The Amazing Spider-Man

Sat

Saturday Stories

April 6, 2019

The Amazing Spider-Man

By Jonathan Aquino

I

One of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid in the eighties was the re-runs of the original Spider-Man cartoons from the sixties. The theme goes like this: "Spider-Man, Spider-Man ... does whatever a spider can ... spins a web, any size ... catches thieves just like flies ... look out, here comes the Spider-Man..." That was also Peter's ringtone when Gwen called because he was almost late for their high school graduation in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," but he did not tell her he was on a speeding truck with President John Adams.

II

It was in the cartoons that I first saw the super villain Mysterio, with his magic powers and a head that looks like a fishbowl. I think it's so nice that he will be on the upcoming "Spider-Man: Far From Home" as the Prince of Persia. But wait, I've seen Peter dusted by Thanos – along with Bucky, Wanda, T'Challa, Quill, Falcon, Dax, Groot and half of all life in the universe. So when I saw the trailer with Fury in London, I thought the events happened before Infinity War. But apparently, it is set immediately after Endgame which is also coming soon so I have no idea what happened. Could it be that Peter never got off the bus in the bridge driven by Stan Lee?

III

Meanwhile, I still watch cartoons, and I'm now reading a bunch of comic books, which is like coming full circle to my own wonder years but without being stuck in the past. I happily found a vintage Questprobe comic featuring Spider-Man versus Mysterio last week. It turns out that Mysterio doesn't have any magical powers after all. His ability is to conjure illusions because he is a movie special effects specialist named Quentin Beck. He has rigged the ventilation system to lure Spidey in a hypnotic trap before their showdown at The Daily Bugle.

IV

But there was a bigger threat. On a planet many, many millions of light years away, there was a sentient gemstone that was manipulating the computer that controlled it, using what seemed to be mental powers. It came to our hero in a form that's similar to Mysterio, calling itself The Chief Examiner, so our favorite web slinger had to fight both of them. The Chief Examiner disappeared, and Spider-Man revealed how Mysterio did his tricks like in a Hercule Poirot story because, of course, our hero always wins. And as the saga comes to an end: "...And within the depths of the computer's printed circuits, in a strange electrical netherworld which exist only in the memory bank of the machine ... Someone waits, someone who plans the next step in acquiring the powers of the most powerful beings on earth ... Someone who was once a man called Durgan!"

Spider-Man Cartoon 

Spider-Man: Far From Home 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 

Avengers Endgame 

Photo courtesy of Marvel.Fandom.com