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Before Miles Morales was Peter Parker’s unofficial partner, Spider-Man trained Alpha, a powerful, rebellious young hero.
Spider-Man is one of the most long-lasting heroes in the Marvel Universe, but he hasn’t really had much luck with sidekicks. Captain America has had Bucky and Falcon and Iron Man has War Machine, but Peter Parker has struggled to find somebody to fill that role. While Peter has more recently stepped into a mentor role for Miles Morales, there was another young hero that took guidance from the web-slinger.
Andrew Maguire, who goes by Andy, was your everyday high school teenager. He first appeared in 2012’s Amazing Spider-Man #692 in the short “Point of Origin” by Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba and Edgar Delgado. Andy was a student at Midtown High, the same school that Peter Parker attended years prior. Everything about Andy was substandard. Girls didn’t pay him attention, jocks pushed him around and he was a middling C-average student. That all changed when his high school class took a field trip to Horizon Labs where Peter Parker was introducing his new discovery, the Parker Particles.
Peter’s experiment is sabotaged by Tiberius Stone, an agent of the Hand who was also working at Horizon Labs. Lightning appeared to shoot through the room and headed right for Andy’s crush. Andy pushed her out of the way and took the blast himself. Andy was slow to get out but was able to blast falling debris away from himself, revealing to everyone that he gained powers in the blast. Horizon calls in Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Beast and Hank Pym to run tests on the teen. The tests reveal that Maguire now has a plethora of powers. He can shoot energy projections, has super strength and speed, the ability to generate a force field, and flight. While Andy is able to control these powers, he can only use one at a time. With the new powers came a greater cost.
Reed Richards pulls Parker aside to explain that Andy’s abilities will continue to grow with no stopping point in sight. He explains that Andy is the first Alpha-Level Hero, meaning that he could potentially be more dangerous than the Hulk or even Phoenix. The super-intellectuals come to a decision to entrust Andy’s growth to Peter and that Horizon would offer a contract for Andy to be the company spokesperson. Andy would adopt the name Alpha as his superhero alias. After the event, Peter suited up as Spider-Man to initiate some training.
When Spider-Man caught up to Alpha, Peter informed Andy of his alpha-level powers. This made Andy’s head swell and his ego grew out of control. He began to ignore Spidey’s commands, thinking them to be tests. Alpha’s attention-seeking attitude caused him to be abducted and cloned by Jackal. Fortunately for Alpha, his powers did not lie in his DNA, making Jackal’s clones obsolete. Alpha destroyed his clones and became obsessed with fame, rather than training with Spidey.
Eventually Alpha skipped town to Japan just as the Avengers reach out to him for help with Terminus. Alpha breaks his own limitation, using flight and super-speed to arrive on the scene in record time. Alpha immediately fires blasts at Terminus who deflects them towards the sky, causing Aunt May’s plane to fall. Peter is able to save the plane while Thor takes out Terminus. Peter decides that Alpha has failed him one too many times. Spidey is able to rework Terminus’ technology and tricks Alpha into stepping inside. He sets the machine off and it drains Alpha’s powers. Spidey explains that Alpha was not ready for the responsibility so he had to remove his powers, returning Alpha back to his normal life.
Alpha would gain his powers back little by little staring in Alpha: Big Time #1 by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Nuno Plati. This miniseries saw Maguire living in Pittsburgh while his powers were slowly being returned to him by an Otto Octavious controlled Peter Parker. Through his adventures and growth, Maguire attempts to be the protector of Pittsburgh before falling into obscurity.
Miles Morales has been a much more reasonable sidekick/mentee for Peter Parker than Andrew Maguire. Miles seems to understand a little more about responsibility and his powers line up more suitably with Spider-Man. While Alpha may never return to New York to help Spidey, there is always the chance that the web-slinger will cross paths with his former sidekick once again.
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