Chapter Summaries

Hungry fifteen-year-old Chen Mo patrolled Gotham under a Spider-Man roleplay system that forced him to act like a selfless hero. After stopping a robbery, he refused the victim Molly’s ten-dollar offer and left her with his Spider-Man introduction.

• Chen Mo spotted a scrawny punk robbing Molly and intervened, dodging the knife while preaching about love and redemption.
• Chen Mo subdued the robber and let him go after the man admitted his mistake, despite his hunger and frustration.
• Chen Mo advised Molly to go home instead of calling Gotham police and kept the robber from sneaking away.
• Molly offered Chen Mo ten dollars, but his system warned him that accepting payment was forbidden, so he refused it.
• Chen Mo told Molly that getting home safely was payment enough, then climbed away after introducing himself as her friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Chen Mo, a homeless undocumented boy in Gotham, reflected on his past and received his first reward from the Spider-Man Roleplaying System. He unlocked organic wrist webbing, but malnutrition left it nearly useless, and he fell asleep dreaming of a feast.

• Chen Mo returned to his hidden attic shelter with burgers he had taken from a robber he stopped during his night patrol.
• Chen Mo recalled how his father, Old Ma, died in a gang shootout after smuggling him into Gotham, and how Chen Mo arrived after the original owner, Peter, starved to death.
• The system announced that Chen Mo had completed its first stage mission and unlocked organic wrist webbing.
• Chen Mo tested the webbing, but its strands snapped or fizzled out before they could travel far.
• The system explained that Chen Mo's malnutrition and lack of protein had reduced his web strength to 0.5% of normal.
• Chen Mo went to sleep in the attic, dreaming of eating a feast while Batman encouraged him.

Chen Mo went looking for dock work in Gotham, where Larry tried to force him into robbing a drugstore and then threatened to sell him. After escaping through a series of accidental-looking mishaps, Chen Mo found a restaurant job and left with food and a shift scheduled for the next morning.

• Chen Mo went to Gotham South Docks seeking work and accepted Larry's offer to haul cargo for thirty dollars over three days.
• Larry demanded that Chen Mo rob a drugstore as an initiation fee, but Chen Mo refused when the system warned him about criminal behavior.
• Larry and his men tried to seize Chen Mo and sell him, but Chen Mo triggered a chain of accidents involving a crane, a shipping container, and a swinging cargo hook, then fled.
• Hungry, Chen Mo posed outside a restaurant window until the owner offered him dishwashing work for ten dollars a day and two meals.
• The restaurant owner gave Chen Mo an expired ham sandwich, and he ate it in an alley before planning to report for work at six the next morning.

Chen Mo, a broke teenager in a homemade Spider-Man costume, stopped a gang from dumping homeless people into the sea and fought their armed men at the Gotham docks. After Batman watched from Gotham Bridge, Chen Mo realized his fellow vigilante had seen the entire brawl.

• Chen Mo counted the gang's weapons and leaped from a crane to web a submachine gun into the harbor.
• Scarface ordered his men to shoot Chen Mo, who dodged their bullets while mocking them and protecting his homemade pajamas.
• Chen Mo rolled an oil drum into the gang, knocked several men down, and drove two others to flee.
• Scarface fired an anti-materiel gun at Chen Mo, who circled behind him and jammed a crane's gears with a thrown crowbar.
• Chen Mo spotted Batman standing atop Gotham Bridge and realized Batman had witnessed the fight.

Bruce Wayne investigated a red-and-blue vigilante nicknamed the “Pajama Freak,” whose footage showed him rescuing people despite being hungry and poorly equipped. Unable to decide whether the boy was genuinely good or hiding something, Bruce set out to find him.

• Bruce left a wealthy party early, returned to Wayne Manor, and asked Alfred to show him footage of the “Pajama Freak.”
• Bruce watched the vigilante stop a mugger, then carefully retrieve and hide the mugger’s dropped bag of bread.
• Bruce reviewed footage of the boy lifting a car to free a homeless man and using a restrained shove to stop a robber, concluding that he was holding back.
• Bruce examined the boy’s torn clothes and newly observed web-like strand, and wondered why someone with his strength was still hungry.
• Alfred noted that the footage only showed the boy saving people, but Bruce remained suspicious and decided to go find him.

