Spider-Man: Identity Crisis
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Spider-Man: Identity Crisis is an eight-part storyline printed in Marvel Comics' Spider-Man family of books in 1998. Get the book.
This arc was collected in trade paperback format on November 27, 1998.
Plot
During "Identity Crisis", Spider-Man was framed by Norman Osborn and the Trapster for murder of a small-time crook named Joey Z using "web fluid" around his neck . Osborn also provoked Spider-Man into attacking him on tape, leaving Spider-Man with a five-million-dollar reward posted for his capture and unable to even go out on patrols without the police or even normal people attempting to shoot him. Instead of his normal costumed identity, Peter Parker adopted four other costumes with different crime-fighting personas in order to stay under the radar, reasoning that one new superhero with similar powers would be too suspicious after Spider-Man disappears, while the multiple identities allowed him 'fallback' options if any of the identities were exposed as being him. With two identities- the Hornet and Prodigy- posing as heroes while the other two- Dusk and Ricochet- pretended to be criminals, Peter was not only able to do good, but also gain a unique chance at getting 'in' with the criminal underworld of the time.
Using this, his Dusk identity was able to provide evidence that Spider-Man hadn't killed the criminal (He convinced the Trapster to confess as a means of getting back at Osborn) while he used the Prodigy identity to produce faked evidence to suggest that it was a fake Spider-Man (Most likely Jack O'Lantern or Conundrum, whose latest plot Prodigy had recently thwarted) who attacked Osborn; the Ricochet identity was used to discover further information about new foe the Black Tarantula while the Hornet was unfortunately exposed as Spider-Man during a battle with the Vulture. With the bounty removed, Peter returned to his life as Spider-Man, acknowledging that, no matter how popular his other identities were, Spider-Man was who he really was. This arc planted the seeds for a short-lived spin-off book titled Slingers, following the adventures of four teenagers who had been inspired by Spider-Man's new costumes and codenames.