Peter Parker was never considered a normal teenager.
This was due mostly to his intelligence. Peter was extremely smart, and his teachers loved him for it. However, because of his studies, he was seen as a nerd. No one wanted to do anything with him; no one liked him.
Fortunately for Peter, he was loved at home. He lived with his aunt and uncle, May and Ben Parker. They gave him what he needed. Every morning, Ben would come in to wake Peter. And, every morning Peter would go downstairs and eat Aunt May's delicious wheatcakes.
Yet, even in this loving home, Peter Parker lacked something he so despirately wanted, if not needed: His parents. Richard and Mary Parker had been agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and had often gone deep undercover. On one mission, when Peter was just a baby, they brought him to stay with Ben and May. All knew that the situation could be permanent. A few months later, they were publicly declared M.I.A., presumed dead by S.H.I.E.L.D.
Peter was able to overcome the worst of the loss, since he never really knew his parents. Nevertheless, there was a part of him that was empty.
Peter Parker didn't get to the position he was in without persistence. This persistence even drove him to continue to persue companionship of his peers. One day, in late spring, he was on his way to a scientific demonstration by Dr. Otto Octavius. He spotted some fellow classmates on the way.
"Hey, Joey! Hey, Sally!" he shouted, walking across the street. "I'm on my way to a science demonstration by Dr. Otto Octavius. Want to come? It'll be fascinating!"
Sally thought for a moment. "Octavius? The one they call Doctor Octopus? Ewwww! He's so creepy! Those robot arms . . . !"
"Go hang with your egghead friends by yourself, Parker. We got more important things to do!" Joey said, turning and begining to walk away.
"Are you sure?" Peter asked.
Joey turned around and walked back to Peter. He poked a finger into Peter's scrawny chest. "Look, Parker, you have ten seconds to beat it, or you're WORMFOOD!"
Peter held up his hands. "Cool. I'm leaving!" And with that, he started running. He didn't stop until he turned the block. He was out of breath, and he put his hands on his knees. He looked back.
"They'll be sorry! They make fun of me now, but someday I'll be a famous scientist! Then they'll all be sorry they didn't want to be my friends!"
Peter stood up and walked to the ESU science center. Once more, this lonely teenage boy seeks solace in science, where he is never alone.
Dr. Otto Octavius was a short man, standing about five-foot-five. He was dressed in a white jumpsuit, and had already put his harness on. He was walking around the radiation chamber, performing last minute checks.
Octavius looked down at the control panel. All of the lights were working. He checked each switch to make sure that they all worked. He walked over to the wall and looked at the radiation screens above him. He turned to a woman with black hair and tan skin.
"Julie," he said with his German accent. "Are the screens working properly?"
"Yes, sir, Dr. Octavius!" Julie said, shaking her head.
"And the recording devices?"
"Checking them now, sir."
"Will the audience be protected fully?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Very good, Julie," Octavius replied. "You may finish your diagnostic."
"Very good, sir!" Julie said, turning.
"Oh, and Julie?" Octavius asked, before his assistant could walk away. "Please call me Otto."
"Yes, si- Otto!"
Octavius turned back to watch his team prepare for the demonstration. He glanced at his watch. Only an hour until the program. He quickly left the chamber, and headed for the laboratory beside it. There he found his mechanical arms, which he had to attach to the harness.
Peter Parker arrived at the demonstration just as it was starting. He looked around, but couldn't find any available, convenient seat. He stood in the back. He turned and smiled at the people beside him.
Doctor Octavius is the most brilliant mind in the radiation field. He can deal with almost anything with those robot arms! Peter thought.
Doctor Octavius was standing in the front of the chamber, addressing the audience. "As you know, we have been experimenting with the precise manipulation of variable wavelength radiations. With this device that are revealing today, I have been able to control emissions to within one and a half Angstrom Radii."
Octavius turned and used his mechanical arms to close the radiation panels. "As soon as these lead glass shields are in place, we shall begin the demonstration."
Everyone in the room was paying attention to Octavius. However, they failed to see a tiny spider crawl down into the glass box. It goes unnoticed even by Octavius, who had closed the shields.
"I will now vent the chamber, so that all particles that may interfere with the experiment will be gone!" Octavius announced, turning a knob on the control panel in front of him.
Inside the box, the spider's webline held fast against the remarkable strength of the vacuum.
Octavius began to lift a lever up. "I will now increase the radiation emissions until - "
He was interrupted by one of his assistants. "Wait! Something's absorbing the radiation!"
"Huh-?! WHAT!" Octavius shouted. He quickly lifted up a latch and jammed the button underneath it. Nothing happened.
