Spider-man Database

Amazing Spider-man Vol. 2 Issue 539

Cover scan uploaded on Apr 10, 2007 by WallCrawler

Synopsis:

Submitted by: WallCrawler on Apr 05, 2007

Aunt May has been shot by a sniper, who was aiming for her nephew, Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-man. The sniper's not done, however, and continues to shoot at Peter and his wife, Mary Jane. While bullets fly, Peter takes the initiative and runs to face their attacker. Yelling "no more... NO MORE!" He charges. Through the scope of the sniper's rifle we see a jeep as it's flung toward the attacker. It slams through the wall of the motel room he occupies and the resultant debris breaks the end off his scope.

Peter rushes back into his motel room as MJ frantically tries to call 911. There's no time, says Peter, as he snatches May and leaps into the air in an attempt to get her to the hospital in the quickest manner he can think of.

Nurses and doctors in the corridors of the nearest hospital are alerted to their newest arrival by a crash of breaking glass. They rush to the point of origin of the noise to find May laying on a hospital gurney, next to a broken window. As the doctors realize she's lost a lot of blood, Peter agonizes outside the window.

We cut to a posh penitentiary suite where Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime is receiving a message from Charlie, a rather simple-minded prison guard.

“First gift basket not delivered, but one of the other two baskets was delivered.” Charlie recounts.

A brief moment elapses before Fisk retorts, “Well, then, the evening wasn't a complete loss.”

Fisk then tells Charlie of a Greek playwright, Euripides, who wrote most of the great tragedies of his era. He quotes his favorite line:

“Whom the gods would destroy... they first drive mad.”

Charlie doesn't get it.

We rejoin our hero as he meets up with MJ to apprise her of May's condition, which is “not good, but stable.” Peter feels personally responsible for this, much the same way he did when his Uncle Ben died. They make plans on how to keep her safe and anonymous to whoever might want to finish the job, and then Peter takes to the air again, still in his civilian clothes.

He returns to the scene of the attack and is stopped by the police guard, who isn't too effective after being webbed to the wall. Peter searches for anything that could give him a lead and finds the broken piece of the sniper scope.

As he swings toward his next destination, he mulls over how helpless he feels – how he can't go to see May, so this is all he can do... all he knows how to do. He is on the hunt for a known gun runner, and breaks up a deal that happens to be going down at that time rather violently. He coerces the gun runner to give him in formation on the sniper scope, once again rather violently.

Meanwhile, MJ is at the hospital trying to find May. The doctor that treated her reveals himself, and informs her that May is in a coma and the only thing keeping her alive at the moment is the life-support system... that “sooner or later” he's afraid “she's going to die.”

“She'll make it... she'll pull through, somehow... it's what she does...” thinks Peter, trying to convince himself.

In the rain he swings himself  towards the top of an ornately decorated skyscraper. He's left something here, something that he thought “sent the wrong message.” He thinks maybe he kept it because he might one day need to send that message. He's determined now to find those responsible for May's condition. As he dons his black costume once more, he declares:

“I'm going to kill them.”