Randolph Robertson (Earth-616)

Randy Robertson was the son of Joe "Robbie" Robertson, the city editor at the Daily Bugle. When he was a student at Empire State University, he became involved with group of student activists protesting the E.S.U.'s plans to turn an exhibition hall into a dorm for visiting alumni instead of living room for students. The group became caught up in a scheme by the Kingpin to steal the lifeline tablet that was foiled by Spider-Man. He was a student friend of Peter Parker, Spider-Man's alter-ego, as well as Josh Kittling, who were both fellow students at E.S.U.^[5]

His rebellious streak eventually faded, and after graduating from E.S.U. Randy pursued graduate studies in social work at Pittsburg State University, where he met and married fellow student Mandy Batavides, a Jewish woman, much to his father's dismay. After his father was crippled by Tombstone, the couple came together Robbie, who now has accepted Mandy as his daughter in law. However, after his recovery, Robbie was put in jail, much to Randy's dismay who started to emotionally support his mother. Thankfully, the family reunited once again after Robbie was deemed innocent, following Robbie's escape at the hands of Tombstone. When Mandy received a job offer in California, the younger Robertson couple relocated to the West Coast, but various factors strained their marriage, and Randy returned to New York alone following their divorce.^{[citation needed]}

Randy decided to become an actor, despite his father disapproval. He then rekindled his friendship with Peter, whose wife at the time was believed to be dead.^[6] They started sharing Randy's apartment and even though they were roommates, Randy still hung out more with their mutual friends, Gloria Grant and Jill Stacy. However, due to being roommates, they were experimented on by the Brll'nah >Zhhk< and shared a toothpaste which was filled with drugs by the Green Goblin.^[7] Following his encounter with the Green Goblin, Randy went to his father and sought advice from him, since Robbie had had encounters with a number of villains during his time at the Bugle. When Randy started dating Gloria, Peter was unable to get back with Jill and moved away after Mary Jane turned up alive. Following Peter joining the Avengers, Randy lost all touch with Peter. Randy was then seen at the Robertson's household after his father had been fired from the Bugle.

Sometime after Robbie had joined the newspaper Front Line, Randy met one of its reporters, Norah Winters, and began dating her.^[8] Because of this, Randy became the target of jealousy of Phil Urich, a Front Line worker infatuated with her, who was also secretly the supervillain Hobgoblin. During an attack from Alistaire Smythe on Front Line, which had rebranded to the Daily Bugle, Phil broke a support beam. The ceiling collapsed on Randy and it injured his leg,^[9] temporarily leaving him on a cast.^[10]

With Norah becoming increasingly neglectful of Randy in favor of her reporting job, Randy volunteered to be her cameraman to bridge the gap between them.^[11] Shortly afterward, the entirety of Manhattan was temporarily granted spider-powers as part of a plan by the Queen and the Jackal, and chaos erupted. While trying to convince Norah to get to safety instead of reporting, Randy was attacked by Hobgoblin. Having developed spider-powers, Randy managed to hold his own and fought the villain. Norah remained fixated on covering the fight, missing a critical chance to help Randy when the Hobgoblin was about to kill him. After managing to gain the upper hand and knock down the villain, Randy decided to break up with Norah, arguing that she cared more about her news report than his own life.^[12] During this time, Randy was working for a city program called Youth Outreach Unlimited.^[13]

Randy would eventually return to Peter's life when both found themselves in need of a new apartment and agreed to become roommates again. In order to afford a comfortable apartment, Randy decided to sublet a third room, and the duo's third roommate ended up being Fred Myers, the criminal Boomerang.^[14] Due to Boomerang being in the bad graces of the Kingpin, their apartment was targeted by Janice Lincoln, the Beetle and daughter of Tombstone. Janice broke into the apartment looking for Fred when Randy was alone. The two fell in love at first sight and began dating,^[15] although Randy was skeptical about Janice's criminal career,^[16] and because of this he kept his new girlfriend's identity a secret from his friends and family.^[17] Spider-Man would eventually learn that Randy was dating the Beetle by accident, by catching a glance of the two inside Randy's room through their apartment's skylight.^[18]

Around this time, Peter's aunt May reopened a shelter named the F.E.A.S.T. Center. With Randy having distanced himself from social working, May enlisted him to rebuild F.E.A.S.T.^[4] The shelter was heavily damaged when Beetle and her Syndicate attacked Boomerang while he was there. After Randy chastised her for thrashing his workplace and kidnapping his roommate, Janice made amends my using her influence to have F.E.A.S.T. rebuilt and granted a permit.^[16] Randy and Janice became distanced for some time,^[19] but subsequently rekindled their romance just in time for their relationship to become noticed by both Robbie and Tombstone.^[20] Following Tombstone and Robbie separate attempts to convince each of their children to stop the relationship,^[15] they found themselves working together once Randy and Janice were kidnapped by Madame Masque and Crime Master as part of a plan to take over Tombstone's criminal enterprise.^[21] After Randy and Janice were saved by their parents with the help of Spider-Man and the Syndicate, the two lovers decided to move in together.^[22]

Briefly similar to Spider-Man along with launching needles from his arms.

Allergies: According to Norah Winters, Randy has an unusually high number of food allergies.^[23]

• Randy has used Facebook.^[15]