Out-"Sins Past" Sins Past!

[Brian Cronin]

Here's a neat new game.

Pick a superhero title, now come up with a "Sins Past"-esque style story for that title that is creepier than Sins Past!!

Here's mine!

Thomas Wayne was secretly the head of Gotham's mob, and his killing was really a mob hit.

So all this time, Batman has been avenging the life of the biggest mobster Gotham ever saw!

Right there, my story idea would screw Batman's world up a good deal more than Sins Past screwed Spider-Man's, and my story probably even makes less sense, as the odds that Batman would never discover that about his father is pretty darn ludicrous.

That's mine - I'm sure you folks can beat that!

-Brian

[Pól Rua]

I think it was Roger Stern who had the idea of making Uncle Ben a fence.
Basically, he's making a few extra bucks trying to support his family.
And the burglar who shot him wasn't interrupted, it was the result of a disagreement in price.
Not creepy, but interesting.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Professor Xavier, founder of the x-men, and biggest champion of human/mutant relations ever, has a breakdown, betrays his team, takes on the name Onslaught, and destroys the majority of non-mutant Superheroes.

It's not that odd that it actually happened (it was the tail end of the 90's), it just odd that they felt they could do X-men comics again - especially with Xavier on the team.

(Fun Fact: Onslaught was a driving factor in me giving up comics for a few years).

[Sean Whitmore]

The titular character from V for Vendetta wasn't just some test subject who escaped captivity and returned to unleash anarchy on the facistic government.

He was the former leader of said government!

V...real name Earl Rutherford III...was the prime minister who led Britain to become a totalitarian hellhole. He was eventually betrayed by his ambitious second-in-command and deposed. They burned him until he was unrecognizable and locked him away.

V eventually escaped and took the guise of a costumed terrorist. His seemingly random attacks on the government were a smokescreen to hide his true intentions: a series of methodical political strikes to remove the heads of Britain's government, leaving V free to take up the fallen reins of power.

MmmmMMMMMmmmm, that's good character assassination... :cool:


SEAN

[Greg Hatcher]

Dr. Light was actualy a rap...

...no, won't go there. Won't.

Okay, how about this: the reason Wonder Woman left Paradise Island is not because of some sort of 'contest' or anything but because Hippolyta had been abusing her sexually. There is an elite Amazon group of sadistic lesbians that rule Paradise Island with an iron hand and their vilest secret is the hidden pleasure dungeon where they keep girls they have kidnapped from Man's World. Think Bangkok, but with all girls and marble columns. The real reason Diana has all these odd hangups about bracelets and bondage and so forth are because that's how she was imprisoned on the island throughout puberty. When she finally got out and tried to murder Hippolyta -- the leader of the group -- this elite Amazon guard captured her and exiled her, after using the purple ray to rewrite her memories so that the regular citizens of the island would not discover their secret. Now these repressed memories have surfaced and Diana must return to "Paradise" island to free the other kidnapped young girls being held as sex slaves by the Amazon guard, who continue to take girls from "Man's world" for their personal pleasures.

A complete continuity nightmare that makes everything about the Wonder Woman mythology look vaguely perverted and disgusting. And hey, bonus homophobia. Beat that.

[Sean Walsh]

Thunderbolt Ross masterminded the events that led to Bruce Banner's gamma radiation.....all while he was having sex with Betty!

[Loren]

It's revealed that both Superboy and Supergirl were programmed by their fathers to be sleeper agents, intended to destroy Superman.

[Gordon Smith]

Superman discovers that his father Jor-El, far from labouring to save Krypton from utter destruction, was actually responsible for intentionally destroying the planet, so that the sole survivor of the catastrophe could be the founder of a race of superbeings who would be as gods to the lesser species of the galaxy.

[Loren]

Superman discovers that his father Jor-El, far from labouring to save Krypton from utter destruction, was actually responsible for intentionally destroying the planet, so that the sole survivor of the catastrophe could be the founder of a race of superbeings who would be as gods to the lesser species of the galaxy.

