November 19, 2012, started as a completely ordinary Monday.
The fifty-seventh presidential election was hitting its final, frenzied crescendo. According to the latest Gallup tracking polls, the incumbent Democratic candidate—running on a highly publicized pro-superhero platform—was projected to coast into a second term. For the superhuman community, it meant breathing room. It meant the hardline, anti-vigilante factions spearheaded by loudmouths like General Thaddeus Ross wouldn't get the political traction they needed to ram a Superhero Registration Act through Congress. For the next four years, at least, the masks were safe.
The morning news cycle was dominated by two major headlines.
First, the U.S.Avengers roster had held a massive, flashbulb-heavy press conference at the Capitol to announce two new heavy-hitting recruits: Ares, the literal Greek God of War, and Carol Danvers, a high-ranking U.S. Air Force Colonel(Recently promoted) sporting cosmic-level energy projection. For a team that had essentially sat on the bench during the recent symbiote crisis, adding a god and a human nuke was a desperate, highly calculated PR boost.
The second headline involved the smoldering crater at the top of the Baxter Building.
Following a brief closed-door meeting, the Fantastic Four and the local Avengers had agreed on a unified cover story for the zombie-multiverse disaster. They released somber obituaries for the security personnel killed in the initial breach, attributing the catastrophic damage to a highly volatile dimensional experiment gone wrong. Reed Richards publicly stepped up to the podium, looking appropriately exhausted, and took the blame. He announced an immediate, indefinite suspension of his high-risk dimensional research projects, a statement that caused independent quantum physicists across the globe to weep into their coffee mugs.
For Peter Parker, everything else was finally returning to a baseline level of normal.
He didn't have to stress about the Wasteland universe anymore. The refugees were secure. More importantly, dropping off Daken and Laura Kinney—the two traumatized mutant kids he had extracted from the Dreadpool timeline—had gone surprisingly well. The Wasteland reality had its own grizzled, surviving Wolverine. An Old Man Logan who had lost his family. Handing him two orphaned, razor-clawed kids from another dimension who desperately needed a father figure had neatly solved two tragedies at once.
With his dimensional obligations cleared, Peter could finally use the cross-universal data he'd collected to run threat assessments on his own reality.
Of course, the multiverse was a fickle thing. Just because someone was a homicidal maniac in one universe didn't mean they were a threat in Earth-616. Kraven the Hunter and Adrian Toomes barely pinged on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar here. And Flint Marko? Peter had cross-referenced the Sandman's aliases through every federal database Tony Stark's servers could crack, and came up with absolute zero. It was weird. The roster of rogues didn't match up.
Which was exactly why Peter found himself hanging upside down outside a reinforced glass window at Oscorp Industries immediately after the final school bell rang.
He was keeping a very close, very paranoid eye on Dr. Curt Connors' "Savage Force" genetics lab. Peter wanted to ensure the good doctor wasn't mixing reptile DNA into his morning coffee, and he specifically needed to check on a heavily guarded containment tank filled with genetically modified electric eels.
"You're hovering again, Peter."
Dr. Connors didn't even look up from his digital clipboard as the automatic lab doors hissed open. The one-armed scientist didn't mind Peter's frequent, unannounced visits. Peter was his late mentor's son, and arguably the brightest kid to ever walk through Oscorp's doors. Connors was already drafting recommendation letters, quietly hoping to steer the kid into an exclusive bio-engineering track before MIT snatched him up.
"Just doing my civic duty, Doc," Peter said, strolling into the pristine, white-tiled lab. He tapped the thick acrylic glass of the eel tank. "Checking the perimeter."
"You don't need to be so tightly wound," Connors chuckled, adjusting his glasses. "Oscorp's internal security is military-grade. It's not as if some disgruntled employee is going to waltz in here, steal an eel, and magically become a supervillain."
Peter forced a smile, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. You'd be surprised, he thought. "So, just to confirm... there's nobody named Max Dillon on the Oscorp payroll? He definitely doesn't have access to this floor?"
"For the tenth time, Peter, no," Connors sighed, finally looking up. "I ran the personnel files myself. No Max Dillon. The eels are perfectly safe."
"Right. Awesome. Keep up the good work, Doc," Peter muttered, backing out of the lab.
As the heavy doors slid shut, Peter felt a knot loosen in his chest. Okay. No Max Dillon at Oscorp. No Electro falling into a vat of eels. Maybe this universe skips that headache. Inside the lab, Connors shook his head and returned to his monitors. His latest batch of regenerative lizard serum had yielded incredibly promising cellular growth in the reptile subjects, but the primate trials were flatlining. The higher-order mammalian genetics were simply too complex, rejecting the reptilian splices. He scrubbed a hand over his tired face, fully intending to pull an all-nighter to isolate the failing genetic markers.
Connors was so deeply engrossed in his data that he didn't hear the ventilation grate in the adjacent circuit room pop open.
A shadow moved fluidly through the darkened utility corridor. A man wearing a grease-stained, heavy-duty electrician's jumpsuit stepped out into the dim emergency lighting.
As Connors turned to fetch a fresh cup of coffee, the man lunged.
