New Project Teaser · 5:38am Sep 27th, 2018
So tonight I began brainstorming and writing something new, in a fandom I've never written before. Or at least, not outside of crossovers.
This is going to be a fairly major project; I've already planned the first two books to an extent. I'm excited about this, more excited than I've been in some time about writing. This is something fresh, bold, and new. I'm looking forward to all the wonderful things I can do with this new story.
I can't say for sure when I'll actually begin posting it to FF.net, but I would say probably soon--I'd like to get a few chapters written first. In the meantime, I present a short, rough teaser for:
SPEC2CULAR
Swinging through the city was a great way to organize one's thoughts.
By now, Peter Parker had been zipping from building to building high above the busy streets of Manhattan long enough that he barely needed to pay attention to what he was doing, leaving his mind free to wander as his eyes scanned the streets below for anything unusual.
After the way the last few weeks had been going, he was in desperate need of a few crooks to beat down. At least that part of his life was simple, straightforward, and generally ended in a win.
My best friend is acting like a creep—oh, and I basically killed his dad, so there's that. Things are weird at school because I broke up with my girlfriend and now I can't even look at her without feeling guilty. The girl I want to be with can't break up with Harry because he's still in mourning for his supervillain dad. On top of that, my reputation's still in the toilet. Why can't my life stop sucking for like, five minutes?
As he idly sent out another line, a sonic boom shook the city. Toward the East River, the patchy clouds glowed red-hot as a fireball wreathed in black smoke streaked through the sky, its course wobbling as it descended. Spider-Man's eyes widened. "Oh man...is that some kind of meteor?" With a quick twist of his body and a flick of the wrist, he changed direction, headed for the river, eyes never leaving the streaking object.
Halfway there, as it skimmed the top of the Brooklyn Bridge by an uncomfortably small margin, Spidey realized it wasn't a meteor at all, but a spaceship. Biting off a curse, he picked up speed. He'd just launched himself toward the bridge when the ship splashed down in the river, spewing salty water and gallons of muck high into the air.
"Ugh," Spidey grumbled, watching filthy water churn up, rippling around the crash even as a fresh cloud of dark, oily smoke issued from the cooling metal. "Like there wasn't already enough garbage in there..." Looking up, he saw police helicopters already converging on the crash; a Coast Guard boat was already speeding up the river. "Well, the authorities are already on the scene, so I guess they don't need—"
A whump sound, accompanied by a tearing of metal, sounded as a panel on the ship buckled, then exploded away, flying through the air and landing in the water. Something huge, bulky, and orange climbed up out of the ship, rocking it in the water. Spidey's eyes widened. "Whuh-oh," he muttered. "Alien alert." Grimacing under his mask, he anchored himself to the bridge and swung out, breaking his line at the last second and somersaulting down onto the ship. He prepared to fire web lines at the orange thing before it could put up a fight, only to stop when he saw it slump over, nearly tumbling out into the river. Through the opening in the ship's hull, he could see that the inside of the ship was on fire...and at least two bodies in spacesuits were sprawled out nearby.
Human bodies.
Adjusting his aim, Spidey webbed the two bodies and gently lifted them up and past the orange thing, safely out of the reach of the glowing orange flames. Only...
The first body was a young blond woman. Or rather, part of one. There didn't seem to be anything left below her chest. Spidey felt the gorge rise in his throat. Even as sickness and dread filled him, a detail stood out:
There also wasn't any blood or...well...guts. Her body just...ended.
Shaking his head, Spidey turned his attention to the second body, a man with salt-and-pepper hair. He found it harder to pull the second body out, and after a moment, he realized what the problem was: This body was stretching, like rubber.
That was more than Peter Parker's teenage stomach could take. He turned away from the crash, ripped his mask halfway off, and vomited into the East River.
The glow of the fire in the ship brought his attention back to the situation, and he forced himself to focus and calm down. Looking back at the ship and its bevy of horrors, he saw an orange humanoid shape—made entirely of fire—climb up out of the wreck and flop down on the hull. After a second, the fires dimmed, ebbing away to reveal a blond teenage boy.
The Coast Guard ship was now within range of the crash, and the helicopters were hovering overhead. "Spider-Man!" an officer bellowed over the chopper's loudspeaker. "Stand down! Leave this to us!"
"I'd love to, really I would," Spidey yelled up at them. "But I just gotta know what the heck's going on here! Besides, that big orange thing might be more than you can handle! You might need my help!"
There was a pause, then... "Alright. But if you're ordered to leave, LEAVE."
"Works for me." Spidey webbed himself over to the Coast Guard ship and landed on the deck just as rescuers brought the boy and the man aboard. Two rescuers hovered grimly over the half-woman. "Strangest looking dismemberment I've ever—" One of the rescuers suddenly trailed off, blinking. "Wait, this isn't right! She's alive! Like, really alive!"
