by Len Wein
Steady pressure snapped the lock off cleanly, and Spider-Man pulled the drawer open to find a leather-bound book inside—the private diary of Otto Octavius! Flipping it open, Spidey glanced at the first few pages, and whistled under his breath. The man’s not exactly Harold Robbins, but this is mighty powerful stuff. Crossing his legs on the desk, the Web-slinger leaned back and began studying Doc Ock’s notes in detail.
Ten minutes later, he slapped the book closed, tucked it into his belt under his costume, and felt a chill ripple up his back. So that’s the not-so-good doctor’s plan, huh? Ingenious. And it looks like the oil industry has fallen for it hook, line, and multi-million-dollar sinker. Have to hand it to Ock. When he plans something, he sure doesn’t pull any punches.
For Doctor Octopus’s plans alone, the diary was invaluable, but a few scrawled lines on one of the last pages made it just about priceless to a certain hunted and harried Web-slinger. The lines read simply: “Allen Huddleston is becoming an obstacle to the completion of my oil operation. If he continues to interfere, he will have to be eliminated, and that is a task I will take great pleasure in attending to personally!”
Just a few simple sentences, but to the Web-slinger they spelled the end of a nightmare, proof positive that he was not responsible for the murder of Allen Huddleston. Here was his chance to clear his name, and be done with his life as Spider-Man forever. The relief he felt was almost more than he could bear.
Making certain the diary was secure under his costume, he moved to the door and listened carefully. No reaction whatsoever from his spider-senses. The hallway outside was clear. All he had to do now was grab Jameson and beat a hasty retreat from this place. The police and the Coast Guard could handle the rest.
He opened the door cautiously, and moved on down the corridor to the room where he had sensed Jameson’s signal moments before. There he paused, testing the door handle; it wasn’t locked. His spider-sense tingled slightly. There was danger beyond this door, but it wasn’t too great. The Web-slinger counted to three, then threw the door open wide.
A thick-necked weight-lifter-type whirled at the sudden intrusion, the machine pistol in his fist swinging up to follow his wide-eyed stare. Beyond the thug, J. Jonah Jameson and Joe Robertson sat bound in the corner, their faces awash with a mixture of relief and confusion. And apprehension, as the muscle-man’s finger started tightening on the trigger.
“Hi, guys. Is this a private party, or can anybody join in?” Spider-Man came through the door feet-first, catching the startled thug on the point of the jaw and flattening him.
Jameson shook his head in disbelief. “There! Do you see, Robbie? I told you that wall-crawling menace was involved in this somehow. J. Jonah Jameson knows what he’s talking about.”
Spider-Man glared at Jameson for a moment. Then he spoke, his voice deep, almost frightening. “You know, Jameson, you really take the cake. I put my butt on the line to save your precious skin, and all you can do is accuse me of being involved in this? I’ve got half a mind to leave you here, mister. I don’t think you’re worth saving.”
Jameson turned up his lip in disgust. “You wouldn’t dare leave me here, you web-slinging weasel.”
“Don’t tempt me, mister. Just don’t tempt me.”
A small, sheepish grin spread across Jameson’s face as he realized his predicament. It would be wise not to antagonize the Wall-crawler—for now. “Uh . . . perhaps I . . . ah . . . was a little bit hasty, Web-slinger. I’m willing to call a truce for the time being.”
“Don’t do me any favors, big man. Just listen closely, and try to keep that oversized yap of yours shut for a few minutes—if you can.”
On the opposite side of the sprawling platform, far from Spider-Man and company, eight frightened men sat staring at a large viewscreen. From the screen, the malevolent face of Doctor Octopus stared down at them contemptuously. His voice was powerful, dripping with triumph.
“I have called you here this evening, gentlemen, to ask for your decisions in the matter I discussed with you yesterday. You have two choices: you can either pay me the sum I have asked in return for my personal oil supply, or you can leave here now—I will assure your safety back to the mainland—and watch your empires crumble into ruin around you. I sincerely hope your decision is the right one.”
