"Aunt May, do you have a small camera that I could use?" Peter Parker asked.
May looked up from the Daily Planet she was reading in the living room. "Why, I think I may have one left over from the trip we took to Florida last year. Why do you want one?"
"Well, you always say that every boy needs a hobby, and I was thinking of trying photography."
"That sounds good. I'll go look."
Five minutes later, Peter had a camera and was trying to hook it up to his Spider-Man costume. It was slightly difficult, as he had to compensate for the nano-machines flooding over it.
After much effort, and getting nowhere, Peter decided that it was time to visit Professor Hamilton.
Professor Emil Hamilton was startled when Spider-Man tapped at his window.
"Oh, my!" he exclaimed as he opened the window to let Spidey in. "This is quite unusual!"
"Hello, professor," Spider-Man said.
"Spider-Man!" Hamilton exclaimed. "I have seen you on TV! But, why are you here?"
"A . . . friend referred me to you. I have a technical problem with my costume."
"What is the problem?"
"The costume is made of nano-machines. I assume you know what those are."
"Oh, yes I do. I just gave some to a young friend of mine a few months ago. Are the machines defective?"
Spider-Man shook his head. "Oh, no! They work fine. It's just that I can't accessorize. I would like to add a camera to the front, near the light." As he spoke, the light turned on long enough for Hamilton to notice it, and then turned off.
Hamilton stroked his beard. "Well, that task should be easy. All you have to do is reprogram the suit to have pockets."
"Can the camera take pictures from that pocket?"
Hamilton's eyes widened. "I'm not sure, but I should be able to program it to be able to. If nothing else, I can build the camera into the belt buckle which I assume holds the nano-machines."
Spider-Man thought for a moment. "Would it be a traditional camera with film, or digital?"
"For space purposes, it would have to be digital."
"Going back to the pocket idea, couldn't the nano-machines directly in front of the camera be programmed to be transparent?" Spider-Man asked.
Hamilton thought for a second, and then snapped his fingers. "Of course! Sounds like there's quite a scientist under that mask."
"I wish I could tell you," Spider-Man said. "So, is there a way that we can make these changes without me having to take the costume off?"
"Let's find out."
Fifteen minutes later, Professor Hamilton and Spider-Man had installed a special pocket for a camera in Spidey's belt. They had simply reprogrammed the nano-machines in front of the camera to emit a special translucent force field, allowing the camera to take pictures.
"Thank you for all of your generous help, Professor Hamilton," Spider-Man said as he walked to the window.
"You are quite welcome. I hope that the camera works and helps you however it needs to. If not, you know where to come."
Peter smiled under the mask. "Yes, I do." And with that, he shot a web out of the window and was gone.
On the edge of town, near the waterline, an old abandoned warehouse stood. For fifty years, no one had used it. Now, it was home to one man.
"How wonderful!" Joker shouted across the warehouse as he walked in the back door. "I really have done a good job with the decor! Always feels like home sweet home when I come back after a crime."
Joker listened to the sirens in the distance. They were police sirens, heading for the scene of his latest crime. It wasn't a murder; those were becoming so insanely boring. Instead, the Joker had robbed a convenience store and then shot all of the employees with laughing gas. Some might survive and make a complete recovery. However the rest would just have permanent smiles plastered on their faces.
Joker walked to the armchair which he had situated in the middle of the warehouse. He sat down and looked around. Nothing blocked his view of the walls on all four sides, save for a set of equipment on one side. Behind that equipment, the wall looked as if it had been repaired. For a brief instant, Joker wondered what the warehouse had been used for. A drug ring in the forties, if I'm not mistaken, he thought before his shattered, insane mind shifted to another thought.
"Now it is time to commit some madness against one of those, whatdotheycallthem, oh yes - superheroes!" Joker exclaimed, standing up, forgetting that no one could hear him. "But which one? I haven't have many dealings with any . . . of . . . them." Joker slowed as he tried to remember one night. Only a week ago, but it seemed like it was a lifetime before.
"Except one," he said. "Spider-Man."
Joker thought for a moment. Or, at least, he stood in the warehouse, trying to think, since it was hard to do in his fragile mind.
Suddenly, he had a great idea.
Spider-Man looked at the hologram emitting from his left wrist as he crouched on top of an apartment building. It was a copy of the Daily Planet newsarticle requesting pictures of the Joker.
It didn't give much information about the Joker's hideaway, but Spidey continued to read it to figure out the best use of the camera.
At the sound of sirens, he looked up. The hologram automatically shut down. Spider-Man looked down and saw the cops pulling up in front of a store near him. He shot a webline and swung down to investigate.
