The Daily Bugle
sends Peter Parker to Los Angeles to cover the break-up of the superhero team,
the Champions. Pete arrives at their deserted office building HQ early so he
walks around, brooding about his usual troubles. Two windowpanes pop out from a
high floor and plunge toward him. Angel spots them and dives out and manages to
grab one and flip it into the Bay but the other keeps going. Pete then notices
and leaps out of the way; Angel talks to him and, discovering Pete is the Bugle
photographer, tells him the Champions are all gone but for him. Pete then
discovers that his camera was destroyed in the accident….
Warren buys Pete a
new camera and tells him that the building was poorly constructed and the team
failed as well. Warren relates the story of the end of the Champions: When it
was learned that the Sentinels had bypassed all the building’s defenses, most
of the team were fed up with the place and wanted to go. Ghost Rider walked
out, saying none of the others ever wanted him there. Darkstar wanted to go
home to Russia; Iceman confessed his love for her, which she did not
reciprocate so he walked out too. With the team breaking up, Hercules and Black Widow
decided to go back to New York, leaving Angel by himself.…
That night Pete
returns to the building as Spider-Man, discovering that the two windowpanes
were deliberately loosened and pushed out. Spidey finds Angel arguing with a heavily
bandaged man (Stuart Clarke, the former Rampage) in a wheelchair who gloats
over his revenge against the Champions who left him the way he is, with a
shadowy figure in the background the instrument of his vengeance. Warren balks
and Clarke presses a button and Rampage jumps forward and punches him. Spidey
jumps in, webbing Angel to keep him from hitting the wall. Spidey challenges
the armored bad guy but Angel pleads with him not to fight him. Clarke orders
Rampage to kill the Web-Spinner and Angel again tries to stop the hero so
Spidey knocks him out. The hero and the henchman fight and Spidey is amazed
that Rampage seems to feel no pain. Angel recovers and hurls a power-rod which
electrocutes Clarke; the feedback hurts Rampage too and he ices over,
destroying the armor and revealing that the powered henchman was a
mind-controlled Iceman, still under Clarke’s orders to kill Spider-Man….