So!
At the bottom of the shaft leading from the harbor of kidnapped boats( see "Spill and the Spider!"), Spider-Man quickly checks his hand-made filter beneath his mask. "I was afraid I'd need this to deal with the oil spill conditions," he thinks. "I haven't improved much on the design since I used it battling the Master Planner for the isotope I needed to cure Aunt May's blood poisoning! * " (Amazing Spider-Man #31, 1965)
The Mad Thinker explains his calculations, how he might best utilize the tragic oil spill for his maximum gain.
“Hypothesis: the oil spill is the direct result of a lack of calculation. Life without calculation is ill-conceived, indeed! Theory: Roxxon Oil does not have a proper back up plan for clean up or stoppage, leading to deadly sub-standard settings...
Conclusion: the clean-up effort is not so carefully monitored as to prevent previously cleared oil-skimming ships from becoming the unwary carrier for valuable smuggled resources.”
From his wristwatch, he
uses a beam to initiate wave of vibranium-smuggling ships.
"Farewell, Parnival Plunder!" he says to the masked image in the holographic Skype window. "This Savage Land vibranium seized on the open Atlantic will be perfect material for a deep sea well plug of my OWN device! With the exotic mineral in our hands, they will have no choice but to turn to our channels to save the ocean."
"That vibranium is my birthright," says Lord Plunder, "See to it that you utilize it well!"
"Of course. Am I not..the Thinker?"
He continues raving. “As the present situation tests the limits of human engineering, my preliminary calibrations of pressure and volume derived by way of approximate water displacement suggests the best material for capping the well quickly is---Vibranium!
I have deduced, already, the errors of Roxxon Oil---no doubt covered up amid meaningless permits from the government! The statistical anomaly that eludes them is all-too-clear to one such as I...”
He spins around dramatically, pointing at the shadowed, spying wall-crawler.
“---as YOU are!”
Spidey's spider sense renews its tingling symphonies of survival. The strange elevator discus he has ridden through the shaft to this ultra laboratory comes to life.
"That, my intruder," says the Mad Thinker,
Is my
Anti grav lift for transporting the vibranium but it will also serve to take you off your feet!"
Before he can be whisked away, Spidey
spins a web and begins to crawl back to the ground, still floating away.
From a saucer-like silver portal, his hand-crafted henchman, the
Awesome Android, bursts in.
“You could just TELL me, Thinker, if you’re Mad!”
As the fifteen foot tall creature molds his hand into an unbearable hammer, Spider-Man swiftly squeezes out of the corner wherein he is nearly trapped.
Always, he assesses on the go.
“What does he want the vibranium for? It would be ideal for creating a plug in that mile-deep well! Is that what he intends? Should I NOT try to stop him?”
He swings the length of the lab, as the android’s putty like malleability remakes the arm into whip spun with its inhuman might!
“There is some aspect of intelligence at the sentient level that defies an algorithmic assessment---theoretically, thought IS beyond calculation, so that it might be imprecise, or perhaps, intuitive!”
Spider-Man swings straight into the Android head, kicking its non-descript face. Unharmed, the Android snatches the air where the somersaulting super hero stood half a second before”.
“However, I require predictability in even my Android most Awesome!”
Android touches Spider-Man after he attempts another punch, then from the wall, he webs its feet to the cavern floor.
“One factor complicates any predictions made by my antagonists:
So long as my android can absorb a punch ---“
The Awesome Android attaches its massive frame to the ceiling, crawling quickly towards Spider-Man!
or a power for that matter from a condition or quality in its opponent...”
who flips onto the floor before it launches itself like a ramrod!
“...or surroundings such as deep water pressures...well, the demonstration speaks for itself, and I must away!”
Making matters worse, as Spider-Man discovers the passage out of the lab, a team of the Plunderer’s men arrive with their searing laser guns. A platform beneath the Thinker’s feet begins to rise.
“You’re simply too late, Spider-Man.”
As the Thinker is mounted within his escape vessel, Spider-Man must flee into the cavern.
“I will meet with my smuggled ore within the marshlands near the shore. “
As his automated modules prepare him for a speedy rocket launch, he exclaims: "Why---I rhymed! Bwah-HA-ha-ha!!! What an exquisitely precise day."
Spider Man must take his chances in the below sea floor caverns.
“At least I’ll draw them away from the freed hostages above who remain trapped until help arrives,” thinks Spider-Man. “Maybe find out where they are taking the stolen vibranium.
If only men like the Thinker would resist greed and so much control over life, they could use their inspiration to help make energy exploration safer. As it is what we need is a relief well to take the tectonic pressure off the escaping oil!”
It’s too dark to see anything in here---my spider-sense is the only thing keeping me from being a deep sea fricasee! And Awesome Andy ! If he doesn’t stop climbing the walls, I’ll sue for copyright infringement!”
At last, nearly pinned down, Spider-Man faces the unknown dark. He plays it from the gut.
He leaps a chasm to escape Plunderer’s fire, without any sight of where he leaps, empty handed.
The lunging android plunges into the crevice.
Spider-Man swings down, causing the Plunderers to direct their fire into the floor...the sea crust beneath the feet of the Awesome Android.
He risks his life in the hot, dark, deadly environment, his spider-agility keeping him just ahead of the breath taking, pulverizing blows of Thinker’s Android.
The lasers and the Android’s pounding are taking their toll. The pit’s erupting in pressurized oil!
Uses his webs to carry as many men across as he can, in three trips; they all but one choose to hold their fire. That one is punched by his fellows. Spider-Man reminds them there’s no time and the gallons of oil ooze up from the pit, carrying the Awesome Android helplessly in its untamed crude gusher.
You wanted riches, Thinker? Well, tonight it’s time to roll out the barrel!
“My laboratory!" says the rocket-launching villain. "Swamped with petroleum! It could igni---”
FWAassH!! Ka-Thoom! goes the fume-heavy lab below his firing engines.
The Spill Android whacks away at the crust, where the oil erupts.
"The android treats the gusher as an attack!" Spider-Man observes.
Android’s still down there, whacking away at the crust, because it treats the gusher as an attack! Its programming is too limited to see the danger of the gushing oil until it’s up to its neck in it!
Hope the oil gushing below will continue to relieve pressure beneath the seafloor, to slow the oil from the burst well. Perhaps now they can get it safely contained...and the cavern will hold the crude for a little while, thanks in part to the durable facility that seals it off for now! Now if they can just fit it with a proper cap and valve before it flows back up to the subsea surface.
Yeah...lots of “ifs”...too many, web slinger...too many.
Peter changes out of his costume. As the Coast Guard arrives, he is picked up outside the cavern by a small rescue boat from the newly freed skimming vessels. As he joins the rest of the crew members, he thinks:
"Still, in the end, at least the Thinker's supposedly dumb robot showed more sense than its creator! After all, the relief "drilling" we did just might save a few thousand tarballs from hitting the coast! I wonder did it ever realize---it was on OUR side?"
Two days later, Parker is holding his camera again.
"What do you know? The water proof seal kept my camera safe till it was picked out of the water! It's intact...along with several shots of the under belly of a sea turtle! He must have seen the casing and thought it was a brightly colored fish! Well, sorry about dinner, my deep water friend...but maybe with these pictures, I can contribute truth. Maybe your home won't every be spoiled this way again...if we look at where we are, how we've gotten here, and agree to say "enough!"
THE END
Thanks, I know you've read enough comics (and a bit of Everything) to know your stuff, so it makes me feel really good about a story tying together information about a very BAD situation. You've made my morning, "Kid".