As he landed, he saw several officers from the Gotham precinct, most of which had been at the Parker home following Ben's murder. Spidey couldn't let on that he knew them. He approached one of the officers.
"Hello, officers. What might be the problem?" he asked.
"Spider-Man!" the officer exclaimed. "What is a big-shot TV star doing here?"
"Trying to find out what is going on here."
"Turning to crime-fighting now?"
A second officer, who had been standing behind a squad car, shouted to his partner, "Yeah, didn't ya hear? He stopped a criminal the other night!"
Spider-Man sighed and ignored the comments of the officer. "I might. My agent left town last week and I haven't been able to get any work. No sense letting my special abilities going to waste. So what's the deal?"
"Well, Spidey, it looks as if the Joker struck again."
Underneath the mask, Peter Parker's eyes grew wide, and his jaw dropped. "Do you have any clues as to where he is?"
The policeman took off his hat, rubbed his hair back and put his hat back on. "Well, most of his hits this week have happened in the waterfront district."
Spider-Man shot a webline up. "Thanks for your help officers." he said, swinging up.
The officer looked up. "Wonder what his special interest is."
The second officer looked at him. "Dude! That criminal he stopped the other night was the Joker!"
Peter Parker sat at his desktop computer in his bedroom. He had downloaded a map of New York City and was studying the waterfront district. He had added a series of X's at the targets of the Joker's crimes. Each X had a line trailing it. Most of the lines converged on the same point. Peter pressed a few keys and enlarged an area of the map. It didn't allow him to see enough of the property, so he used the mouse to input a user-defined enlargement area. Finally, he was able to see three warehouses.
He stood up and transformed into Spider-Man. Seconds later, he was web-slinging to the waterfront.
Joker stood inside of his warehouse. He had been able to drag a small piece of the machinery over to the middle of the warehouse, directly under the skylight. It looked like a motor. He plugged up all of the holes except for one at the top. He put in one of his recently self-named Jokerbombs and turned the motor on.
Spider-Man would have to come!
Spidey reached the waterfront in minutes. As he landed on the first of the three possible warehouses, an explosion rocked the middle one. He looked over. A projectile had burst through the skylight, and headed out to sea. It had left a message on its way out though. A giant red spider lingered in the air as a message.
In one fluid motion, Spider-Man leapt from the top of the warehouse he was on, sailed through the broken skylight, and landed on the floor of the warehouse. In the meantime, he had also checked to make sure that the camera was still attached to his belt.
Joker laughed. "Spider-Man! How nice of you to drop in!"
"Yeah, laugh all you want Joker," Spider-Man said as he thought, Man, I hope that the camera is working with the special motion sensor I added with Hamilton's help.
Joker rushed at Spider-Man, and Spidey heard the click of the camera. Spidey felt the strange tingling feeling he felt the week before when he left his house as the Joker attacked, and side-stepped. Joker fell flat on his face. Spidey quickly pulled the camera to his face and snapped a picture before putting the camera back.
Joker looked up. His cheeks were turning run from embarassment.
"Why, Jokey," Spider-Man said, "your red cheeks really complement your green hair and pale complexion. You should get more sun and improve on that."
"You laughless arachnid!" Joker shouted, getting up. Spider-Man came closer and punched Joker. Joker was down long enough for Spidey to mount the camera on the wall. He realized that he wasn't getting many pictures of the actual fight.
As Spidey came down off of the wall, Joker was waiting. He had found a wooden beam lying on the floor, collecting dust, and previously unnoticed. The Joker held it like a bat and swung. Spider-Man didn't know what hit him.
He groaned as he hit the floor. Some of the nano-machines had projected a mini-forcefield, but not enough to totally cushion the impact. Spidey lay on the floor for a few seconds, and then lifted his right arm.
"What are you doing, bug boy?" Joker asked.
Spidey bent his middle and ring fingers in, as if making a fist with only those two fingers. He pressed down on the special sensor which controlled his webbing. A thin polymer strand of the "webbing" flew across the room, to the point on the ceiling at which Spidey had been aiming. Spider-Man was able to retract a little bit of the webbing to pull himself up and swing towards the Joker. His feet kicked straight out, catching the Joker square in the jaw.
Spider-Man heard the satisfying click of the camera on the wall. He looked down. Joker was unconscious. Spidey climbed up and put the camera back in its pocket.
Five minutes later, Spider-Man was walking into the police department, the Joker hanging over his left shoulder. The officer on duty at the front desk looked up in shock.
"Sp-spider-Man!" he exclaimed. "With the Joker! Hey, guys, come over here! We got a catch!"
