neurotic became a household word, his likeness started to appear on everything from T-shirts to vitamin pills. Spider-Man games, records, novelties, and jewelry can be found in almost every big city and small town, while his adventures on TV are now depicted in two separate series, both live-action and animated.
Recently, a reprint library of Spidey’s magazine adventures began appearing, in chronological order, in pocket book form, from the same publisher who now brings you this latest quantum leap in our hero’s ascent to a total takeover of the planet Earth’s consciousness.
As I started to say, it took a long time. But we’ve finally reached this dizzying plateau. You now hold in your hand . . . the first Spider-Man novel!
Few people could be better qualified to author this landmark edition than Marv Wolfman and Len Wein. They have both served as editors and written Spider-Man stories while in the Marvel bullpen. Both are thoroughly familiar with the superhero idiom and the so-called Marvel mystique. And perhaps most important of all, both are not only facile and imaginative, but they have that unique quality of drollery that is so vitally necessary for anything involving our hero; for a Spider-Man thriller without humor would be like a book of this type without the inevitable long-winded introduction by yours truly.
And now the time has come for less intro and more Spidey.
So let’s lose ourselves in a new and different reading experience as we leave our own improbable universe to enter the real world—the fresh and fascinating world of the amazing Spider-Man!
Stan Lee,
New York, 1978
One
It had taken Allen Huddleston a lifetime to reach the top.
It was a lifetime that stretched from a lice-ridden, fifth-floor Bowery walk-up apartment to a plush duplex penthouse overlooking Central Park West; a lifetime bounded on one end by a bleary-eyed, rancid-breathed mother, and on the other end by an overweight wife, two incredibly obnoxious children, and a different, high-gloss feminine companion whenever he felt the need for one . . . which was often.
Of course, Allen Huddleston no longer felt the same seething animosity toward his mother that he once had. He realized now that, in many ways, his mother was responsible for all that he had become. Wasn’t it she, after all, who had thrown him out of the house when he was twelve, telling him it was time he started supporting himself? If it were not for her parental concern, he might very well have become just another parasite leeching off society, in the proud Huddleston family tradition.
He’d started small, naturally; nothing more than stealing an occasional purse or rolling a convenient drunk, but Allen Huddleston was someone who knew how to seize an opportunity and make the most of it, a man with a true sense of destiny.
“Me, penny-ante? No way, man,” Huddleston was fond of saying. “There’s nothing special about being fifth-rate. If you’re going to make it in this world, you’ve gotta know how to make it big.”
He was fifteen when he joined Vincent Calabrese’s mob—running numbers at first, then working as a wheelman on several still-unsolved felonies. He could have become top muscle if he’d wanted to, but Allen Huddleston, as already noted, was ambitious; he wanted more. Much more.
He spent his spare hours earning his high school equivalency diploma, then going to college part-time after that Allen found he had a natural affinity for numbers, and when Vincent Calabrese finally decided it was time to go legit, Allen Huddleston was made one of his bookkeepers.
He was head bookkeeper within a year, chief comptroller within two, and at the end of ten years had achieved a strong enough power base, and had gained the support of enough of Calabrese’s followers, to throw the old man out and assume control of the whole operation. Calabrese p
rotested this, naturally, but a severed brake line and a sharp bend on a twisting country road put an end to the old man’s angry threats—permanently.
Under Huddleston’s talented hand, the company flourished. It was Allen who had single-handedly arranged the merger with the Roxxon Corporation just two years before the oil shortage caused Roxxon’s stock to split twice in less than a month.
The merger left Huddleston an executive vice-president, one of seven. The other six were butt-licking sycophants, Harvard grads mostly, or the sons of other Roxxon alumni. All of them hovered around Madison Bell, Roxxon’s senile old chairman of the board, like vultures circling a dying man in the desert.
Normally, it would have nauseated Allen Huddleston to have been counted among this company, but since his under-the-table business dealings had left him for all intents and purposes the uncrowned King of Roxxon, he considered the position little more than protective coloration.
