S01E23 "The Day of the Jackal, Part 1"

Characters: Peter Parker/Spider-Man; Miles Morales/Spider-Miles; Harry Osborn; Norman Osborn; Gwen Stacy; Anya Corazon; Spider Soldier

Teaser
A invisible character—a blur against the background—moves through the corridors and duct work of Horizon High as MILES MORALES narrates. He describes his ambition to be a crimefighter and help his best friend, Peter Parker, while admitting that he has to use technology to match Peter's spider-derived powers. But (he adds with a touch of smugness) that doesn't mean he can't go beyond what Peter can do. Like, for instance, making himself invisible. The narration climaxes as the blur drops from the ceiling into a lab to snag a cupcake off the table. But he is shot by a web and caught by PETER PARKER himself, who says that he was able to hear Miles coming from a mile away thanks to Miles's self-narration. "You self-narrate too!" Miles counterclaims as he decloaks in a modified version of his suit. The argument about who does and does not self-narrate is interrupted as Miles's security robot comes to life and advances menacingly advances on Spider-Miles . Miles too late explains to Peter that he must have forgotten to update its software to recognize the new suit.

Act I
Miles has to flee his own security 'bot, which follows so close on his heels (while shouting at him in his own voice) that he has no chance to change out of his costume. Peter, meanwhile, has to change into his before he can follow to lend aid. The chase finally ends when Miles loses the robot in a maze of alleys near the school, giving him a chance to strip. Spider-Man catches up only at this moment when he's too late to help. Miles wonders why his robot was able to track him even though he still had the new, invisibility-conferring reflectors on.

In the coffee shop, HARRY OSBORN is Skyping with his father via his laptop. In hard tones, NORMAN is chiding his son for failing to deliver his part of the anti-satellite project that Oscorp is working on. An angry, distracted Harry tries brushing off Peter and Miles as they join him, but Norman hears Peter's voice and asks Harry to spin the laptop around so he can see Peter. In fatherly tones, Norman asks Peter how he is doing, and praises him by saying that he is hearing that Peter is doing great things out at Horizon, and that he expects Peter to join him at Oscorp eventually. Then he returns to Harry, giving him one last chance to prove that he is actually "Oscorp material." An embarrassed Peter tries to reassure Harry, but Harry slams the laptop shut and stomps, snarling that he doesn't need or want Peter's sympathy or pity. After an awkward silence, Miles asks Peter, "Do you want my sympathy and pity?"

Cross-dissolve to Horizon High, Peter's lab, evening. He is working on his own laptop when GWEN STACY appears in the doorway to ask if he's got a copy of a particular biology book. He hands it to her and she asks why still he's up at the school. He tells her he's working on some laser tech research to help Harry, and he's having a really hard time of it. Gwen, puzzled, says that Miles told her that Harry isn't talking to either him or Peter; Peter: "That doesn't mean I can't still help Harry." Gwen warns him that it's a bad idea to give someone help when they don't ask for it—which is why she's not offering to help him. She goes; Peter sits back thoughtfully, then gets up. He looks for Gwen in her lab ("I wanted to ask if you could help me" he starts to say as he enters) , but it's empty. He notices that she's got various test tubes laid out, and as he studies them he remarks to himself that it looks like the kind of research that Dr. Connors and Dr. Warren were working on. He's interrupted by a blur—like an invisible man—that knocks him to the ground.

Act II
Gwen's kit levitates and flies out into the hallway. Peter jumps up and follows, yelling at Miles to put it down and put it back. "I can see you, Miles!" he yells. "You shouldn't carry something around when you're trying to be invisible! And this isn't funny, Gwen'll kill you if you bust her stuff." They run into a dead end, and the invisible assailant turns and pins Peter to the wall with a blast of web fluid before racing off. Peter, now mad, charges after, and leaps onto the atrium ceiling after he sees Gwen's kit flying up through an open window in the ceiling. He's interrupted by Miles, below, yelling at him to get off the ceiling before someone sees him. Peter drops to the ground and yells at Miles for stealing Gwen's kit. Miles claims not to know what Peter is talking about; Peter retorts that someone in an invisibility suit hit him with web fluid while stealing Gwen's project. Miles, stone serious, says that in case they really need to find the person, "because it wasn't me!"

Cut to Gwen stepping into her lab and gasping when she sees her kit is gone. She grabs Miles as he races by, asking him if he's been getting into her stuff. "I'm trying to get it back!" he yells. "Someone broke in and stole your stuff, and Peter's chasing them!" "So what are you doing?" she demands. Miles stammers back: "Um ... Going to get help?" In disgust, Gwen pushes him away, and she and Miles run off in different directions down the hallway.

Gwen steps onto the Horizon roof, and is called to by Peter, who is splayed against a wall by a massive web. As she helps free him, she asks who stole her stuff: "Was it one of those spider-men?" "I dunno," Peter stammers. SPIDER-MILES swings in with a backpack: "Wasn't me, and I know my partner wouldn't do something like that," he says. He asks Peter what happened, and Peter says that the thief got the drop on him. "Watch out, he might still be a—" Peter lunges to knock Gwen out of the way; Miles drops the pack to the roof and goes into stealth mode. "I got him!" Miles calls. "I can see his heat signature. Oh my goodness, it's—!" Miles is interrupted by a crack and a thump. Dust is raised, cracks appear in the masonry, large blurs fly about on the roof. Peter thrusts Gwen away, snaps up the dropped pack, and disappears. Gwen looks for a vantage point to watch and help, and finds her kit sitting atop one of the sloping roofs. Before she can get it, it snagged up into mid-air and flies away as spider-webbing is shot by an invisible figure. SPIDER-MAN and then Spider-Miles drop down next to her. Spidey says he got a tracker on the figure, and asks Gwen what exactly got stolen. She tells him it was some genetics research that she found in her uncle's old house—he was a scientist. She couldn't tell for sure what it was: Either it was spider DNA, or it was a highly infectious virus. Neither sound good, and the two Spideys race off to catch the thief.