Chen Mo teamed up with Batman to defeat Scarface and the Maroni Family thugs, using webs and a falling crane hook to survive the fight. After Chen Mo was wounded shielding others from a grenade, Batman recognized that he was pretending to be more helpless than he was.

• Chen Mo used webs to swing beneath a crane hook and redirect it, knocking Scarface unconscious while Batman watched from above.
• Batman warned Chen Mo that the Maroni Family reinforcements had arrived, and the two fought the thugs together in the darkened warehouse.
• Chen Mo spotted a thug preparing a grenade, wrapped it in webbing, and shielded nearby men from the blast, suffering shrapnel wounds to his shoulder.
• Chen Mo checked that the grenade-wielding thug was alive and tried to use his injury to gain Batman's sympathy and a place in his life.
• Batman inspected the blast scene, told Chen Mo to get his wound treated, and realized that Chen Mo was deliberately putting on an act.

Batman confronted Chen Mo about his motives and learned why he tried to act like a vigilante, but left without revealing his own reasons. After Chen Mo treated his wound with help from a young police officer, Batman reviewed the encounter and continued investigating his identity.

• Batman questioned Chen Mo about his abilities, hunger, and deliberate attempts to influence people.
• Chen Mo said he had not grown up in Gotham and repeated the lesson, "With great power comes great responsibility," explaining that he could no longer tell whether his vigilante persona was an act.
• Batman said he would uncover Chen Mo's identity, then left without answering Chen Mo's question about why he became a vigilante.
• A young police officer emerged from hiding, helped Chen Mo bandage his wound, and said he stayed on the job because he had not learned to live like a dog.
• Batman reviewed his recording of Chen Mo and added to the "Pajama Freak" file that his identity and origins still needed investigation.

Bruce searched for Chen Mo after repeatedly reviewing footage of him, while Chen Mo received beginner Spider-Sense and struggled through another night in his dilapidated attic. Bruce narrowed the search to old apartment buildings in Gotham’s south district and began checking their entrances.

• Bruce reviewed footage of Chen Mo for the 214th time and found no records explaining where he had come from.
• Alfred suggested Chen Mo was a good boy, while Bruce marked his new webbing ability and insisted he needed to assess the risks to him.
• Chen Mo returned to his attic and received the system reward of beginner Spider-Sense.
• Chen Mo tested his new sense by dodging a bottle cap, then broke his rotten bed while attempting a backflip.
• Chen Mo repaired the bed with webbing and settled down as rain fell over Gotham.
• Bruce narrowed Chen Mo’s likely location to the south district and began checking the entrances of its old apartment buildings.

Chen Mo stopped a man from assaulting a girl in a Gotham alley, then learned she had agreed to meet him because she needed money for her injured father’s medical care. The girl left with the cash, while Chen Mo bound the man and was left facing the limits of help in a city where neither the church nor the police could provide medicine.

• Chen Mo heard a muffled cry, found a man pinning a girl against a wall, and dislocated the man’s arm before knocking him into the mud.
• The girl stopped Chen Mo from hurting the man further, took money from the man’s jacket, and explained that he had been paying her.
• Chen Mo recognized the man as a seller of enhancers, bound him with his belt and webbing, and asked the girl what had happened.
• The girl told Chen Mo that her father had broken his leg at the docks and needed a hospital deposit she could not afford.
• The girl explained that she had bought painkillers with the money and said that the church and police had offered no medicine.

Chen Mo confronted a drug dealer who claimed he was helping a twelve-year-old girl by paying her to be abused, and forced him to give up his money. After walking the girl safely home, Chen Mo was left angry and unsettled by Gotham’s warped sense of justice.

