Chapter 12: Aye Yi Yi!
Elsewhere, American Eagle divebombs with arms wide. Likewise, Hulk extends his incredible arms to welcome Eagle into a big, bonecrushing bear hug. But, at the last second, the raptor barrel rolls and slips the brute's boughs. Eagle bowls behind Hulk. Abruptly, he bops to Banner's back and binds Hulk about the neck. Whooping, Strongbow unreservedly knees nape, the upper spine and lower skull, seeking a swift knock-out. But, the Green Goliath will not have Jason being a David. The bellowing behemoth reaches back and fixes furiously on his foe's forearm. Hulk flips Eagle forward, snapping Strongbow's hold.
However, American Eagle fluidly lands on his feet, keeps Hulk's wide wrist, wrings the wing as though wrestling, wildly wrests the monster upward, and fiercely flips Hulk emphatically flat. Sans hesitation, Strongbow stomps the beast several times, hoping to subdue him. Jason springs aloft and clops the flipped's face. With all impetus, Eagle punches Hulk's chest and imprints the Incredible creature into the soggy soil. Booming thunder complements American Eagle's sequential merciless strikes.
Savage Hulk snarls in the slop, and he swells stronger and bigger. Suddenly, he strikes fiercely back. A giant fist slugs Strongbow from the infield all the way into Busch Stadium's scoreboard, which explodes with wattage and wreckage. The supine berserker sits-up set to avenge himself on some Avengers.
But, the next Avenger instantly comes to him.
From one hundred feet up, Tigra tackles Hulk back into the mud. Like a bikini-ed bullet, she thumps his torso, toppling him. At once, she scratches across his wide, wild eyes. He screams and swats. But, Tigra hops high and tumbles herself head-over-heels. The Cat lands on her feet and preserves one of her nine lives. Hissing at Hulk, she presents her claws as though she would carry-on keen hand-to-hand combat.
"You're crazy," Hulk stands, "Hulk crush kitty-lady to kitty litter!"
The Jade Giant charges. Nimble Tigra jukes aside. She jigs in a circle as the monster swings haymakers that miss. Her eyes glow with seeming glee while his eyes burn with growing rage. You see, within, Tigra knows that she is just the cat toy decoy while another (perhaps) abler Avenger arrives.
U.S. Agent air-drops from the fulgurating firmament last. The Quinjet streaks east—toward Zzzax. The super-soldier lands aside Hulk, splashing the fudgy, flooding field. The Captain raises his shield. Extraordinarily quick, the engine of destruction solidly strikes the shield sending surprised, sprawled Agent skidding backward.
Sometimes, ample adrenaline makes one awfully alert and quick. It can even make an oppy ox quick enough to seize the Cat (distracted by Agent's dilemma) with one huge hand and to snatch an ambushing Eagle (returning to rush from the rear) with the other. Hulk hefts the two hostages, hunkers down, and hurdles the far-off stadium wall in a single bound. Hard, heavy heels impact the asphalt expanse southwest of the stadium. Hulk hurls the heroine across the parking lot so heartily that Tigra totals a truck, tuckering her instantly. The stunned Cat falls to all fours.
Indomitable Eagle—with all of his oomph-undoes Hulk's grip at the thumb and falls rearward onto the asphalt. The Jade Giant towers over him ominously enraged. The tempest roars and tosses torrents over them both. Unafraid, American Eagle rises. He soars high to scissorlock the seething savage—encircling his hals. Strongbow's puissant punches successively successfully pummel Hulk—spraying viscous slobber. Howling Hulk launches a heavy haymaker—just as Eagle slips off. And, the great galoot hits his own head! Below, the aquiline assailant buffets the body before him, hoping to hurt and hamper the huge threat.
Looping his prodigious limb, Hulk simply hammers the warrior hard upon the crown. Eagle crumples slightly beneath the crushing blow. Arcing his arm the other way, the Incredible One uppercuts the little Navajo eighty feet straight up. Cocking the same fist, the cross creature prepares to clobber the returning pest like a volleyball. Hulk violently bops his intrepid attacker away.
Tigra comes charging in, but Hulk pops her off too. She sails somersaulting skyward.