Madison Bell sat in his wheelchair, coughing heavily and using the wide blanket that covered his chest and legs as a handkerchief. “Well, I’ve already made my choice, mister—and my answer is no! I’ve spent a lifetime putting Roxxon on the map, and I don’t intend to knuckle under to the first two-bit blackmail artist who comes along the pike. If we give in to you now, what’s to keep you from blackmailing us again in the future? Answer me that, why don’t you?”
For several moments, Doctor Octopus’s wide face was impassive. Then suddenly, he smiled broadly. “I’m impressed, old man. I’d expected some resistance to my proposal, but not from you. You seek proof of my power? Very well, you shall have it.”
The viewscreen suddenly went dark, and when it came alive once more, the face of Doctor Octopus had been replaced by the image of a sprawling Oklahoma oil field.
“Do you recognize this scene, Madison Bell?”
Bell sputtered a shocked reply. “Why, those—those are my oil rigs out in Oklahoma. What do they have to do with this, mister? Blast it, what’s going on here?”
Bell’s final words were drowned out by a deafening explosion as the oil derricks on the viewscreen suddenly vanished in a shattering paroxysm of smoke and flame. When the smoke cleared to some degree, the once-prosperous oil field had become a raging inferno.
“I trust my little demonstration was effective, gentlemen? The same fate awaits the wells of any of you who decide to turn down my most generous offer. A word to the wise, and all that.
“Now, unless you have any further questions, Mr. Bell . . . ?”
Bell sat slumped in his wheelchair, stunned, almost comatose. “No more questions, mister. You . . . you win.”
“Please, Mr. Bell, don’t feel embarrassed. I always win. It’s a habit I’ve grown quite fond of. Now, if we can get down to business . . . ?”
Sixteen
“No! Don’t listen to him! Everything Doctor Octopus has told you is a lie!” Spider-Man’s voice rang out in the silence as the eight startled oil magnates stared at him in stunned surprise.
“Lord, no. It’s that Spider-Man they’re always talking about in the Daily Bugle. Don’t tell me he’s involved in this too!?” James J. Knotts looked down at his hands; they were shaking badly. One inhuman menace was enough to deal with. But two—?
“No! I have nothing to do with this.” Spider-Man was trying to shout Knotts down. “It’s all a ploy by Doctor Octopus! He has no mysterious storehouse of petroleum! He was simply planning to sell you back your own supplies! It was all a big—”
But before the Web-slinger could complete his sentence, two armed guards leaped out of the darkness, machine guns blazing away at the blue-and-crimson figure clinging to the ceiling above them.
Spider-Man spun through the air, narrowly avoiding the hail of hot lead raining around him, using his incredible spider-senses to guide him. As he leaped for a far wall, he shouted, “Whatever you do, don’t sign any papers. Don’t give Octopus a penny. It’s all been a con, I tell you. He was trying to sell you your own oil!”
Another incredible leap and the Web-slinger hit the ceiling, ricocheted off, and barreled into the gun-happy guards, sending them sprawling.
The eight oil company presidents had scattered in panic when the shooting began. Several of them were nowhere to be seen now. Spider-Man turned and saw J. Jonah Jameson standing in the doorway, slightly behind Joe Robertson. Good old Robbie. He’d disobeyed Spidey’s orders. He couldn’t stay safely out of the way and let the Wall-crawler go into the danger zone alone.
“Robertson! Jameson! Collect the oil men and get out of here—now! Ill do what I can to cover you!”
Jameson grew fu
rious. “Blast you, Web-slinger, who are you to give orders to J. Jonah Jameson?”
“I’m the man who’ll happily rearrange every bone in your body, joy-boy, unless you get your act in gear. And I mean now!”
An angry response welled up in Jameson’s throat and died there as he stared into Spider-Man’s impassive face. Muttering under his breath, Jameson tromped off to join Joe Robertson, who was already helping Abraham Grey to his feet.
Suddenly the room grew quiet, too quiet—if such a thing were possible. The Web-slinger’s spider-sense began to tingle, almost violently. He had entered the room now. Spider-Man knew without looking. The time had come for them to face one another at last.
Spider-Man whirled, and Doctor Octopus’s mechanical tentacle slammed into the Wall-crawler’s chest, sending him reeling back into the wall. Spider-Man felt along his ribs and winced. The first blow had almost cracked a rib, and the battle was only beginning.