• Chen Mo warned the girl that the bound man sold heroin, but she said she knew and that he was the only person willing to pay her.
• The dealer defended himself by comparing his abuse of the girl to the worse fate she might face elsewhere, insisting that paying her made him a good person.
• Chen Mo rejected the dealer’s excuse, threatened to break his leg if he harmed the girl, and made him fear for his ability to work.
• Chen Mo took the cash from the dealer’s wallet and gave it all to the girl.
• The girl asked whether Chen Mo would return the next day, and he promised he would before walking her to the alley’s exit.
• After the girl disappeared into the shantytown, Chen Mo spat and muttered about justice.

Chen Mo, wearing his Spider-Man mask, stopped a bank robbery in Gotham and took the robbers’ cash despite the system’s warning hum. He left with the money, convinced he was doing the right thing.

• Chen Mo brooded over Gotham’s suffering before gunshots from a bank robbery drew him to the scene.
• Chen Mo dropped into the bank and subdued all four robbers, then webbed them to the entrance pillars.
• The hostages fled, and an old man left Chen Mo a hard candy as he passed.
• Chen Mo picked up the bags of cash, ignored the system’s warning hum, and told it he knew he was doing the right thing.
• Chen Mo webbed the money into a bundle, carried it out the back door, and disappeared into Gotham’s morning light.

Chen Mo scattered bags of money across Gotham’s shantytown, where the bills briefly changed the choices available to several desperate people but could not undo the city’s suffering. After a thief stole a bill from a dying homeless man and kicked his loyal dog, Chen Mo placed three hundred-dollar bills in the dead man’s hand, then left with one bill remaining.

• Chen Mo scattered money from the water tower across the shantytown, and a homeless man burned a bill while another rescued one from the mud and used it to buy bread and water.
• A dying homeless man thanked his dog for staying with him, then died as a hundred-dollar bill landed on his knee.
• A young man stole the bill and kicked the dog, but the injured dog returned to its owner and stayed beside him.
• Chen Mo left three hundred-dollar bills in the dead man’s hand, and the dog rested its chin on them.
• Chen Mo listened to the shantytown below, kept one bill, and disappeared into its shadows.

After three days working at Gary's Sunshine Bakery, Chen Mo thought he had found an honest place to work in Gotham. Gary and his wife propositioned him, and Chen Mo calmly warned them they had brought this on themselves.

• Chen Mo kneaded dough at the bakery and remembered scattering sacks of cash over the slums the previous day.
• Gary and his wife cornered Chen Mo, praised him, and offered him more money if he would keep them company.
• Chen Mo realized they intended to exploit him and silently regretted believing Gotham had good people.
• Chen Mo dusted the flour from his hands, looked at Gary and his wife, and told them they had asked for this.

Chen Mo quit his bakery job after accidentally beating up the owner and his wife, then headed into a Gotham alley to change into Spider-Man. He found three punks waiting there, but their predatory interest in his appearance left him facing a different kind of trouble.

• Chen Mo struck the bakery owner and his wife, then used a series of seemingly accidental mishaps to fend off their attacks.
• Chen Mo took a twenty-dollar bill as his pay, left the bakery, and headed into a secluded alley to change clothes.
• Chen Mo encountered three punks in the alley before he had changed into Spider-Man.
• The tattooed leader leered at Chen Mo and asked who he belonged to and whether he liked cream puffs.

In the Batcave, Bruce Wayne reviewed footage of Chen Mo scattering stolen money through the East End and concluded that he had carefully protected the recipients from the gangs. Bruce remained uncertain about Chen Mo, but believed he had acted because he could find no other way to help.

• Bruce examined footage and found that Chen Mo had thrown money into places where residents could collect it without being watched by gang patrols.
• Bruce compared Chen Mo's movements with the neighborhood's residents and concluded that he had hidden the recipients and their route to the money.
• Bruce noticed Chen Mo pause for three seconds after distributing the bills and observed that he had stayed in the harbor district rather than using his strength elsewhere.
• Bruce told Alfred that hospitals, police, and relief organizations would only endanger East End residents, so Chen Mo had made his own way to help them.
• Bruce said there was not enough evidence to call Chen Mo kind, but confirmed that he had acted without being watched or asked.