In the vicinity, Tigra and American Eagle thump Tucker Boulevard and—tumbling forcefully—bump into each other. Hard hail begins hitting them, adding insult to any injury. Over the din, Tigra declares, "The Hulk is tough."
Groaning, Greer plants her feet and plucks Jason from the pavement. The inundated road wets the two to their ankles despite the raised boulevard having grates gushing water away. From the overpass, Jason views the area from whence they just came. Through the pelting precip, his sharp gaze peers for their opponent Hulk. Undoubtedly, he approaches again soon.
Greer's gaze assesses their immediate surroundings. High lamp posts shimmer in the thick torrents and shake in the wind. Gales spin both garbage and receptacles along the street, and lightning gives obscured skyscrapers a ghostly glow. The Green Goliath's looming bellow echoes off of the landscape.
All around, automobiles have stopped in the storm, and the werewoman worries about civilians in harm's way once Hulk arrives. On I-64 overhead, evening commuters sit like endangered ducks in a row. On Gratiot Street below Tucker, cars are fixed and stalled in flash flood waters—their horns short-circuiting, their engines dead, their interiors filling, their occupants abandoning them. Then, there is the troublesome traffic on Tucker. A single stranded Roxxon gas tanker straddles the boulevard. A trepidatious teamster stands by an open door. He has been waiting out the thunderboomer. But now, he surveys of the cats and eagles that the sky is raining. One looks like a werewolf, a woman one. And, the other is some dude who just dropped from the heavens and got up utterly unhurt! Agog, Joe Don Mahoney is a trucker who makes tracks through the pounding, ponding precipitation. Oddly enough, he survived a vampire attack back in '74 (see Dracula Lives #9), and the old boy ain't gettin' obliterated by monsters now!
As Joe Don flees, a full-size sedan arcs through the stormy, stygian sky whistling through the wicked winds that it cuts. Hulk heads the heroes and hauler's way.
Over east, away from the one battle, hail hits the Quinjet's canopy and fuselage. But, pilot Spider-Woman remains unrattled.
Julia Carpenter curves her craft's path to study Zzzax's turmoil. Madame Web witnesses the wreaked havoc to both the Mississippi's west and east banks, and she banks the plane to descend toward St. Louis. She hopes that the Living Dynamo has not spotted her. Gen Xer Julia would hate some Zzzax Zaxxon with the jet.
Through the storm, Spider-Woman has spotted Giant-Man keeping his head up high, abreast the Gateway Arch. The Quinjet descends to the duo of Hank and Doc. It hovers at Pym's high shoulder, and Carpenter pops the hatch so that Samson might jump in. The offered ride is probably more practical than the pair's other options of either helicopters or riverboats offering excursions from the Arch.
To the plane's pilot, Giant-Man's finger indicates enormous, iridescent Zzzax suspended over the Mississippi, "That's our adversary." Pym points-out the obvious.
Right on cue, Zzzax extends his extremities to the flickering firmament as though he be an intense, immense evil wizard about to do dark magic. And, sure enough, he is the conduit for nigh-cataclysmic forces. Astonishingly, Zzzax arrests the elements overhead and zygologically siphons seemingly the entire searing sky to his electric presence. In a zeptosecond, Zzzax absorbs nearly every occurring lightning strike for miles around. In dazzling zigzags, they zing to the Living Dynamo draining the cumulonimbus and awesomely accumulating their energies. The entity astoundingly expands across the view. His size surges precipitously until he stands from the Mississippi's surface to Missouri's sky.
"I would love to analyze the Zeeman effect of all that," Dr. Pym declares, making light of the Promethean Zzzax-zilla.
All at once, the colossal capacitor unleashes the inconceivable energy within him. Lightning's elemental fire strikes the Mississippi from surface to sediment like a MOAB bomb. The wide waters split briefly like the Red Sea before the godly. And, steaming roiled waves and fried, burst fish deluge the shores on either side of the channel. Scalding surf crashes past Giant-Man's big insulated legs and swamps the park's grass. It even replenishes South Pond with hot "soup".
Semi-stunned, Doc Samson prompts Dr. Pym (via radio), "We have fewer than four minutes to defeat that fiend, my friend."
Back at Busch Stadium, moments before, U.S. Agent aids wobbly Wasp. He helps her up. Then, he interrogates her! "How the hell did Giant-Man and Doc Samson join my operation?" John jerks soiled Jan to him, "Who authorized them?"
