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This is Queens. The year is 1869. Most of the rest of the United States is still recovering from the Civil War. Lucky for New York, no one ever saw a single bullet or cannonball of battle.

The same can't be said for the Avengers. They're now less than half as strong as before. What's worse, Iron Man was slain by rebel mercs somewhere over western Texas. There are many in New York who miss him.

This is a pizzeria. The family who runs it is ex-Italian. In a few decades, New York will soon have more Italians than it wants. But for now, let's just say that most people who live here are more than grateful that Grant won the last presidential election...

A man in a suit stands near a lectern at the front door. He's not what he appears.

A beautiful brunette woman and her nephew enter. They ask their host for a table for two. He smiles, and gladly accommodates for them. She orders wine; he orders pop.

The nephew, a rather perceptive one, notices the medallion that hangs from the host's neck. It's of a Star of David and a crescent moon that spins around the hexagram on a swivel that runs through the hexagram's top point, and between its two bottom ones. The star is gold, and the moon is silver. A twin emerald and sapphire hang within the medallion...

The woman is May Reilly. Her name was once May Parker...but that was back when she wasn't a widow.

The boy is Peter Parker. And unlike most boys his age-he would think-he's been robbed of a father three times. Tony Stark was like a father and a mentor to him. And he died when Iron Man's armor was splintered.

Alas, Peter's also been robbed of a love. In this case, her name was Liz Allan. Peter waited forever to ask her out. And on the night he finally got to go out with her, duty called...and now she must think the worst of him.

Thankfully, he's not the worst she can think of. Her father was a rebel spy, who supervised the smuggling of weapons to the Confederate Army from New York. It took a lone Avenger's efforts to stop him. Most of the other Avengers wouldn't listen to him when he tried to call for backup.

Now her father's in prison. And now she and the rest of her family are in Oregon. Peter's written to her, but she's never written back. Peter's been told that girls use their fathers as a role model for boys they should date...but this feels extreme...

Aunt May caresses Peter's arm. Peter jolts when she does. He'd never tell his aunt, but ever since a few years ago, he's had a crush on her. And at that, talking to her has never been harder to do.

Peter has the senses of a spider. The hairs go up on his arm. Peter looks around. He can't understand what the trouble is...

May brings up her nephew's love life, and asks him why he shouldn't call on Virginia Potts's daughter, Morgan. She's certain Mr. Stark wouldn't want his legacy to grow up to be lonely in love.

Peter chuckles, and points out that Morgan is the daughter of a major corporate CEO, and hence out of his league. May chuckles, and reminds him that he once lamented the same monologue about Liz.

True, Peter can't deny Morgan's breathtaking beauty. But then again, he can deny even less the even more breathtaking, and not to mention more mature and widowed, beauty of her mother, Ms. Potts...

It's alarming how much Ms. Potts and her daughter look alike. It's almost as if there's none of Mr. Stark in Morgan at all...

The meal was great. Peter and his Aunt May begin to leave. The host bids them adieu on the way out. He seems more fidgety than before...

Peter and his aunt begin the walk home. It isn't far...

Behind them, the glass walls of the pizzeria shatter. May screams. Peter covers her while diving onto the sidewalk. Shards of glass land all around them.

Peter drags his aunt to somewhere safe. He tells her to get on home while he finds somewhere to call the police.

Before May can protest, her nephew's gone. Terrified, she watches from frail cover as a supervillainess attacks the pizzeria host.

It's the She-Vulture. And she's got the host pinned. She takes his medallion in her gauntlet, and looks it over. The host looks up, terrified.

She-Vulture peers at him, through blue-green-shaded goggles. She grins...but doesn't seem very happy.

"A dead giveaway," she hisses. "I thought you'd be a little more desperate to keep a low profile."

Spider-Man arrives, and shoots webs all over She-Vulture's cybernetic wings. She turns to face the threat. The host tries to run away. She shoots an electric projectile from her gauntlet, stunning him.

Spider-Man lands, and assumes a defensive posture. She-Vulture's wings are tangled up in webbing.

"When some people who go to a pizzeria want a table," Spider-Man says, through his mask, "they usually ask nicely."

"I'm not here for the food," She-Vulture hisses. "But then, I'm rather disappointed you haven't figured that out yet!"

She heats the metal in her wings, and sheds the webbing. She spreads them. Spider-Man shoots a webbing. She deflects it with one of her wings.