Chen Mo patrolled Gotham as Spider-Man, catching petty thieves and drawing the attention of the city's crime families, while Batman separately stopped Maroni smugglers. After a night of crimefighting, Chen returned to his struggling life in a leaky attic as Falcone and Penguin chose to watch and wait.

• Chen Mo webbed two men trying to break into an East End convenience store and left them hanging for the police.
• Batman stopped five smugglers at the East End docks, including a Maroni Family leader who wished Spider-Man had caught them instead.
• Bruce Wayne attended a villa party to maintain his playboy image, then left early after making sure people saw him there.
• Chen returned to his attic, counted his small savings, and considered applying for temporary work at an auto repair shop.
• A Falcone Family leader ordered his men to watch Spider-Man, while Penguin also decided to wait and see how the other crime figures acted.

Chen Mo collected his earnings from a Batman comic and used the money to make a more protective Spider-Man suit, then planned another installment. Bruce Wayne discovered the comic in the Batcave but turned his attention back to Falcone and Penguin.

• Chen Mo retrieved two thousand dollars for the first installment of “Fallen Hero: Gotham Phantom,” which he had drawn under the pen name “Gotham's Seasoned Driver.”
• Chen Mo bought materials in the East End and spent the night tailoring his red-and-blue suit with concealed armor and a fitted mask.
• Chen Mo admired his upgraded suit, noted his growing strength, and began planning a second comic installment to save for a nanosuit.
• Bruce Wayne sneezed while Alfred treated his back wound, and Alfred showed him a copy of “Fallen Hero: Gotham Phantom.”
• Bruce Wayne objected to the comic, then returned to investigating Falcone and Penguin's dock activities.

The Penguin ordered his henchman to spread false rumors blaming Spider-Man for Scarface’s injuries, hoping to provoke the Maroni Family. Meanwhile, Chen Mo patrolled the East End, sensed he was being watched, and swung toward the Bat-Signal.

• The Penguin studied reports from his bird informants and learned that Batman had hit Maroni’s operations and Scarface had been injured by Spider-Man.
• The Penguin told his henchman to spread an insulting false story about Spider-Man crippling Scarface to make Maroni lose his temper.
• Chen Mo waited atop an East End water tower after stopping two thieves and complained about the cold and his lack of money.
• A pigeon watched Chen Mo, and he suspected it was recording observations for someone before it flew away.
• Chen Mo’s Spider-Sense tingled, and after spotting the Bat-Signal, he swung toward it to help.

Chen Mo stopped a robbery, then rescued an injured puppy from three thugs and named it Bruce. He took the puppy back to his attic, unaware that Batman had watched him and lowered his threat assessment.

• Chen Mo answered an old man's homemade Bat-Signal, webbed up three armored-truck robbers, and left them for the police.
• Chen Mo reflected on his new protective suit, his dwindling money, and the free attic where he lived.
• Chen Mo found three thugs beating a puppy beside its dead mother, defeated them, and comforted the injured dog.
• Chen Mo named the puppy Bruce and secured its broken hind leg with webbing.
• Batman watched from the clock tower, recorded his observations of Chen Mo, and lowered his threat level.
• Chen Mo covered the mother dog's body, then carried Bruce back to his attic.

Chen Mo rescued a dockworker from Killer Croc but was overwhelmed and retreated after sustaining injuries and damaging his suit. Back at his attic, he tended to himself and Bruce, then studied Killer Croc’s weaknesses as he planned how to face him again.

• Chen Mo treated Bruce’s broken leg with supplies he had bought and worked on comic pages before leaving the attic in response to the Bat-Signal.
• At the Gotham docks, Chen Mo interrupted Killer Croc as he strangled a dockworker, giving the worker time to escape.
• Chen Mo fought Killer Croc with webbing and acrobatic attacks, cracking his scales but tiring himself out in the process.
• Killer Croc charged Chen Mo and damaged his suit; Chen Mo blocked the attack, then used webbing to escape rather than continue fighting.
• Back at the attic, Chen Mo treated his bruised ribs and reviewed Killer Croc’s combat habits and possible weaknesses while planning to use his brain in their next encounter.