Working at the Daily Bugle to earn money to help pay for college, Peter Parker was bitten by a Radioactive Spider he was experimenting on. Instead of giving him superpowers and becoming Spider-Man, he developed a mutant virus instead.
Before first exhibiting the infectious rash, he visited the Daily Bugle a final time, accidentally infecting reporter Philip Sheldon, leading to Sheldon's death from cancer. He was later seemingly quarantined, his rash expanding to all his body and his hair falling out.[1]
