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After that, I stopped eating meat, despite the violent protests of my parents.
    I learned that the “study of life” involved killing and torturing, and I had no stomach for that. I didn’t pursue biology. Now I major in history, a much safer subject.
    I check my email before getting up.
    It’s all spam, except for one message that came through my webofspiderkid.net domain. I run a Spiderkid tribute website. It includes a database indexing the appearances of all the supporting characters, a checklist of writers and illustrators, a comprehensive listing of every Spiderkid guest spot in other comics, cover scans, and other obsessive, geeky stuff. My passion for Spiderkid has always allowed me to tap into a secret well of enthusiasm. Managing the website helps me focus on that energy, helps me find the strength to deal with real life. My own personal religion and virtual temple.
    The message is from a lawyer called Laurent Tavernier. It’s a legal warning that I must remove my website, cease-and-desist from posting, publishing, and/or distributing any of its contents, and cede ownership of the domain name to Shrugging Atlas Comics, the publishers of
Spiderkid Adventures
.
    Shit.
    Spiderkid, of course, is Steve Rand’s most famous creation. By now there have been animated cartoons, live-action TV shows, feature films, novels, and more merchandising than any one person could ever amass, so everyone knows the character by sight. Even though he’d been around for twenty years when I came across the Shrugging Atlas Treasury Special, he wasn’t quite so ubiquitous back then.
    Spiderkid is a daredevil punster who loves being a superhero. His life is a complicated soap opera, but nothing ever triumphs over his relentless good cheer. An instant runaway hit in comic books, it was inevitable that Spiderkid would eventually crawl into other media as well.
    Shrugging Atlas Treasury Special: Spiderkid Adventures
— the first comic book I ever read — is the most prized item in my collection. I’ve read it hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. One hundred pages long, it reprints “An Amazing Fantasy” — the first appearance and origin of Spiderkid — and six other stories introducing the most sinister members of his rogues’ gallery: “Duel with the Carrion Crow,” “The Strange Threat of Professor Squid,” “The Face of the Reptile,” “And Call Him the Electric Man,” “The Mystery of Mister Menace,” and “The Coming of the Hellscorpions.” Often, if I’m too tired to read when I go to bed, I’ll take out the treasury and just browse through it to admire Rand’s artwork and to recapture the feeling of excitement and discovery that filled me as I rode on the train, exposed for the first time to Rand’s imagination. Exposed for the first time to the mysteries of spiders.
    I should be working on my history paper, but I’m too irritated and shaken by the email from the Shrugging Atlas lawyer to write anything. I guess I have no choice but to abandon the website. Damn. I put so much work into it. I can’t afford to go up against corporate lawyers; anyway, I don’t want to fight. The website was supposed to be for fun, and that one email is the needle that burst the bubble. I take a quick shower to clear my head. I decide to go out.
    I blow-dry my shoulder-length black hair, and I smile at the blond streaks — the contrast of yellow against black a reminder of Spiderkid’s costume. I brush it back and keep it in place with gel. I carefully apply a thin line of black eyeliner to highlight my dark blue eyes. I learned from my cousin how to make it look natural. She used to tease me about how much she loved the colour of my eyes . . . at least until her parents caught us making out when we were thirteen. Both sets of parents went absolutely crazy. Mine threatened me with boarding school, throwing out all