The next three issues of Spectacular Spider-Man was all about madness. Dark, unforgiving…madness. What makes madness? The loss of something tragic, where the same losses birth heroes? Abuse and unwarranted torture of the body and mind? Or could it be, everyone else is suffering from madness and you’re the only one who can see it? Or is madness when you just can’t stand it anymore and take your life into depths that society deems mad? Is madness in the eyes of the beholder or the sane? I think….therefore I am…not mad? These two stories are about 2 tragic figures who went entirely and utterly…..mad. One by choice and one without. One a victim making victims and one who always played the victim…
Spectacular Spider-Man #212 was a single story issue written by Mike Lackey that featured a villain most likely forgotten by most, The Master of Vengeance. With a name like that, you’d assume he would have been a big player or was going to be, which is what i thought when I was a 12 year old reading this issue. Unfortunately after this, I believe he’s only made 1 appearance since and that was to fight The Steel Spider whom he mistakenly believed was Spider-Man in another costume. Re-reading this issue after so many years though and I am surprised writers never brought him back because he WAS a powerful individual and his personal story had enough depth to expand on and bring him back one day.
“The Master of Vengeance was sent to Ryan Mental Hospital where, under the care of Dr. Tarantino, he was drugged into a manageable state. However, Faron eventually managed to fake taking his medication, and after a week, he regained his full power and mental acuity. He faked hanging himself, causing the guards to come rushing into his cell. He then ambushed and killed them, and Tarantino as well. Faron located his spare costume, stored in the Port Authority Bus Terminal and set out after Spider-Man again. However, as soon as he hit the streets, he saw things which reminded him of his past life with his family. He decided to take vengeance on everything, and went on a rampage. Spider-Man was drawn to the site of the destruction and engaged the Master of Vengeance. After some struggle, Spider-Man ripped off his gloves and used them to blast him. That, combined with a punch, dropped the Master of Vengeance, and he was sent back to prison or another mental institution”.
What that doesn’t mention is the pure madness of this “Master of Vengeance”. Here is a man who ventured into criminal activities, was caught by Spider-Man and then sent to prison. Whilst in prison, his wife leaves him and Faron loses his mind, claiming that Spider-Man has taken all that is dear to him and has given birth to….The Master of Vengeance. Throughout the whole issue, Faron refers to Spider-Man as his “father” and constantly calls himself “his son.” Faron is so crazy and heartbroken that his wife left him, that the thought of any happy families anywhere, should deserve to die, as shown when Faron breaks out of the mental hospital, there is 1 staff member on the ground crying, begging for Faron not to kill him, the staff member takes out a photograph of his wife and kids and says “Please…this is my family…wife…kids. They need me, depend on me.” Faron grins and says “Bad move Doc, I was gonna let you live until you pulled this crud on me. Some shrink you are, Don’t you remember my case history? How I lost my family cos of Spider-Man, resulting in my total disgust for the nuclear family?”, killing the man. More evidence as to how crazy Faron is, is when he locates his costume and puts it on, he starts casually walking down the streets of New York City, telling anyone who looks at him to “shut up.” The city makes Faron so angry that he decides to not even bother with a plan of action and just make some. He shoots out blasts in the middle of Times Square shouting “If I can have Vengeance here….I can have it anywhere” and that’s enough to get Spider-Man’s attention. With a battle now in progress, Spider-Man attacks in his uaual manner by jumping around and darting in and out and The Master of Vengeance screams things to Spider-Man like “Stand still father so I can kill you.” Master then blasts everything in the vicinity, causing fires all around them, Spider-Man sees the danger in all of this and simply webs him up to the concrete. Now, dealing with the fires The Master of Vengeance rips his way out of the webs claiming “I’ve ingested drugs that would have killed a lesser man, my electrostatic gloves make my body a living battery for ionic energy. I’ve survived explosions. I’ve had buildings fall on my head..and you want to take me out with a measly knuckle sandwich? Ha, I will now fulfill my destiny as Spider-Man’s “son”by inheriting New York City and enforcing my laws, just as you do yours”
Spider-Man has heard enough. With everything he’s going through at the moment, his mood starts to go darker again. He shoots his webs back at The Master and they hit his gauntlets. He snaps his arms back and the gauntlets go with them. He puts them on and The Master laughs. “You won’t blast me. You’re nothing but a wimpy, goody two-shoes loser. You haven’t got the guts. Spider-Man responds as he points the gloves at his “son” “I’M NOT A LOSER” and blasts The Master of Vengeance with full force. Spider-Man lowers his arms and sees The Master still standing there. Costume all burnt and in tatters, hanging off him. Spider-Man says “Had enough?” The Master grunts and Spider-Man smashes him with a right hook, sending The Master flying. The police arrive outside and take him away, leaving Spider-Man to ponder how many other sick minds are out there being “created” by him unknowingly…….
