The marvellous spider-man

Chapter 4

J. Jonah Jameson was happy. He was a middle aged, greying man with a small, thin mustache, greying hair, and a manically gleeful expression. Normally he had a sour, grumpy face but today was a good day for him. He was the Editor in Chief at the Daily Bugle, and his paper was selling better than it ever had before. Of course every paper mentioned that this Spiderman figure had proven to be real at the bank last night, but only Jameson had thought to mention how the masked man messed up. He saved the bank, sure, but then he was absent while two escaped cons escaped the police. Worse still these weren't ordinary crooks. Lonnie Thompson Lincoln was a notorious mob hitman, and Cletus Kasady was a homicidal maniac. Jameson honestly wondered what could have been so important that this Spiderman would call it quits for the night.

I mean what, Jameson thought, did he have to get home before his bedtime?

While Jameson was sitting at his desk, reading the Daily Bugle and congratulating himself for being so brilliant, he got a knock at the door.

"Yeah what is it!?" he barked, his creepy smile vanished.

He saw his secretary, Betty Brant, come in. She was a pretty brunette who worked there, though Jameson wouldn't have noticed if she was pretty or not. He was too irritated that she had interrupted his reading.

"Mr. Jameson," she said. "We have a problem with that...item...you wanted."

"You mean Eddie can't get that picture?" Jameson looked astonished and angry at the same time. "Goof grief. What do I pay him for? Certainly not for a tiny little speck next to a flock of pigeons, but that's what I get!"

"In Eddie's defense," said Betty. "Pretty much every paper has just a speck on the front page. No one's been able to get a proper picture of him. It's a shame though, just about everyone want to see what this guy looks like."

"They do huh," Jameson growled while rubbing his chin. Betty figured she wasn't going to get any more out of him so she turned and left. However, before she left completely she gave Jameson a glance. She then made a quick exit, for she did not like the grin he had on his face.

He had gotten the same grin when he heard about those escaped cons.

....

Captain Stacy frowned as he sat in the living room of his family's home watching the security footage from the bank. He saw the enforcers take out the swat team. It had seemed far-fetched before, but as Captain Stacy saw it in action he could tell that the enforcers were just really experienced.

It was this Spiderman he had trouble believing in.

What really got to him was the way this masked man moved. It was swift, like an insect, yet fluid, like a gymnast or an acrobat. He had never seen anything that moved the way this Spiderman did. Of course he knew full well that people like this existed. Captain America, Iron Man, and the rest of the avengers...it wasn't as if this Spiderman was the first. The difference was that those other people always seemed so far away, as if their battles were on a higher plane of existence. Captain Stacy could honestly handle that. They had their battle in a larger world, and he had his part to play with normal crime.

But if people with these kinds of powers were taking care of normal crime, where did that leave the police?

It was at that moment that his daughter, Gwen, came in.

"Hey dad," she said, quickly noticing the wrinkles on his forhead. "Are you okay?"

"Have you seen this?" he asked her, indicating the video of Spiderman.

"Brought your work home with you huh?" she said thoughtfully, before taking in the footage. She grew wide eyed when she realized what it was.

"So..." she said slowly. "He's real. He's actually real. Incredible! Oh, sorry." She turned to her father. "I guess I shouldn't go on like that. You'll probably have to arrest him. Vigilante and all that..."