"I did of course," answers the mud-caked original Avenger.
"You compromised a covert operation!" Agent's eyes go wide.
"Ha! I have the carte blanche to do so, boy!" the middle-aged Marvel flicks muck, "I have been doing this since before the real Captain America left the ice and you were chasing the ice cream truck. Our operation needed some help."
Walker seethes, "It pisses me off to spot Giant-Man and Doc Samson from the Quinjet."
Wasp snickers, "Well, you are really going to be hysterical when you learn that another super may have transported Samson from Chicago. The Windy City's Captain Ultra might have brought him, or the Great Lakes' Doorman could have done the job too. Either could be in St. Louis."
"Now, that really angers me!" Agent expresses. U.S. ushers her back. He gets further in her face.
Wasp ably impresses him in turn. With great acumen, she shrinks herself from the scuzzy sediment enveloping her. And, the saturated slop slimes advancing Agent instead. He shakes and scowls. The Winsome Wasp flutters before his flummoxed, filthy features like a mischievous fairy.
Jan adjures, "Agent, we need to go be Avengers. Creatures on the loose currently sack St. Louis. They endanger our allies and everybody around."
"I suppose that we could support our allies and fellow citizens," the Captain swipes stains from his costume washing in the raging rain, "Besides, Tigra just met American Eagle on the flight in, and she has grown to like him. I would hate for a man and woman's mutual affection not to prosper." Wasp poo-poos, and she coolly propels herself for Hulk's path.
Back by the river, Giant-Man runs along N. 1st Street. To his right, Zzzax stands atop Eads Bridge, an antiquated rail span. The enervated abomination is now "only" eleven-yards-tall, but he belligerently beckons all foes. Curiously, Hank flees away from the twenty-foot frenzied threat. For his plan to work, Pym must reach the newer I-70 bridge to the north.
Thus, to the south, the Quinjet speedily approaches Zzzax on autopilot. Stalwart Spider-Woman and Doc Samson stand on the soaring craft's starboard wing as they prepare to execute the Avengers' ploy.
Planting her feet, Julia pokes Leonard, "Incorporeal foes are tricky to fight. I pray that our tactic works."
Setting his frame, the strongman acknowledges, "Amen to all that."
Spider-Woman springs a psychic web very wide. Samson and she spread the net. The Quinjet zooms downward, and the heroes zero on Zzzax. The shimmering seine wraps Zzzax. Spider-Woman and Doc Samson wrap their hands in the psychic skein and hold on tight. The trap goes taut! Zzzax zips off the Eads expanse before he knows what hit him, and the monster meets the Martin Luther King Bridge a mere moment later. The galvanic gargantuan grumbles.
But, Zzzax isn't zonked for long. In zero time, the ionized oddity senses an opportunity for escape. Through the weave, Zzzax points a finger eastward. In a blink, the sentient static's index connects to the electric towers on Bloody Island, East St. Louis, Illinois. They could make a potential difference. The Living Dynamo grabs the grid, and the high-voltage spires pull his utterly pliable person from the web.
At the I-70 bridge, the heroes are shocked to find zilch instead of zaftig Zzzax in their net. Reacting, Spider-Woman scrambles to retake the cockpit and correct her conveyance's course. Doc Samson doesn't wait for course correction. His bounding form beelines through the air, and he engages Zzzax in a junkyard adjacent the power station. Sans hesitation, Samson seizes a smashed sedan and zestfully splits Zzzax with an ersatz zax ax. The bizarre bisected being reforms immediately. The hero hits Zzzax with a wrecked Zamboni, but the Zelig adjusts. Doc zings zinc scrap, brass brash, to disrupt the surging, sizzling sucker stomping forth. But, the Living Dynamo simply stops and zaps zealous Samson unreservedly.
"Catch zzzome zzzeez," Zzzax instructs, "You'll be a zzzombie onzzze I guzzzle your mind into mine."
"Not if I re-zort to zending you into the Missizzip," Doc mocks.
A marvel's fist hammers the earth so hard as to quake it. The thunderous tremor tosses the toplofty titan like a trinket. Momentarily, Zzzax disperses amidst the dip's depths. The zone's zoology-zebra mussels and mud cats—witness his fall.
