Amazing Spider-Man Annual #23

Issue Details

Synopsis

ATLANTIS ATTACKS PART 4 - ABOMINATIONS! Atlantis Attacks continues from Uncanny X-Men Annual #13... On an island previously owned by the mutant named Magneto, the Deviant priest Ghaur oversees the construction of a massive Serpent Crown. He gloats over the victory the Serpent Society had in collecting a number of mystical talismans that were needed to assist in this process.  Soon, he will use the Crown to bring his master, the elder god known as Set, back to Earth, bringing about the ultimate destruction of the planet. After punishing one of his minions for dripping a molten talisman on the floor, Ghaur is contacted by Llyra. She informs Ghaur that her airship is nearing Colorado and that she will be reaching New York City in a matter of hours. Meanwhile, in New York, Spider-Man is snapping photos of a Naval fleet leaving the city. The Navy has been on alert since a Lemurian attack on the Panama Canal.  He is taking advantage of this opportunity, Daily Bugle city editor Kate Cushing has grown bored of photos of Spider-Man.  Rushing back to the Daily Bugle, Peter Parker is paid a generous amount for the photos. On his way out of Cushing's office, Peter is shocked to see his wife, Mary Jane, is waiting for him.  She was visiting with Lance Bannon and Joy Mercado while waiting for her husband to show up so she can take him out for lunch. Suddenly, Kate Cushing enters the room and turns on the news. There is a report about a Lumerian airship that was responsible for breaking the Abomination out of incarceration.  As Joy Mercado is sent to cover the story, another commotion starts as the She-Hulk storms out of J. Jonah Jameson's office. She had come demanding an apology from the publisher for the editorial he printed suggesting that New York's homeless population should be shipped to New Jersey. When she doesn't get the apology she is looking for, the gamma-powered lawyer storms out of the Bugle offices.  Later, Peter and Mary Jane are having lunch at an outdoor cafe. There they witness a homeless person being removed from panhandling on the sidewalk. This gets Peter thinking about Jameson's editorial in the Bugle about the city's homeless problem. While Parker doesn't agree with Jonah's solution to the problem, he doesn't know what can be done. He wishes there was something he could do with his powers to help, but Mary Jane reminds her husband that he can't help everybody. Suddenly, the wall-crawler's spider-sense kicks in warning him of a truck that is passing by, but he sees nothing dangerous about it. This truck pulls into an alley behind the site of the old mansion headquarters of the Avengers. From one of the buildings, comes a number of Lemurians who open up the truck. From inside comes Llyra, as well as the Subterranean ruler known as Tyrannus, who is trapped in the body of the Abomination. Llyra and Ghaur have set up a device that will restore Tyrannus to his human form. As part of this process, they have captured Emil Blonsky, the original Abomination.  Placing both men into the machine, they manage to restore Tyrannus' humanity while cursing Blonsky with the form of the Abomination once more. However, as a result of the energy needed to complete this process, it causes a blackout in Manhattan.  The sudden blackout convinces both the She-Hulk and Peter Parker to get into costume and investigate the situation. With the transfer complete, Tyrannus is removed from the device. That's when Llyra notices that the process has turned Emil Blonsky into a mindless beast. As Ghaur and his associates flee the scene with Tyrannus, the Abomination breaks free from the device and goes on a rampage in the streets. He is spotted by Spider-Man and She-Hulk who engage the villain. As the two heroes pull innocent bystanders out of harm's way, Ghaur notes the She-Hulk's tremendous strength and believes that she will be useful for the next stage of his plan. With the innocent people out of the way, Spider-Man and She-Hulk confront the Abomination but are not prepared to deal with his mindless brute strength. As the story hits the news, Peter Parker's Aunt May watches the reports on television and fears for her nephew's safety. Also seeing the report is Spider-Man's biggest fan, Flash Thompson. Thompson decides to go to the scene of the battle to see if he can help the wall-crawler out. He arrives just as the Abomination collapses the wall of a building on the two heroes and flees the scene. When the She-Hulk pulls herself free from the rubble, Flash tells her where their foe went. She leaps off to find him, telling Thompson to keep an eye on Spider-Man. Following the She-Hulk is Ghaur who wishes to examine the She-Hulk's strength further.  