There have been times in Smallville that seemed to suggest that Jor-El sent his son to Earth to conquer it, and not merely to save him.

[yo go re]

Which one is "Sins Past?" The Spider-Man thing? That's another story the fanboys got up in arms about that I didn't hate.

Charles Xavier was tired of being the small weakling of the family, so while in the jungle, he used his mental powers to force his step brother to bring him a gem that would give him physical strength to match his intellect. Unfortunately, there was a cave-in before Cain could bring the gem back out - it wasn't a bad cave-in, and Xavier could easily have gotten help, but he just left his brother there to die.

[Brian Cronin]

Dr. Light was actualy a rap...

...no, won't go there. Won't.

Okay, how about this: the reason Wonder Woman left Paradise Island is not because of some sort of 'contest' or anything but because Hippolyta had been abusing her sexually. There is an elite Amazon group of sadistic lesbians that rule Paradise Island with an iron hand and their vilest secret is the hidden pleasure dungeon where they keep girls they have kidnapped from Man's World. Think Bangkok, but with all girls and marble columns. The real reason Diana has all these odd hangups about bracelets and bondage and so forth are because that's how she was imprisoned on the island throughout puberty. When she finally got out and tried to murder Hippolyta -- the leader of the group -- this elite Amazon guard captured her and exiled her, after using the purple ray to rewrite her memories so that the regular citizens of the island would not discover their secret. Now these repressed memories have surfaced and Diana must return to "Paradise" island to free the other kidnapped young girls being held as sex slaves by the Amazon guard, who continue to take girls from "Man's world" for their personal pleasures.

A complete continuity nightmare that makes everything about the Wonder Woman mythology look vaguely perverted and disgusting. And hey, bonus homophobia. Beat that.

That is brilliantly awful!

-Brian

[Strannik]

Personally, I never understood why Gwen having sex with Norman Osborn was a bad thing. I mean, from what I understand, Peter and Gwen weren't dating at the time, so it wasn't like she cheated on him. I don't know. Maybe it's generational, but I, for one, was alot more annoyed with improbably aging children then I was with the fact that the said kids were sired by Norman Osborne. That and the climax to this story was a bit of a letdown.

I don't know, maybe it's a generational thing, but I seriously don't understand what all the fuss was about.

But, regardless of my feelings about the storyline, if I could come up with a retcon that fundamentally undermines the nature of the character...

Franklin Richards was born in November 1968. As he grew older, he gained nearly infinite powers that endowed him with equally vast knowledge. He quickly figured out that being an adult meant compomising your principles, sacrificing dreams for the sake of temporary fulfillment, endless pursuit of material wealth, social relations fraught with duplicity and lies and generally trading idealism for cold-hard pragmatism. Understandbly distraught by this realization (infinite knowledge or no infinite knowledge, he was still a kid), he used his powers alter the nature of time itself, creating the sliding time scale where social, political and economic changes advanced normally while the world population aged at a fluctuating, but ultimately comparitively slower rate. That way, he was able to enjoy the benifits of evolving civilization without ever having to grow up along with it. Naturally, there were bugs, with the two streams of time producing occasional paradoxes (for example, no one seems to find it odd that Dazzler originally gained popularity through disco as the "present" keeps moving further and futher away from the time when it was actually popular), but to a being of unlimited power, taking care of that sort of thing isn't a problem.

In short, Franklin Richards is responsible for Marvel Time.

Now, what exactly is so bad about it, you ask.

Well, imagine being unable to meaningfully develop and evolve. Imagine having to go through same notions, unable to learn and benifit from experience, repeating yourself over and over again. Even if Franklin's power can fool the consious mind, the subconsiousness is growing increasigly weary of stagnation. With no hope of advancement, the motivation is gone. The hope is gone. The desire to do anything is gone. And the heroes, who were once vital and energetic, turn into shallow, depressed husks of their former selves.