A heavy steel wrench slammed into the back of Connors' skull. The scientist crumpled to the linoleum without a sound, his glasses skittering across the floor.
Max Dillon stepped over the unconscious doctor, his heavy boots squeaking slightly on the pristine tiles. He didn't reach for a keycard. He simply pressed his bare right hand against the electronic locking mechanism of the primary lab door.
Bright, jagged blue sparks instantly crackled across his knuckles. The heavy blast doors hissed and unlocked, the circuitry entirely fried by a localized surge.
Max Dillon was not an Oscorp employee. In this universe, he was an unregistered mutant.
Max strode directly toward the shimmering, bio-luminescent glow of the primary containment tank.
"Is this the stuff you were talking about?" Max whispered, tapping a hidden earpiece. "You're absolutely sure these fish can give me the kick I need?"
A cold, distinctly arrogant voice crackled back over the comms. "Do you doubt my intelligence, Mr. Dillon? I strongly suggest you remember exactly who orchestrated your extraction from the Mutant Response Division's maximum-security holding cells."
"Alright, alright, keep your tentacles on," Max grumbled, his eyes fixed on the writhing, glowing eels. "I'm doing it right now."
Max raised his fists. The air pressure in the room dropped sharply, the distinct scent of ozone flooding the sterile lab. He brought both fists down, shattering the reinforced acrylic tank in a single, explosive strike.
Hundreds of gallons of treated saltwater crashed onto the floor in a tidal wave of shattered glass and flopping, high-voltage test subjects.
Alarms immediately shrieked to life. Red emergency strobes bathed the lab in a frantic, pulsing light. Max didn't care. He dropped to his knees in the spreading puddle and grabbed a thrashing, bio-engineered eel with both bare hands.
The eel instantly triggered a defensive biological discharge. Three thousand volts of concentrated electricity slammed directly into Max's nervous system.
He didn't scream. Max's spine arched rigidly, his pupils dilating until his eyes were solid black. A wet, ragged gasp tore through his teeth. It wasn't pain; it was pure, unadulterated euphoria. He held the eel tightly, absorbing every single millivolt until the creature went limp, drained entirely dry.
Max dropped the dead eel, his chest heaving. He grabbed a reinforced rubber duffel bag from his shoulder and began frantically scooping the remaining, live eels off the wet tiles.
"Three thousand volts," Max panted, his voice vibrating with a dual-layered, synthesized echo. "That's barely an appetizer. I can't cap out at three thousand."
Max stood up, his gaze locking onto the heavy, industrial-grade power conduits running down the concrete wall. He ripped the metal paneling away like wet cardboard, grabbing the thick, exposed copper wiring with both hands.
"Edison was an idiot," Max hissed as the Oscorp building's main grid dumped directly into his chest. "A hundred and ten volts is a joke!"
The lab's overhead lights shattered. The security blast doors kicked open, and four heavily armed Oscorp tactical guards poured into the room, leveling assault rifles at the glowing man.
Max turned his head. Beneath his skin, a blinding, branching network of pure electrical current was vividly visible, tracing the pathways of his veins.
He simply smiled, throwing his arms wide.
A massive kinetic shockwave of raw, ungrounded electricity blasted outward. The guards were violently hurled backward into the corridor, their weapons melting in their hands, their tactical armor shorting out in a shower of sparks.
Screaming in absolute, manic excitement, Max turned and sprinted toward the exterior wall. He didn't slow down. He dove headfirst through the reinforced glass window, free-falling into the Manhattan night. The remaining, conscious security guards dragged themselves to the shattered window frame, staring in horror as the man didn't hit the pavement. Instead, he caught the electromagnetic rail of a nearby power line, accelerating away at terrifying speed, leaving a trail of blue plasma in his wake.
Two hours later. An abandoned, subterranean subway maintenance hub in the Bronx.
"I got the juice," Max said, dropping the heavy, dripping rubber duffel bag onto a rusted metal workbench. "With these specific genetics, I can absorb a vastly higher threshold of raw current, right?"
Dr. Otto Octavius stood in the shadows, his tailored green suit impeccably clean despite the grime of the hideout. He didn't reach for the bag with his human hands. A sleek, titanium-steel tentacle uncoiled from his lower back, the three-pronged mechanical claw gently lifting the dripping duffel bag with surgical precision.
"Your capacity for electromagnetic absorption will increase exponentially, yes," Otto said smoothly, passing the bag over his shoulder to a figure standing deeper in the darkness. "However, I am a baseline human. I cannot physically bypass the biometric checkpoints to enter the island nation of Genosha. Therefore, Mr. Dillon, your travel arrangements have been transferred."
Otto stepped aside. The mechanical hum of his actuators echoed in the damp tunnel.
He gestured to the woman stepping into the dim, flickering light. She wore an immaculate, blood-red evening gown that stood out sharply against the rotting concrete. A flawless diamond rested at the hollow of her throat. Her eyes were cold, crimson, and entirely devoid of empathy.
"Allow me to introduce your escort," Otto said, his voice dripping with dark formality. "The director of the Weapon X program. Miss Essex. You may address her as Miss Sinister."