Originally Published Summer 2002. Revised and Expanded April 2005.

“Listen to me—there’s not much time. Listen, it’s all connected. That’s it. That’s the secret. It’s all connected. You…me…they don’t want you to figure it out. They don’t want you to know.”

--Dr. Bruce Banner to Spider-Man, in their first encounter

Dr. Bruce Banner accidentally developed the "Hulk Serum" while working for SHIELD on a secret project to replicate the World War II-era Super Soldier Serum that transformed Steve Rogers into Captain America. Having tested it on himself, he went on a cross-country rampage as the Hulk, pursued by General "Thunderbolt" Ross, the Director of SHIELD. The swath of destruction ended in New York City, where SHIELD caught up to the Hulk after his street fight with Spider-Man. Before being captured, Banner warned Spider-Man of an all-encompassing conspiracy that tied the two of them, and their superhuman powers, together.

By the time Banner joined SHAFT he had completely forgotten the conversation, leading some to assume that it was simply an example of the sort of paranoid raving that the good doctor is prone to after one of his psychotic Hulk episodes. But in an effort to leave no stone unturned in their quest to figure out What The Hell Is Going On, a team of SHAFT agents decided to investigate Banner's claims. It now seems likely that Dr. Banner was brainwashed by SHIELD before his defection, because as it turns out he was actually on to something.

It soon became apparent that creating a new Super Soldier Serum had become a sort of Holy Grail for the U.S. government, and that its pursuit had led to a number of unintended consequences...

GENETIC TAMPERING

Dr. Banner wasn't the only scientist trying to create a Super Soldier Serum, nor were the efforts to do so restricted to government labs. A number of private research firms were also competing to get a government contract for the formula, including Norman Osborn's Oscorp. The fruit of Osborn's experimentation was a drug he called Oz. The Oz formula is the first piece in the puzzle to understanding the Conspiracy.

One of the Oz experimental test subjects was a spider that got loose in the Oscorp facility and bit a high school student named Peter Parker, endowing him with the the spider's proportional strength and agility. Hence the connection between Spider-Man and the Hulk hinted at by Dr. Banner.

Threatened with losing his government funding if the Oz project did not begin to show real results, Osborn tested the drug on himself and was transformed into the psychotic Green Goblin. Dr. Curt Connors, a professor at Empire State University, was faced with a similar situation. Connors was researching the possibility of genetically endowing humans with the regenerative capacity of reptiles, which would enable them to grow replacements for lost limbs; faced with a loss of funding after five years of lackluster results, Connors performed a final experiment on himself in an attempt to regenerate his own missing arm and prove the value of his research. Tragically, the result was the creature known as The Lizard.

We suspect the same fate befell Dr. Theodore Sallis, who disappeared from Banner Labs' Super Soldier Serum project shortly before the first tabloid photos of the Man-Thing were published. Sallis was apparently trying to prevent his serum from falling into the wrong hands when he injected it into himself and disappeared into the Florida Everglades.

The connections don't stop there. 
Dr. Connors eventually returned to work at ESU, where he conducted research with one of his students, Eddie Brock. Brock's parents, like those of Peter Parker, were also scientists, and the four of them had been working on something  called "The Venom Project" for Trask Industries before their mysterious and untimely deaths in a plane crash. Connors and Brock attempted to bring the project to fruition, but only succeeded in transforming Brock into the monster Venom. Later experimentation by Connors utilizing Peter Parker's DNA resulted in the creation of Carnage.
And although SHIELD enforces a Superhuman Test Ban Treaty to prevent just anyone from genetically modifying humans, that hasn't stopped individuals like Justin Hammer. The Hammer Industries Research Facility produced the supercriminals Electro and Sandman. 

And while industrial espionage between Hammer Industries and Oscorp resulted in Dr. Otto Octavius' tragic accident, it was SHIELD tampering that ultimately transformed him into Doctor Octopus.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

The above information was collected from SHIELD files hacked and pilfered by SHAFT agents. To get any further, it was obvious that the investigation would have to rely on popular conspiracy theories. 

The next set of clues came from a book titled The Ultimate Plan by a trio of conspiracy theorists: Brian M. Bendis, Mark Millar, and Christopher Lawrence. These lone gunmen have uncovered evidence that there is a deeper connection between the proliferation of super-powered individuals in the world than a few Super Soldier Serum experiments gone awry:

"All power, all true power, belongs to a select secretive few, an elite group that has a hand in every meaningful occurrence on the face of the Earth." 

OK, so that's not exactly an original thought among those in the conspiracy crowd. Half the Internet is filled with nutcases espousing their own "unique" views on Who Really Runs Things. But where this book differs is in the details it provides:

"They're manipulating people all the way down to Norman Osborn. And Norman Osborn thinks he's top of the game. As does the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards. And the Ultimates' Tony Stark. And SHIELD's Nick Fury. They're all wrong.

"You could make a flow chart of how high up it goes and who is pulling the strings. These people are very aware of the power that dilutes through the system, and they've got their fingers on everything."

Naturally, with concrete evidence like that to go on, we immediately put all of SHAFT's intelligence resources into finding these strings and yanking on them until we pissed off the "Secret Masters."

