Post by Drake on Jan 12, 2013 17:23:57 GMT -5
All Star Spider-Man #0
The Death of Spider-Man
[/b]Manhattan, New York
January 19, 2003
11:39 PM
Times Square was ravaged, chunks of buildings literally piled onto the near desolate sidewalks. Fires burned here and there, and five bodies lay scattered around the general area. It was unclear whether the five bodies, men presumably from their shapes, were dead or just unconscious.
On his hands and knees, in the center of Times Square, was the champion of New York, the man who had defeated the dastardly villains sprawled on the sidewalks and roads. The man was dressed in skin-tight red and blue spandex, black “webbing” patterned over the red areas. His mask was in the same pattern as the red parts of his costume, with what would usually be two white lenses over his eyes. The man’s costume was torn like the city around him, the top left quarter of his mask completely gone, displaying a dirty, bloody chunk of brown hair, and chunks of his costume were shredded, exposing large, bloody wounds.
Standing over this hero, this Spider-Man, was a villain going by the codename Hobgoblin. He was not the first person to wear the stylishly torn orange clothing and armor or the scary pale-yellow goblin-like mask, and he would certainly not be the last, but he did carry weapons unparalleled by any of his predecessors and many of his successors. A large, fiery golden blade lay in his hands.
The villain chuckled, lifting the blade over Spider-Man’s neck, “Hahaha! After all these years, it turns out all I had to do to defeat Spider-Man was team up with a few other crazies! To think, I could’ve killed you years ago, it’s just…hilarious! HAHAHAHA!”
At the sound of the Hobgoblin’s high-pitched, coarse laughter, Spider-Man screamed. The villain was gifted with a “Lunatic Laugh”; a gift that allows his laughter to reach extremely high frequencies that paralyze and cause pain to any who hear it.
The villain continued his laughter, slowly raising his sword higher and higher, readying for the deathblow.
“Goodbye, Webs,” Hobgoblin said. He brought his sword down. But, his mistake cost him Spider-Man’s death. With the second he had of freedom from Hobgoblin’s laughter, Spidey used his hands to flip away from the attack.
“Damn it, just stay still! Let me squash you like the bug you are!” Hobgoblin shouts, using the high-tech wings on his back to launch himself at Spider-Man, “HAHAHA-gaugh!”
The villain coughed as a ball of webbing collided with his mouth, quickly spreading to block any high-frequency laughter.
“Just shut up already,” Spider-Man muttered, speaking for the first time since being attacked by Hobgoblin. As the villain struggled with the webbing, Spider-Man quickly observed his surroundings, making sure the rest of the Sinister Six had stayed down. They had. Kraven lay unconscious on top of the Shocker. Rhino was laying against the side of a building. Vulture and Mysterio were tangled together in a gigantic web spread between two telephone poles. And Lizard…Spider-Man knew Lizard was down. During his fight with the beastly mutate, he’d kicked the primal beast into a truck, accidentally causing it to explode. The villain…Doctor Curt Connors was dead. Spider-Man would take the regret of that to his grave.
But, the truth was, he had no choice. Ever since Doctor Octopus had died, the Sinister Six had been getting more and more violent and less and less take-over-world-y.
“Back in my day…” Spider-Man joked to no one other than himself. As he turned his attention back to Hobgoblin, he noticed some civilians begin to circle around the superhuman battlefield. Hobgoblin noticed this as well. What looked like a smile formed on his face.
Without a word, Hobgoblin flew towards a group of the innocents.
“NO!” Spider-Man shouted. He fired webbing from his homemade web shooters. The webs latched onto Hobgoblin’s jetpack/wings. With a tug, Spidey smashed Hobgoblin against the concrete.
“AWGGH!” The villain turned back to the hero. Spider-Man motioned for him to attack. He did.
Hobgoblin lunged at Spider-Man, who, even with his spider-sense, couldn’t dodge the attack. Hobgoblin’s blade cut across Spider-Man’s torso, leaving yet another deep cut. Instinctually, Spider-Man struck back, landing a strong right hook on Hobgoblin’s jaw, which, to Spider-Man’s distaste, knocked off the webbing.
“I think it’s time to finish this, don’choo, Hobbie?” Spider-Man asked, standing a few feet from the supervillain.
In response, Hobgoblin let loose his “Lunatic Laughter.” Spider-Man screamed out in pain, falling to the ground. The villain didn’t waste time this time. He immediately brought his sword down on Spider-Man’s neck.
Or where his neck should have been.
Spider-Man had managed to roll out of the way of the attack. The strain on his body was incomprehensible, but somehow the hero pushed through the dangerous frequency.
“How did you…?”
“Shut up!” Spider-Man flipped up, kicking Hobgoblin to the ground. Spidey landed on top of the supervillain, knees on both sides of the goblin’s chest. He began to hammer the villain with blow after blow to the face, “Stay down! Please…”
“Hobbie has no master. Hobbie is a free goblin,” the villain quipped, chuckling despite his beating. Blood gushed from his mouth as he formed a crooked smile.
Spider-Man stood up from the villain’s beaten body. He walked backwards a few steps to give the goblin some breathing room. The villain stood up.
“I told you to stay down,” Spider-Man warned, getting back into a battle stance.
“Please,” Hobgoblin tried to laugh, but ended up coughing up blood instead, “I’m in half as bad shape as you are. If I stayed down, it’d just be pathetic.”
“And anyway, you’re dead.”
“What are you…?” Spider-Man began, but was interrupted as his spider-sense went off. Instinctually, Spider-Man flipped backwards, dodging three incoming bat-shaped missiles.
“Oh, damn…” Hobgoblin said half-heartedly as the missiles impacted him, blowing up on contact.
“No!” Spider-Man shouted. He flew backwards, knocked away by the force of the explosion. As he hit the ground, Spidey coughed up blood into his mask from the force of the fall.
And yet still, Spider-Man found the strength in himself to stand back up and check on the villain. There was nothing left.
The miniature crowd around Times Square erupted into applause. Chants of “Spider-Man” echoed through the area.
But it was all premature.
Spider-Man fell to the ground.
The crowd went silent. One man, dark skinned and clearly of African descent, pushed to the front and ran to the hero, “Please get out of my way! I’m a doctor!” He shouted. The crowd let him through. As he neared the fallen hero, he slid and landed on his knees next to the injured superhuman.
He immediately checked for a pulse. There was none.
“Oh God, no! Nonononono!” The man began to push on Spider-Man’s chest. With more and more force, he performed CPR, but to no avail. Spider-Man did not move.
A woman in the crowd screamed. Multiple people could be heard crying.
None of this brought back the hero. Bells rung, informing the world it was midnight. But that did not matter to the citizens of New York. Their hero was gone.
Spider-Man was dead.