Not My Tempo

Gwen, go ahead and play some fitting music. Set the scene, you know?

J. Jonah Jameson has gotten a bad wrap over the years; sure, he's an irrational, loudmouthed jerk who has been known to spread misinformation to sell a slew of papers. But to me, he's been a stalwart and thoughtful mentor figure ever since I left my bunker and reentered spider-society. And when you spend a lot of time with a larger-than-life figure like him, you begin to internalize the lessons he has to teach, namely that of tempo.

Any good investigator knows that they need to maintain a steady pace to their work if they want to eventually find the story they're looking to tell. If you're rushing, you end up running into too many side stories or goons that will bring your research to a grinding halt. If you're dragging out your work to try and get all your family and friends on the case, the story might end before you have the chance to find it.

The name of the game is tempo, and we're going to do everything in our power to put Jonah's lessons to work and maintain that tempo.

And in order to do that, we need to start gathering evidence as soon as possible. While our brother is a very supportive little brother since I stepped back into his life, he isn't always available, and that's perfectly fine. When you're as smooth as Silk, you'll find alternative ways to start getting things started. It can be hard to get the scoop early on without J. Jonah Jameson's help, so, as with most things, the answer to our problems is cold hard cash. Money talks, and with my connections with the Fact Channel, we can get plenty of it. There's always a need for more news, and one way or another, we'll find a story that gets us paid, as any skilled investigator can. And if we're really desperate, we can go looking for trouble and face the past, since Morlun will always be a problem I need to keep my radar, or as I like to call it, Silk Sense.

And once we have some evidence at our disposal, we can start spending it pretty liberally, as this work tends to pay for itself. Some evidence may lead us to wallcrawl onto a nearby building and spy on some bad actors, which will in turn will get us the evidence we need to kick them into submission, and so on and so on. And what's great is, once we have evidence on the opposition, we have leverage, things that the villain of our story simply can't take back. Always be planning ahead when you consider what pieces of evidence you're willing to give up; knowledge is power, after all.

As we pick our way through all red tape that crops up, we'll want to try and establish our support network, getting our tools or Spider-friends in the field 1 or 2 at a time, allowing us to maximize our efforts while allowing our friends to clean up where we can't. Who and what we prioritize depends on what we uncover about the enemy and how we need to tackle that particular fight, so there's a lot of flexibility at our disposal. That being said, Peter has been there since the first day I left that bunker, and he knows me better than most; he will always be a reliable help, especially when I'm feeling too exhausted to pick myself back up again. And Gwen, always fashionably late to the party as any good drummer is, can help us bring the fight to the enemy in the final moments of our investigation.

When all is said and done, if we maintain a steady tempo, do our due diligence, and never waver from the task at hand, we'll make short work of whatever bad guy of the week we're up against and make our boss proud.