Part 14
by DarkMark
The continent of Atlantis may have been an island which lay before the Great Flood. Now, it was a moveable feast of people who breathed water, endured sub-sea pressure, temperatures, and light without complaining, and very often made war on raiders. Within Prince Namor's memory, the Atlantean people had moved many, many times.
Luckily there was a lot of the ancient continent on which to build, and not that many Atlanteans. Their numbers were paltry compared to that of the surface people, a fact which never failed to grate on Namor.
Superior Atlantean technology and the strength of the Sub-Mariner himself had enabled them to resist encroachment from the air-breathing race, for the most part. But all of them knew the history. When Atlantis had been situated beneath the North Pole, in the 1920's, their world had been rocked by a broken iceberg, dynamited by a surface vessel. This ship was commanded by one Leonard McKenzie, and the Atlantean Princess Fen was sent to investigate, armed with a potion that enabled her to breathe air for a time.
Princess Fen and Leonard McKenzie met, fell in love, and were wed.
But they were separated forever when an Atlantean commando team stormed the ship, wounded McKenzie, and brought Princess Fen back with them below the surface. She carried inside of her two things: a broken heart, and a child by Leonard McKenzie.
On February 22, 1922, Prince Namor I of Atlantis was born.
More than a hybrid, more than a mutant, Namor had the light skin of his father, the roughly triangular-shaped head, arched eyebrows, and pointed ears of an Atlantean, and more besides. Much more. He had tiny wings on his ankles which enabled him to fly. He had the strength of a dozen whales. He was naturally amphibious, able to take in oxygen from water through gills beneath his jaw and from air through his surfaceman's lungs.
He was as arrogant as he was powerful, right from the start.
When he was 17 years old, he was sent against the surface world, in vengeance, and went against the greatest city of their greatest nation: New York, in America.
It was the dawn of a new heroic age, though none knew it as of yet. The last men who had worn masks had taken them off forever after the Great War. Doc Savage and his men still operated, but they were only human, for all their strength. The Sub-Mariner rampaged through New York City, smashing, crushing, tearing down, destroying, and none seemed able to stop him.
None, that is, save for the first Human Torch.
The Torch, a blazing android, had begun his career on the same month that Namor struck New York, and was sent against his natural antagonist. The two fought to an incredible standstill, then decided to call it a draw. Prince Namor returned to Atlantis to lick his wounds for a bit. He had run afoul of the Nazi juggernaut during his sojourn on the surface, and neither he nor they would forget that.
In 1941, Hitler's U-boats attacked Atlantis, wreaked havoc, and caused Emperor Tha-Korr, Namor's grandfather, to become comatose when struck by a falling wall. The Sub-Mariner vowed vengeance specifically against the Axis, and put Atlantis's legions to work in combat with the Nazis. He won out there and made a grudging partnership with the Allied forces, even fighting side-by-side with the Human Torch.
Later that year, after the Pearl Harbor incident, the Sub-Mariner joined with the Torch, the Torch's boy partner Toro, and two new heroes named Captain America and Bucky in a confederation of heroes known as the Invaders. Winston Churchill had named them after he had been saved by them from a Nazi super-villain named Master Man. In their own way, they helped win the war.
Namor stayed in the surface world for four years afterward. He had found a woman he loved, named Betty Dean. But it just wasn't enough to keep him there, or his cousin Namora, who had joined him in crime-fighting. In 1949, he went back to the sea.
Four years later, Betty Dean asked for his help on a case, and he returned for awhile. He stayed until 1955. But he was still at odds with himself as to whether he should save the human race or conquer it. It was better, he decided, he remain with his own kind. So he returned to Atlantis, and bid Betty farewell. He would not choose his father's path for a mate. His distant cousin Dorma was looking much better.
Then, not long afterward, came an incident he was unable to remember until 1967. A man called Destiny, a foe of his father's and now of his, wielded a strange and deadly mystical helmet with incredible powers. As a test, Destiny had destroyed Atlantis. Namor's mother had perished in that disaster. The Sub-Mariner himself had gone against Destiny, but was made amnesiac by the helmet's power. Moreover, since Destiny wished to go into hibernation till his powers matured, he implanted a false memory within Namor's brain: that Atlantis had been destroyed by the nuclear tests of the surface men.
Namor wound up in the Bowery, clad in castoff clothes. For some years, he drifted, unknowing his identity, his hair and beard long and uncut. No one on the surface had heard from the Sub-Mariner since 1955. His absence was not noteworthy.
Then came the day in 1962 when a teenager on the run found himself in the same flophouse as the one they called the Old Man. Needled by his fellow transients, the Old Man had taken out three of them with as many blows. The teenager defended him against his attackers. Then, seeing something familiar about him, the youth set his finger aflame...an act that made the Old Man stare in silent wonder, as if he had seen this thing before...and carefully shaved the Old Man's beard and cut his hair.
Johnny Storm had read comic books when he was a kid. Many had been published with the consent (or without it) of the heroes upon which they were based. One of them had been Timely's SUB-MARINER COMICS. He recognized the man who sat before him.
He flamed on, carried the Old Man with him, and dumped him into the bay.
The shock of the ocean water revived Namor's memories (or most of them, anyway), and, thinking that an atomic test was responsible for Atlantis's destruction, he vowed renewed vengeance against the surface men. It turned out that this Human Torch was not related to the original, not even the son of Toro, which he had suspected at first. Namor brought a brobdinagian threat against the people of New York in the form of Giganto, a huge, whale-like, amphibian monster.
That began the Sub-Mariner's running battle with the Fantastic Four.
They were the first heroes of this new age, the new Torch, the Thing, Mr. Fantastic, and a lovely woman named the Invisible Girl. They were powerful, dedicated, and resourceful. Despite his own considerable might, they checkmated him at every turn.
More than that: Namor developed feelings for the woman called Susan Storm from the moment he set eyes on her.
Thus, the conflict between the Sub-Mariner and the Fantastic Four developed a new edge: the rivalry between Reed Richards and Namor for Sue's heart. Even she did not seem to know whom she loved the more. So it went.
