Exiles in Elseworlds

Miguel O'Hara is taking stock of his life, as he's done more often in the last year than he has for most of his life.

Started out this year as a bitter, cocky bastard, working for one of the ugliest of megacorporations, Alchemax and his uglier boss Tyler Stone, freely advancing his work in genetics at the expense of any sense of civic duty. Although, to be honest, most of the people he runs into out there make it really shockin' tough to give a damn about their well-being.

He was engaged to be married. To a very sweet, well-meaning and optimistic woman (his complete opposite), who happened to be dating his brother when they met. Hasn't been on the best of terms with Gabriel since then.

Then Stone went too far. He tried to quit, but then Stone went even FARTHER. Slipped him an instant-genetic-addiction drug that only Alchemax could legally provide, to blackmail him into staying. The attempted cure for this addiction resulted in his becoming a freak of science. A mutated anomaly incapable of ever having a normal life again.

Spider-Man.

Which started out as a frantic necessity, became a personal crusade, and eventually became the persona in which he invested the better part of himself.

In the time since, he's fought the Public Eye flyboys, cyborg cowboys, corporate samurai, psychotic cannibals, roving street gangs, an interdimensional gladiator, a virtual reality loser, a false Norse god, his own holoagent, violently spoiled teenagers, an ugly green tentacled monster, gleaming armored corporate raiders, filthy scavenger ratpacks, some weird adaptoid that thought it was his friend, his brother's new girlfriend in souped-up battle armor, Mexican zombies, a drooling alien symbiotically attached to his childhood bully, some pseudo-goblin thing determined to smear him, an Atlantean invasion force, and even his own crazy mother.

He's learned what it is to kill, although it was usually completely accidental. He's learned that killing is markedly different from simply electing NOT to save someone from death. Semantics, maybe, but it's a different kind of dirt feeling when it's done.

He's seen more death in the last year than he has his entire life.

Including his fiancee.

Things had gotten messy with Dana before the end. The S-Man experience really drove a wedge between them, because he couldn't let her in, and she couldn't stand to be shut out. Reaching out to Xina again didn't help matters. What he's utterly sick about, though, is that the slimiest bastard he's ever known, Tyler Stone, was sinking his claws into her, trying to seduce her - and as someone who thought the best of everyone, Dana didn't stand a chance. He hates the fact that some small part of him thinks she's better off dead. Spared whatever the hell Tyler was trying to use her for. Always gets sick thinking about that.

Thankfully, Mom gunned his bastard ass down. Not enough to kill him, but enough to end his game for a while.

Still doesn't change the ugly fact that Tyler Stone is his biological father. That makes him even sicker to think about.

Things have changed, though. President Doom has come and gone, reordering everything. Leaving Miguel in charge of Alchemax, the corporate monolith he once tried to rally people against. Part of him feels like he's sold his soul... but if that's what it costs to get this evil empire used for actual good, it's a price he's willing to pay.

Shockin' hell, he's gonna have an ulcer by the time he's 40.