She leaps, ensnares Spider-Man with cables in her gauntlets, and starts flying in circles around the pizzeria. She gets higher and higher as she goes along.

Spider-Man kicks and punches. She-Vulture keeps him subdued. From the ground, Aunt May watches, terrified. She'd be better off if she had a mind to be somewhere else.

Watching over her nephew, perhaps?

Spider-Man finally wiggles free...and starts falling. He looks around while in freefall. He deploys the wingsuit in his suit, and glides to safety. He doesn't get there.

She-Vulture broadsides him in midair, and they roll across a rooftop, grappling with one another. They continue to do so up here.

On the ground, another supervillainess attends to the stunned pizzeria host. He's coming to. She pins him down, and puts her gauntlet over his head. She generates an illusion for him.

He gapes, and looks up at the sky. From outside, Aunt May can't quite tell what's going on...

"You," the host exclaims. "How...?!"

"As my partner said before," she transforms her free arm into a scimitar, "you do a pathetic job of keeping your cover intact. It's time to dream a little dream, Ismail...of Jahannam!"

Mystira raises her transformed arm to kill the man. From behind her cover, May foolishly gasps.

Mystira looks up. Her eyes and Aunt May's meet...

Spider-Man arrives, and broadsides her. Mystira imagines herself into a bull with horns, and bucks Spider-Man across the alley.

Spider-Man lands on a kerosene tank. It leaks. Aloft, She-Vulture is still on the offensive. She aims her gauntlets at him...as he's lying in a puddle of the flammable liquid.

Mystira comes too. She sees what's about to happen, and tries to yell, to warn her partner...

But it's too late. She-Vulture's already deployed two electric darts. Mystira's feeling woozy. She tries to imagine the darts' trajectory slower-but she blinks, and accelerates them instead.

The sparks make contact with the liquid. The fires spread. They get to the rest of the tank before they get to Spider-Man. The tank's explosion commences.

Mystira spreads her arms, and imagines the explosion-and Spider-Man-frozen into place. She brings her arms together, and contracts the explosion to a size where it won't do a lot of damage.

All is calm. The tank and explosion are nowhere to be seen. Neither is Spider-Man. The partnering villainesses can go back to work.

Once again, the host tries to run. She-Vulture dive-bombs him, and shoots him many times with dual Gatling pistols. She lands, and stands over him. She smiles as she watches him die.

Once again, Mystira's gaze turns to May. She has a terrified look in her eyes.

Far away, police horns blare. They distract Mystira. She sighs, looks at May, and gives her a sinister signal. Some men from her nation would consider it sacrilegious.

She-Vulture spreads her wings, and takes off. She swoops, grabs her partner, and flies away.

"We can't just leave her," Mystira complains. "She saw what we did!"

"Now's not the time," She-Vulture reminds her. "The cops have some of the Avengers on their payroll."

Back on the ground, May looks around. Spider-Man has vanished. It looks like Mystira killed him. The Avengers aren't going to be happy to find out...and neither will Queens, once the crime rate goes up in Spider-Man's void.

The police arrive. They take away the host's corpse. They question Aunt May, and the pizzeria's other employees. Aunt May tells them that she witnessed Spider-Man's murder, and she describes the two villainesses to the cops.

No one in New York has seen the two villainesses before. But then, that's probably because neither villainess is from New York.

The cops wouldn't believe it if someone told them that there are four more where they come from. But then, they probably wouldn't want to hear it, either.

May returns to her apartment. She calls Peter's name. Peter doesn't answer. She checks every room. He's nowhere to be found. She contacts the police, and files a missing child report.

Lt. Stacy files the report. Nearby, a sketch artist draws a picture of Peter's face.

When the artist is done, Lt. Stacy looks at the picture. He grins, and admits to Ms. Reilly that her nephew has a nice face. New York knows that the beautiful girl who gets him one day will be one lucky girl.

Ms. Reilly smiles, wipes her eyes, and thanks Lt. Stacy for everything. He gives her another tissue, and promises to proliferate these sketches and post them everywhere where anyone would look for Peter.

Lt. Stacy notices how good she looks. He offers her the address of his favorite hangout, in case she ever needs a male shoulder to cry on...or a receptive ear to talk to.

Ms. Reilly thanks him, and hugs him. All around the precinct, the other cops watch, and coy-smile to themselves.

It's a grim scene in Queens, as you can see-unless maybe you're Lt. Stacy. But just wait until you find out what will soon happen in Oregon, on the other side of the American Wild West...