"Out of all three Spider-Men, he's the ugliest!"
"What a joke."
"Zero improvement!"
"Every other Spider-Man solves problems! And this one just creates them!"
The voices rang inside Peter Parker's skull, overlapping and relentless, like a dozen strangers arguing in his head.
He jerked awake, heart pounding. "What the hell…?"
For days now, this had been happening. Ever since that weird spiderweb started forming in his mind, these phantom voices kept popping up- snide, mocking, talking about him.
"Spider-Man? Are you… talking about me?" Peter muttered, stumbling toward the bathroom. He turned on the tap, splashed cold water on his face, and stared at his reflection. Same messy brown hair, same tired eyes, the same kid from Queens.
There was Nothing special... Except...
About a month ago, everything had changed.
He'd gone to a science fair with his classmates, got bitten by some freaky spider, and spent the night burning up with fever. The next morning- boom- super strength, agility, sticking to walls, the whole package.
A week later, he finally accepted it: he wasn't normal anymore.
At first, he had no idea what to do with it. Maybe… become a hero? Like Iron Man. Or Captain America.
He'd seen the Sokovia footage, the chaos, the Hulk smashing through buildings, Iron Man in that massive Hulkbuster suit. His classmates argued about whether the Hulk should've been killed. Then the green guy just… disappeared. No one ever said where he went.
That part scared Peter. The idea of ending up like that. But the dream of being a hero burned brighter.
So he got to work. He raided the school drama club for an old costume, stitched in some polymer fibers, and cobbled together his first suit. Crude, yeah... but it was his.
Then, following a strange chemical formula that just popped into his head, he mixed up a batch of artificial spider silk during lab class and built his own web-shooters.
And just like that, Queens had a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."
People called him Spider-Man, Spider-Boy, Web-Kid, whatever worked. Half the city loved him, half thought he was just a punk in red spandex.
Peter didn't mind. He was finally doing something that mattered.
But lately… something felt off.
Ever since that glowing spiderweb appeared in his head, those voices kept getting louder. They didn't belong to anyone he knew, but deep down, he felt they were real and they were talking about him.
"Other Spider-Men? What does that even mean…?"
He rubbed his face, flopped onto the bed, and tried to sleep. It was already past three, and he needed rest because tomorrow, Tony Stark himself was coming to see him.
Yeah. That Tony Stark.
"Did he figure out who I am? Maybe he's gonna invite me to the Avengers…" Peter grinned, half asleep. "That'd be insane."
He closed his eyes.
Instantly, the spiderweb reappeared glimmering in the dark corners of his mind. Only now, something was different.
At one of the intersections, a small point of light pulsed, steady and bright.
"What is that…?"
He focused on it and the world yanked itself out from under him.
A sharp jolt hit his chest. For a split second, he felt weightless... then everything went black.
He gasped.
He wasn't in his bedroom anymore. He was standing in a small, dim room, walls closing in like a box. A rickety table sat in front of him, covered with old photographs and yellowed documents.
"What the f-"
Pain spiked through his head. Inside his mind, a glowing thread stretched across the giant web, connecting to that same bright spot.
When it touched, a flood of memories hit him all at once.
New York City. 1933.
The Great Depression. With Hunger and with Crime.
Uncle Ben Parker was murdered- shot dead by the city's most powerful crime boss, Norman Osborn, better known as the Green Goblin.
The Goblin's men had come for Aunt May and young Peter next. They would've died too, if not for Ben Urich, a fearless reporter from the Daily Bugle, who saved them and took Peter under his wing.
Peter became Urich's assistant. He admired the man, his courage, his sense of justice.
Then, during a secret photo op of a deal between the Goblin and another gang, Peter was bitten by a spider that crawled out of a cursed idol they were trading.
He blacked out… and saw something, someone. A spider god. Anansi.
When he woke up, he had powers. The Spider-Man of another era was born.
But the truth he uncovered afterward was darker than anything he'd imagined.
Urich, the man he trusted, had been taking hush money from Osborn for years, keeping the Goblin's crimes out of the papers.
Recently, Urich confessed he was done. He'd expose everything, every name, every secret deal. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe he wanted redemption.
But before he could, he was found dead- shot in his home. The killer? J. Jonah Jameson, the very man Urich had planned to give the story to.
Felicia Hardy found the evidence first and passed it to Peter.That's how Peter learned the truth: Urich and Felicia both knew his secret identity. And it was that knowledge, the hope that Spider-Man could do what the law wouldn't, that pushed Urich to act.
But Felicia warned him, her voice sharp and trembling, "Jonah's not who you think he is. Don't trust him."
Peter refused to believe it. He still remembered Jonah's words that day at the Daily Bugle:
"There are a million sad stories in this city, Parker. But none of them mean a damn thing—until we make them matter.
I can give people facts. But Ben's photos... they make people feel.
We'll show them the truth about this city. Someone's got to light a fire in the dark, and make people see what's hiding there.
Your Uncle Ben, your Aunt May... they were those people. And so am I."
Could a man who said that really be a murderer?
Or was this world just too dark for anyone to stay good?
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{TL Note- the other translation gave me headaches... so I'm gonna translate my own version
Credits to the original author, I'm just guy moving my translation wand}