December 31, 2012. Manhattan, New York. Late at night.
"Here we are on the final hours of the year, and J. Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle still stand with you!" The mustached anchorman jabbed a finger at the camera. "Tonight, we summarize the catastrophic surge of superhuman vigilantism and supernatural destruction that has plagued our great city this year. And let's be perfectly clear, folks: all roads lead back to that masked menace, Spider-Man!"
Arnold Donovan muted the television. He was an incredibly ordinary New York warehouse worker. He was so insignificant that he wasn't on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar, the Avengers' watchlist, or the NYPD's databases.
In another timeline, he was supposed to be infamous. He was supposed to be the second Hobgoblin.
But right now, he was just a bachelor who wanted to go to bed.
Donovan dropped his keys on the counter. He stopped. Resting in the center of his cheap coffee table was a smooth, metallic sphere.
He didn't own a metallic sphere. His apartment door had been deadbolted.
Frowning, Donovan stepped closer. He reached out and tapped the top of the metal ball.
A beam of blue light shot upward. A highly detailed hologram of a man wearing advanced, purple-and-green armor flickered to life. The man stared directly at Donovan.
"Arnold Donovan," the hologram said, its voice echoing with metallic distortion. "Your destiny was stolen. In the original timeline, you were meant to inherit the mantle of the Goblin. You were meant to possess superhuman strength, advanced weaponry, and wage a bloody war against Spider-Man. But the Avengers altered the timeline. They severed your fate. You were left as a nobody."
The hologram raised a hand. "I am offering you a choice. Accept this gift, and your rightful power will be returned to you."
Donovan stared at the purple hologram. He scratched the stubble on his chin. He shrugged, pulled his cell phone from his pocket, and dialed 911.
"Yeah, hello, 911?" Donovan said, leaning against the kitchen counter. "I just got home from work, and somebody left a glowing, supernatural metal ball on my coffee table. Some purple guy in a hologram is talking about turning me into a supervillain. Can you send a squad car to pick this thing up? Yeah. I'm not touching it. I'll just wait here."
Donovan hung up. He dropped onto the sofa, pulling out his phone to play a mobile game. He had a steady job and a quiet life. Why on earth would he want to dress up like a Halloween monster and get punched in the face by Spider-Man? He wasn't insane. The cops could deal with it.
Ten minutes later, a heavy knock rattled the apartment door.
Donovan stood up, sliding his phone into his pocket. "It's open! The weird ball thing is right on the table—"
He pulled the door open. It wasn't the NYPD.
Standing in the hallway was a man wearing a tattered grey hoodie. The shadows obscured his face, but they couldn't hide his sickly, ash-grey skin.
The man tilted his head. He grinned, revealing rows of jagged, yellowed fangs.
"Thank you, Donovan," the Hobgoblin hissed. "Thank you for rejecting your stolen fate."
Donovan took a step back, his heart slamming against his ribs.
"As a reward," the creature laughed, lunging forward, "I will ensure you become exactly what you were destined to be! A monster!"
Half an hour later, NYPD Captain George Stacy stepped under the yellow police tape outside Donovan's apartment.
The 12th Precinct had completely locked down the floor. Stacy navigated the crowded hallway, his trench coat brushing against the doorframe as he stepped inside.
"Captain," a uniform officer said, stepping up with a notepad. "Like dispatch mentioned, the tenant—Arnold Donovan—called it in. Said someone left a supernatural artifact on his table, tried to recruit him as a supervillain, and he wanted to hand it over."
Stacy stepped into the living room. "Where is he?"
"That's the problem," the officer said, gesturing around the ruined room. "When patrol arrived, the door was locked. No response. The rookies breached the door. Against protocol, I know, but—"
"Forget the protocol for a second," Stacy interrupted, his eyes scanning the damage. "What happened here?"
"See for yourself, Captain."
The living room was completely blackened. A localized, high-yield explosive had detonated in the center of the room, scorching the drywall and melting the cheap furniture into slag. It was the distinct blast pattern of a pumpkin bomb.
But there was no body. There wasn't a single drop of blood.
"If the rookies hadn't breached the door, we would have just logged it as a prank call and walked away," the officer muttered. "And, well, Captain... this isn't the first call like this tonight."
Stacy snapped his head around. "Explain."
"Dispatch caught three similar calls over the last four hours," the officer said nervously. "Citizens claiming a hologram offered them superpowers. But a few minutes later, the callers rang back and said it was a prank. Or the patrol cars showed up, saw dark windows, and didn't force entry to check. Nobody wanted the paperwork."
Stacy rubbed his temples, a cold knot forming in his stomach.
If the police ignored the unanswered doors, they just looked like fake 911 calls. But if they actually breached those apartments... they were looking at dozens of targeted missing persons cases.
Worse, if the holograms were telling the truth, someone was distributing highly dangerous supervillain tech across Manhattan. And if the victims were vanishing right after calling 911...
"Someone is monitoring the NYPD dispatch frequencies," Stacy said grimly. "They're listening to our radios. They're intercepting the drop-outs and kidnapping them before we arrive."
Stacy exhaled a heavy breath. They were completely out of their depth. They needed Peter's help.
"Bag the scene," Stacy ordered, his voice tight. "Call in the bomb squad. I want explosive residue analysis. Treat this as a kidnapping. We need to find Donovan."
Arnold Donovan woke up with a sharp gasp.
His throat burned. He tried to sit up, but heavy leather straps pinned his wrists and ankles to a cold, steel operating table. Thick, plastic IV lines snaked into the veins of his forearms.
He violently jerked his head around. The room was dark, damp, and smelled heavily of rust and chemicals.
A hunched figure stepped out of the shadows. It was the grey-skinned, pointed-eared Hobgoblin. He held up a heavy medical syringe filled with a violently glowing green-and-orange serum.
"Originally, this formula was perfected in the future by a man named Doctor Otto to inject Norman Osborn," the Hobgoblin rasped, tapping the glass vial. "But the timeline fractured. Doctor Otto died. So, our generous benefactor from the future simply handed the perfected formula directly to us."
The creature leaned over the table. "There is a slight downside to this batch. The serum completely fractures the human psyche. It drives you irrevocably insane."
The Hobgoblin plunged the needle directly into Donovan's neck.
"But it doesn't matter!" the creature laughed, slamming the plunger down. "We're already crazy!"
Donovan's spine arched off the table. His veins turned black as liquid fire flooded his nervous system. He screamed, his vocal cords tearing as the mutation violently rewrote his DNA.
Outside the damp walls, the distant, muffled sound of the Times Square midnight bells began to ring. The new year had arrived.
The Hobgoblin spread his arms, laughing maniacally over Donovan's agonized shrieks.
"Happy New Year! Welcome to the Goblin Nation!"