Act 2, Scene 12
Spiderman lays his first hand on the shuttle and manages to climb onto it. Using every ounce of his superhuman strength to avoid being ripped off, he crawls to the rear end of the craft.
SPIDERMAN: Parachutes…
He begins webbing with both hands, creating an enormous amount of webbing in just a few seconds. When finished, he affixes the web-shape to the shuttle's exterior and, gathering it up in his arms, lets it go. The wind immediately whips it off, throwing it far behind the craft and causing the shape to fill with air. It flowers open…into a parachute made from webbing specially thickened so that its usual porous makeup has been solidified.
The shuttle jerks backward slightly, but it's not enough. Spiderman creates another parachute, and a third, before his spider-sense kicks in to warn him of danger. He looks around to check the source, and finds it's New York itself – they've run out of time. The shuttle is heading right for the city, and while it might have slowed significantly, the problem now arises of how and where to land it safely.
Inside the cockpit, John Jameson is screaming into the communications port.
JOHN: Give me control back, now!
TEAM GUY #1 (V/O): You have control.
He immediately sets to work, grabbing the steering column and yanking it hard to the left, steering the shuttle high into a New York avenue and avoiding collisions. We see terrified New Yorkers get out of their cars as the shuttle shoots past overhead.
Inside the cockpit, the airspeed monitor continues to tumble toward 100mph. Spiderman braces himself on the back of the shuttle and webs the buildings they go between just as he did with the train, decreasing their airspeed yet further. The shuttle is only thirty feet or so now above the New York streets. Ahead of its landing path, people are sprinting from their cars, passengers from their buses etc.
A woman leaves a department store and takes in the situation. She screams.
WOMAN: My son! My son!
We cut ahead to a boy of about seven sitting in the back of a large people carrier. He's watching the shuttle come toward him with slack-jawed paralysis.
Spiderman leaps from the back of the shuttle and webs toward the car. He lands on the hood, the crashing shuttle filling the space behind him with each passing moment, sending empty cars and buses flying.
Grabbing the roof of the vehicle Spiderman heaves once and the whole roof comes off in his hands. He tosses it aside and gathers the boy in his arms before webbing off. An instant later the people carrier is utterly crushed by the shuttle. Spiderman deposits the boy to safety and springs off again. Three people about to be crushed are webbed and yanked to safety.
The shuttle grinds to a halt. It has wrought a trail of vehicular destruction almost one hundred feet long but, thanks to Spiderman and John Jamesons' piloting skills, no fatalities.
Spiderman clambers onto the shuttle, just as the side escape door pops open and the inflatable escape chute inflates. A silhouette appears in the doorway. Some people in the rapidly growing crowd cheer, but these cheers turn to screams of horror when the figure falls forward. Spiderman catches it and brings it gently to the ground. It's Stevens, eyes wide and staring. He looks dead – again.
Another figure appears in the doorway, and this time it IS John Jameson. He slides down the escape chute.
JOHN: Don't touch him! Don't touch him! Don't anyone touch him!
Spiderman lets Stevens loll limply to the ground.
SPIDERMAN: Are you OK?
JOHN: I'm – look out!
An explosion goes off close behind Spiderman, sending him flying. Maniacal laughter cuts through the New York night. The Goblin comes soaring from above on his glider.
GOBLIN: Time to bring you down to Earth!
SPIDERMAN (THOUGHTS): Not now, Harry…
Spiderman leaps for the glider and tags it with one hand. The Goblin looks down.
GOBLIN: No passengers!
He kicks out at Spiderman.
SPIDERMAN: Harry, stop this! You don't have to do this!
GOBLIN: (falteringly)Peter…? Peter…?
The Goblin staggers, and the glider goes off course and crashes through an office window, throwing both men off. The Goblin gets to his feet at the same time as Spiderman.
GOBLIN: Help me, Peter. I can't control it…you were right.
Spiderman approaches him.
SPIDERMAN: Fight it, Harry.
We see the Goblin's hand behind his back, activating another pumpkin device.
GOBLIN: I…help me, Pete…I don't want to hurt you…
He brings his hand out from behind his back and throws the device.
GOBLIN: …but it's so much fun!
It goes off, sending lethal razorblades through the air…and nothing else. Spiderman is gone. The Goblin reacts, and from behind him comes a kick that sends him sprawling.
SPIDERMAN: Y'know Gobby, you might not want to bluff someone with a sixth sense. Just a tip, genius.
He launches himself at the Goblin, but his attack is anticipated and he finds himself held in a choke-hold, the Goblin's arms around his neck.
GOBLIN: I was…always…better than you, Pete.
SPIDERMAN: (struggling to breathe)Tell that...to Mary-Jane.
