Joe Face Is Dead. (Intro)

Psychochronography (Noun):
The Study of the influence of cultural environment on the mind or behavior.
[In singular] The historical environment of a particular narrative, typically long form, considered with regard to its influence on the mind or on behavior.
Origin:
Early 21^st century: riff on the term psychogeography (The study of the influence of geographical environment on the mind or behavior).

It was a dark and stormy night...

30 years ago today, Peter Parker (alias Spider-Man) died. He was shot in the face by Sergei Kravinoff (alias Kraven the Hunter) on October 10^th, 1987 on a Queens rooftop (the building was torn down a few years ago and replaced with an Apple Store). Shortly after assassinating Parker, Kravinoff proceeded to move the body to his compound, where he was buried with the epigraph “Here Lies SPIDER-MAN/ Slain by THE HUNTER.”

Once Parker’s remains were disposed of, Kravinoff proceeded to wear a Spider-Man costume of his own and deal out vigilante justice for two weeks under the guise of “The Spider.” Surprisingly, there was only one fatality in his brutal quest to destroy crime (a John Doe who remains unidentified). Near the end of his crusade, Kravinoff captured noted cannibal Edward Whelan (alias Vermin) and moved him to his compound, where he proceeded to torture him in an electric cage. Shortly afterwards, Kravinoff freed Whelan who was brought into the United States Maximum Security Installation for the Incarceration of Superhuman Criminals (alias The Vault) by Detectives DeMatteis and Zeck. Later that night, Kravinoff would commit suicide by sticking the rifle he murdered Parker into his own mouth and pulling the trigger.

The body of Parker was left undiscovered for those two weeks, until his wife (Mary Jane Watson), fearing the worst of her missing husband, saw him miraculously unharmed in the window of her apartment in Brooklyn.

For the past 30 years, numerous historians and armchair detectives have wondered how Mr. Parker was able to survive being drugged, shot in the face, and buried six feet under for two weeks. Many have suggested that the drugs Kravinoff used on Parker made him hallucinate the shot to the face, however several pieces of forensics data made shortly after Kravinoff’s suicide (including, though not limited to, an armature photograph of the event, a bullet casing matching Kravinoff’s rifle, and several samples of brain matter belonging to Parker found within the area) indicate that Parker was indeed shot in the face. Parker’s limited regenerative abilities would not be able to sustain him for two weeks underneath six feet of dirt (let alone heal the aforementioned brain matter) nor would the drugs (Tabernanthe Iboga) keep his lungs at a pace slow enough to preserve oxygen for that long.

Equally, there’s the matter of how the drugs got into Parker’s system in the first place, given his innate “Spider Sense.” Some have noted that, prior to his murder, Parker was last seen at the wake of one Joe Face, a man Parker met only two or three times for conversations about what Doctor Otto Octavius (alias Doctor Octopus) and Wilson Fisk (alias the Kingpin) are planning. At the wake, Parker seemed uncharacteristically tense (“like a ****ing maniac,” one witness described, “I wasn’t too surprised to see him breaking limbs those weeks later.  Thought he finally snapped”) before providing the funds for a decent funeral for Mr. Face (said funds were provided by that month’s rent).

It is the duty of this psychochronography then, to use our fourth dimensional vantage point (where all these stories are fictions made up of contradictions) to understand why Peter Parker had to die and how he brought himself back to life. Of what happened in that long October of 1987. And what all of this has to do with the mysterious appearances of the ghost of William Blake inside of an Apple Store in Queens five hours ago.

(Next Time: From #0 With Love)

[Photos: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, Brian Boland, and John Higgins]