WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #9 by Nick Spencer, Humberto Ramos, Michele Bandini, Victor Olazaba, Edgar Delgado, Erick Arciniega and VC’s Joe Caramagna, out now.
This week’s Amazing Spider-Man #9 saw Mary Jane introduced to a secret underground support group designed specifically for the friends and family of the various superheroes of the Marvel Universe. Called the Lookups, after the feeling held by its members of constantly looking up to the sky to find their loved ones, this group holds anonymity as its most important factor. When we "meet" the six attendees at the latest meeting, their faces are blurred even from us. Through some subtle clues in what each of them says, however, we think we’ve worked out who they all are.
Mary Jane finds out about this group from Carlie Cooper, Peter Parker’s ex. While it’s undoubtedly a little awkward for Peter’s current girlfriend to agree to meet up with his most recent ex, it’s clear from the start that Carlie is there because she’s concerned about Mary Jane. Writer Nick Spencer has already sowed the seeds between Peter and Mary Jane about their joint concerns over starting a relationship up again, as well as MJ’s concerns over dating a superhero, but here Carlie tells her that she knows all too well what it’s like and that she knows of something that could potentially help.
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Carlie tells Mary Jane that even though she left Peter, and left Manhattan, the weight of knowing Spider-Man’s secret identity never left her, but that she was unburdened when she started meeting with the Lookups. Carlie hands MJ a flier, reassures her that if she attends a meeting she’ll understand how safe it all is and then leaves her to decide for herself. The next time we see Mary Jane in the issue, she’s standing outside Saint Joseph Church, cautiously attending her first meeting. She’s immediately confronted by hovering security bots and none other than Jarvis, the Avengers' butler, who reassures her that there are plenty of safeguards in place to maintain strict anonymity and avoid anyone feeling guilty for divulging secrets that aren’t theirs to share.
The hover-bots, he tells her, are not only security drones designed by Tony Stark, but they project “face-obscuring technology” that pixelates the faces of everyone in the room to protect their identity. There’s also, Jarvis states, a special gas released through the AC that clouds certain memories, designed by Doctor Strange. With that, Jarvis opens the door and leads MJ into a room with six obscured figures, and one by one they tell us snippets of their story.
NEXT PAGE: Who Are the Mysterious Members of Marvel's Lookups?
The first up is a man in a bow-tie that talks about how helpless he feels when he sees his friend covered in wounds and injuries. One of the more recognizable of the sidekicks of the Marvel Universe, this is Foggy Nelson, long-suffering friend and business partner to Matt Murdock, Daredevil. Next up is a holoprojection of another man who is seemingly wearing a mask under the pixelation, and talking about the distance between him and his best friend. He speaks of their souls being intertwined, and them being like brothers, and of how he misses their adventures together. This is Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth, and he’s talking about Cable, who he used to share a comic book with.
The next in the group is a woman who’s talking about wanting to protect her daughter and her concerns over the fact that she could never know her as her father could. This is Peggy Rae Burdick, the ex-wife of Scott Lang (Ant-Man), and she’s talking about her daughter Cassie Lang, who’s also a superhero like her dad. Next up is a young boy talking about his jealousy over his best friend. “I mean the guy can climb walls,” he tells the group. Even if he didn’t give it away with what he says, it’s clear that this is Ganke Lee, the best friend of Miles Morales, the Spider-Man formerly of the Ultimate Universe.
Next up is a red-haired woman who talks about a changed relationship between her and an unknown individual. She talks about how “these days it’s strictly business,” which leads us to think that it’s Pepper Potts, who was once the love interest of Tony Stark and the armor-wearing superhero Rescue, but has since taken a step back and is now one of the business partners of Stark Enterprises. Lastly, an older gentleman talks about how he still gets emotional, despite the fact that “I just deliver their mail.” There’s only one mailman of any prominence in the Marvel Universe, and that’s Willie Lumpkin, who’s delivered the mail to the Baxter Building, headquarters of the Fantastic Four, since his debut in Fantastic Four #11 in 1963.
Thankfully, we’re not subjected to the same mind-altering potions that the attendees to the Lookups meetings are, so we can figure out with near-certainty who all of these characters are. Whether we’ll see more sidekicks walk through the doors of Saint Joseph Church is yet to be seen, but if we do we’ll make sure to have our Marvel Handbooks close by to do a little more detective work.