In time, Namor discovered the place where his fellow Atlanteans had gone and rebuilt their city. They welcomed him home, rethroned him, and promised (even Krang, the warlord, who proved to be a supreme traitor) their unquestioning loyalty. Also, though Namora was long gone, lost as Sub-Mariner himself had been, there was a woman whom he had not seen in as many years: Lady Dorma.
Dorma, a very distant cousin of his and thus in the same level of Atlantean society, had been a partner of his for a time in the 1940's and had now grown into a most lovely woman. She made no bones of the fact that she was in love with Namor now, and he chose to acknowledge her love, despite what he still felt for Sue Storm. This did not sit well with Krang, to whom she had been pledged, and whose engagement to whom was now broken off.
Immediately Namor had staged a full-scale Atlantean invasion of New York City, taking the metropolis and holding it for a week. It took that long for Reed Richards to devise a weapon that evaporated the water in his men's helmets and forced them back to the sea. The Sub-Mariner himself had struck the Fantastic Four in vengeance, but chose to stop the conflict in order to save the life of the Invisible Girl, who almost drowned. Angered by the fact that Namor had betrayed them to save a "surface girl", Dorma led the other Atlanteans in a desertion. When Namor returned to Atlantis, he found a ghost city.
A small force of men remained with him, and Namor continued his battles with the Fantastic Four. He also came into conflict with new bands of heroes, like the Avengers and the X-Men, allying himself briefly with persons such as Dr. Doom, the Hulk, or Magneto. In one such incident, he found himself opposing his old partner from the Invaders, Captain America, revived into the new age as was Namor himself.
In the last battle Namor had with the Fantastic Four, Sue Storm declared that her heart belonged to Reed Richards, and she was married to him not long thereafter. As if in recompense, Sub-Mariner found his people again, returned them to Atlantis, and resumed his reign over them. He also accepted the love of Lady Dorma, who proved a more suitable potential mate than Susan Storm ever could have been.
But he was tricked by Krang into conflict with the surface world again, during which he battled a valiant, non-powered human called Daredevil. He returned to Atlantis when he learned that Krang had usurped power in his absence. Sub-Mariner was thrown into chains, liberated with the help of Dorma, and went on a long quest to reclaim the legendary trident of Neptune, which would prove his worthiness to resume kingship of Atlantis. Eventually, this proved successful. Krang was exiled, but would return time and again to beset Namor.
Years later, the Sub-Mariner once again encountered Destiny. He learned of the true nature of Atlantis's destruction in 1957, and, knowing the truth now, decided that the surface men were not at fault for that crime and thus war with them was not desirable. Nonetheless, the mighty helmet of Destiny made him a formidable foe. Despite it all, he fought the villain, and the latter perished in a leap which turned out to be suicidal.
The helmet turned out to be a much more evil thing, a Serpent Crown empowered by the evil Set. This led Namor into another quest, in which he met the Lemurians, another undersea tribe branched off from the Atlanteans, and the evil crown-wielder, Naga. Naga was finally destroyed, and the Sub-Mariner once again returned to his people, and to Dorma.
Namor had encountered new foes...his relative Byrrah, Dr. Dorcas, Tiger Shark, Orca, the supremely evil Llyra, and others. He also made new allies, including the Inhuman Triton, the surface-man turned underwater hero known as Sting-Ray, and the Hulk and Silver Surfer, who joined him in a temporary coalition that brought him into battle against the Avengers.
But he admitted that Atlantis needed a new heir to the throne, even though his lifespan was much greater than a surface man's. And he furthermore admitted his love for Dorma.
On the day of Namor's wedding to Dorma, she was almost killed by Llyra. Almost. In turn, Sub-Mariner almost killed Llyra. She only saved her own life by telling him she knew the whereabouts of Namora's daughter Namorita, and would take him to her if she were spared. This almost led to the deaths of Namor and Namorita herself at the hands of Byrrah, but Namor prevailed. Byrrah was sent into exile and Llyra was imprisoned in Atlantis.
Namorita, an amphibian like her cousin, and a beauty, suspected that Llyra had been behind her mother's premature death. But there was no proof. Llyra would have been careful about that. At any rate, she was overjoyed to learn that she still had a family, and became a member of the court of Prince Namor of Atlantis.
At about the same time, the Sub-Mariner was united with an old ally and a new one in a loose team called the Defenders. The powerful mystic Dr. Strange had brought him and the Hulk together to defeat the machinations of Yandroth, a mage and scientist, and thus save the world. Even though the three of them seemed to have little in common, they discovered that they worked well (albeit sometimes grudgingly) together, and formed a secret confederation. Not long after that, the Silver Surfer was added to the mix. They seemed to get together once a month, whenever Strange thought a new threat was brewing.
But the most important addition to Namor's life had come since then. Dorma had given birth to a baby boy, Prince Namor II, whom the Sub-Mariner himself called Leonard Tha-Korr, after his father and grandfather. Despite his duties, Namor tried to be a dutiful father. He also assumed the title of King Namor, now that he had an heir.
Now it was that he sat upon his throne in Atlantis, his wife Dorma seated beside him with his son held in her grasp, in swaddling clothes, with Namorita sitting at the foot of his throne, lovely in a green bathing suit. The vizier of the realm, the loyal Vashti, was reading from a scroll. "Kelp production is up 15 percent this season," he intoned. "Fish breederies report success as well, particularly in new hybrid strains you commissioned. Now, as to the monuments: the accountants estimate you shall need an eight per cent raise of taxes to complete the work as scheduled."
"Lower the taxes," said Namor.
Vashti looked up and blinked. "Milord?"
"Lower the taxes, Vashti. Five per cent."
"But, my prince...I mean, my king..."
Namor looked straight at his old friend, not with unkindness, but with authority. Dorma shifted her baby to her other arm. Namorita looked up at her cousin, but held her tongue.
"Vashti. The feeding of my people and their continued prosperity mean much more to me than commemorating old victories. We may see to that later, if at all. The decision is made. Have you more?"
The old man in the purple robe rolled up his scroll. "Nothing which requires your attention, my king."
