Spider-Man & Red Inferno - Issue 1: Red Inferno Online

I’ll never forget the first time the spider bit me. A lanky fifteen-year-old with more acne than confidence, I thought that field trip was gonna be another snooze-fest. Then bam. A radioactive spider decided I was its last meal. Or maybe its magnum opus. The next morning, I woke up sticking to my ceiling. Freaked me out so bad I fell flat on my face. Not my most heroic moment.

But the powers? Wall-crawling. Super strength. That tingle in the back of my skull—my Spidey-sense—that warns me when trouble’s coming. At first, I used it for selfish stuff. Wrestling cash. Ego. Then my uncle died because I didn’t lift a finger when I could have. After that? I learned the hard way: with great power… you know the rest.

Around that time, I met her.

Mary Jane Watson. Red hair like sunset caught fire. Eyes greener than the Hudson on a clean day (which was never, but still). And a laugh that made my spider-sense do backflips for all the right reasons. Aunt May set us up. “Just a friend from next door,” she said. Right.

Our first date was a disaster. I wore my only suit—a hand-me-down that smelled like mothballs and regret. She showed up in a leather jacket and a smile that could disarm Doctor Doom. We went to a shawarma place. I spent the whole time trying not to web-sling my soda across the room by accident.

But then, under a streetlamp buzzing like an anxious thought, she kissed me. Not a shy kiss. A Mary Jane kiss. Confident. Real. When we pulled apart, she smirked. “You know, Tiger,” she said, “for a guy who sticks to walls, you kiss pretty good for a nerd.”

I blinked. “You… you know?”

“That you’re Spider-Man? Please. I’ve known since you were fifteen. Saw you crawling past my window one night. You waved.”

I stood there, dumbstruck. “And you’re not… freaked out?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s the coolest thing about you. Besides, someone’s gotta make sure you don’t bleed out in some alley.”

We fell in love fast after that. She never asked me to stop. Not when I came home bruised, not when our dates got interrupted by the Rhino rampaging through Queens. She’d just patch me up, order Chinese, and listen to me rant about J. Jonah Jameson’s latest hit piece.

I supported …