Spider-Woman returns. Julia radios Hank, "Zzzax isn't nixed yet, and we know it. What now?"
"I appreciate your zetetic aesthetic. You ask a good question," Pym pulls at his chin, "You can continue to follow my cagey plan."
"Gee thanks," Arachne rolls her eyes. The plan seems to have fallen apart.
Giant-Man continues, "Please get Zzzax onto the Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge in exactly one hundred and sixty seconds. I am already there." Pym listens to the tornado sirens and whipping winds, and he smiles. His calculations seem correct.
Then, the unexpected occurs. A piece from I-70, spectacular streams shoot like lightning from the wide, rainy channel. They lick the gloom. The Living Dynamo manifests once more—more than a quarter-mile from Musial's monument.
"Jumping Jehoshaphat! He's over there!" Giant-Man jolts.
An angry Zzzax rises from the agitated aqua like an eerie zeppelin in the inclement zephyr. The ersatz Zeus retakes a zenith between Illinois and Missouri. And, he malevolently eyes both banks. How might a maniacal monster blow more America off the map? To his right, a sweeping lumberyard sits between several blocks of St. Louis. To his left, a grand grain elevator stands in Fairmont City, Illinois.
"Aye yi yi," Pym pronounces upon spotting the immense silo. Smiling headily, MODOK's mischief-maker aims in both directions. The evil entity unleashes. And, Giant-Man can only gawk, unable to effectively act.
But, Spider-Woman saves the day. With perfect timing, Carpenter and the Quinjet intercept the eastward bolt bound for the grain elevator. Unbridled electricity seizes the airship, and the controls seize-up in turn. The plane crashes across saturated crud with a thud, and the thump sends a bump up Spider-Woman's tailbone. Then, the ship's systems promptly reboot—or at least begin to.
Across the Mississippi, cruel current combusts acres of cords of wood. Then, wicked wattage explodes the sawdust under the ignited acres of lumber. Flaming debris bombards businesses along Broadway in Old North St. Louis, and burning ballistics barrage Old Man River. With a running start, the mighty Doc Samson leaps from East St. Louis, over the river waters, and into the wide fire. He rushes to search and rescue any endangered innocents in the inferno, under a downpour, at risk of lightning strike, also negotiating flash flooding. Canvassing the concrete jungle, Samson radios Pym.
"Hank, Julia and I cannot help you right now. That rutilant wretch removed us from the board, so to speak," Leonard states, "So, Zzzax has you in a zugzwang, an undesirable position in which. . . . ."
"In which one chess player forces the other to make a likely fatal move," one genius completes the other's thought.
"Yeah," Samson says.
"Fine," Pym stands erect, "I've got this. This is a job for Giant-Man."
Boldly, the Avenger raises his fists and stares-down suspended Zzzax. The Living Dynamo looks right back—but seems a little zoned. The monster mumbles to himself at the maw, and his head twitches on his shoulders. At his sides, his arms hang slack. And, stray voltage lazily leaves him.
Suddenly, the rain slackens significantly. The squalling wind ceases briefly, and atmospheric pressure painfully plummets. The super-scientist glances south. Sure enough, he spots the funnel cloud falling over the Mississippi. It frenetically whips 'round and 'round as it rumbles forward like a freight train. Huge hail replaces the rain and noisily pelts the interstate's pavement.
Between the bridge pylons, strapping Pym pounds the suspension cables. They produce ringing sound. "Jamming-out", Giant-Man plays them like a xylophone for Zzzax. Great approaching gusts help reverberate the steely cords.
Large lungs shout, "Hey, Shock-a-Zulu! Come get me! I'll beat you soundly!" Surprisingly, the Avenger seemingly wants scary Zzzax to charge-up and charge him.
Over yon, the psionically-charged electromagnetic field with humanoid form snaps to. Curtly, Zzzax comments, "Sure, sir, I'll come on over!"—while bizarrely sounding like Tommy Shepherd. With speed, Zzzax whizzes for the lone hero—while a whopping waterspout whips jetsam hard at his back. Titan and tornado converge upon Giant-Man. Amidst the hubbub, Hank hopes that his witty ruse works.