Namor lifted his hand. "You may go, faithful one." Vashti left, backing out of the throne room.
After he was gone, Namorita finally spoke. "Cousin king, you weren't being mean to the old guy, were you?"
Dorma noted Leonard's release of fluid into the environiment and knew he'd have to be changed. "Nita, my husband was only acting as kings do. Vashti was one of the few who stood beside us at the time of the Quest. But for him, neither the king nor myself would be alive today."
Clad in a robe and his swim trunks, encrowned and holding Neptune's trident, Namor turned to his teenaged cousin. "And for your part, you shall refrain from informal speech with any save that of myself and my inmost court. You are a princess of Atlantis, Nita. Speak the part."
"Not fair," simpered Namorita, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. "Mom didn't always talk that way, and she told me that you didn't, either. She said you said stuff like 'Great garp!' and 'Chuckling clams!' And..."
"And if I hear any more back talk from you I shall certainly give Dorma the trident and put you over my knee. Understood?"
Nita sighed and kicked idly at the base of the throne with her bare foot. "I get it."
"Understood?"
"It is understood, my king."
"Better." Namor relaxed a bit. "Dorma, will you give the boy to a handmaid for a change?"
She grinned wryly. "You smelled it as well, husband?"
"My son's strength is not confined to his limbs."
Dorma left the chamber and returned shortly thereafter without her child. Namor was still speaking to the girl. "Since my youth, scarcely older than yourself, I have been engaged in war," he said. "With the surface world in general, or with Nazis, or criminals, or Communists, or their super-powered champions. What has it profited us? The Realm Eternal has been stricken time and again, its people forced to flee. I have been separated from them constantly. This is not as things should be. A ruler should be with his ruled, or he should not rule at all."
"So you've told me, cousin," said Nita, sitting cross-legged on the floor before him. "But it isn't like you haven't been needed."
"Just so," agreed Namor, as Dorma took the seat beside him. "But my love of adventure has too often obstructed my need to protect the realm. Not for nothing have my people deserted me in the past. Now, I must prove myself worthy of their trust. I have opened negotiations with the surface world through their United Nations. They will begin session soon to consider Atlantis for membership."
Namorita considered it. "But, cousin king, that'll commit you to stuff like cooperating with 'em. Maybe even sending in troops in police actions, 'n' all of that. You'll have to pay dues, and..."
"So it shall be," answered Namor. "No nation, not even one such as hours, may consider itself aloof from all other peoples. We fought too long against the men of the surface, to little profit. But if the Atlantean armies stood beside them in time of need, then they might remember our common cause against such as Hitler. Also might they remember Atlantis, in its own time of jeopardy. The responsibilities are onerous, to be sure, Nita. But so shall be the benefits. If Namor must cease being warrior, and become king in truth, so be it."
Nita half-smiled. "I don't think you'll keep that resolution entirely, cousin. You like adventure too much."
He favored her with a half-smile of his own. "Perhaps. But my personal pleasures, in turn, must be balanced by what I have to do. I am, foremost of all, an Atlantean. My people are my responsibility."
She said nothing, which was just as well. But she wondered if the man called Dr. Strange would summon her cousin to another battle soon with himself, the Hulk, and the Silver Surfer in company. Or if some of the Realm's enemies, such as Attuma, would attack anew.
If they did, she hoped she might be fighting at his side.
Even if Namor said the Defenders didn't exist, she figured they could use a woman in their ranks.
-M-
Klaw and Dr. Spectrum were forming a ring of force, based in solidified sound and light, around the baseball field to keep the Avengers and the super-villains within it. It was domed, which disappointed the heck out of the newsmen in the helicopters filming the battle. Alternating bands of red and bright yellow blocked their view.
Thankfully, just about all of the spectators in the stands had been freed from the Enchantress's spell and evacuated by now, the mayor going with them. Daley was with the police now, outside the stadium, waiting alongside them for the outcome.
The odds had changed. It was now Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Sif, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, and the Vision against Dr. Spectrum, Hyperion, Nighthawk, Whizzer, Klaw, Whirlwind, Melter, Executioner, Enchantress, Radioactive Man, Titanium Man, Unicorn, Crimson Dynamo, Batroc, Porcupine, Eel, Tumbler, and Scarecrow. The ones who had been downed by the heroes were being revived by their fellows.
Earth's Mightiest Heroes were getting rapidly outnumbered.
Thor, showing the bruises of his battle, slammed a powerful hammer-blow into Hyperion and knocked him to the ground. But it didn't kayo him, and the Executioner attacked the Avenger from behind, smashing a blow to the thunder god's helmet with his mighty axe. Even Thor had to go to one knee with the pain, though he quickly stood up and slammed a mighty punch into the Executioner's jaw, flooring him.
Before he could turn, Thor felt a searing pain in his back, like the fires of Surtur assaulting him. This, he knew, was no mortal-wielded fire. Nor did it burn with an Earthly flame. He wheeled, in pain, to see the Enchantress standing nearby, her hands glowing, her mouth smiling wickedly.
"Perhaps this is the day the prophecies are disproved," mused Amora. "Perhaps, instead of falling at Ragnarok, Thor shall fall on Earth."
"Never!" shouted Sif, leaping between the two of them, and smashing the Enchantress a powerful blow with the flat of her blade. It knocked the sorceress flat on her back, dazed her, but didn't render her unconscious. Thor tried to sweep his beloved out of harm's way, but Hyperion rocketed forward and grabbed him by the throat.
The pressure he was exerting was almost as great as the Hulk could manage.
Nonetheless, Thor managed to stamp his hammer several times on the ground, and, apparently unbidden, a fleecy white cloud in the sky sent down a thunderbolt with pinpoint accuracy. It struck Hyperion in the back, scorching his costume, making his hair stand on end, causing his eyes to bug from their sockets, and weakening his grip on the god of thunder somewhat.
Thor's mighty left hand came up in a palm strike to the chin that tumbled Hyperion off of him.
