WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Giant-Size Amazing Spider-Man: King's Ransom #1 by Nick Spencer, Roge Antonio, Carlos Gomez, Ze Carlos, Alex Sinclair & VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
It seems like J. Jonah Jameson and his drive to be the best always end with terrible results. Jameson’s poor decisions were on glorious display as Spider-Man tried to battle Kingpin’s crime lords and Jameson sent in reinforcements.
As Giant-Size Amazing Spider-Man proves, the problem is that the reinforcements were Spider-Man’s streaming fans, including kids who controlled and guided the Pro Spider-Slayers into the battle to help their beloved Internet hero. Things went wrong, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Spider-Man already found help by recruiting his old partners from the New Avengers and bringing in Black Cat to rob Kingpin of his Lifeline Tablet pieces. J. Jonah Jameson live-streamed the giant battle to all of Spider-Man’s fans on the Internet. It excited Jameson when Spider-Man showed up in the tunnels to find the last Lifeline Tablet piece, exclaiming they had arrived. Jameson revealed they were broadcasting the first-ever TNM Live, with Threats & Menaces presenting Spider-Man in action on the big screen.
Jameson showed the live audience that Threats & Menaces was destroying the Daily Bugle in audience ratings. He revealed to the packed house audience he had something special to unveil, which was that he had technology to allow Spider-Man’s fans, who upvoted and commented and reposted his exploits, to join in on the action. These fans online could join the fight by controlling their own Pro Spider-Slayers. Much to the chagrin of the New Avengers, these fan-controlled robots descended on the fight, allowing fans to fight alongside them. Naturally, it was a total disaster.
Fans led these drones into action, helping their favorite heroes in the fight. The design bore a strong similarity to the original Spider-Slayer Jameson created in Amazing Spider-Man #25 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, which had his face on the screen controlling the robot against Spider-Man. Each Pro Spider-Slayer had a fan’s face on the screen. The only thing Threats & Menaces got right was making them non-lethal. Then, the ultimate problem took place, as the gamers turned the Pro Spider-Slayers on each other rather than the villains, causing a major distraction and destroying even more city property. J. Jonah Jameson realized too late that he messed up again.
There was one chance left for J. Jonah Jameson to save his reputation. However, Spider-Man would not play the game. The Pro Spider-Slayers are a huge misstep, but Jameson exclaimed it was time to prove to the city Spider-Man wasn’t a threat, menace or criminal. He could find the last Lifeline Tablet piece, proving to the city he was a hero. Spider-Man disagreed, realizing he needed to be the bigger man. He remembered his past failures when he put money and fame over doing the right thing. He remembered how it always hurt those he cared about. Spider-Man turned off his uniform, killing the feed, and did things his way. J. Jonah Jameson lost his live feed at the biggest event of his career after suffering a public embarrassment with the Pro Spider-Slayers. While this adventure ended in an uncharacteristic loss for Spider-Man, he was joined in failure by his old nemesis, Jameson.
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