Granted, the process never reaches isn't logical conclusion - the complete and utter apathy, because change does happen, even if it happens very, very slowly. But sooner or later, the experience will accumulate and slow, glaciral change will no longer be able to keep pace with enthropy.

Thus, Franklin's efforts gradually destroy everyone around him from within.

I would be hard-pressed of anything more insidiously villanous then that.

Aren't you glad you asked. ;)

P.S. I originally came up with an idea after reading some 80s-era X-Men stories and wondering how X-Men remembered those stories, what with the sliding time scale and all. The idea kind of snowballed from there.

[dancj]

There have been times in Smallville that seemed to suggest that Jor-El sent his son to Earth to conquer it, and not merely to save him.

In John Byrne's Man of Steel IIRC, Jor-El and Lara thougth Supes would quite likely become our ruler

[Shellhead]

None of these are as outrageous as what actually happened in Giant-Size Avengers #4. Mantis married the green glowing corpse of her dead lover, after it was re-animated and possessed by a sentient alien plant.

[Tommy]

The Horrible Truth of Susan Storm!

Back in college Reed and Victor developed an intense rivalry. One night a drunken Victor revealed to Reed that he was in love with him. Reed (after having done far too many tequila shooters) spent a passionate and romantic night of lovemaking with Victor. But Reed completely and utterly denied that the night had ever happened the following day and soon took up with that slutty minx Susan Storm! Victor accidentally walked in on them in the act, after which he wondered around campus the whole night. Reed decided to tell Victor to leave him alone once and for all snuck into his room, but got distracted by Victor's notes. Victor returned only to find Reed staring at his notes and a huge lover’s quarrel ensues. Heartbroken Victor fires up his device to contact his mother which goes wildly wrong.

And so all those times that Victor bothers the Fantastic Four are actually a giant game of flirtation with Reed. Sort of 3rd grade putting a worm in someone's hair since you really like them.

BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!

Victor after having captured Susan decides to try and end their marriage once and for all. So he has his way with her hoping that Reed will divorce Sue and then Victor can swoop in. It wasn't a very logical plan. However nine months later Sue gives birth to Franklin.

BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!

Susan becomes infatuated with Victor. And while she does not want to leave her husband or the Fantastic Four she still wants to be with him. So when ever the two are alone together they have wild sweaty sex.

All this culminates when the secrets are outed and Reed, Victor, and Sue have a threesome. After which Sue discovers she is pregnant (yet again.)

[StrikeForce Albert]

Dr. Doom went back in the past and had sex with Reed's mom, thus becoming Reed's dad.

[Brian Cronin]

None of these are as outrageous as what actually happened in Giant-Size Avengers #4. Mantis married the green glowing corpse of her dead lover, after it was re-animated and possessed by a sentient alien plant.

The key is to not just do absurd stuff, but absurd retcons that affect the characters.

-Brian

[Matthew E]

How about this: the Guardians have been keeping secret from the Green Lanterns that their rings are actually wedding rings, and the Green Lantern oath has Oan language hidden in it that's a marriage ceremony. So every time the Lanterns charge up their rings, they're marrying the Green. Which means that the next time they go to sleep, in their dreams they consummate the marriage with their world's equivalent of Swamp Thing.

[bannermanonemillion]

Holy crap, I can feel my left eye twitching just reading this!

Keep it up!!

[Omar Karindu]

DC

Batman's father Thomas Wayne did not die; instead, he used yoga techniques and bribery to fake his own death, hoping both to instill a sense of purpose in his son and escape a stultifying marriage. Martha was never meant to die, and Thomas had only meant to provoke the mugger into shooting him. Only Alfred knew of the deception, and the two kept it from Bruce for decades until a chance encounter in South America's jungles reveals the truth.