Iron Man was at the center of a grouping of the other heroes, who were facing Titanium Man and his allies. The armored Avenger, standing back-to-back with Cap, readied his repulsors and turned up the gain on his voice amplifier a bit. He spoke to the green-armored Russian.
"Never expected to see you boys in the company of capitalists," he remarked. "Your old bosses put you out to pasture, Bullski?"
The green gloves of the giant Russian began to smoulder. "Yours will soon put you in the grave, American. Our last encounter begins now."
"Save some for me, tovarisch," remarked the Unicorn. He unleashed a power blast from his horn that scattered the Avengers, save for Iron Man, who jetted up and jackknifed just below the dome.
The Porcupine had his quill-shooters in action, blasting fire and darts at the heroes. Hawkeye flopped to the ground, nocked an arrow from his prone position, fired. It struck the villain's thorny costume and exploded. It put him on his back, but didn't really hurt him. He rose, despite the oncoming of his old foes Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Batroc and the Tumbler were both making for Captain America, leaping, somersaulting, ready for a feet-first assault. Cap was more than ready for them. He did an acrobatic maneuver himself, and landed both red-booted feet in their faces, one heel apiece.
The Eel tried to make an electrical attack, but the Scarlet Witch gestured with both her hands together. He shouted as his costume short-circuited on the spot.
Still, the picture was looking nasty. The Vision, still loggy from Dr. Spectrum's burst, was heading forward to take out as many bad guys as he could, but the odds were still slightly with the villains.
Then a crunching noise was heard, and a shower of red sound-shards fell inward towards the baseball field before dissipating with a tinkle.
"What in the devil..." Klaw began to say, raising his metal sound-claw to the dome, which was now breached.
A sextet of heroes swiftly dropped through the hole, four of them hitting the ground with their feet without appreciable damage, the sixth riding piggy-back on the fifth's shoulders. Their faces were known to the Avengers and to the Enchantress and Executioner.
Balder, Hogun, Fandral, Hildegarde, Volstagg, and the Black Panther, all but the last of them exiled gods of Asgard.
Backup had arrived.
Thor smiled and raised Mjolnir in greeting. "All hail, sister and brethren," he boomed. "Together, we stand!"
The Enchantress looked at the situation and made a swift decision.
With a gesture of power that drained her somewhat, she caused another warp to appear in the air. "Retreat," she shouted, clearly enough to be heard.
The Titanium Man seemed to stiffen in his tracks. "Not now," he roared. "The battle..."
"The battle will continue elsewhen, mortal fool," snapped the Executioner. "For now, through the warp. Amora, Hyperion and I will cover the retreat."
The Vision tried to get to the Executioner fast enough to pull his solidifying-within trick, but the Enchantress struck him down with a bolt. Even Quicksilver was blocked by the Whizzer and Whirlwind. The villains, for their part, seemed well-disciplined. Before much order could be made on the part of the heroes, their opponents had escaped (some running, some flying, some being carried) through the warp. It closed before Thor's thrown hammer could penetrate it.
With Klaw's and Spectrum's absence, the great dome of light and sound began to break up.
"Well," said Hawkeye, "they're gone."
The Scarlet Witch shook her head. "As usual, your powers of observation are meticulous, Clint."
"That's enough, Wanda," said Captain America, adjusting his shield on his arm. "Count yourself lucky that we came out of this one with as little damage as we did. There've been worse battles."
Fandral made several passes through the air with his sword. "Indeed, Captain," he said, "'tis a pity that, for us, there was no battle at all."
"Thou wilt get thy wish ere long, methinks," said Thor. "For the nonce, welcome to thee all, and especially to you, brave Balder." He smiled, clapping his oldest friend on the shoulder. Balder lay an affectionate hand on Thor's arm.
"'Tis well met, son of Odin," he said. "Thy request that we act as reserve was wise indeed."
"Wiser still was the decision of the enemy not to fight us," said Hogun, in a gutteral tone. "Less would their numbers be afterwards than before. I would see to that."
"Peace be, Hogun," warned Hildegarde the Valkyrie. "On Midgard, we battle to capture, not to kill. Remember that."
Volstagg, having released the Black Panther from his mountainous shoulders, bawled, "Remember best that, having seen the valorous Volstagg's entrance, the foe turned tail and fled, as the craven cowards they are! Forsooth, even the Executioner dared not match sinew and blade with me!"
"Maybe he thought he'd have a hard time finding the sinew," remarked Hawkeye, sotto voce.
"Clint," warned the Wasp.
The Black Panther was already shaking hands with Captain America. "Sorry I couldn't be here quicker, old friend," he said. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"
"Always too long, T'Challa," said Cap. "Always too long." He had sponsored the Panther as his replacement in the Avengers some years back when he'd briefly quit the team, after the two of them had shared a battle against a false Zemo.
Quickly, the Avengers updated the Asgardian squad on the events of the battle. Then, with the news choppers beginning to reappear, the heroes began to make an assessment. "Well, we've found out where at least some of the Riker's Island boys went," Ant-Man observed. "But not all of them."
"That's not counting guys like the Unicorn and Ti Man," Iron Man put in. "They weren't escapees. Somebody's made this bunch into a regular army."
Captain America said, "But only one division of it. There were a lot more escapees than we saw here today. Question: where are the rest of them? And who masterminded this thing?"
Hawkeye shrugged. "You expecting an answer, Cap?"
"I'm expecting us to find an answer, Hawk," replied Cap. "I'm expecting us to find it darned soon. Or it'll find us."
-M-
The problem in Texas was announced quite early in the afternoon. When all the secretaries and businessmen had gone to lunch and there was only a smaller force of people in the McCade building, one of the larger and newer glass-and-steel structures of the Metroplex, everyone found out about it in short order.
The building began to come apart.
It started with the top floor. Girders began to pull themselves out of alignment with a shriek. The shriek was, of course, echoed by humans working on that floor. Tinted plate glass windows that made up the outer walls began to shatter. The ferroconcrete flooring beneath the carpets began to crack and crumble.
A salesman who had been leaning against one of the windows fell backwards, screaming.
He was buoyed up after falling about ten stories, apparently by something invisible, actually by the iron content in his blood. Almost gently, he was lowered to the pavement.