Elsewhere in the city, the Kingpin monitors events and wonders what implications this battle will have in his city. While at the office of the Daily Bugle, the staff there worry about the fate of the city. Watching the news reports from an electronics store show window, Mary Jane worries about what happened to her husband as reports about Spider-Man are not forthcoming. Meanwhile, the Abomination's rampage has taken him to City Hall Park where he clashes with authorities. That's when She-Hulk catches up to him, saving the lives of the police officers who have arrived on the scene. Meanwhile, Flash Thompson has managed to revive Spider-Man. Once he learns where She-Hulk and the Abomination have gone, he web-slings off to help. At that very moment, the Abomination strikes She-Hulk hard enough to knock her out and continues his rampage. Before the woman can recover from the blow, Ghaur lands his ship so he can put the mark of Set on She-Hulk's neck and flies off. When She-Hulk wakes up, she sees Spider-Man battling the Abomination and comes to his aid. Realizing that he is greatly outmatched, Spider-Man skitters up the Brooklyn Bridge to put some space between himself and the Abomination. This is when She-Hulk tosses a Roxxon Oil fueling truck at their foe. The resulting explosion sets the Abomination on fire.   In extreme pain, the burning Abomination runs off the side of the bridge to the water below. However, he crashes into a tugboat which explodes on contact. With the battle over, Spider-Man notices the strange mark on She-Hulk's neck, but she dismisses it as nothing more than a bruise. Spider-Man heads back home, but he has a strange feeling that things are far from over. At that very moment, at a federal prison in Washington, D.C., Tyrannus is posing as a doctor so he can get access to the notorious terrorist known as the Viper. MY SCIENCE PROJECT Trying to understand his situation on a scientific level, Peter Parker writes a report on himself following surrounding the events of that led to his becoming Spider-Man.   Recounting that he was a bullied high school student under the care of his loving Aunt May and Uncle Ben, Peter describes the day that changed his life forever. He went to an exhibition on radiation at a local science exhibition. There, unseen by anyone, a spider lowered from the ceiling and into the radioactive beams of the demonstration. This spider then landed on the hand of Peter Parker and bit him. Feeling dizzy, Peter went outside for some fresh air. There he is surprised when he leaps across the street to avoid an oncoming car and cling to the wall of a building. On top of these new abilities, he discovers that his strength and agility have also been enhanced, as though he radioactive spider had given him the proportionate abilities of an arachnid.   Peter decided to test his abilities by putting on a disguise and accepting a challenge to last 3 minutes in the ring with a wrestler named Crusher Hogan. Watching Peter win the match, a talent agent named Maxie Shiffman offered to represent the youth and make him rich and famous. Returning home, Peter decided to use his newfound powers to make it rich and designed himself a set of wrist-mounted web-shooters and a flamboyant costume, to complete his new identity as the amazing Spider-Man. However, this good fortune soon turned to tragedy. One night after a television appearance, Spider-Man allowed a thief to escape the studio. When a security guard asks Spider-Man why he didn't stop the thief, the wall-crawler explains that he only looks out for himself.   A number of days later, Peter returns home to discover that a burglar broke into his home and fatally shot his Uncle Ben. Learning that the killer has holed up in a nearby warehouse, Peter went after him as Spider-Man. Catching his Uncle's killer, Spider-Man is horrified to discover that this is the same man he could have stopped a few days earlier. After webbing up the burglar for the police, Peter leaves to process the tragic results of his inaction. SPIDER-MAN'S UNCANNY SPIDER-SENSE A feature which explains the functionality of Spider-Man's spider-sense works. How it can detect danger that is hiding from plain sight, detecting potential dangers, and determine the level of danger coming from said threat. He can use his spider-sense in a similar fashion to radar, allowing him to walk across a tightrope blindfolded, or warn him of rotten ceiling rafters in a warehouse when he is witnessing a crime in progress. The spider-sense can also warn him of danger lurking in total darkness, and warn him of prying eyes when he needs to change into Spider-Man.   