At Oscorp, Harry hunches over a laptop, trying to get past a log-in page. "Come on, Dad," he mutters. "What's your password?" In a Skype screen, ANYA CORAZON tells him that it's a really bad idea to try an unauthorized entry into Oscorp's project files; his dad will kill him if he finds out. Harry retorts that his dad already wants to kill him for not performing, and he needs to get into these unauthorized areas to get the research that will help him out. He also curtly thanks her supplying him with the hacking software he needs. Anya still wants to argue, but Harry shuts her down when the login page unlocks. He searches for the project files he needs, but pauses over something called a "personal journal." He opens it up; it's a video of Norman talking into the camera, relating how he had to fire Raymond Warren on account of the monstrous "Spider Army" project he caught the scientist working on, which would create a race of human-spider mutants. Norman worries that Warren is still working on it, as evidenced by the appearance in the city of Spider-Man, and he is determined to save the world from Warren's horrors. Harry, shocked, closes the computer, and muses aloud about how it's no wonder his father has been so distant and touchy lately, what with that kind of worry hanging over his head. Harry goes to the window and looks out; he freezes and glowers at what he sees, and mutters that now he knows how to help his dad—by helping him take down Spider-Man. Cut to POV shot, of Spider-Man standing on the rooftop of one of the Oscorp satellite buildings.

Spidey talks to Miles over his radio-link, asking if he's spotted that heat signature they were chasing—the tracker says the thing is around here somewhere. Miles reacts in the negative, and tells Peter that he'll know the thing when he sees it. Insert Spidey POV, looking around, seeing colored blobs of light against the dark night, as he remarks that that heat signature is the only lead they've got to catch the thief. He notices a new heat signature hurtling at him, and leaps away. It's Harry on his Goblin sled.

Act III
Spidey leaps around, trying not to fight Harry as the other throws miniature grenades and fires rockets at him. He professes bewilderment as Harry accuses him of being one of "Dr. Warren's spider soldiers." He's knocked off his sled and pinned by webbing when Spider-Miles swings in. They urge Harry to calm down and tell them what he's babbling about. Harry can only repeat the accusation that they are "spider-soldiers," mutants made by Raymond Warren as part of a horrible, Frankenstein-style plot that his (Harry's) father is trying to thwart. Peter scoffs, but Miles isn't so sure: "I told you, that thing we're following, it looked like it had more than four arms and legs." Alarms start to go off; Peter thinks that Oscorp security is on to them, but Harry says it's something down in the top secret labs. Peter frees Harry and hauls him over to a door. "We're going to find out who's trying to rob you," he tells Harry. "Just stay out of the way."

There's chaos in the Oscorp labs as alarms shriek and spider slayers attack an invisible creature that is throwing very heavy objects around. Peter and Miles enter, and through his spider-lenses Peter gets his first glimpse of the colored blob that is the thing's heat signature. It is very large and vaguely bipedal, but with a very large head and with six long, thin arms in addition to its more man-like legs. "If I was designing a spider-soldier," he admits to himself, "it would look like something like that." He and Miles leap in to join the fray, but the security robots turn to concentrate on them, allowing the still-invisible thief to snatch up a piece of high-tech equipment and escape. Peter and Miles are forced to flee when Norman Osborn himself appears with reinforcements.

Back at Horizon, Gwen is working on her laptop when the two Spideys appear. They remind her what she said about the genetics she was researching: that it was either spider DNA or an infectious virus, and ask if it could be used to spread spider-related mutations. Gwen bites her lips and admits that the idea had occurred to her, but it's just too wild, she'd never believe her uncle could—! Spider-Man interrupts by placing a call to Harry, asking if he can tell them what got stolen at Oscorp. When Harry retorts, "Why should I tell you?" Spider-Man tells him to come out to Horizon to talk to an old friend.

Cut to the rooftop, where Spider-Man is tracking the signal, announcing that it is heading toward Liberty Island; he and Spider-Miles will follow it. Harry has his goblin sled and insists on going too—"He's got my family's micro-aerolizer, and if he's going to use to spread the virus, I have to help stop it." Gwen also insists on going (she'll ride with Harry) because it's her uncle's research that is being used. When Spider-Miles quips that maybe Parker and Morales should go too, Spider-Man growls at him to "Shut. Up."

The quartet fly out to Liberty Island, where they find the stolen tech arranged to disperse the virus over New York. Harry swoops in to disconnect it, and is flung back by the invisible assailant. The Spideys wade in and a battle develops as all four kids take turns battling the invisible assailant and trying to disarm the dispersal device. Under their blows, the creature becomes invisible—a hideous creature with the legs and hips of a man but the torso, head, and six of the arms of a giant spider. In one of the pauses, Miles theorizes to Peter that, just as Peter has a "spider sense" that mimics a spider's ability to anticipate danger, this freak has an "invisibility" power that mimics a spider's ability to hide. ("I knew I had a great idea there!" Miles can't help gloating.) Eventually they beat the monster into unconsciousness, and Harry gets into the device to disconnect it. They think they have won, until they open it to disassemble it, and discover that the samples it was armed with are already dispersed—they arrived to late and the virus is already airborne. They gaze out over the city, horrified to know that the spider virus is already infecting the city, and may have already infected them.

The above is loosely based on "Spider-Island, Part 1" by Chris Cox and Kevin Shinick.

"Spider-Man Commentary: Day of the Jackal, Part 1" 

Next: "S01E24 "The Day of the Jackal, Part 2""