The afternoon of the Shocker's fight with Spider-Man, George stood outside an old apartment building in Harlem and took a slow breath. Cracks crawled across the stained walls like scars the city had carved into the people at the bottom. When he raised his hand and knocked, his knuckles made a dull sound against the chipped paint of the door.
The woman who answered was an elderly Black woman with graying hair.
She was Herman Schultz's mother.
Her eyes looked like stagnant water, as though she had long since surrendered to whatever fate had in store for her.
"Mrs. Schultz, I believe you already know what your son has done."
George's voice was quiet, but it cut through the silence like a blade. The room behind her smelled of cheap coffee and old furniture. He hadn't brought her down to the precinct. He had chosen to come personally instead. Officers were waiting downstairs, ready for the Shocker to appear at any moment.
But Herman clearly had no intention of coming home.
"If you're here to ask where my son is, Officer, I don't know," the old woman said numbly, rubbing the edge of her apron between her fingers. Her voice was rough as sandpaper. "I never cared where they went, what they did, or whether they'd end up dead in the street."
"My father died in a gang shootout. My brother was shot to death. My eldest son was killed by the police. My second son got stabbed through the lung in an alley and bled out."
"...I'm sorry, ma'am."
"I'm not blaming you, Officer. This is just an ordinary life for people who live here." Mrs. Schultz lifted her head, her eyes clouded and dull. "But Herman was different. He always thought he didn't belong here. He never thought he was one of us. We never had anything in common, Officer. So do you really think Herman would tell me anything?"
George's pen hovered over his notebook. Outside, an ambulance siren wailed in the distance, grew louder, then faded away again.
"I can't give you anything, Officer." She turned back toward the stove, her bent back like a dead tree bowed under winter snow. "Because Herman... already got everything he wanted."
George looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't. He noticed the stack of cash tucked inside the cabinet, quietly closed the cabinet door, then nodded and left Herman's home.
After school, slanted sunlight spilled into the empty clubroom. The so-called Detective Club, which supposedly had over twenty members, still consisted of nothing but Jessica and the three new recruits sitting around an old desk. Peter suddenly pushed aside the old DVD of The ABC Murders they had originally planned to watch and pulled out a flash drive.
"I've got a new proposal. What do you guys say we try catching the Shocker?"
Jessica nearly choked on her soda.
"You mean the four of us, a bunch of high schoolers, are going to catch the super-criminal who can blow apart an elevated rail line?"
"We're just doing a club activity. It's not like we're actually going out and physically arresting him. What could be more meaningful than deductively hunting down a supervillain on the run, guys? The Avengers and the police still haven't caught him!"
"But we barely have any clues. What are we supposed to work with, exaggerated Daily Bugle reports?"
Faced with Jessica's question, Peter naturally smiled.
"I've got a friend whose dad is a police captain handling the case."
He was making up a source for his intel, though it wasn't a complete lie. Peter Parker couldn't get anything out of Captain Stacy, but Spider-Man could.
Jessica, who didn't know any of that, lit up immediately.
"Wait, are you saying... you can get internal police information?"
"Not every time. But this time, yeah."
As he spoke, Peter plugged the flash drive into the computer. The projector lit up the screen with a pale blue glow, displaying photos and background information on Herman Schultz.
Honestly, it was ridiculous.
Before going up against Herman, Peter had barely known anything about this villain. Spider-Man had so many enemies. Before facing Herman, Peter barely knew anything about him. Compared to the bigger names, the Shocker had never seemed like someone worth worrying about.
Herman had always seemed like the kind of threat people overlooked until it was too late.
If I had read more comics, maybe I'd actually know more about a minor villain like this. Instead, I only knew the big names. I really should've paid more attention to the threats nobody talks about.
Still internally complaining, Peter started the slideshow.
"The Shocker, real name Herman Schultz, is a native New Yorker, born in Harlem, Manhattan..."
"Wait," Harry cut in after reading the projected file. "It says here he only finished middle school."
Looking at the profile on the screen, Harry asked the obvious next question.
"Doesn't that mean someone else made his gear for him?"
"No. He made it himself. His accomplices were completely certain about that."
Seeing the total disbelief on everyone's faces, Peter kept going.
"Even though Herman only finished middle school, that was because of family circumstances. He was never really given the chance to stay in school. But he has serious engineering talent. Before he became the Shocker, he was already using a similar vibration weapon, and he was the one who robbed the bank where he fought Spider-Man. That's where Spider-Man beat him and got him arrested."
Jessica immediately asked the next question.
"When was that?"
"At the precinct, he used a hairpin to pick the lock, knocked out an officer, stole the guy's uniform, and walked out."
All three of them stared blankly after hearing that, completely unsure whether to say the NYPD was unbelievably incompetent or that this guy was genuinely a genius if he could get arrested and then just walk right back out.
"And then after that, the fight with Spider-Man..."
"There was a one-week gap."
Even Amadeus looked stunned now.
"You're saying a guy with only a middle school education got arrested, escaped, and then in just one week built a suit strong enough to fight Spider-Man?"
After hearing that, Amadeus muttered under his breath, "Does New York just mass-produce geniuses now...?"
"Okay, we've got something," Jessica said, latching onto the point immediately. "Guys, think about it. He escaped, built himself a combat suit, and then went straight back to the bank where Spider-Man beat the hell out of him. During that whole week, did he commit any other crimes? Did he even steal anything from that bank, Peter?"
"Uh, no."
Peter thought of something and added, "Actually, according to Captain Stacy, Herman was pretty calm at first after he got arrested. But during the questioning, two cops laughed at him after hearing he built the weapon himself. They didn't believe him. Then he escaped."
"So we're dealing with an egomaniac with a chip on his shoulder." Jessica leaned back. "He didn't get the education he wanted, but he still wants recognition, so he's got this inferiority thing going on. And if people refuse to acknowledge the invention he worked so hard on, he gets angry."
"So that's why he went after Spider-Man," Harry said, finally getting it. "For revenge?"
"Or maybe just to prove something," Jessica said, then spread her hands. "But what's the point? The police already have access to all that information."
"Except the police still haven't found him, and neither have the Avengers, so knowing it hasn't helped them," Harry said. "We need to find him. Or... draw him out."
"What if Spider-Man provokes him again?"
The room went quiet, and then Peter suddenly threw the idea out there.
Jessica was the first to react.
"What?"
"When the Shocker fought Spider-Man, he was basically about to lose. He only got away by collapsing the elevated tracks and forcing Spider-Man to go save people. So he didn't actually beat Spider-Man. He ran." Peter rubbed his fingers together. "So if Spider-Man deliberately provoked him again... would that work?"
"Maybe..."
Harry scratched his head.
"But how are we supposed to tell Spider-Man?"
"There's a website where people leave messages thanking Spider-Man, because nobody knows who he is." Peter smiled. "We could put our theory there. If Spider-Man sees it, he'll know what to do."
(End of Chapter)
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