It also assists him in battle, making him to make split-second movement, allowing him to fight multiple foes at once, dodge the Hobgoblin's randomized finger blasts. However, this feature points out that Spider-Man's spider-sense is instinctual and can't always differentiate between two types of danger. As an example it shows a scene of Spider-Man trying to disarm a bomb while unaware that Doctor Octopus is sneaking up behind him. STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR At May Parker's boarding house, she is showing her house to Nick Katzenberg, unaware that he is a unethical photographer working for the Daily Bugle who is trying to dig up dirt for his workplace rival, Peter Parker. She tells him that most of the rooms in her home are rented by retirees, but her nephew Peter Parker and his wife Mary Jane also live here as well.  She tells Katzenberg how she originally owned the house with her husband, Ben Parker, until one day he was murdered by a burglar.  As she shows Nick around the house, Peter returns home as Spider-Man and enters his old bedroom to change out of his costume. His cover is almost blown when Aunt May shows Katzenberg the room, as it is identical to the one she will be renting out, which is currently under renovations. Peter narrowly avoids being seen by clinging to the ceiling until they are gone. Peter changes back into his costume and slips back outside so he can see what's going on. He overhears Katzenberg suggest that Peter probably goes out and parties a lot and makes a number of lurid comments about his wife. When Aunt May asks Nick Katzenberg about his previous line of work, he tells her that he was a photographer for the National Examiner. She is disgusted to learn that Katzenberg worked with such an unethical newspaper and kicks him out, much to Spider-Man's amusement.   Changing back to his civilian guise, Peter Parker checks in on her Aunt May. When she asks if Peter would ever take photos for a tabloid, he assures her that he never would. She is proud to hear him say this, as she raised him to uphold certain standards of behavior. SPIDER-MAN'S TOP 30 VILLAIN COUNT DOWN Spider-Man goes over a list of his top 30 villains. SPIDEY VERSUS J.J.J!! For years, J. Jonah Jameson has had a vendetta against Spider-Man. Secretly, Jameson is jealous of the hero for his selfless deeds and devotion to helping others. He was unable to match the masked hero in battle until he collaborated with Spencer Smythe to create the Spider-Slayer robot. Over the years, Spencer Smythe and his son Alphonso have built up to seven different models of Spider-Slayers. He also funded the experiment that turned Mac Gargan into the Scorpion. The Scorpion attempted to get revenge against Jameson for years, most recently crashing his wedding to Marla Madison.  Another superpowered being funded by Jameson was the Human Fly, who also turned on Jameson as well. Once, Jameson almost figured out Spider-Man's secret identity when he obtained a photo of Spider-Man disposing of the body of his clone. However, Peter managed to convince him that it was a double exposed photo that he created. The one threat to Spider-Man that Jameson is not directly involved with was when his son, John, was turned into the Man-Wolf. Jameson remains completely oblivious to the fact that Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker, whose pictures of the wall-crawler have been purchased by Jameson for years. CATACLYSM This story continues from Uncanny X-Men Annual #13... The Watcher continues detailing the history of the Serpent Crown. He explains that 20,000 years ago the second host of Celestials came to Earth to follow up on their experiments. They discovered that the Deviants of Lemuria have enslaved humanity. However, there are forces at work to try and oust the Deviant occupation. One such man was the alchemist known as Atra, who was working on a weapon to vanquish their enslavers. This was the Serpent Crown, a device that was constructed by alchemists with the help of the dreaded Serpent Men.   Meanwhile, the city of Atlantis was under attack by Deviant forces. The only beings opposing the Deviants is Lord Kamuu, the ruler of Atlantis, and his wife Zartra. With the battle going poorly, Kamuu ordered the lava flows around the island opened. This destroys the Deviant invasion fleets, but also doomed Atlantis to sink to the bottom of the ocean. As Zartra fell to the blade of the Lemurian warrior known as Nolem, Atra sacrificed his daughter to power the Serpent Crown.   At that same moment, the Deviant ruler known as Phraud is informed of the arrival of the Celestials, and orders their ship shot down. As Kamuu lamented the death of his bride, Atra attempted to use the Serpent Crown to eliminate Phraug. However, much to his horror, Phraud is a devout worshiper of Set, and is protected from the Serpent Crown's power. It's at this moment that the Deviants attempted to attack the Celestials. In retaliation to this, the space gods used their power to sink the islands of Atlantis and Lemuria. As the Eternals came to help those ravaged by the ensuing flooding, the Celestials imprisoned the traitorous Dreaming Celestial. Among the wreckage of Lemuria remained the bodies of Atra and Phraud, still grappling for the Serpent Crown.