Yes, I know, What If...?; I'm feeling a lot of pressure to do classic issues justice and I keep starting over. I'll try to get an installment or three up this week.
Both covers are pretty much "Spider-Man fights a losing battle against the Sandman", though in the first one he's also got several other goons to contend with.
Anyway, as our story begins, Jean DeWolfe and Walter ask a local Harlem dandy what's going down in Seventh Heaven. The guy repeats what he told the flatfoot after he saw it: a whole gang of hoods went into the place with Sandman and the Crime Master about twenty minutes ago. Jean is thankful for the information, and instructs the uniform to make it look like the man didn't say anything - by giving him a savage nightstick strike to the head. Why, yes, the guy was black, how did you guess?
Walter and Jean talk about the way this is going to go down. If they screw this up, Hoover will have their heads. A problem presents itself: how do you prove the Crime Master is the Crime Master? He wears a mask. Anybody could just put it on or make a lookalike. Walter thinks they should back off until they know for sure that they've got him red handed. Meanwhile, inside, the Sandman holds Spidey down as the Crime Master prepares to cut our hero stem to stern.
Spidey gives it up to the big guy in strength, but in speed and maneuverability he's unequaled. He webs up the Sandman's face and kicks the Crime Master off balance before grabbing the knife out of his hand and breaking his fingers in his grip. The Sandman's freed himself from the webs, and his boss orders him to kill Spider-Man. Blech. We get gruesome POV shots of Spider-Man's vicious No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. His goggles become caked in blood as the Sandman pummels him. Outside, the uniform cop says they should get this over with. Jean and Walter decide they've got the Sandman dead to rights on kidnapping, assault, and murder - they're going in after him, and if they can nab the Crime Master while they're at it then that's all well and good. As they make their move, the Sandman continues to pound the life out of Spider-Man, eventually breaking his goggles with fists that might as well be anvils.
The Bureau's G-Men burst into the room, guns drawn, saying "nobody move", that sort of thing. The Sandman has the audacity to continue his murderous mauling of Spider-Man when the feds have their guns trained on him and tell him to freeze. Two of the Crime Master's goons have a good laugh at the law's expense; they give gats to college boys these days? They even teach them how to use those things? The Sandman doesn't stop - it's almost as if he doesn't even know they're there. Spider-Man is babbling about the Sandman coming to steal your eyes in the night... smelling like formaldehyde... Jean shoots the Sandman after deciding he's given him ample warning. Spider-Man passes out, saying "I'm going to sleep now."
...but the Sandman isn't stopping. He's still moving. The uniform says "that thing ain't human!" He turns around to see what he clearly considers his next victims, but gets pumped full of lead from four guns all at once. Once their guns are emptied, he actually still stands for a moment before falling down, dead. Wisely, the Crime Master's other cronies take a break for it — with the Sandman gone, their courage has naturally vanished. The Crime Master joins them. Jean tries to give chase, but the Crime Master removes his mask, puts on a hat, and blends into a crowd.
Back inside, Spider-Man starts to come to and is met with the visage of Jean DeWolfe. Spidey recognizes him from the incident at the beginning of the first issue. "...am I under arrest?" "You're not in my jurisdiction. Not unless it's Clyde Barrow under that mask."
Jean stands Spider-Man up and asks him a few questions. The Sandman was beating on him because he shut this place down, right? Not quite; it's bigger than that. The Crime Master has ties to the Klan and the Friends of New Germany - they're taking black people off the streets. Spidey thinks they're killing them, but frankly that would probably be better than what they are doing. Anyway, Jean wants to know if Spidey can prove any of that, not really buying that that sort of thing happens in New York City. Spidey tells him about the Draft Riot of 1863, where a mob raged through Manhattan, grabbed every black person they could find, beat them, burned them, hung them from lampposts...
Jean lauds Spidey for his historical knowledge, which Spider-Man attributes to a friend of his. Spider-Man narrates that the Sandman smells like formaldehyde, just like somebody else he knows: Octavius. He asks Jean about Octavius, but gets told that the good doctor is off limits. Spider-Man sees this as a sign that there is something going on there, but Jean isn't admitting anything. Right now the Bureau is on shaky ground; the new administration wanted Hoover out and he's hanging by a thread. They step on the wrong toes and the Justice Department shuts them down.
Spider-Man starts to leave, saying stepping on toes is what he does best. He can go places Jean can't. Jean tells Spider-Man his name in case he ever needs anything; looks like Agent DeWolfe has had a change of heart about his friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Spidey sulks on a rooftop. He needs some rest, he can't go after Robbie like this. And he can't go home, because Aunt May will be worried seeing him covered in cuts and bruises. He thinks for a moment about if the Sandman had killed him... he needs to be more careful.
At Felicia's posh apartment, the lady of the house arrives home to her many mewling cats. She wonders what has them so spooked, and soon finds out: Spider-Man is passed out in a pool of blood on her balcony. Later, she's got him in bed and his clothes off, but not in the way you'd think; she's cleaning his wounds letting him get some rest. Peter narrates that something about Felicia makes him trust her. He just tells her everything, just like Urich used to. He tells her he thinks Octavius has Robbie on Ellis Island, and DeWolfe says the Bureau can't touch him. Felicia wonders what's so special about Octavius, and Peter isn't sure. He's a genius... too useful or something.