Spectacular Spider-Man #213 is the start of a 2 part story starring Mary Walker and Typhoid Mary and Bloody Mary. Typhoid Mary is an enemy and former lover of Daredevil with low level psychic powers, including telekinesis and pyrokinesis. She has been a professional criminal employed by organised crime syndicates as an assassin in the past. She is also truly and gravely mentally ill. This issue opens up on a bloody brutal crime scene at a seedy hotel, where a man is in parts and even the police have a hard time looking at. Spider-Man decides to investigate but this time as Peter Parker. He tells the police, he’s there as a photographer and as Peter starts taking pictures, he notices a woman cowering in the corner, wearing nothing but a shirt, realizing she must have been a witness to the crime. Peter bends down to talk to her and asks if she is OK. The crying girl lifts her head up and you can see she’s been crying and is clearly shaken up. She sobs and tells Peter that the police don’t believe anything she’s said cos of the environment they’re in and continues to tell him, she just got off a bus and has no where else to stay. Peter asks her what she said to the police and the girl tells her of a woman wearing leather and slaughtering the man. Peter feels sorry for her and writes down his phone number and Mary-Jane’s name on a piece of paper, saying his wife is home and would love some company. The girl cries gratefully.
A few hours pass and the crying call starts to look at all her belongings. She sees pills of all shapes and colours, pictures of ugly drawings and a sniper rifle, confused as to what all these things are doing there. She continues to look around the room and sees newspaper clippings. Clippings all on men who have done horrible things to women and gotten away with it. Murder, rape. The rubber band in her mind snaps……..and Typhoid Mary becomes alive again.
Mary-Jane sits at home waiting for a phone call from a woman she’s never met, thanks to Peter, when the phone rings. MJ answers it and Mary Walker introduces herself, telling MJ that she’ll be there soon. A little while later, there’s a knock on the door and MJ opens it. Prepared to welcome Mary in, she is speechless by what she sees. Typhoid Mary struts herself in, wearing her costume (mixture of Black Canary and Elektra) and says “Cooking for ya hubby? Where’s ya man sweetheart? Stood you up again, he out prowling someplace? My my, the life of a wife, waiting, waiting, waiting.” Mary-Jane gets over her shock and starts to become insulted by this stranger “That’s not true..” but Typhoid interrupts “Poor little miss homemaker wifey-poo. I’ll bet you have his and her towels too huh…..I bet you iron his underwear” Mary-Jane starts to get really angry now but Typhoid continues “Your husband Peter, who’s awfully handsome’s the one who invites women over, so you can cook for them….” With that, Typhoid Mary unleashes a blast of psionic energy and destroys everything in the room. Mary-Jane is frozen in fear and Typhoid jumps out a window to continue her night.
Peter then swings in and sees the mess his house is in, he finds MJ crying and scared. Once realizing MJ is ok, Peter starts to think it must have been the same killer who slaughtered that man at the hotel and came here looking to kill Mary, the only witness. Peter promises he’ll find the killer and stop her, when all MJ wanted was for him to stay there.
Typhoid enters a bar and all the men start gawking at her and making crude comments, causing Mary to unleash more hell. This again attracts Spider-Man and as they start fighting, Mary screams with tears to Spider-Man “Please stop hitting me…your just like all the rest….a little boy on a power trip” Spider-Man stops and says “I’m sorry….but aren’t you the one beating up men? Why are you so angry at them?” Mary leaps up and attacks him saying “I told you, silly….I adore men, except the chumps that is.” Spider-Man again gets the upper hand but then his spider sense starts going wild and he cant make sense of it. He looks around and Mary is levitating all the metal around them. Spider-Man’s in shock at the power and before he can do anything, Mary bounds him to the wall with parts of the metal. Mary then runs away crying and confused. It seems now that her Mary Walker personality is back and Typhoid is gone. Spider-Man breaks out of his metal bindings and pursues her, he finds her running down the streets, confused and not even sure what direction she’s going in. She turns into an alleyway and collapses next to a dumpster muttering “Typhoid’s in charge…” Metal from the dumpster and pieces of other things, all start floating in the air, moving towards Mary, until they cover her completely. When Mary wakes up….a third personality is now born BLOODY MARY. This new personality is covered in metal plates, knives and other pieces of metallic garbage. Her hair is straight up and their is a blackness in her eyes, that if one were to stare at them, would find themselves looking into 2 small black holes.
