Only hours after Dr. Bradley Bolton’s killing, Spider-Man happens across three hoodlums mugging a young woman. He makes short work of them, but is so enraged by Bolton’s death that he loses control, nearly beating a mugger to death until the woman stops him. Across town, two men clad in the same outfi ts as those who killed Bolton, set an explosive that springs the Sandman from a heavily guarded armored police truck. They spirit him away to meet the “Boss.” Elsewhere, the derelict somehow trips a pedestrian from a distance. Before he can rob him, he is scared off by an unseen presence. Meanwhile, the Sandman meets the Boss who tells him to steal a “mechanism” from the Coleman Research Complex. Later, drawn by a spider-tracer, Spidey arrives at the Complex, only to fi nd the Sandman waiting for him, having purchased the tracer from a fence. Defeating Spidey, Sandman prepares to blast him with the machine the Boss wants, an experimental cryogenic converter. However, Spidey turns the tables and it is Sandman who is frozen solid.