In point of fact, Allen’s covert operations had provided him with a rather sizable nest egg, tucked away in several Swiss banks—enough presumably to delay New York’s ever-imminent economic default for several months, at the very least. Realistically speaking, Huddleston had all the money he could ever possibly need in this life. But he also had one most unfortunate flaw in his character; Allen Huddleston was insatiably greedy.
Thus, when the strange, stocky man with the soup-bowl haircut and the thick, dark glasses had approached him regarding the possibilities of merging his resources, with Huddleston’s own, Allen had refused to diminish his already overstuffed coffers.
That was several months ago. Now, Allen Huddleston was going to have to pay the price of his folly.
God, he was tired. Huddleston glanced nervously at his watch, then pressed its tiny button to illuminate the time in the ruby darkness of the dial. Ten thirty-three. Not enough time . . . not damned nearly enough time.
For the third time in less than an hour he checked to make certain the folded envelope was still tucked safely in his jacket pocket. Two hours and fifteen minutes. If he could just remain safe for that brief period of time his chauffeur Carlyle would arrive to drive him to Kennedy Airport, where an Air Caribe jetliner would be waiting to fly him to the Dominican Republic. From there it was only a speedboat trip to the small island Huddleston secretly owned off the Dominican coast.
Two hours and fifteen minutes, and he’d be home free. The longest two hours and fifteen minutes he would ever know.
The soft, velvet succor of his French Regency armchair soothed his aching muscles for a moment. Huddleston wasn’t used to physical labor. He detested it, in fact—which is why he hadn’t become a muscleman for Calabrese back when he’d had the chance. Sweat stained the back and sides of his carefully tailored suit. If only he could rest for a moment . . . but any rest he took now was liable to become a permanent one.
He glanced at his stained-oak apartment door, twice bolted, the heavy French secretaire propped before it. Filled, the damned chest must have weighed better than a ton, he was sure, but it still wasn’t nearly enough. Huddleston had to be safe. He had to be certain.
Grudgingly, he levered himself from the armchair and plodded over to the Madame Récamier sofa standing across the well-appointed penthouse suite. Damn, he hated this stupid couch—too feminine, and now, far too heavy. The tips of his fingers pulsed with pain as he threw his weight against the sofa. He paused, looking down at the blisters, several of which had already burst open, rising on his aching hands. But there was nothing Allen could do about the irritating pain, not now.
He kicked the embroidered Chinese throw rug to the side, planted his feet once more against the polished wooden floor, and pushed the couch with every last iota of strength he could muster. It wasn’t nearly enough.
Panic set in. Adrenalin was pumping through his bloodstream by the quart. Hysterically, Huddleston threw himself against the sofa once more, and was rewarded by a fingers-on-blackboard squeal as the heavy piece of furniture surrendered to his assault and slid noisily across the apartment floor, where Huddleston braced it against the already-waiting chest.
“What on earth is wrong with the confounded air-conditioning,” Allen snarled, as he mopped his dripping face with a silk handkerchief, which rapidly became as soaked as he. Angrily, he squirmed out of his jacket and threw it over the writing table to his left. He wished now he’d never bought all this fancy furniture—his own tastes ran to the more modern—but Alice had been so violently against this decor when they’d first seen it that he’d bought it out of pure spite.
In fact, the entire apartment was decorated with the most expensive French antiques he could find, all because Alice despised French design. Of course, she was equally disdainful of the English Georgian period with its Chippendale, Hepplewhites, and Sheraton “monstrosities.”
What Alice was truly fond of was plastic, and vinyl, and pseudo anything else. For all the money at her disposal, Alice had the taste of a soggy dishrag, which, come to think of it, was something she also rather resembled.
Not that Allen himself was exactly Robert Redford. Not more than five-foot-six, Huddleston was a short man shoving his way into a big man’s world. Rapidly balding, he wore a carefully coiffured gray toupee. He was grossly overweight, and his clothing was hand-tailored in an attempt to hide all his unsightly bulges—it almost succeeded. And the lifts in his handcrafted Italian shoes were designed to . . .