Predictably, we tripped over all the usual suspects along the way: corporate America, the military-industrial complex, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the John Birch Society, the International Bankers, Microsoft, the Council on Foreign Relations, FEMA, the Tsarist Occupation Government, the Octopus, the CIA, the Vatican, etc., ad nauseam.  Perhaps when time allows we will explore these links in detail, but for now we shall simply jump to the chase:

We found the guy at the top.

The head honcho of the power elite. The guy that pulls the strings of all the other puppeteers.

The Most Powerful Man on Earth.

All right, so we don't actually know his name. He's secretive, damn secretive. 

He is known simply as "The Man."

For a long time, the existence of “The Man” was only rumored, and before photos were available, he could only be identified by this composite drawing, based on eyewitness testimony, by SHAFT Sketch Artist Matt Groening.

But then one fateful day, an 8x10 glossy photo was slipped anonymously under our door. We had a face. And from there, all the threads started to knot together.
Because in file after file (we have bootleg copies of SHIELD's entire database, thanks to the number of former agents that have joined the Resistance), there were sightings. 
Everywhere we looked, there was "The Man"...
When the entire Oscorp Board of Directors was killed by the Green Goblin during the World Unity Festival in Times Square, The Man was in the crowd below, posing as a vendor selling sunglasses. 
When young Matt Murdock, blinded by toxic waste, began to develop the extra senses that would one day enable him to fight crime as Daredevil, The Man was watching.
At one of the most volatile moments in modern American history, when Senator Robert Edward Kelly was exploiting the public's anti-mutant hysteria for his own political gain and trying to push the Mutant Registration Act through Congress, the politician suddenly disappeared...
...only to resurface, allegedly mutated, and streak across a New Jersey beach, where The Man was waiting and observing, disguised as a hot dog vendor.
Weeks after the real Nick Fury left SHIELD to lead SHAFT, The Man was photographed at a July 5th political fundraiser posing with a Nick Fury Life Model Decoy (easily the cheesiest LMD ever cranked out by SHIELD).
A snapshot discovered in a photo album belonging to the Fantastic Four shows that The Man was a constant presence in the Baxter Building, where he posed as a mail carrier.

He was also able to regularly infiltrate Banner Labs as a security guard, allowing him to monitor, and perhaps manipulate, the progress of the Super Soldier Serum project that eventually led to the creation of the Hulk.

Sources indicate that The Man is the head of a shadowy cabal of conspirators who secretly run the world behind the scenes. Cloaked in mystery, they identify one another by codenames like Mr. X, Ratboy, The Unablonde, and Silent Bob, using the password "Excelsior!"

Silent Bob has been sighted with "The Man" on multiple occasions, and may in fact be his most trusted lieutenant. However, his loyalty has been called into question by SHAFT intelligence agents, who suspect that Silent Bob periodically acts as an informant for superheroes, and investigative reporters like Ben Urich, leaking key elements of the conspiracy at crucial moments like a 21st century "Deep Throat."

What is clear is that The Man uses Silent Bob for all of his work in the field. 

On the same day that The Man was spotted in a mall in New Jersey, Silent Bob was engaged in suspicious activity there, aided and abetted by his personal henchman, known only as "Jay."

Thanks to Jay and Silent Bob, The Man's tentacles extend everywhere. Audiotapes have been uncovered indicating that they were spying on General Ross' aforementioned Super Soldier Program.

Jay and Silent Bob have been photographed using a bicycle to flee the scene of a street battle between Daredevil and a clan of ninja assassins.

They have infiltrated SHIELD Agent Sharon Carter's infamous Femme Force.

There is also growing evidence (marijuana, primarily) that Jay and Silent Bob are the secret identities of the New Jersey-based superheroes Bluntman and Chronic.

On top of that, there is a New Age cult that worships them as Prophets of God, claiming that they protect the innocent from stygian demons. There is some speculation that "The Man" is the head of this cult, based on reports that he addresses all of his lesser minions as "True Believers."

Silent Bob's treachery should not be underestimated, however, as he is allegedly responsible for arranging the hit on Matt Murdock's girlfriend Karen Page by the professional assassin Bullseye. His true motives remain hidden, and for the time being, all of his actions are assumed to be carried out according to The Man's orders.

What is the ultimate goal of this secret cartel? Are they a syndicate of collaborationists carrying out the sinister agenda of extraterrestrial colonists? Are they endeavoring to guide humanity's course of evolution, or usher in a New World Order? 

Their tactics are obvious: Time and again they have manipulated brilliant scientists into recklessly accelerating the speed of their research by threatening their life's work with funding cuts. And that is only taking into account the projects that ran into obstacles or delays...

They are also undoubtedly responsible for insuring the funding of more successful researchers, like Dr. Henry Pym (formerly of the SHIELD Ultimates program), not to mention the illegal genetics laboratories that are in violation of the superhuman test ban treaty, like those of Justin Hammer.

While the final objective of "The Man" and his puppet masters has yet to be determined, two things are clear: 

1. He is ultimately responsible for the creation of every superhuman, the evolution of every mutant, and the transmogrification of every monster on this planet.

2. He considers himself to be completely untouchable.

More details as they come to light.

Continue to Part 2 of the Ultimate Shadow Conspiracy

S.H.A.F.T. H.Q.