“You were a fool to come here, Wall-crawler. It was a miracle that you survived my fun house trap. Fate will not be that kind to you again.”
“Fate has nothing to do with this, Ockie. You’re just sloppy is all. Otherwise, you’d never have left yourself open for this!” Even as Spider-Man spoke, his fingers were curling towards the triggers of his web-shooters. Now, he fired twin streams of the sticky substance and covered the lenses of Doc Ock’s dark glasses completely.
But before the web-blindfold could dry, one of the Doctor’s amazing appendages wiped it away while his remaining tentacles writhed toward Spider-Man like something alive. “You take far too much for granted, Web-slinger, and that will ultimately be your downfall.”
“Octopus, you’ve got a flair for the melodramatic that positively sickens me,” said Spider-Man, flipping back out of reach of those groping appendages.
Octopus lunged forward, his tentacles ripping out an entire section of wall and hurling it at the fast-moving Web-slinger. It shattered into fragments mere inches from Spider-Man’s head.
“Curse you, you insufferable insect, stand still!” Octopus was shouting now. Spider-Man was moving that much faster, leaping for the latticework of girders that formed the ceiling of the makeshift boardroom. There was no ceiling proper, and the latticework rose fifty or sixty feet into darkness. It was the sort of battleground the Web-slinger needed desperately to give himself an even chance in this one-sided combat. A mechanical arm lashed out, straining to reach the climbing Wall-crawler, but the viselike pincers just barely brushed cloth before Spider-Man kicked it away.
Octopus is good, one of the best. I can’t let myself forget that. One little slip, one momentary lapse in judgment, and that’s the end of the line. The good Doctor Octopus will tear me to pieces.
Like some monstrous daddy longlegs, Doctor Octopus raised his stocky body from the ground on his elongated tentacles, reaching for the girders above him. The eight men he had hoped to bilk out of billions of dollars were forgotten now; everything was forgotten—except Spider-Man.
Far out in the distance, the approaching sound of Coast Guard cutter sirens could barely be heard. The cutters had been summoned by Joe Robertson while the Web-slinger was stalling for time. Now Robertson hustled the last of the oil company presidents out of the room toward safety while the battle raged above him.
J. Jonah Jameson, however, held his ground, his body almost trembling with delight each time Doc Ock’s tentacles made contact with Spider-Man’s body. Oh, he realized Octopus was a threat, of course, but he’d been waiting years to see Spider-Man get what was coming to him, and by now it didn’t matter much to Jameson just who served as the agent of the Web-slinger’s destruction. Besides, with any luck, maybe Spider-Man and Octopus would wind up destroying each other. All things considered, it was the least that they could do.
But over and above his hatred for Spider-Man, Jameson was a newspaperman, and he knew he had a ringside seat for the story of the century. If only he had a camera handy—what pictures he could take. Yeah, pictures. It was almost too bad he had fired Peter Parker the day before. These were the sort of pictures Parker used to take with his eyes closed. He was quite a shutterbug, that kid. Too bad he was such a twerp.
“Come on, Octopus, squash him. Squash that blasted bug!” Jameson raved on, but his screeching voice was lost amid the bang and clatter of the battle raging above. Doctor Octopus gripped the end of the girder that Spider-Man now clung to, and with the aid of his incredible tentacles, pulled it free of its mooring.
The girder disappeared beneath him, but Spider-Man was already moving again, making a desperate dive through space to the relative safety of another girder nearby. But even as the Web-slinger’s feet found purchase, Doctor Octopus laughed.
“You’ve run as far as you’re going to run, insect! From here on, it’s all downhill.”
As if to emphasize his point, Doc Ock suddenly thrust one of his writhing tentacles at the wary Wall-crawler, and a fountain of glistening black fluid erupted from its tip, spraying the slanting girder upon which Spider-Man stood.
“Oil? Shame on you, Ockie. Haven’t you heard there’s an energy crisis in this country?”
