Scarlet Spider

Scarlet Spider
Biographical Information
Real Name	Joshua Caleb Perry
Universe	Earth-515
Place of Birth	Chicago, Illinois
Citizenship	US Citizen
Identity	Public
Criminal Record	Extensive
Classification	Super Being
Physical Description
Race	Human Caucasian
Gender	Male
Height	6'1"
Weight	190 lbs
Hair Color	Blond
Eye Color	Blue
Personal Information
Enemies	Angela Mancini Megan Williams
Known Relatives	James Perry (Father, Deceased) Margaret Perry (Mother, Deceased) Temperance McGee (Sister) Magaret McGee (Niece) Patricia McGee (Niece)
Weapons	Varies
Fighting Styles	Kickboxing Modern Army Combatives
Education	High School Some College
Political Information
Position / Rank	Car Thief (former) Janitor (former) Car Mechanic
Former Affiliation	Stateville Correctional Center Van Buren Building (Janitor)
Exodus Information
Creator	Mirrodin
NPC	No

[Source]

Biography

Early Life

"What do you want me to say? That I came from a broken home? That my pops taught me to boost cars when I should have been playing with toy ones? Okay, yeah, I did and he did. But that don't mean anything in the end."

— Joshua Perry

Joshua Caleb Perry was born in Chicago, Illinois, the first child of James and Margaret Perry. His father was a career criminal who had been in and out of prison multiple times already, and his mother was a woman who had been enamored of his father for his seemingly roguish activities. She worked a job as a waitress and a job as a secretary to make ends meet. Joshua was introduced to what his father did when he was five years old, when he saw his father get arrested and put on trial. Though he barely remembered it happening, he remembered not being able to see his father again for another year and a half and when his father got out of prison, he hadn't learned from his mistakes. As a result of his mother and father being rather happy to see each other again, Joshua's mother got pregnant, and soon his younger sister, Temperance, was born. That just put more pressure on James to provide for the family.

James Perry introduced his son to his trade when his son was eight years old. His trade was boosting cars. The Perry Car Ring as it was dubbed by the newspapers was one of the largest grand theft auto rings in the city of Chicago. Before his legs were long enough for his feet to touch the pedals, Joshua knew how to break into any car and disable the alarms. His father did the driving, but soon Joshua was able to do that as well.

By now his mother was rather upset with his father for the lifestyle that they were leading and she pressured him to try to go legit. She told him that the family couldn't live like this. Also, Margaret Perry had turned to drinking and chainsmoking to deal with the stress that came with what his father did. The one thing that he was able to do rather well, was to open a small repair shop that fixed cars and James Perry used it as a front for some of his car thefts. Joshua never got caught, and his father made sure that if they ever got into trouble, that Joshua was the one who got away. Perry did alright in school, but he wasn't that interested in doing well, since he loved everything about cars. He worked in his father's car repair shop where he learned even more about cars, including how to fix them, and how to build them. Some of the mechanics taught him how to race and by the time he was twelve he was able to race very well.

When Joshua was fourteen years old, and his sister was seven, they came home from school one day to find out that James Perry had been arrested after a high speed chase through Chicago. Unfortunately, when the police had performed a PIT maneuver, the car that James had stolen spun dangerously out of control. The ensuing crash put James in the Intensive Care Unit, and he died in the hospital a day later.

Becoming a Man

"You always have a choice, remember that. Nobody makes you do nothing you don't want to, okay?"

— Joshua Perry to Margaret and Patricia McGee

Everyone in the family took the death hard, and Margaret Perry took it the hardest, pushing her to drink and smoke even more. The children's grandmother on their mother side came to help out and by the time that Joshua had turned sixteen, he was ready to drop out of high school. His mother insisted that he stay in, but after he was done with his junior year of high school, he left, opting to drop out of high school. In order to make sure that his family was taken care, he went to work in one of the local automotive shops and did what he could racing on the side. He slowly worked on his own car, an old Camaro that his father had had and did his best in the races.

He pushed his sister to finish her schooling, and he turned to the trade that his father had taught him when he reached eighteen. Joshua met likeminded people through his street racing and he slowly started to put together a team. Getting his GED at his mother’s insistence, he enrolled in night schools at his local community college. But soon all of his efforts were ended as he turned directly to a life of crime in car theft. He started to rack up a number of cases against him and he had a good relationship with the chop shop and with people who bought these cars illegally.