The occupants of the top floor ran pell-mell down to the next level, then the next, then the next after that. At every step, they heard the walls beginning to come apart around them. Miraculously, the stairway itself wasn't touched.
Many people got to the elevators and frantically pressed the down button after enough of them had crowded in and others were kicked out. But the buttons didn't function.
Instead, the elevator cars hurtled upward, out through the shorn-away roof of the building. They soared up like square missiles, then came down at a fairly tame pace, crashing to the streets around the building in neatly spaced intervals. The doors sprang open. The people within, shaken but not hurt, burst from the metal boxes and ran through the streets like they were afire. Cars in nearby traffic barely managed to miss them, but sometimes weren't lucky enough to avoid banging other vehicles.
People were streaming from the ground level of the McCade Building as if they were lemmings. It was as if the structure was being leveled with great care and courtesy, so as to impress and terrify, but not to harm.
They would probably have been grateful for that, if they'd had the time to stop and reflect. But nobody thought about that at the moment.
The police were quickly alerted and surrounded the building, or what was left of it. Steel, glass, and concrete littered the streets for several blocks round about, and the remains was mostly a hole in the ground. A newly-made deconstruction site.
Officer Alan Sayer looked at the mess from a close distance. "What in the hell caused this?" he asked, in wonder.
"Maybe it's the Commies," opined his partner, Kirk Williams. "Want to go in and have a look?"
"Hell, no," said Sayer. "You want to?"
"No way," said Williams. Then both of them started forward to check out the scene.
They hadn't taken three steps before a squad of oddly costumed people shot up from the debris as if on invisible springs.
The two cops opened fire. There were several distinct results.
One of the fruits in suits, as the cops liked to call them, a man of gargantuan bulk, like Jackie Gleason in shorts, took what slugs came at him without flinching. All they did was sink a ways into his body, from which he repelled them with an intake of breath. He began advancing on the two cops and the ones who joined them, one ponderous step at a time.
Another, a vaguely Italian-looking man in a red and black suit, simply stood there and let the police fire at him. He took shot after shot, or appeared to. In reality, the slugs were spanging off something probably a foot or two on all sides of him, and at least one shooter was wounded by a ricochet. He was carrying a conventional Army flamethrower. When he got near enough to the police cars, he used it on some which were unoccupied. They exploded. Flaming gasoline and flying metal assaulted him. All of it rebounded harmlessly from his invisible shield. He seemed untouchable.
Another couple of policemen converged on a guy in what appeared to be a brown opera cape. They had guns drawn and were about to tell him to hit the ground. Instead he made a gesture that looked like one Mandrake would make in the comic strips.
A tremendous grey dragon reared up behind the man, one which had not been there a second before.
Realizing that there was nothing in police procedurals to cover dragons, the cops took to their heels.
A huge figure, larger even than the fat man in shorts, clad in a brown-and-red costume with a metal helmet that covered all but part of his face, stormed out into the fray and crashed through police vehicles, other cars, and anything else that got in his way as if they were paper. He threw cops through the air like rag dolls. After awhile, he stood there and silently dared the officers to come after him. Nobody answered his dare.
There were others in the strange unit, but none so impressive as a large man in a red and purple outfit with a matching helmet. He raised purple-gloved hands and, in response, the blue-and-white cop cars began rising off the ground. Some of them still had occupants. They turned on their sides, opened their doors, and shook the cops out onto the street. Then each of the vehicles was piled on top of each other, one after the other, in a strange new form of metal sculpture. That it didn't fall over seemed a miracle, but, after the last few minutes, it would have been a minor one.
The helmeted man raised one hand to the policemen, rubberneckers, and gathering newsmen on the perimeter. He spoke to them in a voice loud enough to override all their fearful shouts and murmurs.
"We want the X-Men," said Magneto. "And we want them now."
-M-
The first thing that Reed and Sue saw when they landed the Fantasticar was a new configuration of Frightful Four...actually, more than four of them...battling Ben and Johnny. They barely had time to take note of the new membership before they pitched into the fray.
The Human Torch had his left side covered in paste from the Trapster's gun, but he was lobbing fireballs back at that miscreant and at the Wizard, who was hovering by power of his anti-grav disc. The Thing was blitzing away at the Sandman with his fists, but it was like punching through a mess of brown sugar, except when the villain wanted to land a granite-hard punch.
There was also: the Beetle, an old enemy of Johnny's and Ben's and half a dozen other heroes; the Plantman, whose strange ray-gun could control all vegetable life; Live-Wire, a guy who affected cowboy clothes and used a lasso charged with deadly energy; Shell-Shock, whose guns were loaded with projectiles of all kinds; and Jack Frost, a foe of Iron Man's, who had much the same abilities as Iceman, even though his were artificial rather than natural.
Nothing they couldn't handle. Maybe.
First order of business: the Sandman. Sue formed an invisible force field, scooped up as much of the grainy gladiator as she could in it, pushing Ben away gently in the process, and separated him from some of his sandy mass. She guessed she was getting the part with Sandman's head in it, and contracted the field as much as she could.
The Sandman immediately expanded into a ball, pushing outwards against the field frantically and powerfully. Susan Richards strove with all her might to hold the field in place. It wasn't going to be easy.
"Susie, watch it," cautioned Ben Grimm. At the same time, Live-Wire's lasso encircled him and crackled with power. Even the Thing winced a bit. The Beetle's extendible false "fingers" reached out to grab hold of Ben's head at the sides, their suction cups attaching themselves to his rocky skin.
"This is a time for revenge, Thing," said the armored, flying foe.
Ben grinned the way he had at the Japanese Zeroes twenty-five years ago. "There's only one kinda time this is, Beetle-brain..."
He expanded his chest and burst Live-Wire's line, sending sparks everywhere. Then he grabbed the Beetle's gloves, wrenched them away from his head, dragged the Beetle closer with one three-fingered hand, and drew back his other fist.
"And in case you haven't guessed, I'm gonna tell you..."
Sue knew what was coming.
