The Santas And The Spider

If you remember Kaine, the flawed clone of Peter Parker who emerged before the Jackal got it right, you may recall he had a lot of anger issues before he settled down in Houston as the Scarlet Spider. Even so, I think that brutally beating a bunch of Santas in a hotel lobby may be crossing the line:

It's not easy giving Kaine the benefit of the doubt, given that he's been known to be mentally unstable. But in this case, his actions might be justified. Let's have a look at how our Kris Kringles made their entrance in the first place:

Maybe we should start at the beginning....

It turns out our Santas are really high-stakes thieves who have planned a heist of the Connell diamonds, worth a cool $17 million and being kept in a vault in Houston at the Four Seasons Hotel--yes, that Houston, where Kaine has made a fresh start. Kaine just happens to be staying in the Presidential Suite of the hotel (don't ask me how he managed that)--but, unfortunately, he's in the process of throwing in the towel, not to mention tying one on:

Kaine's timing is lousy, of course, since our thieves have made their entrance just as he's hit the deck:

The good news is that one of Kaine's circle of friends just happened to be in the lobby when this all went down, and calls up to the suite to fill in Kaine, currently indisposed. Which means that a highly complicated procedure of sobering him up is now underway:

Annabelle, the friend in the lobby, is taken aside by one of the Santas and personally threatened with harm should the manager not cooperate. And she gets an inspiration:

Meanwhile, the highly complicated procedure of sobering up Kaine has moved from the bedroom and onto the living room couch:

Downstairs, another of Kaine's friends, Aracely (along with police officer Wally Layton) is helping to whittle down the Santa forces. Apparently, Aracely has been holding out on the rest of her friends:

Back upstairs, Kaine is getting a reality check from Wally's husband, Donald, on just how much of a difference he's made as the Scarlet Spider. And this time, the timing couldn't be better:

Which is where we came in. Looks like our Santas deserved having that can of whup-ass opened up on them, after all.