The reason that Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, etc. were so humorous and lighthearted during the Giffen/DeMatteis era of the Justice League was that the still-grieving Martian Manhunter, distraught at losing the Detroit League kids, was unwittingly emitting a telepathic pulse that "lightened up" everyone around him. The lasting effects of this pulse drove Maxwell Lord into homicidal insanity and provoked the OMAC Project, and also made all of the other Leaguers subconsciously resistant to trusting Blue Beetle. Worse, J'onn cannot control this ability, and suspects that it may also have caused many brilliant scientists -- Professor Ivo, T.O. Morrow, etc. -- to go mad because he wanted to face challenges as a hero.

Marvel

The Super-Soldier Serum that created Captain America not only enhanced his brainpower, but actually turned him into even more of a racist and fascist than the Nazis, whom he saw only as competition. Everything he's done since his creation was in fact part of an immensely clever propaganda scheme, by which he intends to become an unquestioned paragon who will lead an army of "lesser" superbeings to total world rulership -- with the foolish consent of the planet's human inhabitants. Thanks to the Serum's slowing his aging process, Steve has as long as he needs to make this dream come true. And Dr. Erskine knew this would be a side effect of the Serum, hoping that he could get in on world domination through his creations.

The X-Men discover key evidence that Magneto was, in fact, an SS guard rather than a Sonderkommando or camp victim, and that he was mindwiped into believing himself a concentration camp survivor by Professor X in an ill-advised effort at "rehabilitation."

[StrikeForce Albert]

THE SECRET HISTORY OF KRYPTON

Everything Clark knows about Krypton is wrong. Kryptonians were still smart people, but the entire planets population was forced never to leave the planet because they were slaves to the Gaurdians of the Universe. Kryptonians created the original rings to fight off the Gaurdians during the original war over the planet. But failed when the Gaurdians used their secret weapon. Parralax. Afterwards the Gaurdians created their own rings after stripping the planet.

You could use this explain the modern and silverage Krypton exsisting. The crazy paradise Silverage Krypton exsisted, but after the war the Gaurdian stripped the planet of everything leaving only the bare needs to survive, creating the modern version of Krypton.

Jor-El was a scientist, but he did not discover that Krypton was going to explode. Instead he lead a faction of freedom fighters and was planning to take the Gaurdians out.

Being able to hide his work from the gaurdians Jor-El created 2 rockets. After creating the rockets with hollowed out centers, he would load to explosvie device, then plug in the coordianace, the central battery core. A tactical nuke. Then if they sent Parralax after then he would use the second nuke to take out it.

There were traitors in thier ranks. Zod, Ursa, and Non. They rat out Jor-El to the Gaurdians for the prize to be able to leave Krypton. The Gaurdians agree but trick them and banish them to the phantom zone.

Jor-El never got his chance. The gaudians sent Paralax to destroy Krypton. Within 10 minutes 90% of the planets population was dead. In his last moments before being slaughtered Jor-El scans the universe for planets that could sustain his son and give him powers due to the sun. He finds one planet. Earth, which the gaurdians planned to enslave aswell after spending a few centuries treating earth like a gardner treats his flowers. He loads his son Kal-El in one rocket, and Kara Zor-El in the other other. A piece of debri hits, messing up the rocket, Kara's rocket and thats why she lands years later after Kal-El.

After the rockets leave the planet Paralax kills Jor-El and the remaining members of the planet, goes to planet core and and causes the planet to explode.

part 2 on the way!!!!!!!!!

[Alan2099]

Back in colledge, Reed Richards snuck into Doom's lab to correct the errors he saw in Doom's plan, inadvertantly setting the machine up so it wouldn't work, due to his misunderstanding the mystical nature of the experiment.

Years later, in order to test his theories about the effects of radiation on living beings, he sumbliminally implanted hints in the minds of Johhny, Ben, and Sue, so they would accompany him. He specially treated their uniforms, with Ben getting the heaviest treatment, to absorb certain amounts of radiation while in space, in what he hoped would rigger so form of superhuman mutation.