"It's CLOBBERIN' TIME!"
WHAMM.
The Beetle flew backwards, not under his own power, and his wings left tracks in the concrete as they scraped them. For the moment, he was hors d' combat.
The Human Torch increased his flame to a degree that sent heat waves through the whole surroundings. The Trapster's paste coating caked and fell off in pieces. "Maybe you should stick to Elmer's Glue next time, Paste-Pot," he remarked, sending a tiny flaming buzz-saw homing in on the feed line between the Trapster's adhesive source on his backpack and the gun he used to shoot it.
The fiery saw failed to cut the line.
Smirking, the Trapster said, "Y'didn't think I wouldn't fireproof the thing, didja?" Then he grabbed a gizmo from his backpack and threw it. It was tempered against all but the most extreme heat the Torch could generate, and it hit him square in the chest. A terrific shock of power coursed through his body, and he fell to the pavement, bruising his blazing forehead and chest.
The Trapster moved closer, his gun set to shoot a more deadly sort of projectile than paste. "So long, Torchy," he said. "Plenty of hard feelings."
Johnny was still in pain, but his hands were pressed against the blackening concrete. He raised his head a bit, sighted, and said, "Not nearly as hard as mine, paste-face."
Then he sent two streams of fire from his hands along the concrete.
They made a beeline for the Trapster and set the soles of his shoes on fire.
Screaming, Pete began doing the hotfoot dance and ran for the grass where he could take his blazing boots off. Shooting the Torch or his three partners, or anything else much outside of breathing, definitely took a back seat. Even with that, he didn't get very far before a long, rubbery blue loop of arm drew itself around him like a boa constrictor and stopped him.
"Going somewhere?" said the head of Reed Richards, elongating itself before him.
Before the Trapster could speak, he got a surprisingly hard blue fist in the face and checked out of consciousness.
But a voice came from behind and above Mr. Fantastic, and he knew the source of it well. "Careless, Richards," said the Wizard. "Very, very careless."
Twin beams of power erupted from the Wizard's Wonder Gloves and blasted away at Reed. His rubbery nature only shielded him from a fraction of the force.
In response, the Thing sunk his fingers into a slab of concrete, tore up a sidewalk-block-sized piece of it, and heaved it like a Frisbee at the Wizard. It struck him in the chest plate and knocked the breath out of him. Held aloft by anti-grav, the Wizard wheezed and tried to get the air back in his lungs.
Ben grabbed Reed by the underarms as the latter's flexible form began to retract back to normalcy. "Stretcho. Talk ta me. You all right?"
"All right, all right, Ben," huffed Reed. "See to Johnny, will you?"
"Sure," said the Thing, taking the recovering Reed with him. The Torch was still hurting from the Trapster's device, his chest still pressed to the pavement. "Torchy," shouted Ben. "Flame off, willya?"
The Human Torch groaned a bit, but shut off his flame and reduced his body heat. He could guess what his partner had in mind. With one craggy hand, Ben Grimm turned Johnny over on his back, grabbed the hurtful device of the Trapster's, pulled it off, and crushed it. Johnny Storm heaved a sigh of relief.
Then he burst into flame again. "Thanks, big guy."
"Don't mention it, matchstick," said the Thing. "What about Susie?"
Reed Richards looked and pointed. "Over there!"
The Invisible Girl tried to hold the line against the Sandman, who was straining her force-field's containment power with all his might. Then it became academic, as a burst of ice hit her from behind and began to cover her front as well. She gasped, paralyzed by the cold and shock, and in that moment the Sandman surged in pressure and burst through the force-field.
His sandy grains formed into a head and upper torso, gasping for breath, as his other sand-mass slithered over the concrete to unite with the rest of him and form his regular body. "Cheez," he gasped. "About to pass out in there!"
Jack Frost, administering the coup de grace to Sue Richards with his freeze-gun, snapped, "Look alive, Marko. The other three are still up 'n' running. I can't take 'em all."
Then the ice exploded outward in chunks that made both villains dodge. Sue's invisible field was projected outward from her body, destroying her frigid prison.
"You can't even take me," she said, and faded from sight.
A blue battering ram smashed into Jack Frost and knocked him over. The Sandman tried to snag said ram, which was Reed Richards, with his enlarged, sandy paw, but Reed ducked under him, reformed into a ball, and bounced away. Mr. Fantastic was getting in his licks.
The Thing and the Torch were charging forward, and the Plantman joined the fray. Costumed in green, with a leafy motif, he held up his plant-control ray gun. "Sorry I couldn't participate earlier," he said. "I just wanted to give the rest their chance before I wound things up."
Abruptly, plants, vines, flexible-seeming trees began springing up from the ground where none had been before. They grew thorns, spikes, tendrils that their species ought not to have been capable of producing. Some of them had opened mouths with wooden fangs. Others had branches terminating in what looked like claws. And they weren't exactly still life.
They were reaching for the Fantastic Four.
The invisible Sue Richards found her feet, then her body, entangled in creeping vines that brought her down to the ground. Reed Richards tried to stretch out of the grasp of plants that tried to engulf every part of his body. The Human Torch blasted away at the woody and leafy foes he found, and the Thing ripped away at the monstrosities without hesitation. For all that, Sue and Reed were endangered.
The Thing tore through another mess of fronds and came face-to-face with a grinning man in a yellow mask shaped like a star with lightning edges. "Hello, Thing," said Electro. "Let me keep you current."
He raised his hands and blasted the Thing off his feet with a static electric charge just short of the force of a lightning bolt. Then he turned towards the Human Torch, to give him the same treatment.
It also gave the other conscious villains the chance to attack the quartet en masse. It was beginning to look deadly.
Then the lot of them were knocked to the ground by a THOOM of a ground tremor. All, that is, save the Wizard, who was airborne and was able to see what had produced the action.
It was the booted, metal-shod foot of a large, brown-haired, masked and costumed figure known to the few who were aware of his existence as Gorgon.
