Several months after Otto Octavius' sacrifice, Peter Parker plans to propose to Mary Jane Watson, who has just made her Broadway musical debut. A meteorite lands at Central Park, and an extraterrestrial symbiote follows Peter to his apartment by latching on to his motorbike after he and Mary Jane leave there after stargazing. Harry Osborn, seeking vengeance for his father's death and having taken the performance-enhancing gas, attacks Peter with his father's Green Goblin technology, but the battle ends in a stalemate with Harry crashing down and having partial amnesia, losing his memory of Peter as Spider-Man. Meanwhile, police pursue escaped convict Flint Marko, who visits his wife and sick daughter before fleeing again. Falling into an experimental particle accelerator that fuses his body with the surrounding sand, he transforms into the Sandman, who can control sand and reform his body with it.