[Kid Kyoto]

Green Lantern There never was a yellow fear monster. Hal's return, the 'truth' about Paralax everything has been part of a plot by Hal to once again destroy and recreate the universe.

Fantastic Four Reed Richards knew darn well about cosmic rays and what they would do to his crew, he went up on purpose to create an army of gods to remake the world. He also irradiated a spider, chucked nuclear waste at this kid in Hells Kitchen, planted a high-tech hammer (that only seems magical because it causes hallusinations) in a cave in Norway and got Xavier an educational grant. The mutants of the marvel universe were either secretly irradiated by him or are in fact his biological children.
In fact he is over 100 years old, having developed an anti-agin drug early on, he dyes him temples to hide this. He also created the super soldier formula during WWII and secretly gave it to Moon Knight, Hawkeye and other non-powered heroes. Oh and he wrote the SHRA.

Thor - In viking times he raped and pillaged Earth until he was stopped by the Knights Templar who imprisoned him in his hammer. Don Blake freed Thor's spirit but his will was strong enough that Thor could only manifest as an idealized version of himself from Don's subconcious. But now the real Thor is free and no man... or woman is safe from bloody lusts.

Wolverine - While doing genetic tests for the SHRA Reed Richards notices many heroes and villains have a common ancestor. And that ancestor is Wolverine. Logan's healing factor ensures that almost any woman he has sex with will get pregnant and decades of false memories caused him to long ago lose track of who he has fathered. Steve Rogers is his biological son which is why the Super Soldier formula only worked on Steve. Frank Castle is his son too which is why Frank is so hard to kill. In fact both Reed and Sue are his grandchildren which makes them cousins, they immediately divorce. Reed confronts Logan and shows that Kitty, Jean and Jubilee are all his biological daughters. The only reason they never his his kids is Professor X made them have abortions. Logan screams OHNOES! and blinds himself with Super Acid that he can't regenerate from. He flees into the desert and is never seen again.

[Apathy Boy]

I would like a comic company to pick up the rights to Pac-Man and write a story about Pac-Man as a drug addict, wandering the alleyways of Pactown in search of his next fix of Vitamin-X while being haunted by the ghosts of the four friends he got killed.

Oh, and Ms. Pac-Man is a whore.

[John Nowak]

...Pac-Man as a drug addict, wandering the alleyways of Pactown in search of his next fix of Vitamin-X while being haunted by the ghosts of the four friends he got killed....


I would so buy that...

[Kid Kyoto]

I would like a comic company to pick up the rights to Pac-Man and write a story about Pac-Man as a drug addict, wandering the alleyways of Pactown in search of his next fix of Vitamin-X while being haunted by the ghosts of the four friends he got killed.

Oh, and Ms. Pac-Man is a whore.

paging Frank Miller!
paging Frank Miller!

[Jack Zodiac]

Steve Rogers wasn't frozen in 1945. He wasn't even born in 1945. Captain America was Allied Forces propaganda to cover up the fact that Germany had discovered the secret soldier formula first. Johann Schmidt was the recipient of the serum, but an Allied attack forced the experiment to end early, driving Schmidt insane and horribly disfiguring him for life. He was taken by American scientists to try and duplicate the serum using his blood, but couldn't with the technology at the time; so Schmidt was frozen until such a time as science could duplicate the procedure.

Decades later, SHIELD thawed Schmidt out for an experimental cloning process which would, hopefully, create a perfect soldier out of his altered DNA. The clone and Schmidt were brainwashed with faux WWII propaganda movies about Captain America and Red Skull with elaborate backstories subliminally implanted in both of their memories to make them hate each other fiercely. SHIELD was flying the pair to an old castle off the Norwegian coast to have them reenact a scene from their implanted memories and gauge the clone's strengths, when The Red Skull suddenly broke free and killed his captors. During the fray, Rogers was thrown off the plane with a young soldier resembling the "Bucky" sidekick from the propaganda movies and became frozen in ice until the Avengers found him and recognized the costume as that of the old war hero, Captain America.