But Octopus did not reply. Instead, he stood by smugly as Spider-Man stepped forward and his feet flew out from under him. Impossibly, the wall-crawling wonder began an awkward slide along the girder toward the grasping tentacles that waited before him. Didn’t expect that. Despite my power, I can’t get my footing, can’t get a grip, I’m gonna slide right into Doc Ock’s lap.
Three seconds later, and his prediction had became truth. Doctor Octopus’s automated appendages wrapped themselves securely about his arms and chest, holding him in a viselike grip. Slowly but steadily, the power-mad maniac who had once been Otto Octavius began to apply pressure, threatening to crush Spider-Man’s rib cage like an eggshell.
“You made a mistake in following me here, Web-slinger, a fatal mistake. I will not abide simple-minded fools interfering with my carefully laid plans.” Octopus was roaring with triumph now. “I crushed Allen Huddleston to a pulp for a far less major offense than yours, insect, so you can imagine what I’m going to do to you.”
Barely breathing, Spider-Man strained against the metal coils that enveloped him, feeling his muscles ripple and pop in futile exertion. The tentacles did not loosen in the slightest. Can’t free myself. Blasted arms are too powerful. Chest is on fire, but I have to fight it. If I let myself black out now, I’m finished.
As Octopus continued to apply pressure, Joe Robertson rushed back into the room below shouting anxiously at J. Jonah Jameson, who stood transfixed by the battle in the rafters above.
“Jonah, come on. The Coast Guard will be here in a few minutes. We have to get moving. Jonah? Jonah!”
But Jameson stood rooted to the spot, his eyes riveted on the two incredible figures struggling above. “Look, Robbie, look! Doctor Octopus is winning, which means I’m winning too. After all this time, I’m finally going to be rid of that Web-slinging menace forever.”
Joe Robertson stared at his old friend and employer in disbelief. “Are you out of your mind, Jonah? Do you know what you’re saying? Spider-Man got himself into this mess because he tried to save us. If Doctor Octopus wins this fight, we’re likely to become his next victims. Will you come to your senses, man? You’ve been rooting for the wrong side.”
“I don’t care, Robbie. I just want to see that wall-crawling gloryhound put in his place once and for all.”
Doctor Octopus was laughing now as he tightened his grip. Spider-Man gasped, desperate for breath. “Y-you can’t get away with this, Ock. The Coast Guard will be here any second.”
“And what of it? Do you honestly think they’ll pose any more of a problem for me than you have? I can deal with them all like . . . eh? What’s this?”
In his struggles, Spider-Man had managed to move his body slightly, forcing the front of his costume tunic up over his stomach and revealing the diary he had tucked into his belt. Instantly, one of Doc Ock’s tentac
les snatched it from him. Spider-Man was distraught.
“My diary,” said Doctor Octopus. “I’ll have to be more careful about what I commit to paper in the future. Little items like this have an infuriating tendency to come back and haunt you when you least expect it. I suppose I ought to get rid of this while the opportunity presents itself.”
“No,” groaned Spider-Man, “you can’t. That diary is . . . the only thing . . . that can clear me . . . of Huddleston’s murder.”
“That’s really most unfortunate,” replied Doc Ock, as the pincer-claws at the end of his tentacles squeezed tight, reducing the diary to so much pulped paper. “Because that little bit of incriminating evidence no longer exists.
“Just as you shall no longer exist in just a few short—”
Clang.
A hammer-sized piece of the girder Octopus had twisted into ruin minutes before landed inches from his feet. He glanced down to see Joe Robertson hunting around the ruins for something else to throw, and in that moment of distraction, Spider-Man planted his feet against Doc Ock’s chest, and kicked free.
Bless Robbie. I knew he couldn’t just stand by and watch me die. He gave me just the edge I needed to break Ock’s grip on me.
Savagely, Doctor Octopus whirled to face the Web-slinger once more as Spider-Man regained his breath in heaving gulps. “It’s over, Ock. You had your chance at me, and you blew it. I won’t fall for the same stunt twice.”
“You’re wrong, Web-slinger. It’s not over. It’s only beginning. So long as Doctor Octopus lives, so long as my genius is unsurpassed in all the world, I will never be defeated, never be overcome. You stuck your two cents in where you didn’t belong, and you’re going to find it the most costly investment of your miserable life.”