Pete asks Felicia if she's ever heard the version of the Sandman story where he steals the eyes of children who won't sleep. Felicia tells him the Sandman is dead, and that he needs to get some rest. I'm not sure if Peter told her about what happened to the Sandman, or even if he actually knows the big guy bought it, so this just got interesting.
In the morning, Felicia asks Peter if he's feeling better. "I always feel better when I sleep here." "Good. Now leave." "And then you always do that." She's expecting company. Pete asks if it's the guy she was with the other night. Felicia stares daggers at him, asking if he's been spying on her. There's a knock at her door, and she tells him to get out — and be careful. She opens the door for the guy, whose hand is all bandaged and boarded up; looks like he broke most of his fingers somehow. He tells her some punk got in the way, tries to play it like he broke his hand hitting an insubordinate lackey.
He asks her if she thought about her offer. She has; 49% is all she's giving. The Black Cat is hers, and it always will be. He tries to appeal to loyalty by mentioning her business with the Goblin, but she says she payed him everything she owed. The guy, Sammy, tells her he's gonna be just as big as Osborn... bigger, even. "Sure, Sammy... Sure you are." Later, after they get down the business, she asks if he knows anything about the disappearances in Harlem. He wants to know why she's asking him, but she just figured with all his connections he'd have some idea. He aggressively clamps his hand over her mouth and tells her to stay out of his business. He goes to the bathroom, and Felicia thinks about what he said. "Your business?"
Sammy takes a shower, and there isn't a towel when he reaches for one. He checks the hamper and finds the blood-soaked towel Felicia used to tend to Peter last night. He demands to know who's been in there, and suddenly notices the balcony doors have been open the whole time. He steps out and sees a bloody handprint on the rail. "It was him! You've been cheating on me with that freak!" he says as he violently grabs her and tosses her face-first into her bedside vanity mirror. Luckily, it looks like she's fine for the moment. Or maybe not. "You like masks? Is that it? Is that what gets you hot?", he asks her as he puts on a mask of his own - that of the Crime Master - and bears down on her sinisterly. "How about this one? You like this?"
He wants to know where he can find Spider-Man, but she says there's nothing he can do that will make her tell him anything. "You hear me?" "Yeah, I hear you", he says as he puts on his gloves and grabs a big mirror shard. "And you know what? I believe you." A little later, Josef Ansell of the Friends of New Germany gets a call from Sammy, who apparently missed a meeting with him. Sammy had some business to attend to — as we can see. He's calling from Felicia's apartment, where she lay on the ground, her cats forlornly pawing at her. Her face is hidden by her hair, but blood drips down her arms and covers the mirror shard sticking out of the ground.
Ansell is furious. The Sandman is dead and Sammy almost got arrested. He wants the Crime Master to shut down everything until this all blows over - and get rid of anything that could lead the Bureau to him. Yes, that means Ellis Island — and killing all the "livestock." Sammy says Octavius won't like that, but Ansell counters that he'll like death row a lot less. He'll inform Octavius that they'll set him up in a new location once they can set up a new arrangement with the Bureau.
Ansell also wants some details on Spider-Man. Sammy assures him that "We don't have to worry about Spider-Man." Speaking of Spider-Man, he's secreted his way onto Ellis Island and into Octavius' lab, where Octavius and Connors are testing the "modifications" they made to that young woman last issue. "You see, Connors, she understands. She retains full motor abilities and language recognition. She simply has no cognitive will." Connors isn't convinced that they've really perfected the procedure yet, because he notes that they had to condition her to recognize failure resulted in punishment. Octavius says that any "working animal" requires basic conditioning - as we see that he's still got that monkey from the first issue, brain tissue still exposed, electrodes still inserted, but now in a cage - but he shall always recommend the most humane treatment. "A healthy, well cared for creature always gives the best returns. We are not monsters, Dr. Connors."
Spider-Man sees and hears all of this, and narrates that Robbie was completely right; Octavius is an utter maniac. When DeWolfe hears this, he'll have all the excuse he needs to raid this place. First, though, Spidey has to find Robbie. Knocking out a guard with a massic kick, he frees the prisoners from their cells. We get a flashback to Connors and Octavius performing a simplified version of their procedure on a subject, who Octavius promises will "live a fruitful and contented life without the cares and burdens that come with free will" as he prepares to drill a hole in the guy's frontal lobe. Naturally, the drill is attached to one of his "arms", because it just wasn't creepy enough already. Octavius says he almost envies him.
Spidey sees Robbie in the cell, and rushes to get to him. He doesn't care about keeping his identity a secret, because if they'd trusted each other from the start Robbie wouldn't be here in the first place. Spider-Man tells Robbie everything's going to be okay now - as we see that Robbie was the subject of the drill procedure. A blank look in his eyes, drool on his lips, a patch on his forehead...
End of Issue 3
So, to recap: in this issue, my two favorite characters (Felicia and Robbie) got brutalized and lobotomized, respectively. I'm very sad now.