The Goblin screams with rage, but loses his concentration enough for Spiderman to wriggle free. He webs the Goblin's chest and yanks, sending his assailant rocketing out of the building. We follow the Goblin as he falls, his body rearranging itself until he's feet-first, his hand activating the recall signal on the glider. Seconds later it maneouvres itself into position beneath his feet and he's airborne again.
His head snaps around. Spiderman is just landing on a nearby building. The Goblin produces another bomb. We see that they're directly above the shuttle crash site. A thousand people or more have gathered below. We focus on the bomb as it's held high above their heads.
GOBLIN: I drop this...how many will die? Fifty? A hundred? More?
SPIDERMAN: Just one. And I'm looking at him.
GOBLIN: (laughing)Now who's bluffing?
SPIDERMAN: You are.
GOBLIN: You'd better be sure.
He drops the bomb. Spiderman reacts, but then pulls back, remembering the earlier trick. We see his spider-sense freeze the bomb in mid-fall and analyse it, until we penetrate its casing and see that it's dull and lifeless inside. A dud.
GOBLIN: Come and get me, Spiderman!
He rockets off. Spiderman tenses his body and web-springs after him. He manages to intercept the Goblin's path and knocks him to the ground, sending him tumbling...
...as the bomb hits the ground...
...standing over the prostrate body of the Goblin, Spiderman brings his fist back...
...and the world freezes. His spider-sense goes back to the bomb as, with a sound like an engine kicking into life, its internal systems activate.
GOBLIN: Timer switch, bug. Wrong guess.
SPIDERMAN: NO!
He abandons the Goblin and makes the biggest leap of his life, but it's too far out of reach, and he'll never reach that glowing orb as the light within it begins to pulsate more and more furiously, building to detonation-
-and a hand curls around it. That hand belongs to Colonel John Jameson, in a flat-out sprint.
JOHN: DOWN!
People scatter left and right as he hurls the bomb high into the New York night. At the height of its parabolic arc it explodes, its shockwave knocking to the ground the running citizens for a hundred metre radius. John Jameson, closest to the epicentre, is worst hit; he is picked up and thrown backward, slamming into the side of the downed shuttle. Our world blurs as we see it through John Jameson's eyes; the fuzzy outline of the shuttle...and on its rear starboard side, a hole, a tear in the shuttle itself.
A blue and red face appears above us.
SPIDERMAN: Colonel! Colonel, are you alright?
A new voice makes itself heard.
JAMESON: All right! My son saved these people, no thanks to you! You allowed that lunatic to drop a bomb on these people!
Jameson has just emerged from the lead vehicle in a convoy of emergency services, arriving wholescale on the scene. Police cars and ambulances screech up. Two paramedics attend to John Jameson, while his father storms up to Spiderman, furious beyond words.
JAMESON: You'll pay for this, wall-crawler! But for my son there would have been a massacre here tonight!
SPIDERMAN: What?
In a flash he has Jameson by the scruff of his suit, picking him up bodily off the ground. Their faces are mere inches apart.
SPIDERMAN: But for me your son would be a smear in the harbour, or have you forgotten that already, JJ, you-
Police officers fan out.
POLICE OFFICER #1: Put him down slowly, and place your hands above your head!
Jameson smirks in Spiderman's face. Spiderman looks ready to throttle him, but any action either would have taken is interrupted when John Jameson fights to sit upright on his stretcher.
JOHN: Seal the shuttle! Jesus Christ, seal it! It's in there! Don't you understand, it's in there!
One of the paramedics manages to administer a sedative to him. He slumps unconscious.
SPIDERMAN: What's in there, JJ?
JAMESON: Just one more dead astronaut.
POLICE OFFICER #1: Put him down, or we will open fire!
SPIDERMAN: (to the cop)You know you people are really beginning to annoy me.
JAMESON: (desperately)No, don't go in there!
Too late - a team of paramedics has entered the shuttle through the hole ripped in its side. One of them pokes their head back outside.
PARAMEDIC: We got a live one! Needs a hospital now!
Everyone - police officers, bystanders, paramedics - looks automatically to Spiderman.
SPIDERMAN: I'll take her.
He sets JJ down. Jonah immediately leaps clear and bounces up and down in rage.
JAMESON: Well? What are you waiting for?! Arrest him!
Spiderman webs to the paramedics and is handed the body of Chang, which he cradles in his arms. He casts a final look at the assembled police officers.
JAMESON: Shoot him!
The police officer who had been screaming warnings fires a shot straight up in the air, deliberately nowhere near Spiderman.
POLICE OFFICER #1: Missed.
With a leap Spiderman is gone. We stay with Jonah and the assembled crowd for a moment. Amazingly, he turns to address the public.
JAMESON: Ladies and gentlemen, you can be sure of reading the full story in tomorrow's Bugle.
The crowd boo. Someone in the crowd throws something at him.