Spider-Man followers her to a rooftop where she pulls out a sniper rifle and starts to target a man from across the building. Spider-Man quickly stops her and this where Spider-Man starts to realize just how different each personality is. Bloody Mary is tougher and faster than Typhoid and strikes to kill. He quickly webs her up and Mary simply burns it all away, surprising Spider-Man who didn’t know she was a pyrokenetic. With a gulf of flame now separating them, Spider-Man tags her with a spider tracer vowing to find her. As he starts swinging off, Peter then starts to realize that Mary Walker is also Typhoid/Bloody Mary and swings home as fast as he can.
As Bloody Mary targets her latest victim from across a nearby rooftop, she unconsciously changes personalities back to Typhoid Mary once she discovered the spider tracer on her boot. With the personality change, the metal costume psychically removes itself from her body and constructs a hollow shell. Typhoid looks at the silhouette, smiles and subconsciously comes up with another plan.
With Spider-Man’s costume in tatters once again he swings across town and sees the shape of Bloody Mary on a rooftop. As he lands and approaches her slowly, he tells her, he knows who she is now and her different alias’s. He notices she hasn’t moved at all, not even turned around but he still approaches. When he is only a couple of feet away, he reaches his arm out and barely touches a back piece of metal, when it completely collapses. Spider-Man picks up a piece of the metal and notices it’s still warm. He decides to head home and check on Mary-Jane wondering if MJ is making Peter worry about her more just so he’ll stay at home.
He doesn’t alert MJ to his presence when he’s home but instead allows her, to find him, crouching on a stool in the dark. MJ starts to yell at Peter saying that he can’t keep doing this to her and as he turns and faces her, MJ notices his mask his completely missing his white Spider-Man eyes, and you can see Peter’s. He starts to tell her, that he told her to not stay at the house as it’s not safe but MJ talks back saying she won’t be run out of her own house. Peter thinks about it and says ok, seeing as Typhoid only seems to target men who’ve abused women. MJ then says “Are you sure we’re safe then?” Before another argument can start, Peter starts ripping one of MJ’s black skirts and starts patching up his costume, wearing a makeshift eyepiece over his mask. (he looked great, like Spider-Ninja) As he goes to leave again to pursue the hunt for Mary, MJ tells Peter that she loves and trusts him and to be safe. Spider-Man thanks her but swings off wondering if there is such a thing as not wanting to be seen so clearly by someone?
The previous victim that Bloody Mary was targeting before she discovered the tracer is one, Jack Morray. A business man who not only abuses women but has also killed a few, for his own sexual gratification. As Mr. Morray is walking towards his car, a plain looking woman walks, passing him. She suddenly faints and Jack catches her asking if she is ok. The woman thanks him and apologizes saying she hasn’t eaten all day and Jack responds by telling her that his townhouse is just around the corner, where he can make her some food. Upon their arrival, Jack tells her to make herself at home and quickly walks himself to his bar and pours them both some drinks. The woman turns on the TV and sees a report of a woman, who’s been on a killing spree, massacring men all night. As she listens, the woman’s mind snaps again and Typhoid Mary comes back out to play. Mary rips off all her outer clothes and walks towards the bar. Jack turns around sees Mary in leather, stockings and chains, hair wild. He quickly excited and grabs her, saying “You are hungry, my kind of woman and I know how to give a woman like you, a wonderful kind of pain.” “You think that’s what I want?” she replies. “Oh yes, you ALL want it, I’ll bring you to the edge of death and it’ll be so good, even if you die, you’ll love the way you’ll go.”
