The time rewound to the afternoon of Scarecrow and Spider-Man's battle. Captain George Stacy stood outside an old apartment building in Harlem and took a deep breath. Cracks crawled across the peeling walls like scars the city had carved into the people at the bottom. When he raised his hand to knock, his knuckles made a faint, dull sound against the flaking door.
The door was opened by an elderly Black woman with graying hair—Herman Schultz's mother. Her eyes were like stagnant water, as though she had long since surrendered to fate.
"Mrs. Schultz, I believe you already know what your son has done."
George's voice was soft, yet it cut through the silence like a blade. The room smelled of cheap coffee and old furniture. He had not brought this mother to the station; he had chosen to come in person. His fellow officers were standing by downstairs, ready for Scarecrow to appear at any moment—but Herman clearly had no intention of coming home.
"If you're here to ask where my son is, Officer, I know nothing." The old woman numbly rubbed the edge of her apron, her voice rasping like sandpaper. "I never cared where they went, what they did, or whether they would die in some gutter."
"My father died in a gang shootout. My brother was shot to death. My eldest son was killed by the police. My second son had his lung pierced in an alley and bled to death."
"...I'm sorry, ma'am."
"I'm not blaming you, Officer. This is just the ordinary life of people who live here." Mrs. Schultz raised her head, and there was nothing but murk in her eyes. "But Herman was different. He always thought he didn't belong here. He wasn't one of us. We had nothing in common, Officer. So do you think Herman would tell me anything?"
George's pen hovered over his notebook. An ambulance wailed outside, drawing nearer before gradually fading away.
"I can't give you anything, Officer." She turned toward the stove, her hunched back like a dead tree bent beneath wind and snow. "Because Herman... has already gotten everything he wanted."
George hesitated as if he wanted to say something more. He spotted a stack of cash tucked inside the cabinet, silently closed its door, then nodded and left Herman's home.
--
After-school sunlight slanted into the empty clubroom. The "Super Detective Agency," which supposedly had over twenty members, still consisted of only Jessica and three newcomers gathered around old desks.
Peter suddenly pushed aside the old DVD of The ABC Murders that he had planned to show and pulled out a USB drive.
"I have a new proposal. How about we try to catch Scarecrow?"
Jessica nearly choked on her cola. "You mean the four of us high school students arresting a supervillain who can blow up an overpass?"
"We're just doing club activities! It's not like we're actually going out to arrest him ourselves. What could be more meaningful than deducing the whereabouts of a supervillain on the run, friends? The Avengers and the police haven't caught him!"
"We barely have any clues. What are we supposed to deduce from, the Daily Bugle's exaggerated reports?"
Faced with Jessica's question, Peter merely smiled.
"I have a friend. Uh, her father is the captain of the Midtown precinct and is handling this case." Peter made up a source for his information, though it was not entirely fabricated. Peter Parker might not have been able to get any information about the Scarecrow case from Captain Stacy, but Spider-Man could.
Jessica, unaware of the details, immediately lit up. "You mean... you can get the police's latest internal files?"
"I can't get them every time, but I can this time."
As Peter spoke, he plugged the USB drive into the computer. The projector flickered on, casting blue light across the screen and displaying photos and information about Herman Schultz.
It was honestly ridiculous. Before Peter faced Herman, he barely knew anything about this villain. Spider-Man had so many enemies—who would care about Scarecrow? In the 1994 Spider-Man series, he did not even have his own episode or origin story. In the live-action films, he was just a minor thug with Crossbones-style gauntlets. Even in Marvel's Spider-Man, the game where he had the most screen time, he had no origin story and was not even included in the Sinister Six.
Even Chameleon got his own story arc! Scarecrow didn't!
If I'd read more comics, maybe I'd actually know about obscure characters like him. But in my previous life, I was only a casual fan. Sending me to Marvel might as well have sent me to the Three Kingdoms...
Peter complained inwardly as he began playing the prepared slideshow. "Scarecrow, real name Herman Schultz, a New Yorker born in Harlem, Manhattan..."
"Wait, it says here that he only has a middle school education."
Looking at the résumé projected on the screen, Harry naturally asked, "Does that mean someone else made his equipment?"
"No. He made his equipment himself. His criminal accomplices confirmed that."
Seeing the utterly disbelieving looks from everyone present, Peter continued explaining.
"Although Herman only had a middle school education, that was because of family circumstances that prevented him from attending school. He himself has exceptional engineering talent. Before becoming Scarecrow, he had already used similar vibration-wave weapons and robbed the bank where he later fought Spider-Man. Spider-Man defeated and arrested him there."
Jessica immediately asked the next question. "When?"
"At the precinct, he picked the lock with a hairpin, knocked out an officer, stole his equipment, and walked straight out of the station."
The others were completely dumbfounded after hearing that. They had no idea whether to say the NYPD was utterly incompetent or that he was genuinely talented—he had escaped immediately after being arrested.
"And between that and his fight with Spider-Man..."
"One week."
Even Amadeus was stunned this time.
"You mean someone with only a middle school education, right after being arrested, spent just one week modifying a set of equipment capable of matching Spider-Man?"
Amadeus could not help muttering, "Are geniuses in New York a little too cheap..."
"Okay, we've caught something." Jessica sharply seized on the point. "Guys, after this man escaped, he built himself a suit of armor, then went to the bank where Spider-Man beat the hell out of him. He didn't commit any crimes in between, and he didn't rob anything from that bank, right, Peter?"
"Uh, right."
As Peter said that, he remembered something. "Actually, I heard from Captain George that he was initially very calm after being arrested. But during interrogation, two officers heard that he had made the equipment himself and didn't believe him. They mocked him, and then he escaped."
"So we're dealing with someone arrogant, maybe with an inferiority complex too. He never received a proper education, yet he wanted one, so he has some feelings of inferiority. But when people refuse to acknowledge the invention he worked so hard on, he gets angry easily."
"That's why he went after Spider-Man." Harry understood. "For revenge?"
"Or maybe just to prove himself." Jessica spread her hands after saying that. "What's the use? The police can access all of this."
"But the police haven't found him, and neither have the Avengers. Knowing this isn't enough." Harry added, "We need to find him, or... lure him out."
"What if Spider-Man provoked him?"
Amid everyone's silence, Peter suddenly suggested it. Jessica was the first to react. "What?"
"When Scarecrow fought Spider-Man, he was almost defeated. He destroyed the overpass and escaped while Spider-Man went to save people. So he never actually beat Spider-Man. He ran away." Peter rubbed his fingers together. "If Spider-Man provoked him again, would that work?"
"Maybe..."
Harry scratched his head. "But how are we supposed to notify Spider-Man?"
"There's a website where people express their gratitude to Spider-Man, since nobody knows who Spider-Man is." Peter smiled. "Maybe we can post our deductions on that website. If Spider-Man sees them, he'll know what to do."
Thunderbolts was pretty good. Just two issues.
First, New York was in trouble again, and Spider-Man had disappeared again. Nobody knew where he had gone.
Second, the Winter Soldier clearly believed Wakanda had Adamantium, and Captain America 4 even found Adamantium, but in the end, U.S. Agent was still using that shield Sentry had bent. He had not even straightened it out—he never even considered making a new one. Wasn't his shield just made from ordinary metal in the first place?
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