The glass in the chamber began to turn white. The metal around it grew hot. People panicked, trying to get out. Peter put his arms above his head, waiting for the explosion.
"I must terminate this demonstration before - "
BOOM!
The chamber exploded, sending debris everywhere. Peter was knocked into partial unconsciousness.
For what seemed like hours, which in reality could only have been seconds, Peter lay dazed. He was unaware of the people around him. He felt a sharp pain in his wrist. He looked down.
"Spider . . . bit me. Why?" he whispered, as he fell completely unconscious.
Peter remained in the hospital for several weeks. Uncle Ben and Aunt May would visit him every day.
At first, the doctors thought that he wouldn't make it. However, by the end of the first week, they began to change their minds. One day, near the end of the third week, two doctors walked up to Peter's room. Along the way, they discussed his miracle recovery.
"He seems to be growing stronger each day!" the male doctor said. "I've never seen anything like it! He should be dead by now!"
"And no one's heard from Octavius since then either," the female doctor replied. "Probably hiding from a million lawsuits."
At that moment, they walked into Peter's room. Peter was sitting up in bed, reading a science magazine. His head and neck were bandaged. He was finally able to wear his glasses again.
"And there's the miracle boy!" the male doctor exclaimed. "I don't know how you survived! Must be something in your genetic make-up!"
Peter shook his head. "Oh, I don't think so! I've had all of the basic childhood illnesses before. Nothing special ever happened. However, if my Uncle Ben were here, he'd tell you it was the Parker genes."
The doctors laughed. The male doctor pulled out his steathiscope. "Well, I've got to see just exactly you are doing."
At that moment, Ben Parker had just purchased a computer for his nephew. He knew that he couldn't carry it out to the car, so he asked for some help.
A man in his late twenties walked up. "I can carry it for you, mister."
As the two men walked out to Ben's car, a chubby plainclothes police officer walked past.
"I hope you paid for that machine, punk," he said, coldly.
"Oh!" Ben exclaimed. "This is my purchase. This fellow is just helping me."
"Get off my case, Bullock! I'm clean now!" the younger man said.
Bullock leaned closer to him. "Be sure you stay that way, Napier. There have been several second story jobs in the neighborhood recently. Nothing I can pin on you, but . . . "
"Nothing you can hang on me, period," Napier replied. "Now, why don't you go arrest some old lady for jaywalking?"
By the end of the next week, Peter was back at home. Over the next month, Peter started feeling much better. He felt physically stronger. He even considered trying out for the football team.
Then, one day, as he was walking home, a car began to swerve wildly across the road. Suddenly, it came straight at Peter. The only thing he had time to do was jump. He landed on the windowsill of a second story apartment.
"What the--? I jumped up fifteen feet! I'm sticking to this wall! What happened?"
Peter decided to climb up the building. He reached the top and grabbed onto a pipe that was part of the air system. It crumpled like paper. Peter was shocked. He had barely squeezed it!
He climbed all of the way up. His whole body felt weird. He jumped backwards and did a perfect backflip. He ran to the edge of the building and jumped, landing on the roof of the next building.
All along, Peter wondered what had happened. The answer finally hit him. "The Spider!" he exclaimed. "It altered my DNA when it bit me! That's how I survived. Now, I have the proportional strength and agility of a spider!"
That evening, Peter was laying on his bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
"I've got to do something about this! There have been many superpowered people before, and most of them used their powers to fight evil!" he thought.
Before he could ponder anymore, Aunt May opened the door. "Peter, dinner is ready."
Peter got up and walked downstairs.
That night, the Parkers decided to eat in the living room, watching wrestling on TV. Halfway through the show, the announcer and a huge wrestler in a bright costume appeared on the screen.
"Crusher Hogan continues to offer one thousand dollars to anyone who can stay just one round in the ring with him!" the announcer said.
"Those dreadful wrestlers," May said. "I wish someone would put that big ox in his place."
Ben chuckled. "Maybe Peter here should take him on, seeing as how he's so fit these days."
Peter laughed. "Maybe I'll just do that, Uncle Ben."
A few nights later, Peter was in the arena. He wore a simple light blue shirt, and jeans. He wore no shoes, only socks. His head was covered in a grey cloth mask.
"Looking to shed that thousand bucks, Hogan?" Peter asked.
The wrestler laughed. "Well, well. The little masked marvel. Come on up sonny-boy. We could all use a good laugh!"
Peter jumped up and over to the ring, which was easily twelve feet away.
Crusher Hogan was stunned. "H-how'd ya do that?"
Peter didn't answer. Instead, he leap-frogged over the wrestler's back. Hogan became confused. How could this guy jump like that.
