Oscorp scientist Richard Parker records a video message to explain his disappearance. Later, he and his wife, Mary, are aboard a private jet hijacked by an assassin. Richard and Mary fight the man, but the ensuing struggle causes the plane to crash, killing the couple.
In the present day, Richard and Mary’s son, Peter, continues to fight crime as Spider-Man and apprehends criminal Aleksei Sytsevich. Later, Peter meets with his girlfriend Gwen Stacy at their high-school graduation ceremony. Due to Peter’s shifting view of their relationship since making a vow to her late father, Gwen ends their relationship. Peter’s childhood friend, Harry Osborn, returns to Manhattan to see his terminally-ill father Norman, CEO of Oscorp. Norman explains his illness is genetic, and Harry is at the age where it first develops. Norman gives Harry a small device he claims contains his life’s work. The next day, Norman dies, and Harry is appointed the new Oscorp CEO.
While working in an Oscorp laboratory, mild-mannered electrical engineer Max Dillon, who was saved earlier by Spider-Man during the latter’s pursuit of Sytsevich and came to idolize the hero, shocks himself by accident and falls into a tank of genetically-engineered electric eels. They attack him, and he mutates into a living electric generator. Meanwhile, Peter attempts to maintain a friendship with Gwen, but she reveals that she may move to England if she earns a scholarship to Oxford University. Before they can discuss it, Dillon wanders into Times Square, accidentally causing a blackout, and is stopped by Peter, as Spider-Man, after a battle. Dillon is taken to the Ravencroft Institute, where he is studied by German scientist Ashley Kafka.
