GENERATION X SPIDER-MAN (Issue #20)

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

     Despite being the first day of summer, an unusually brisk morning greeted citizens in the town of Forest Hills. One of those citizens, Peter Parker, had been up nearly all night. A hot cup of coffee stared him in the face as he slouched in his booth at the Daily Grind. It had been a long night in which he had slept in a tree wearing his Spider-Man suit. That was three hours ago and now he was sitting by himself in a coffee shop. Today's edition of the Daily Bugle newspaper sat beside his cup of coffee. Peter stared at the front page and a photograph of his web swinging alter ego. The date on it was June 21, 1991 and the headline read Spider-Man Terrorizes City. It was another in a recent trend of newspaper articles criticizing the presence of the wall crawler in New York City. Some in the media were suggesting that Spider-Man was the cause of all the recent chaos in Manhattan. Peter could barely muster up enough energy to care. His main concern right now was to defeat Norman Osborn, who had taken on an evil new persona as the Green Goblin. All of this had been a long time coming. Osborn had been taking the Genetic Potential Formula for many months. Making himself just as strong as Spider-Man, but things really changed when Peter jabbed the sadistic owner of Oscorp with a syringe that contained a different version of the formula. This version altered Osborn's appearance and drove him insane. Norman Osborn now had green skin, yellow eyes, long pointed ears and an elongated chin. Armed with state of the art weapons and technology from Oscorp, he terrorized all of New York City. Even going as far as to destroy his own home. Fortunately, Peter had been able to keep the Decay Rate Algorithm out of Osborn's hands which would have allowed him to become unstoppable. Once again, his main concern was to find and defeat the villainous Green Goblin once and for all.

"Would you like a refill, honey?" Deborah asked, waking him from his thoughts.

"Yes, please." Peter replied to the waitress. "Thank you, ma'am."

The young man continued to thumb through the newspaper, mostly to distract himself. He wanted to do anything except dwell on the recent events of his personal life. Peter even considered seeing a movie today just to get away from it all. A glance at the entertainment section revealed that Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was playing in theaters. He wondered if Kevin Costner ever had girl troubles. Peter did, in fact, have girl troubles. The trouble was that Mary Jane Watson, the girl of his dreams, had just gotten back together with her ex-boyfriend. She and Harry Osborn were back together and it was breaking Peter's heart. Just a month earlier it seemed like Peter and Mary Jane had really connected during a ten hour long phone conversation on the eve of their first date at the junior prom. However, a crisis in Manhattan required the teenager to miss the dance and save innocent people as Spider-Man. After being stood up, Mary Jane felt as though she couldn't trust Peter. Despite the setback, he still believed that there was a chance of getting her back. Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed last night when Mary Jane informed Peter that she had gotten back together with Harry Osborn. Now, he stared at a cup of coffee and wondered why it was so hard to be happy. So hard to find true love. The young man continued to slouch in his booth. Melancholia was his only companion. His friends were still staying with the Ditkovich family, hiding out from Norman Osborn. Peter just couldn't stand to be around them. He couldn't stand to be around Mary Jane and face the prospect of seeing her with Harry Osborn.

Later that day, Peter went to the Flatiron Building which was home to the offices of the Daily Bugle in downtown New York. It was Friday and he had a paycheck coming to him for photographs that he had taken the previous week. As usual, the news business was booming. Writers, photographers and editors were busy going about their daily routine of putting out a newspaper. Deadlines loomed like a shadow over their heads, so there was never any time to waste. As Peter stepped off the elevator that brought him to the top floor of the building, he could already hear the roar of his bellicose boss.