[TheLazy]

Cool game, but I'm suspecting one of these stories is actually going to end up as a What If?

Anyway...

The Human storm appears one day and attacks Johnny storm. Now the audience and the FF are left thinking, what...the...****! But it is carefully explained over the issue that way back when the Original (40's) Human Torch had replaced Johnny a long time ago, whilst johnny was sent off to some inter-galactic trial. So the FF throw the Android -who now has the ability to change his appearance- out and let johnny in. But during this exchange they discover that johnny is an uptight jerk and they eventually banish him back to space and bring the android back. Then they vow never to speak of the past weeks events again. But us reader know, we know!

:)

[Matches Malone]

Thomas Wayne was secretly the head of Gotham's mob, and his killing was really a mob hit.

So all this time, Batman has been avenging the life of the biggest mobster Gotham ever saw!



Hate to tell you, but... they did that one. Check out BRAVE & THE BOLD #184.

My entry: When he first learned to fly, a young Clark Kent liked to make undetected trips to Metropolis for the purpose of spying on Lois Lane in the shower. He would also hover in her bedroom while she slept (gee, where'd that idea come from) and whisper "your one true love is Clark Kent" in a subliminal Kryptonese code. Then he would leave small deposits of his semen in strategic places around her bed. Kryptonian semen emits certain pheromones that create extreme suggestability.

Thus, Clark engineered his relationship with Lois while he was a child, using magical Kryptonian semen.

[Johnny Triangles]

I'll add a twist to Brian's original idea rather than create a totally new onw. Not only was Thomas Wayne a secret kingpin, but Joe Chill was a spurned gay lover and underling who took on the hit after realizing Wayne would never leave his wife and kid for him. This will provide an opportunity to show a flashback panel of Wayne and Chill in the thrills of passion with a Norman Osborn-like "O" face.

[Johnny Triangles]

DC



The reason that Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, etc. were so humorous and lighthearted during the Giffen/DeMatteis era of the Justice League was that the still-grieving Martian Manhunter, distraught at losing the Detroit League kids, was unwittingly emitting a telepathic pulse that "lightened up" everyone around him. The lasting effects of this pulse drove Maxwell Lord into homicidal insanity and provoked the OMAC Project, and also made all of the other Leaguers subconsciously resistant to trusting Blue Beetle. Worse, J'onn cannot control this ability, and suspects that it may also have caused many brilliant scientists -- Professor Ivo, T.O. Morrow, etc. -- to go mad because he wanted to face challenges as a hero.


Pitch this to DC and I bet Didio and Johnuckanick would cream in their pants.

[Johnny Triangles]

Dr. Light was actualy a rap...

...no, won't go there. Won't.

Okay, how about this: the reason Wonder Woman left Paradise Island is not because of some sort of 'contest' or anything but because Hippolyta had been abusing her sexually. There is an elite Amazon group of sadistic lesbians that rule Paradise Island with an iron hand and their vilest secret is the hidden pleasure dungeon where they keep girls they have kidnapped from Man's World. Think Bangkok, but with all girls and marble columns. The real reason Diana has all these odd hangups about bracelets and bondage and so forth are because that's how she was imprisoned on the island throughout puberty. When she finally got out and tried to murder Hippolyta -- the leader of the group -- this elite Amazon guard captured her and exiled her, after using the purple ray to rewrite her memories so that the regular citizens of the island would not discover their secret. Now these repressed memories have surfaced and Diana must return to "Paradise" island to free the other kidnapped young girls being held as sex slaves by the Amazon guard, who continue to take girls from "Man's world" for their personal pleasures.

