Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Peter Parker is hosting a charity fund-raiser for the Uncle Ben Foundation at Bryant Park. Harry Osborn (using his mother's maiden name as Harry Lyman since #3) is his plus 1 (because his last girlfriend Lian Tang was a corporate mole who tried to kill him with the Spider-Mobile in #8). Pete tells Harry how Mary Jane Watson popped up unexpectedly here at Aunt May's wedding to J J Jameson Sr in ASM#600. And now she does it again. She's here as a guest of her new boss Tony Stark.
Tony claims not to remember that Peter and MJ once lived at Avengers Tower and Pete helped him create the Iron Spider costume for Spider-Man in the lead-up to (the Marvel original) Civil War. But he offers Peter advice about not wasting so much of his Parker Industries money funding Spider-Man (pot, kettle, black).
Stark and MJ move on and meet Augustus Roman, CEO of Empire Unlimited. MJ finds him familiar but Roman denies meeting her.
Harry runs into his ex-wife (it's not a happy divorce) Liz Allan, now CEO of Alchemax, with associate Ty Stone. They are expecting the proceedings to be interrupted by someone arranged by Stone. As Parker starts his speech badly he is attacked by the Ghost. But the real target is Augustus Roman. Who seems strangely blast-proof.
Peter figures MJ is safe with Stark so he ducks out of sight to change to Spider-Man. MJ tells Tony she can take care of herself so he openly changes to Iron Man. In both cases their armoured costumes expand from storage to cover them.
The 2 heroes get in each other's way, and argue about whose villain Ghost normally is. Meanwhile MJ and Harry help battered Roman get away.
The battle becomes 1 of hi-tech gadgets. Ghost's intangibility shrugs off the Golden Avenger's multi-vibrational blasts and Spidey's z-metal web coils. But then SM fires a coil through the bad guy and IM uses it to transmit his blasts inside Ghost. The villain collapses. (The heroes note that the action outside the Manhattan Library replays the opening scene from Ghostbusters.)
Later Peter is miffed at Stark hiring his ex-girlfriend. So he offers a job to Pepper Potts. But she turns him down flat.
Finally we see Betty Brant interviewing Augustus Roman on Ryker's Island in the supervillain prison now called the Cellar. We see Ghost brought in alongside Tombstone. They are separated, and Roman explains that the superpowered like Tombstone are housed separately from those whose powers are tech-based. Ghost's equipment has been taken to another site for study.
Betty talks to Roman about his past, where he lost his family during the battle between the Avengers and the Masters of Evil in Av#273-277. Since then he's vowed to bring these forces under control.
Betty doesn't see that Tombstone is placed in a containment tank that appears to kill him by drowning. There are already loads of other tanks already occupied. Dr Stillwell gives Augustus his costume, and his face morphs into that of Regent. She says that their supply of tanks is full. Regent says it's time to take on some superheroes - and he's got his sights on the All-New All-Different Avengers.