It was around this time that he met a woman named Eve Hartfield. Hartfield was someone like him who came from a bit of a broken home. She was from out of town and she knew a great deal about cars. As they started to work together on a few different jobs, there was a definite attraction between the two of them. When Joshua was twenty, the two of them started dating and she became a part of the auto theft ring that he was putting together. As he started to recruit more and more members, their heists became bigger and bolder. He recruited off of the strength of his last name and as he did more and more jobs, the strength of his past accomplishments.

Joshua Perry

But he was starting to attract attention from two equally dangerous groups, the police and the Chicago mob. The police attention was something that he had been dealing with his whole life and was nothing new to him. However, the mob attention was something that his father had dealt with, but had never involved Joshua with, so he didn't know much about dealing with them. They made him an offer, for members of his auto ring to be drivers for the mob. They were going to be getaway drivers and things like that. They also offered to have a steady demand for cars to provide another guaranteed avenue of income for the auto ring. Joshua was okay with this part of the deal, but there were other parts as well, parts that he was not as comfortable with. They wanted the members to help transport drugs and items that were otherwise heavily taxed if transported normally. The group had to sit and think, long and hard about all of this.

For Perry, his decision was simple. He didn't want to do the deal if drugs were involved. But then his mother died, in a car accident. She had been driving drunk. On top of that, his sister, Temperance had fallen for a guy much like him and she was talking about eloping with him. He needed to be able to provide for his family and he wanted to give them a good life and make things better for them. Eve told him that she was pregnant and that sealed the deal, making him agree with the plan once he also found out that Temperance was pregnant as well.

Things Fall Apart

"Foreman, how do you find the defendant?"
"Guilty"

— Judge Ackerman and Foreman

Things were good for a while. Temperance gave birth while Eve miscarried. Temperance was experiencing problems with her husband, Aiden McGee, and with the subsequent birth of her second child, Joshua's second niece, Margaret, Aiden left her and the family. This put a bit of a strain on Joshua who had his sister move into the old family house. The two little ones took to him and he loved them a lot. It was his family starting to grow and get bigger. For a few years things were good and the money was rolling in. They were doing a lot of jobs and had gained a wide amount of notoriety. Joshua was one of the most wanted persons in Chicago, but there was always only circumstantial evidence that tied him to the crimes. Nothing was ever able to fully tie him to everything that was going on and he did his best to be careful.

Unfortunately things fell apart. The police were able to get someone to flip and get enough evidence to go after the Perry Auto Ring. They grabbed a lot of members of the Perry Auto Ring and they were able to grab the leader as well. As Joshua was being arrested, Eve freaked and ran, leaving him. Despite the fact that her kids were three and four, Temperance did what she could, and visited him while he was waiting for his trial. When it came time for his trial, the whole process was turned into a big production by the news media of Chicago. This was the biggest grand theft ring in the city and were responsible for a lot of the car thefts. With his court appointed lawyer with him, Joshua set about to do battle with the Assistant District Attorney assigned to the case, the formidable Angela Mancini.

But he was already done with the case in his mind. He knew that they were going to convict him and he knew that he was guilty so it made sense for him to pay for his crimes. Perry was never someone who had made excuses for his life and the things that he did. Everything was a choice and he had chosen to commit the crimes, even if it had been for a good reason.

More Coming Soon

Powers

• Superhuman Strength: The Scarlet Spider possessed the proportionate strength of a spider, granting him superhuman strength. He was capable of lifting 10 tons or more when under extreme duress.
  
• Superhuman Stamina: The Scarlet Spider is able to exert himself at peak capacity for several hours before fatigue begins to impair his performance.
  
• Superhuman Durability: The composition of the Scarlet Spider's skeleton, inter-connected tissues, and nervous system had all been enhanced. His bodily tissues were more durable and resistant to impact or trauma than an ordinary human, although he was certainly not invulnerable. He can withstand impacts, such as falling from several stories, being repeatedly struck with superhuman force or by several powerful energy blasts, that would severely injure or kill a normal human with little to no injury himself. However, if injured, his body is capable of repairing itself somewhat faster than an ordinary human is capable of.
  