Enough! Still panting, he ran to the patio doors, checking the security locks once again. All were bolted. He glanced out into the darkness, then fifty-six stories down to the street. Still a good hour and some change until Carlyle showed up. Why had he allowed the man to take Alice to the airport without him? He could have waited for his flight in front of a crowd of people, a good sight safer than . . .
But that was before he had received the phone call. No more than ten seconds—just a soft, strangely gentle voice, asking if he was home. It could have been a wrong number, but Huddleston knew that voice, and he knew what that phone call meant.
He had been so happy mere moments before, knowing his wife and screaming kids were leaving for two weeks with Alice’s mother, knowing it would take only a phone call for Vanessa to be here beside him. She was an expensive woman, but worth every penny, a whole lot more loving than Alice had ever been.
Despite his fear, Huddleston allowed himself a momentary smile, almost wishing his dear, sweet wife were here beside him now to share whatever fate might be in store for him.
Huddleston opened his collar and, feeling the cool breeze on his neck, realized the air-conditioning was still going strong. It was only the sweat of fear that had dampened his clothing.
He checked his watch once more, and the sweat began anew. Time was running out. Carlyle would be late, Huddleston knew that now. Alice would hold him at the airport until she’d boarded her stupid jet. Then there would be the inevitable traffic snarl on the Van Wyck Expressway, and a tie-up or two on the Grand Central, or on the bridge, or just trying to get across Manhattan itself. No, Carlyle wouldn’t be back—at least, not in time.
Huddleston was a quivering mass of gelatin now. Puffing his way from room to room, he searched desperately for anything else he might use to barricade the front door. In the bedroom, he found a marriage cassone he had purchased before Alice had allowed herself to go to pot, back when he had actually loved her somehow and wanted to marry her. He attempted to move it, but its weight overwhelmed him. Not a chance. He threw open the lid and frantically emptied its contents—Alice’s wedding gown, white, though they had lived together for three years before her parents had forced the issue. God, Alice had been lovely once. Huddleston glanced at a recent photograph of her, resting on the mahogany dresser, and matched it against his memory of what she had been. Where on earth had his life gone so wrong?
He cursed beneath his breath and then, with an effort that would have astounded even a journeyman mover, Huddleston lifted the cassone from the floor, carried it into the living roo
m, and added it to his makeshift barricade up against the door. Gasping, he stood back and surveyed his handiwork. There, blocking the door, were four massive pieces of furniture. Nothing on God’s good earth could get through that, Huddleston decided, not even him.
At last Huddleston allowed himself a breather, staggering over to the bar and pouring himself three fingers of well-aged Scotch—straight.
“Here’s to you, you inhuman monster,” Huddleston shouted, toasting the blockaded door before him. “You had your chance at me—and you blew it.”
“I would call that a rather premature assumption, Mr. Huddleston . . . wouldn’t you?”
For an instant Huddleston froze, the blood draining out of his face. Then an unnatural calm settled over him as he put his drink back on the bar and turned to face his guest.
The man stood by the now-open balcony doors, the olive-green opera cloak he wore rippling in the breeze. He was stocky, powerfully built, with a soup-bowl haircut and hooded eyes that smoldered behind thick dark glasses. When he spoke, his voice was like the sound of muted thunder echoing through some distant canyon.
“If you’re drinking, my friend, I’d prefer a brandy if you don’t mind.”
His drink in hand, the stocky man settled himself comfortably into a walnut armchair. A slight, bemused smile crossed his lips as he brushed a fringe of hair from his eyes and gestured toward the heavy obstacles piled against the door. “A most unusual furniture grouping, Mr. Huddleston, if you don’t mind my saying so. It shows a good deal more imagination than I’d have expected from you, frankly. You simply must give me the name of your interior decorator.”
Huddleston bit his lower lip as he replied, “Wh-what do you want from me?”
The intruder chuckled. “Want from you? Come now, Mr. Huddleston, you know the answer to that as well as I do.”
“How did you get in here?” Huddleston demanded, his pulse quickening as he tightly clutched the brass railing of the bar.