A number of individuals were piling out of a newly-landed magnetic hovercraft behind him. They included one who was well-known to three of them as an original member of the Frightful Four, when she had amnesia: Madame Medusa, whose six-foot lengths of red hair were alive, motile, and formidable. There was Triton, a water-breathing, scaly, fish-like being who could generate enough pressure within his body to punch through the wall of a submarine. He was flanked by Karnak, a grim, short, mustached martial artist whose metal-banded hands could shatter virtually any substance.
Behind them was Black Bolt, their black-costumed, silent leader, who raised one hand and sent a blast of free-floating electrons at the Wizard. It connected and knocked him out of the sky.
From his position on the concrete, the leader of the former Frightful Four assessed the situation quickly and made a command.
"Sandman," he said, "maneuver 12."
The green-costumed Sandman immediately reconverted his body into sand, creating an artificial sandstorm. The members of the Fantastic Four and the Inhumans were suddenly blinded by the grainy assault. Reed Richards tried reaching out with his rubbery limbs, but couldn't make contact with his foes. The Torch was afraid to try hurling fireballs without clear sight, as was Black Bolt to try any further electron blasts. The Invisible Girl wasn't able to get her force-field up in time.
The Trapster threw down a device that produced a horrible high-pitched screech, sending all the defenders to their knees. It lasted for less than thirty seconds before the Torch homed in on it with his flames and melted it to slag.
He burned the sand out of his eyes.
The villains were gone.
The other heroes were wiping sand from their own or the others' eyes, trying to get back in action once again. The Thing, his blue eyes ringed with red, muttered, "Okay, Stretch. First order o' biz...where the heck are they?"
Reed Richards sighed in disappointment. "Sorry, Ben. I'm as buffaloed as you are, right now." He turned, stretched out a hand, and shook that of Black Bolt. "But, Black Bolt, I'm pleased that you and the Royal Family could act as backup. I know it's been a tough time for you, lately."
"True, Reed Richards," said Medusa. "But never too hard for us to remember our friends."
Triton said, "We greet you all in Black Bolt's name. But I shall check beneath the waves to see if our foes have attempted an underwater escape." He sprinted off, heading for the edge of Bedloe's Island.
Karnak, assuming a more at-ease stance, said, "It is doubtful we shall be able to track them so easily. Your enemies apparently had an escape plan efficiently prepared."
Johnny Storm, near Gorgon, flamed off. "Good to see you again, Big Feet. But I see Crystal couldn't make it."
"Sadly, you are correct, Torch," the big Inhuman confirmed. "Crystal is still unable to breathe unaided in your world. She sends you her love, and hopes to see you soon."
"Same for me, and be sure to tell her," said the Torch.
Medusa turned to Reed. "What was the point of this attack, Richards? Was it just to lure you into a fight, with their new members in reserve? Or something beyond?"
Mr. Fantastic shook his head. "For once, Medusa, I'm not really sure. But I have my suspicions. Care to come back to the Baxter Building with me?"
The redheaded Inhuman looked to Black Bolt. He held up both arms, his hands spaced far apart. She nodded. "Black Bolt gives consent. We shall go."
-M-
PARKER
Part of being a superhero, kids, is learning to adapt to new bad guys quickly. You know about your regular waltzing partners, sure. But you also try and keep track of other villains other guys fight, because you never know when one of 'em will turn up in your backyard. That's why, even though I'd never gotten into a punch-up with the Matador or Gladiator, I had a hunch about what they could do.
As for Doc Ock, the Vulture, and Mysterio, I knew what they could do already. They could give me plenty of trouble.
The usual way out of that was to make trouble for them.
So that's what I decided to do.
-M-
"Surround him!" screamed Dr. Octopus, his four metal arms extending out towards the blue-and-red costumed man among them. The three deadly pincers at the end of each arm were clacking like a lobster's claws. "Vulture, cover him from above! The rest of you, encircle him and close in. Do it!"
In response, Spider-Man leaped.
He jumped from the wooden planks of the pier to the top of Mysterio's domed head, then up into the air, barely missing the swishing arms of Octopus or the blades of the Gladiator, heading in from the other side. He heard the Matador curse in Spanish, but paid it little mind.
The target he was concentrating on was coming in from above.
Adrian Toomes, aka the Vulture, had perfected a magnetic inverter that allowed him to defy gravity, along with wings that enabled him to direct his flight. For all his old-man appearance, he was a formidable combatant and had given Spider-Man tough fights every time they'd tangled.
Spidey sprayed him with web lines as he sprang into the air, catching the flying felon on the chest and enabling him to climb up to the Vulture on the web itself. The bald villain snarled and made ready to clout Spider-Man when he came within range.
Spider-Man clouted first. For all his power, the Vulture lacked his foe's super-strength. His eyes crossed and he went unconscious, still buoyed in the air by the power of his flight device.
"Sorry, Vultch," said Spider-Man, "but I haven't got time for Auld Lang Syne with you today. All apologies."
He felt a charge of electricity go through his hands and recoiled in pain. Looking down, he saw the Matador touching his electrified sword to the web-line. Just great.
"Come, toro," said the elegantly costumed villain. "Face me in this wood-and-water arena. Face me, and die."
In response, Spider-Man jumped from the Vulture's back, feet-first, and came down hard on the Matador's face. The villain slammed his head on the wooden pier, his sword falling from his senseless hands.
Two down.
But Mysterio raised his arms and a cloud of smoke billowed forth towards Spider-Man. He was rapidly engulfed in the fumes, obscuring his vision. His spider-sense was still going off, but that was little comfort. Spidey already knew he was in danger.
Especially when he felt a couple of metal arms encircling his body.
"Doc," he said. "I know you've been asked this before, but what kind of hand lotion do you use, really? Pennzoil?"
Otto Octavius shouted something and tried to wind a tentacle about Spider-Man's neck. Instead, the web-slinger pushed the coil above his head, turned towards Octopus, who was visible now due to the waving arms thinning the mist, and let him have a glob of web fluid right in his open mouth.
Octopus choked, spitting out much of it, but his jaws were still stuck together. Luckily, it hadn't gone down his throat, and his nostrils were still uncovered. But he was clawing at his face with his human hands, and his metal arms were distracted enough for Spider-Man to leap free.