• Superhuman Agility: The Scarlet Spider was extraordinarily limber and his tendons and connective tissues were twice as elastic as the average human being's, despite their enhanced strength.
  
• Spider-Senses: The Scarlet Spider possesses an extrasensory "danger" or "spider" sense which warned him of potential immediate danger by the manifestation of a tingling sensation in the back of his skull, and links with his superhuman kinesthetics, which enabled him to evade most any injuries, unless he cognitively overrode his automatic reflexes. The precise nature of this sense is unknown. It appeared to be a simultaneous clairvoyant response to a wide variety of phenomena (everything from falling safes to speeding bullets to thrown punches), which had given several hundredths of a second warning, which was sufficient time for his reflexes to allow him to avoid injury. The sense also could create a general response on the order of several minutes: he could not discern the nature of the threat by the sensation. He could, however, discern the severity of the danger by the strength of his response to it. The Scarlet Spider's spider-sense was directional and could guide him to or away from hidden weapons and enemies. Sudden and extreme threats could cause his spider-sense to react with painful intensity. The Scarlet Spider could also sense and dodge attacks directed randomly or by a computer. Using his spider-sense to time his enhanced reflexes, the Scarlet Spider could casually dodge attacks up to and including automatic-weapons fire, provided there was sufficient distance. His spider-sense was sufficiently well-linked to his reflexes to the point that a threat could trigger them even when the Scarlet Spider was asleep or stunned. His spider-sense had helped him preserve his secret identity since it alerts him to observers or camera when changing into or out of his costume. The spider-sense did react to those who Ben does not consider to be a threat. The Scarlet Spider could choose to ignore his spider-sense, and distraction or fatigue diminished its effectiveness. The Scarlet Spider's fighting style incorporates the advantage that his "spider-sense" provides him.
• Superhuman Reflexes: The Scarlet Spider's reflexes were faster than an average human by about a factor of 15 (he was often able to dodge bullets, if he was far enough away). His practical reaction time was at least a dozen times that of a normal human. In combination with his spider-sense, the speed of his reflexes allowed him to dodge almost any attack, or even gunfire, if he was far enough away.
  
• Superhuman Equilibrium: The Scarlet Spider possessed the ability to achieve a state of perfect equilibrium in any position imaginable. He seemed able to adjust his position by instinct, which enabled him to balance himself on virtually any object, no matter how small or narrow. He had developed a unique fighting style that made full use of his agility, strength, and equilibrium.
  
• Wall-Crawling: The Scarlet Spider possessed the ability to mentally control the flux of inter-atomic attraction (electrostatic force) between molecular boundary layers. This overcame the outer electron shell's normal behavior of mutual repulsion with other outer electron shells and permitted the tremendous potential for electron attraction to prevail. The mentally controlled sub-atomic particle responsible for this has yet to be identified. This ability to affect the attraction between surfaces was so far limited to the Scarlet Spider's body (especially concentrated in his hands and feet) and another object, with an upper limit of several tons per finger. Limits to this ability seemed to be psychosomatic, and the full nature of this ability has yet to be established.
• Biological/Organic Webbing Generation: Joshua has the ability to organically produce his own silk webbing from glands within his forearms, limited by his body's health and nutrition.

Abilities

• Genius-level Intellect: Joshua is very intelligent, but has proven in the past that while he can get exceptional grades, his mind is better applied to criminal enterprises.

• Expert-level Mechanic: Raised by his father to boost and repair cars, Joshua has extensive working experience with cars and trucks and knows a large amount when it comes to them.

• Experienced Fighter: Growing up in the tough parts of Chicago, Joshua learned from an early age how to protect himself. He knows kickboxing and some Modern Army Combatives that he picked up from a fellow inmate during his time spent in prison.

Threads

A list of past and present threads in which Joshua has been present or made an appearance.

Present Threads

• Genesis: Scarlet Spider: Rise Above (First Appearance as Scarlet Spider)

Past Threads

• Tangled in the Web (One Shot) (First Appearance as Joshua Perry)

Power Grid
Intelligence	4
Strength	4
Speed	3
Durability	3
Energy Projection	1
Fighting Skills	4