With Spider-Man searching for Mary, he ponders on her and wonders if he changes that much when he dons his costume. He lands on the skylight of one of Jack Morray’s houses and looks inside, seeing Mr. Morray with his arm locked around Typhoid. Jack whispers to Mary “Women love pain, don’t they? They beg for it. I just give them what they ask for” Suddenly all the knives and chunks of metal things in Jack’s kitchen fly towards him, slicing him all over his body. When he slumps to the floor and looks up, he sees Bloody Mary staring him down. She screams “You arrogant, depraved, sadistic, sexist animal. I have your files, you hit women, you beat them. You beat two of them to their deaths!!! Did they ask for that?? Did they BEG you to kill them?” Before this can continue anymore, Spider-Man crashes through the skyline and webs up Jack Morray, hanging him upside down from his own roof.
They both start to fight. These two individuals who are nothing alike but still share a common crisis of identity. One who believes in what she is doing and is righting wrong’s for those that can’t, although brutally and the other, who doesn’t even care anymore. He just has this morality that he can’t seem to truly let go off, no matter how much he wants to. Protecting a man, who in his heart, doesn’t know should have a right to live. What he does know, is that it’s still not his decision to make.
“You’re a sick woman Mary, you need help” Spider-Man says as he cartwheels out of the way of one of Mary’s clawed punches. “And who made me that way? she says and she continues her unforgiving attack. “This sick world and the abuses of predator men like you. Look at what I found in the library Spider-Man, in the newspaper clip files. Look at all these headlines calling you a menace. Brutally webbing people up” She then throws a clipping at him and Spider-Man stops in his tracks. He looks at it and sees her face…..Gwen. He forgets everything right there and is frozen in that moment. Mary verbally attacks again saying “You were responsible for this woman’s death. This Gwen Stacey. YOU killed her.” He looks back at Mary and pathetically says “It..wasn’t..my…..fault….” Peter takes his hands to his head and tried to regain himself, Mary slowly walks up to him, from behind and says “You see? For crimes against women, I sentence you to death. Do you want it fast or…” “Slow down lady..” Spider-Man says back and grabs Mary’s arm, then throws her into a table, smashing it to pieces. “You pray on men’s guilt and it’s a cheap trick.” Mary gets back up and leaps at him yelling “Tell that, to the thousands of abused women out there” Spider-Man tells her to stop calling her Mary but she scream’s “My name is BLOODY” Whilst still defending himself, Spider-Man tells her to stop fighting and there’s no point. She’s the victim here and needs help but she doesn’t want to hear it. Bloody Mary quickly unravels her metal costume and Typhoid Mary is back again. They continue to fight for awhile and Spider-Man never gives up, trying to get through to her, when all of a sudden, Mary drops to the ground crying. “Omigod…I did it again, didn’t I? I didn’t hurt you did I? I didn’t hurt anyone?” Spider-Man taken back, wraps his arms around her and says “No, you didn’t hurt anyone. We’ll get you help. We’ll put all the splintered parts back together. You just have to choose health.”
BANG
Spider-Man and Mary look down and see Jack’s body on the ground, blood dripping from the whole in he head, he just gave himself. Before Spider-Man can really react, Mary looks at him and says “My name is Walker. When I was a little girl….I was abused. I made myself become four different woman. Two of those are very dangerous. One is…..lost and now I’m the fourth one, the only one who knows everything. I must be locked up and monitored. I wish to turn myself in to…..whoever will help.” Spider-Man says to her “Mary…or is it just Walker now? This is very brave of you. We need to get you cleaned up, get you some normal clothes. Do you have any, uh….friends?”
“Friends…..” Mary says and thinks. “Where’s my bag?” She reaches down and pulls out a piece of paper from it. “Here. I have a name…’Mary-Jane Parker’…..This is the closest I have to a friend…..and I don’t even know her at all.” Spider-Man looks at her and quietly mutters “You poor girl” to himself. He takes her hands and hugs her, before calling Ravencroft. As the police arrive, Mary turns herself in to them explaining who she is and that she’s dangerous, they cuff her and put her in the back of a police van. She looks up at the night sky and says “Something’s up there…….Above me…..? I wonder if he’s watching me…..” Spider-Man swings off into the night, to somehow continue with his existence that’s becoming darker and darker every night. He is coming closer and closer to crossing a line he thought he’d never cross. Not just in morality but in personality also.
Underneath a sewer in New York, The Scorpion a.k.a Matt Gargan screams in anger declaring he’s had enough………..
NEXT WEEK ……..Spider-Man crosses the line you NEVER thought he would in……..THE PREDATOR AND THE PREY
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