A complete continuity nightmare that makes everything about the Wonder Woman mythology look vaguely perverted and disgusting. And hey, bonus homophobia. Beat that.



...paging Judd Winick...

[Lorendiac]

Here's one I wrote several months ago, as a hypothetical example to use in an argument in another thread about such weighty matters as just what Keith Giffen meant by his mantra: "Consistency, not continuity."

Here's the summary of my hypothetical "wild idea" that I wrote and posted at the time. Please note that even though I made it up, I would hate to see it ever get published! :(


The Wild Idea: Quick Outline

The Present: Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four are trying to penetrate the security of one of Dr. Doom's secret lairs. It becomes clear that the only way past the impenetrable force field is to touch it with your bare hand. If the security devices scan your DNA and decide that you are Victor Von Doom or a very close relative, the field will drop. If you aren't a close relative, you'll be incinerated on the spot. Reed Richards urges Spider-Man to peel off a glove and extend his bare hand for testing. Spidey thinks Reed has gone nuts under pressure. However, he strips off one glove and discovers to his considerable surprise that his Spider-Sense doesn't go bananas when he moves near the force field and thinks about reaching out his hand to touch it. So he touches it, his DNA scans as obviously belonging to a member of the Von Doom Family, the field drops, Spidey and the FF charge forward and are able to destroy some machinery and foil Doom's latest Diabolical Scheme.

Afterwards, Spidey demands an explanation from Reed.

Flashback Sequence: Way back when, a young, brilliant, ruthless college student named Victor Von Doom was experimenting with a chemical to make women fall madly in love with him. (The man was inspired by that then-popular song, "Love Potion Number Nine.") The first victim of his testing was Mary Parker, newlywed wife of Richard Parker. As a result of Victor's "sweeping her off her feet" for a few hours, she became pregnant with a child whom Mary and Richard later named Peter. Hence his display of a certain scientific genius and inventive capability that had not previously manifested itself in the Parker family (as far as I know). Richard thought the baby was his. Victor got wrapped up in other things around that time and never bothered to check up on whether or not Mary had a baby approximately nine months after their moment of "passion" together. However, fellow student Reed Richards had a good idea of what had happened -- stumbled across Victor's lab notes for a love potion, or some such thing. Reed has suspected for the last thirty years that Peter Parker was Victor's illegitimate child, but never said anything to anyone at first.

Many years later, when Peter was an orphaned teenager living with Uncle Ben and Aunt May, and Reed had just recently gotten his powers and become the leader of the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom came back into his life and Reed realized what a monster his old pal had become. He started thinking, "Uh oh, if he realizes he's got a long-lost kid living in the Big Apple, no telling what he might do to the poor lad!" So he arranged a meeting and told Ben and May about his suspicions regarding Peter's real paternity. This was before Peter got his powers and before Ben got killed. Ben and May agreed there was nothing to be gained, at the moment, by telling Peter he might not really be a Parker by blood after all.

A few months later, Peter was moping terribly after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Doctor Octopus. Reed specifically sent Johnny to Peter's high school to give a rousing pep talk to the assembled student body on the subject of overcoming adversity. Accept occasional losses, but figure out what your important goals are and keep pressing forward until you achieve them somehow! It worked. It cheered Peter up enormously, although Johnny didn't know that Peter was the target audience.

Other little bits of "good luck" that have come Peter's way over the years were often arranged by Reed Richards without Peter's knowledge. Reed, studying Peter carefully from a safe distance to see if he showed signs of going crazy, figured out he was also "Spider-Man" early on but was too polite to say anything about it for the next 14 years or so. Aunt May did not know Peter was Spidey, but did know he was probably Victor Von Doom's natural child, and kept it from him all this time.


P.S. Frankly, I doubt this is "creepier" than "Sins Past" was. But then, that wasn't exactly what I was aiming for when I wrote it in a different context, several months ago. I'll see if I can come up with something creepier overnight!