Web of Deception: The Webbed Avenger

Prologue: Hero or Menace

DAILY BUGLE NEWS

The Truth About Spider-Man

By: Lydia Martin

In a world like this, when our entire lives seem to be crashing down upon us like god's wrath, people often find themselves wondering if they will be saved. Well, nowadays it seems like the general population are becoming more infatuated with the fantasy of heroes coming through those doors, windows, roofs, anywhere out of the blue just to save our lives, but you must ask yourself, are heroes truly someone who can be there within an instant to save the day? That's the question that we must ask about Manhattan's very own web-slinging "superhero" known as Spider-Man.

What do we know about him? Well, what we do know is that miraculously about five months ago, this man appears out of nowhere, swinging from a web onto the scene of a bloodbath; a horrendous battle between the New York Police Department and a group of notorious bank robbers that had plagued our city for months by that point in time. By all accounts, that day was a turning point. He changed everything when he showed up.

While Spider-Man back then wasn't wearing his signature red and blue spandex, he was still capable of taking down all but a few of the robbers, and saved countless lives in the process. Before having arrived, fifteen of New York's finest were gunned down, only three surviving the event. If not for Spider-Man coming onto the scene and saving those officers, personally taking them to the hospital, they may have not lived to see another day. While many see Spider-Man as another masked vigilante taking the law into his own hands, they don't really understand the man behind the mask... nobody really does. You've heard it from the man who owned the Daily Bugle... J Jonah Jameson, he believes Spider-Man to be a criminal; and why does he think that? It's because Spider-Man wears a mask to conceal his identity, and in his own eyes Jameson believes that those who hide their face have something to hide, meaning that Spider-Man must be secretly a criminal. There have been rumors that have surfaced about the Wall Crawler that would go along with that opinion, but that's not the truth. The whole truth would be to actually take in all of Spider-Man's actions and what's he has actually done since appearing.

Even the police are split on the decision whether or not Spider-Man is a hero or a criminal. They've always tottered back and forth on the matter, and it's always tipped to the hero side, but lately things have tipped the other way. One might have thought that the officers of New York City might have felt some sort of gratitude towards Spider-Man because of his actions that day when he saved those officers from dying. We always thought that perhaps that people with super powers like Spider-Man merely showed off when they fought criminals or committed crimes. Witnesses who have managed to speak to Spider-Man and get information about him says that he feels a responsibility to use his powers to help people, to keep someone from getting hurt. Why does he feel this responsibility to use his powers to help people? Did he do something with his powers and end up regretting it, therefore giving him a reason to use his powers for good, as a way to atone for his past actions? He's never revealed the reasons behind this feeling of responsibility, other than him saying: "with great power comes great responsibility."

Even with all the good Spider-Man has done, there are people who would say that Spider-Man is nothing more than some guy in a costume doing ordinary things, using illusions to make him appear to have abilities.

I, myself was there that day when Spider-Man first showed up in New York City, and I can tell you that he is no ordinary man. He could do things that even trained acrobats and contortionists could never do. He was something that nobody could have ever thought of before that day. Yes, I was there that day, and I remember every single detail of that day.