To top things off, in the Marvel Knights Spider-Man series, Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, incarcerated at Riker's Island for his crimes, hired Mac Gargan, the Scorpion, to kidnap Aunt May and, in turn, Gargan convinced a reluctant Peter to help Norman escape from jail in exchange for releasing Aunt May. With a little help from the Black Cat, Peter, as Spider-Man, did just that, but the whole thing was revealed to be but a small part of a greater evil scheme. In the end, there was no real winner and the two arch-nemesis parted ways.

In the recent New Avengers series, several hundred super-powered criminals escaped from The Raft (i.e. a prison for super powered criminals), although some were stopped by Spider-Man and the likes of Daredevil, Captain America, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman (i.e. Jessica Drew), Iron Man and the Sentry, a new super hero with amazing (but deadly) abilities. In the aftermath of the prison breakout, Captain America asked Spider-Man and the others to join the New Avengers. At first resilient to join them, Spider-Man finally accepted his proposition. This pretty much sums it up so let's move right along.

ACT 1: Standing in front of the remains of the Parker Household in Forest Hills, Queens, Peter, Mary Jane and Aunt May are all utterly devastated. What was once the home of a young orphan named Peter Parker, his fatherly uncle Ben and his over protective aunt May, is now a pile of smoking ashes. Feeling responsible for the destruction of the house, Peter blames himself for what happened. MJ tries to convince him that he could not know that Charlie was going to destroy the house, nor could he had prevented it from happening, no matter how hard he tried. Just then, a limousine pulls in front of the house and Tony Stark, also known as the Invincible Iron Man, emerges from the limo and, after exchanging brief pleasantries, tells Peter that he wants him, MJ, and Aunt May to move into Stark Tower, the unofficial home of the New Avengers. Peter is taken aback by Stark's generous offer but his thoughts are quickly interrupted when MJ informs him that Aunt May has made her way into the wreckage of the house. Peter takes off running into the house after Aunt May and finds her upstairs in her bedroom apparently looking for something underneath the mattress. Peter helps her lift the mattress up and Aunt May picks up a photo album she had hidden there, which somehow survived the inferno (go figure!). When Peter realizes what it is, he gives her a hug, simply amazed at the strength exhibited by his aunt.

ACT 2: A short time later, Peter, Mary Jane and Aunt May, along with Tony Stark, find themselves in Stark Tower, riding the elevator leading up to the headquarters of the New Avengers (it is safe to assume that Peter has accepted Tony's very generous offer). When they reach the right floor, the elevator door opens and the three of them are introduced to Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage and Captain America who were awaiting their arrival. Taking off his head mask, Captain America strikes a conversation with Aunt May, which seems odd to Wolverine and Peter (they refer to her as a "groupie") until both realize that they are technically from the same generation. Then predictably enough, Wolverine makes a comment about MJ being a "terrible waste of a perfectly good babe" because she's with Peter. Peter does not appreciate his remark although he doesn't do much to defend his wife's honour.

ACT 3: While Aunt May is shown the way to her room by Jarvis, the Avenger's butler, whom she strikes a conversation with (it seems like the two might be hitting it off), Peter and Mary Jane make their way to their room, which has a huge four-post bed and is decorated with the finest furniture and paintings of the Avengers. MJ tells Peter that she is very happy because for the first time, she is living in his world and it makes her feel closer to him. Peter, the horny dog that he is, suggests of another way to feel even closer and the two soon jump into bed together and I will not go into details of what happens next.

ACT 4: Later across town in some penthouse, we find a sleazy fat man in bed, bragging to a woman, who appears to be a prostitute, about how him and four other men took over some failed syndicate (whose members liked to wear cloaks) and divided up the country and turned the whole thing into the biggest crime syndicate in the world. The prostitute, who is in fact a secret agent from S.H.I.E.L.D., heads into the bathroom to freshen up and, using a small two-way radio hidden in her lipstick, contacts her superiors to update them on what she has been able to dig out from the man so far. Her conversation is cut short however when someone appears behind her and shoots her in the head. Back in the bedroom, the sleazy fat man is bound and gagged and knocked out.

ACT 5: The fat man wakes up in a dark room, tied to a chair and surrounded by the other members of his crime syndicate. A man wearing some kind of greenish head mask explains to them that they are going to die and tells them that the organization that they've taken over was once a power to be reckoned with and that after numerous defeats at the hands of super-powered individuals, they were forced to disappear, leaving the organization to be run by a group of men with great ambitions but small dreams. The man continues explaining that through them, they allowed their legacy to become trivial, to become about theft and syndicates and drug importation and money laundering, no different from a hundred other syndicates, run by grasping, desperate men who believe that money is the goal, never realizing, never understanding, that money is just a means to an end, just as they were a means to an end. The man goes on saying that over the last five years, the five of them filled the somewhat defunct organization's coffers with all the money they would ever need to reinvigorate their organization, to restructure, regroup, rethink...and return. As the man says that, a garage-like door opens up in front of the five men and from it emerges men dressed in greenish uniforms with automatic weapons in their hands. As the man cries "Hail Hydra", the five men are shot down by the Hydra members. Even with the five men dead, the man continues explaining how bank accounts have all been transferred, passwords changed, troublesome lieutenants eliminated and how Hydra members living in secrecy all over the world have awaken from their enforced slumber to reclaim their rightful place in the criminal world. The man explains how they allied themselves with tyrants from all over the world to attain their goals. Goals that can only be attained by defeating their enemies with equal or greater force. The man goes on explaining that, to defeat these enemies, they have invested the long years since their slumber in creating men of equal or greater power. As he says that, the content of the large containment units in the background behind him is revealed: evil duplicates of the Avengers. It is also revealed that the man is now talking in front of a huge audience of thousands of Hydra members.

To be continued.