Suddenly, Hogan felt himself being lifted off of the floor. He looked and saw his feet dangling off the ground. He also saw the kid's arm around his waist. He was climbing the giant fifty foot pole in the corner of the ring.
"What say we finish this quick and easy?" Peter asked. "I'll just hold you up here for the rest of the round!"
"No! No! You win! JUST GET ME DOWN!"
As Peter climbed down, a man in a brown suit, red bowtie and brown derby hat was watching.
"I'll take that thousand in cash if you don't mind!" Peter said.
"You can do better than that," the man interrupted.
Peter dropped Crusher and the man walked over. "Who are you?" Peter asked.
"I'm an agent," the man replied. "You can make it in show biz, kid. Here's my card. Come up with something slicker for a mask, and give me a call!"
Peter went home that night and thought about what kind of costume he could make. Should it be spandex, or something high tech, so he could change easily?
He thought about this for several minutes. Then it struck him to use nano-machines. Nano-machines were little devices that could spread across someone's body and form a suit. They were tiny enough, that a six-foot man could fit enough nano-machines in a normal sized belt buckle to cover his whole body, and still have a few left over. Peter knew that his friend Dr. Hamilton would have some, or at least have access to some.
Peter stood up and looked across his room at his chemistry set-up. He saw the polymer extrusion system he had made for a science project the previous fall.
"It's a solution looking for a problem!" he exclaimed. "I can modify it slightly, and use it to fly across the city."
Then it hit him. He needed a name. "Let's see. Oh duh!" he exclaimed. "I shall be the amazing Spider-Man! The polymer can be my 'webbing'!" The next afternoon, after school, Peter walked to Emil Hamilton's lab in Hob's Bay. Hob's Bay was also the area of New York called Suicide Slum. For years, the city had tried to revive it, and turn it back into the shining, nice place it had been before the Depression. However, every attempt would fail after a while. Finally, the city council would decide to give up, only to have the next set of elected officials try to revitalize it. The residents of Suicide Slum had learned to not be affected by the politics of their small section of the world long ago. As Peter entered the lab, he saw equipment scattered everywhere. He finally found Professor Hamilton standing behind a monitor. Emil Hamilton was a man in his fifties. He had grey hair, and a big grey beard and mustache. He was employed through Stark Enterprises. Hamilton was shrewd enough to work out a deal where he could work from home, but have full funding from Stark. It was a much better arrangement than his previous one at LexCorp. Peter cleared his throat. Hamilton turned around. "Peter! I didn't see you there! Hello!" he said. "Professor Hamilton," Peter acknowledged. "Do you have any of those nano-machines?" Hamilton walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a device no bigger than a belt buckle. As he walked over, Peter could see that it was a belt buckle. "Let see here," Hamilton said. "Inside this buckle are thousands of those little machines. They could cover you in seconds." He handed the buckle to Peter. "Can I keep it?" Peter asked. Hamilton smiled. "Sure. Maybe someday, you can improve on the technology." "Is it true that I can make the suit in any form that I want?" Hamilton pulled out a second device. He stuck his hand out, and Peter gave him the buckle. Hamilton attached the side of it to the device. "This device is used to program the machines. You can only have one outfit at a time. Others, you may store in here," he said, lifting up the programmer. "I assume that I can't take the programming device." "Sadly, you are correct. However, whenever you would like to change, you are free to come here and use it." Peter looked at the programming device. It had a disk drive. Peter pulled out the disk he had brought and inserted it. Instantly, a file directory appeared on the small screen. Peter pushed a button and opened the file. The file was a picture file, containing a color drawing of the Spider-Man costume that Peter wanted to use. He pushed a few more buttons, and the costume was uploaded to the nano-machines. Peter ejected the disk and pulled the buckle off. He handed the programmer back to Hamilton, who had returned to his other experiment, and thus had not seen Peter's costume. "Thank you, Professor Hamilton," Peter said, as he put the buckle and disk into his backpack. Hamilton turned his head. "You are very welcome, Peter. Hope that your science project goes fine!" Peter walked out of the lab and back home. That night, Peter dressed up in his new costume. The mask was red, with two big white spider-eyes. Most of the body was red, with the underside of the arms, and most of the legs covered in blue. The red areas were all covered in a black spider web design. Peter had built the web-shooters into the gloves. He also found that the nano-machines directly in front of the belt buckle were able to emit a special light. Spider-Man was ready to go! Next Issue: Spider-Man makes him public debut as a wrestler! And Peter Parker loses something very dear to him forever! See the continuation of Spidey's origin in Spider-Man #2!