Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Beyond Corporation
- Maxine Danger
- Jerry (First appearance)
- Queen Goblin (Ashley Kafka) (First appearance as Queen Goblin)
Other Characters:
- Assessor (Mentioned)
- Norman Osborn (Mentioned)
- Robbie Robertson (Mentioned)
- Jason Halifax (Mentioned)
- Sentry (Bob Reynolds) (Mentioned)
- Thor (Odinson) (Mentioned)
- Void (Mentioned)
- Peter Parker (Mentioned)
- Clifford (Mentioned) (Topical Reference)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth
- United States of America
- New York
- New York City
- Manhattan
- Lower East Side
- Beyond Tower
- Ben and Janine's apartment
- Beyond Tower
- Midtown
- Murray Hill
- Midtown High School (Mentioned)
- Lower East Side
- Manhattan
- New York City
- Oklahoma (Mentioned)
- Broxton (Mentioned)
- Halifax House (Mentioned)
- Asgard (Mentioned)
- Broxton (Mentioned)
- New York
- United States of America
- Hell (Invoked)
Items:
Vehicles:
Events:
- Sins Rising (Mentioned)
- Siege (Mentioned)
Synopsis for 1st story
Following Ben's "successful" memory rewrite, Maxine goes about her schedule. At 8:30 a.m., she plays the sad boss and lies that Janine left Ben while he was recovering. When he asks why, she feigns ignorance and asks him if there was any motive. She promises to find her, asking him to be calm in the meantime. 8:45 a.m., Maxine interrogates Marcus, but he only admits to trying to send her a code when they were leaving the building. After getting a few blocks away, she took some of his money and vanished, without a trace to her next location. Given the stolen master hard drive, Maxine surmises Janine has it and knows precisely why she left.
At 9:00 a.m., Maxine addresses the Beyond Board of Directors, worried they'll lose too much of their holdings with the significance of the breach. However, Maxine finds the situation to be a perfect excuse for wanting to activate the "Halifax Protocol", emphasizing the purpose of their second division. While a board member expresses that said division isn't hers yet and to wait for the Assessor, Maxine interjects to view it as a test and will accept full responsibility should it fail.
At 10:00 a.m., although approved to initiate Halifax Protocol, Maxine threatens the staff on scene to hold them responsible should everything fail. While they remind her that the substance was heavily metaphysical, to the point of contacting help across Beyond, they assure her that the Sins of Norman Osborn[1] were perfectly integrated into their subject. At 11:30 a.m., finding the news fantastic, Maxine is almost in awe of Ashley's monstrous form as she plans to unleash Hell. She easily conceives the moniker "Queen Goblin", and notes how the board said she couldn't do villains. For the noon hour, she plans to get lunch.
Afterwards, Maxine meets Marcus again while she is excited by what she's just done that morning. While Marcus is steadfast not knowing anything about Janine's whereabouts, Maxine acknowledges so as Beyond already found her. At the Daily Bugle, Mary Jane meets Glory Grant, in charge while Robbie's away. While she lied about going to lunch with her, Mary Jane introduces her to Janine Godbe pertaining to a major story, peaking Glory's interest. Elsewhere, Ben aims to portal out and is cold to the technician overseeing the portal. When he brings up a new villain and how the nerds can now stick it to bullies, Ben is apathetically confused and asks for the remaining data to be sent his way; the technician helps him through feeling dejected.
In the interrogation room, Marcus hears Janine is at the Bugle thinking it might be bad, but Maxine is unfazed. Marcus directly asks if they were acting unethically, and Maxine cites a man named Jason Halifax, once a big company CEO with a super mansion in Broxton, Oklahoma, where police found dead bodies inside. However, Norman Osborn's siege on Asgard[2] and a fight between Thor and the Sentry/Void[3] destroyed the house and all evidence. With no house and no bodies, nobody cared anymore about what murders may have happened.
While the superhero business is fun with the entrepreneurial aspect, Beyond is a business. Thus, Marcus is disgusted to realize that the Superhero Division is a smokescreen to really develop supervillains to be defeated by Beyond's official superhero. Meanwhile, technician Jerry is bitten by a pre-launch Queen Goblin seeking a medic, rewriting her mind not knowing why she's attacking a target nor question it. As they prep her for launch, they find she has her mace given to her from one of the other technicians. From his misunderstanding of prep for launch, she promptly kills everyone in the room before taking off in a mad laughing fit.
At the Bugle, Janine and Mary Jane are alone after Glory went upstairs to legal given the serious allegations made about Beyond. Paranoid, Janine looks for bugs and Mary Jane is understanding to her situation, recalling her own difficulties with herself and Peter. However, Janine voices how it felt to her that the world never wanted them together, angry beforehand at Mary Jane and Peter for being what she and Ben weren't. But swiftly met by Queen Goblin, Mary Jane asks is she was there for either of them, but reveals her focus squared on the hard drive.
As Maxine is alerted to the situation commencing, she leaves while Marcus demands to know his situation given she is illegally detaining him; she simply shuts the door on him. Hearing that everything is ready and that Spider-Man was sent around the city for a while, Maxine orders he confront Queen Goblin. When Janine races for the hard drive, defiant Beyond not take a win, Ben's timely arrival is observed by Maxine remotely directing the fight.
But when Ben saves Janine, she drops the drive and Queen Goblin destroys it, devastating Janine before Ben throws a desk as Queen Goblin. While Ben comforts Janine, Mary Jane warns that the villain is recovering, but he doesn't see it as his problem; perplexing Maxine back at Beyond. When Janine reminds Ben she's dangerous, Ben decides to instead take Janine and run. Mary Jane is shocked that he just took off and left her, while Queen Goblin stand back up clarifying she's still around focused on her.
Solicit Synopsis
• Who is QUEEN GOBLIN?!
• For almost sixty years, Spider-Man has been defined by Goblins, and Ben Reilly has a brand-new one all his own.