Two big, burly officers, who looked like they could have been security guards at one point, walked into the room. Spidey handed the Joker over to them.
"No need to thank me, folks," Spider-Man said, waving to the three police officers on his way out. "Just my duty as a concerned citizen!"
The officer behind the desk stared out the door long after the wall-crawler left the station.
Peter Parker returned home and turned back into a civilian. He sat down at his desk and looked at his camera. Only two pictures left. Should he just waste them, or use them up with something? Peter couldn't think of anything to photograph, so he just clicked the button twice and then heard the film begin to rewind. When it was done, he popped the film out and put it in a canister. He changed back into Spider-Man, walked to his window, and shot a webline, but nothing happened.
"What the--?" he asked, looking down at his wrist. He mentally pushed the nano-machines over his webshooters aside. He pressed the control a few more times. Nothing happened. "Drat! I'm out of web fluid!" He sighed, and the costume came off. "I guess I'll have to go to the photo shop the normal way, and then come home to fix the webshooters while I wait."
Peter was walking downstairs when Aunt May called him from the kitchen. "Peter, is that you?"
"Yes, Aunt May."
"What are you up to?" she asked.
"I'm off to the photo place to get these here pictures developed. Then I'm going to the Daily Planet to show them these pictures," Peter replied, walking into the kitchen. He saw Aunt May drying dishes.
May put the dish that she was drying down and turned around. "Whatever for?" she asked.
"Well, I happened to get some pictures of the Joker and Spider-Man fighting. I figured I'll take the photos to the Planet and get some money!"
"Yes, I remember that ad. But, oh! That awful Spider-Man! You know, that burgler that killed your Uncle Ben was ranting about Spider-Man. And, oh my goodness!" With this, May put her hands to her mouth. "I just remembered that the paper said that the Joker was the burgler that killed him! I hope you were careful!"
"Neither one saw me," Peter replied. Which, in fact was the truth. The Joker never saw under Spider-Man's mask, and Peter couldn't exactly see himself. He looked at his watch. "I better go, Aunt May, so I can still get the one-hour service!"
Peter dropped the film off at the photo shop and then returned home and went to his room. He formed the webshooter around his wrist, and then took it off. He looked at the web cartridge that he had stored.
Fifteen minutes later, Peter looked up from the webshooter. He had finished making new cartridges, and then pressurized the shooter, so that when one cartridge would run out, the next would take its place.
Looking at the clock, Peter reassembled the webshooter, stood up, grabbed his jacket and left to retrieve his photos.
An hour later, Peter found himself waiting outside of the office of the editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet. He looked up and read the door for the fifth time. "Perry White, Editor-in-Chief" it read. Finally, the door opened and a man emerged. The man looked to be in his late fifties. He had gray hair, slowly turning white, and it was thinning around the edges. He was wearing brown pants, a light brown shirt, and a loosened brown tie. The top button of his shirt was unbuttoned. He looked around and finally saw Peter.
"Are you the kid who came in with Joker pictures?" he asked.
Peter stood up and handed the photos to the man. "Yes, sir. Here they are."
As the man looked over the photos, his face turned into a smile. "Kid, these are good. I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name."
"Peter Parker, sir."
The man shifted all of the pictures into his left hand and stuck out his right hand. Peter grabbed it and shook it. "Perry White, editor in chief," the man said. "You must tell me how you got these. It's almost as if you were right on top of them!"
"It's a trade secret, Mr. White," Peter replied. "But if you want more, I think I can get more!"
"Good, good," Perry said, putting the pictures down on his secretary's desk. "Peter, there are some people who I would like you to meet. Lois! Jimmy! Come over here!"
Two people walked over to where Perry and Peter were standing. One was a dark haired woman, in her thirties, Peter thought. She was wearing a grey skirt with a red shirt. The other was a red haired young man, about Peter's age, maybe a year older. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a long sleeve shirt over it. Perry put his hand out to introduce him.
He pointed to the woman first. "Peter, this is Lois Lane, our Pulitzer winning reporter." Peter shook her hand. "Please to meet you, Ms. Lane," he said. "I've read a lot of your work, and it's great."
"Thank you," Lois answered.
Perry gestured to the boy. "And this is Jimmy Olsen, our other outstanding photographer."
Peter shook Jimmy's hand. "Nice to meet you."
"Same here," Jimmy replied.
"Lois, Jimmy, this is Peter Parker. He's our newest photographer," Perry announced. "Peter, you'll be working here with Olsen. He'll teach you the rest of what you need to know. I think the three of you will get along fine."
Peter smiled. "I hope so!"
Next: As Peter gets used to his new job at the Daily Planet, Spider-Man may learn what happened to his money!