Peter Parker's Spider-Man was an Adidas. President Maya's Spider-Man was an Adiwang. And Tony's Spider-Man? Tony's was the real Adidas.
Since everybody was running bootleg merch anyway, President Maya decided not to press charges against Tony for copyright infringement. (Tony: And what the hell happened to my legs?) Sure, he'd just pulled that whole Spider-Man-crashes-into-Times-Square routine on Friday night, but President Maya was going to walk her own path and let the haters talk.
Besides—the person they'd be trashing was Poor Old Tony Stark. Nothing to do with her.
So when Saturday rolled around and Spider-Man—at nine o'clock sharp—pulled a young woman pinned by the car door out of a wreck…
Fowler, ABC's special guest and the Harvard sociology professor, crowed: "See? Just like I predicted! Tony Stark sent a body double to play Spider-Man so he could deny being the real thing! Oh, Mr. Stark is spending tonight, ladies and gentlemen! Look—Doesn't he look just like last week's Spider-Man?"
"Yes, exactly alike! Practically identical!" Helen, the ABC female host, played straight man beautifully.
That puffed Fowler up even more—a balding white professor. "Ha! And that proves Tony is the real Spider-Man!"
"Professor, how do you figure? Couldn't this actually be the real Spider-Man?" Helen, a middle-aged woman with a chin-length black bob, pressed.
"Impossible!"
Fowler's answer was categorical. He didn't wait for Helen's follow-up before pressing on with absolute conviction: "Only someone Tony—the genuine Spider-Man—hired personally could pull off a copy this perfect, because all the gear is his. Think about it, folks. If Tony Stark's story were true—that he was just curious, just dressing up as Spider-Man for kicks—why didn't this Spider-Man show up last night? Mr. Stark was swinging around Times Square for half an hour. Half an hour! Was the real Spider-Man stuck in traffic? Only made it tonight?"
"Hehehehe—Professor, you're hilarious!" Helen was a pro. Even when Fowler's joke landed flat, she laughed in exaggerated delight.
Fowler lifted his chin. His gold-rimmed glasses caught the studio lights and seemed to flash with dazzling intelligence. "If I'm not mistaken, a second Spider-Man will appear tonight as well—the Green-Hat Spider-Man!"
Fowler the fat professor had barely gotten the words out—maybe three minutes later—when field reporter Anna's excited voice came through the live feed: "He's here! Another Spider-Man just appeared! Quick, quick, zoom in—"
Sure enough, on the studio's giant screen, the Green-Hat Spider-Man from the previous night materialized. He appeared to be talking to the original Spider-Man up on the rooftop.
"Wow, Professor, you're incredible! What on earth is going on here?" This time Helen was genuinely stunned. She hadn't expected the Harvard prof to actually have the goods.
Fowler, flushed with excitement, practically glowed. "See? Told you. It's simple, really. Stark arranged two people, had them pretend not to know each other, then meet. Stark wants us to think the Green-Hat one is his hired hand and the other is the real Spider-Man—that way he washes his hands of it. But his whole play insults our intelligence. What are the odds of such a coincidence? I'll bet you right now—they'll fight each other. And the Green-Hat Spider-Man is going to lose!"
Sure enough, the moment Fowler finished, the original Spider-Man knocked the Green-Hat Spider-Man flat in three quick moves. And not only that—the original Spider-Man swiped the silver-gray case off the Green-Hat Spider-Man's waist.
"This—this—this is miraculous! Professor, what's happening?" Helen was turning into a full-blown Fowler fangirl. Her eyes had little stars in them.
Fowler was lapping up the beautiful woman's eager questions. Especially after the director held up the 30 million viewers sign—that's when he knew he'd gone viral. Massively viral. The kind of viral that carried a career for ten years.
Thirty million viewers! That was an Oscars-telecast-level rating. Practically every person in the country was cheering for him. Fowler felt his feet leaving the ground. No. Hold it together. You're a professor. You're a scholar. Stay composed.
"This is stage two of Tony Stark's scheme—deliberately making the two fight so we think they aren't on the same team. And if they're not on the same team, then the other one has to be the real Spider-Man. And if the one in the original costume is really the real Spider-Man, then Tony Stark automatically walks free of suspicion!"
Deduction King Fowler got louder and more excited with every sentence—a near-deafening crescendo.
"The Green-Hat Spider-Man lost on purpose so that later, during an interview, he could expose himself as a Stark employee. That way, it 'proves' the one in the original costume is the genuine Spider-Man. But I see through it all. There is only one truth! Tony Stark is the real Spider-Man. Every arrangement he's made is designed to cover that fact."
"I'll even make a third prediction for tonight: from here on, Spider-Men of various styles will appear at random. Maybe one in the original costume with a silver-white case. Maybe Green-Hat with a black box. Whatever—Mr. Stark is a rich man. He'll arrange all kinds of people to muddy the waters. But he won't get his wish. His Spider-Man identity—the moment it was exposed last night—there's no denying it anymore!"
Fowler's last line came down like a judge's gavel.
Over in Germany, Tony was watching TV and practically coughing blood. Should he hire a few mercenaries to put that fat hog down once and for all?
And what the hell was up with this Spider-Man? I waited half the night for you last night and you never showed. Now I send my guy out just to ask about your equipment—we're both educated people, isn't a civil exchange mutually beneficial?—and you fight him?
Okay, fine, impersonating you first was on me. You want to beat him up? Beat him up. Want to swipe my gear? Fine. But at least leave your black box behind for me to study, you bastard!
Actually, President Maya genuinely hadn't mind-controlled Fowler this time. Shadow Secret Techniques could control basic movement and speech, but there was no way they could produce the kind of expressive, flailing performance Fowler was giving.
And she hadn't briefed him beforehand either. She hadn't even known he was going to predict anything.
This was all coincidence—not some grand scheme the clever President Maya had plotted in advance.
President Maya hadn't even wanted to meet the bootleg Spider-Man. But the guy had to go shouting something about "exchanging gear." President Maya didn't want to take advantage of anyone, but hey, you asked for the trade, so I guess I'll have to accept. Tony's ODM gear was genuinely cool—a hundred thousand times better than her own paper-mache rig.
So President Maya handed him a ball of yarn first. Very sincere exchange, full of goodwill.
Where'd the ball of yarn come from, you ask?
Well, President Maya had just fished it out of the supermarket one floor down—right in front of the bootlegger's face—using her yarn-arrow fired from her waist, pulling the yarn ball out through the window.
But the bootlegger didn't appreciate the gesture. Instead he lunged at her to grab the black box off her waist.
And who was President Maya? There was no way she was letting that slide.
So the rest, as they say, went down as everyone saw. President Maya, true to her word, still dropped the yarn ball on the guy before she left.