"Really? Like that?" Spidey called, feeling his gorge rise again. "Shouldn't she be bleeding out of like, everywhere?"
As they dragged the woman onto a stretcher, the second rescuer frowned, feeling around in empty air. "I feel legs," she said. "Legs...posterior...torso." She looked up in alarm. "This woman's body is intact," she said. "It's just...invisible!"
"Half-invisible woman?" Spidey wondered, thwipping over for a closer look. "That's new." As he made room for the rescuers to take the woman to the boat, he studied the massive orange monster. It was vaguely humanoid, but its skin was made entirely of orange rocks. "So, uhh...what do we do with this thing?" he wondered.
The Coast Guard officers conferred for a moment, then shrugged collectively. "We call it in, find out what the police and the Army want to do with it," one of them said.
"Not an...it."
All eyes turned to the stretchy man, who groaned as he rubbed his face with a flattened-out, stretched hand, his fingers wobbling like flat noodles. "That...thing is...Lieutenant Benjamin Grimm, and he's a...war hero."
Spidey crouched down beside the man. "You're saying it's human?!"
"Born right here in New York," the man confirmed, looking up at Spidey and blinking. "Umm..."
"What kind of ship is this? Who are you people?" Spidey pressed. "Why are you all so...not normal?"
"Like you're one to talk?" one of the rescuers muttered with a snort.
The man sat up, frowning. "I'm Reed Richards," he said. "We were...hit by a cosmic storm..." He slumped forward, closing his eyes tiredly. His limp, stretchy arms fell flat at his side, reminding Spidey of a deflated tube man.
Everyone looked at each other awkwardly.
"Well this is a fantastic mess," Spidey said sourly.
How very interesting.
Quick! To the Baxter Building!
Nice Spidey/F4 crossover. I forget how long Spidey was part of the Four, but they have a long canon history together. I'm intrigued by your take on it.
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The Four are going to be secondary, episodic characters, as are all other heroes I'll be introducing (such as Daredevil). First and foremost, this is a Spectacular Spider-Man (the 2008 animated series) story.
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Even more interesting, as Spidey's been crossed over with every Marvel character. Hell, he's even crossed over to the DC Universe, for Stan Lee's sake!
Nice. If there’s one thing that could’ve made Spectacular more perfect, it’s cameos from other Marvel heroes.
Granted it wasn’t Sony’s fault. The cartoon rights problems at the time was why they used Tombstone instead of Kingpin for instance.
So a return of the Spectacular Spider-man... interesting
Ooh, neat. Definitely soudns liek this will be fun. You know, aside from Peter Parker's life being one of constant suffering, but that's a given.
For the life of me, I don't get why its been so hard to bring the First Family of Comics to the big screen without doing absolute butchery to the characters/world/basic plot points. Heck, all anyone really needs to do is adapt the first issue from the 60's, and voila! Instant good television.
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Well, naturally. Spidey is the face of Marvel. Always has been except for that one very 90s period where Wolverine overshadowed him.
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The Fantastic Four have historically been PLAGUED with bad adaptations. The single best adaptation they ever got was the 90s animated series that ran as part of Marvel's 90s animated universe, and even THAT was kind of weak.
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If they ever appear in the MCU do you think they’ll get a good portrayal then? The MCU has been knocking everything out of the park lately so chances are they could finally give the Fantastic Four justice. Imagine an MCU version of Doctor Doom.
Oh boy. This can go either way. I'm sorry, but unlike the majority, I think the MCU portrayal of Spiderman sucks. I'd rather not expand in giant blocks of text, so I'll only say to read the original comics in the 60s and see how much of a total pussy Tom Holland's version is, let alone the rest of the versions of Spidey after Spectacular.
I'm seriously hoping you'll have Spidey be a lot like Spectacular, who was so much fun to watch. He was almost a perfect blend of his original version in the 60s and his Ultimate comics version.
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They'll never be in the MCU because of the rights thing.
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....I literally said everywhere in this post that this is a Spectacular Spider-Man (as in, the Greg Weisman run) animated series fanfic. Like...the title, the first few paragraphs, the post tag, the comments...
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I know you did. But with every other Spectacular fics, they fail spectacularly (pardon the expression). I've enjoyed your works and I'm hoping for a fic that actually FEELS like the cartoon.
Well, color me interested
Ooh, I'm definitely enthused by this.
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The rights thing is all but no longer an issue.
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Derp. I had honestly forgotten all about that. So much has happened this past year that I just honestly didn't pay much attention to that.
Oh, and that extremely anime-styled F4 thing? Eh...it was alright, but it wasn't anything to wiggle your joystick at.
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Not the impression I got.
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I can live with that. Better that we wait a couple of years for Marvel to do them right.