Marvel's Gang War Victor Revealed in Amazing Spider-Man

[This article contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #44.] To the victor go the spoils. Ever since Amazing Spider-Man #31 incited the conflict between New York's crime bosses and Amazing Spider-Man: Gang War First Strike sparked all-out war in the criminal underworld, the heroes have been plunged into a city-wide gang war. Madame Masque hired Shotgun to take out Tombstone in an attack that left the Harlem gang leader comatose, then deposed Hammerhead to seize control of the Maggia from Count Nefaria and Silvermane. 

Marvel's Gang War event came down to a final battle between Madame Masque and Tombstone's daughter, the Beetle, who took over her father's territory to control everything in Manhattan north of Central Park. But when Tombstone emerged from his coma and teamed with Spider-Man to spare his daughter from becoming another casualty of the deadly gang war, he learned Shotgun was working with a government agency sent to assassinate the gang lords of New York — and stop the growing threat posed by Beetle.

"Whoever wins today is gonna own everything. And they're gonna have to be a monster to keep it," Tombstone told Beetle before clipping her wings and removing her from the fight to end last issue. "That's not you, Janice. It's me." This week's Amazing Spider-Man #44 picked up with Team Spider-Man — including She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Miles Morales, and Daredevil (Elektra) — joining forces with Beetle's Syndicate to battle Madame Masque's army: a legion of A.I.M. grunts, the technopath Rabble, and a hypnotized Nefaria and Silvermane.

But when Tombstone took control of the Syndicate from Janice, he ordered Electro (Francine Frye), Lady Octopus, Trapstr, Scorpia, White Rabbit, and Digger to turn on the heroes. "We help Spider-Man win and we're all gonna lose," said Tombstone, who was already known to be (temporarily) allied with Spider-Man. The heroes rallied with the help of reinforcements — Mayor Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Shang-Chi, Spider-Boy, and Jackpot — and Spider-Man defeated Madame Masque to finish the fight. The gang war was over.

Peter Parker's activist friend, Randy Robertson, was almost among the casualties: Randy was shot when Hammerhead hired assassins to kill Janice and her then-fiancé. Randy lobbied against former Mayor Wilson Fisk's Anti-Vigilante Act that outlawed superheroes (during Devil's Reign) and awoke from his coma in time to learn that Fisk's law was repealed in the aftermath of the gang war.

In an epilogue, White Rabbit told Tombstone that Beetle escaped arrest and is out of the game. The city, once full of gangsters, now belongs to Tombstone and the Syndicate. His new number two, White Rabbit, said there won't be any challengers to Tombstone's new empire — but no one would forget that the city's reigning crime lord worked with Spider-Man. Tombstone admitted he owed Spider-Man for helping him... but his next move would be beating Spider-Man to death in broad daylight. "No one's gonna remember anything after that," he told White Rabbit. "Come on. We've got a city to run."

Amazing Spider-Man #44 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.