A metal-gloved hand came down at him when he landed.
Spider-Man leaped back and the Gladiator's blade buzzed through the planks of the dock. "Next time, web-head," he promised.
"Fine, pal," quipped Spidey, crouching. "Let me make an appointment, though."
A familiar voice was heard behind him. "Any appointments for death must be made with me, Spider-Man." A punch to the back of his head knocked him sprawling.
His skull aching, Spider-Man got up from the planks to see two new arrivals. One, the speaker, was Kraven the Hunter. He'd half-expected him to be there, given their battle of a day ago. The second was another old enemy, in a yellow and brown padded costume, whose metal-encased hands were capable of delivering punishing shock waves. Spider-Man knew him as the Shocker.
Old villains' week.
"So what do you call yourselves, anyway?" groaned Spidey. "The Sinister Sixteen?"
"Waste him," advised the Gladiator.
Spider-Man's hands went to his midsection. He pulled up his shirt enough to expose his belt, and his thumb struck a control stud atop a device that adorned its buckle.
At its highest setting, the Spider-Signal shone straight into Kraven's and the Shocker's eyes, blinding them temporarily. Their hands went to their eyes.
The hero turned. The armored Gladiator was still charging in. His deadly saw blades were buzzing, and anything that could cut through Iron Man's armor wouldn't have too much problem with human flesh.
As long as it got there, of course.
Spidey hit him low, like a football tackle. He grabbed both the Gladiator's legs, taking care not to cut his hands on his bladed boots, and swung his opponent up, over, and down as hard as he could, slamming him with a terrific bang onto the pier. It splintered and cracked with the impact, but still held together.
The Gladiator was stunned.
It was time to take the better part of discretion. Spider-Man leaped over his remaining foes and headed down the pier, escaping. As he took another bound, a new, green-costumed foe leaped towards him, easily equalling his jump through a pair of springs on his flipper-shaped boots.
"Surprise, surprise," said the Leap Frog, gun in hand.
"I don't have time for this," snapped Spidey, and uncorked a haymaker. The gun flew one way and the Leap Frog went the other.
By the time Mysterio roused his fellows from their respective stupors, Spider-Man was long gone. They had time to escape the inevitable police arrival. But they were not pleased. Kraven, least of all.
Very soon, they would meet their nemesis again. This time, they would have even more help.
-S-
PARKER
I went back home, changed along the way, and hugged Gwen hello. She knew from the way my hair looked and my underarms smelled that I'd been in a fight. She asked me who with. I wish I'd been better at keeping things from her, kids, and that I'd been able to tell her it was just a muscular jaywalker. But I told her I'd tell her who it was after I took a bath. She wouldn't let me go until I fessed up.
After I got my bath, both of us sat there in our robes across from each other at the kitchen table, and ate dinner without saying much. When we were done, she said, "You almost got killed."
I told her, "I didn't. Those mukluks were stumbling over each other's feet, as usual. They do much better solo."
She said, "You got lucky. If you hadn't been, I'd have been...oh, Peter..."
She meant that she'd have been going to my funeral maybe the next day.
About that time I hugged her again and tried to reassure her that it was going to be all right, that I knew how to handle those guys, that I'd been doing it for years and hadn't gotten badly hurt. I hope I sounded a lot more reassuring than I felt.
But she didn't buy it. I think, deep inside, I knew that she was pretty right. I'd faced off against eight bad guys that evening, and barely escaped getting my web-covered head handed to me.
So what was I supposed to do? She wanted me to quit.
As long as they were out there, I knew I couldn't.
But outside of that, I didn't know what to do.
-M-
Norman Osborn thought the dreams were over. They had only begun.
There were times in his life that were just gaps to him now. He had no idea of what had happened to him for a long time before Spider-Man had saved him from a blaze near his chemical factory. He was grateful to the web-slinger for that, and for restoring his memory. But there had been a couple of gaps since then, parts of his life he had simply lost.
What in Heaven's name was he doing then?
That frightened him. Here he was, the head of a large chemical corporation, a successful businessman, the widowed father to a son successfully employed as a junior exec in his firm, now married to Mary Jane Watson, an apparently flighty girl who was proving a fine wife, and...
...he couldn't trust his memory.
Psychiatrists didn't much help. All they could do was tell him he had amnesia and that he seemed to be afraid of his former favorite color, green.
Harry had dragged him along to a reading at ESU recently by one of Harry's favorite authors, a short guy with mounds of effected cool, named Harlan Ellison. The guy had made some semi-humorous left-wing political speeches and read a couple of his stories. One of them had been a kind of anti-drug screed. Norman figured that Harry, who had experimented once with LSD, could have standed to hear more of that.
But, for some reason, Norman couldn't. His hands started to tremble, and he had to restrain himself to keep from crying out. He asked Harry to help him leave, and Harry did.
Then he came home and went to bed.
He didn't know what had frightened him so about the story. Druggies were pathetic, but they didn't scare him. No, it was something in the story. A specific image. And maybe the title.
Osborn said it aloud. He forced himself to, in a voice barely above a whisper, there in the dark:
"Shattered Like a Glass Goblin."
-M-
In the great hangar, Gary Gilbert looked up at the sizeable yellow plane.
It was of AIM's own design, a bit too small to be an efficient transport but big enough for what Gilbert needed. It was a bomber of sorts, but it would deliver a payload like none ever unleashed before. It only had to be used once.
"Nice," he said. "But that's only part of it."
The AIM man before him nodded. "The payload is here," he said, gesturing to a large wooden crate with several deadly symbols upon it and some armed guards posted about it. "It will be ready for delivery soon."
"Put it in right now," said Gilbert.
"Now?"
"Now."
After a moment of hesitation, the yellow-costumed AIM rep nodded to the guards. They motioned to some attendants, who came with a forklift-like device and took up the crate delicately. Then they conveyed it to the plane.
The AIM man couldn't suppress a shudder as they began to open the crate.
But Gary Gilbert was smiling.
Almost the final step had been taken to start the Fire.
To be continued...