Chapter 2: Means and Ends
"Who did we just kill?" asks M'Baku casually.
The Grim Reaper narrates, "Many decades ago, Laslo Pevely crashed his roadster off the road one rainy night. He was discovered by mad scientist Dr. John Storm."
"John Storm? Any relation to the Human Torch?" Nekra inquires.
"I don't f***ing know. Could be his grandfather. Could be nobody. Could be a monkey's uncle," Reaper rejoins.
"Oh," Nekra replies.
Eric Williams continues, "Anyway, Dr. Storm transfused the accident victim with a serum derived from the brain of a mad dog."
"Did Pevely have powers like Mad-Dog, the Hellcat foil?" Man-Ape interrupts.
"I don't f***ing know," Eric snaps, "He sort of did. The Terror had enhanced strength, speed, stamina, and reflexes, and he kind of had the mad-dog disposition to match."
"Oh? How's that?" M'Baku inquires.
"Well, Pevely became a Terror to the hoodlums and Nazis of the time, and he tore them apart like a beast. Sometimes, he slaughtered them. Sometimes, he left them alive but mangled," Grim Reaper answers.
"Terror had one exploit in the modern era, did he not?" Nekra interjects.
Reaper readies to reply.
M'Baku obtrudes, "Yeah, before his departure, Pevely mentioned She-Hulk and Howard the Duck."
"Yes! Laslo mentioned a Watcher as well!" Eric blurts back at both.
Curtly, he continues, "A cosmic crisis occurred, and an atypical socially-active Watcher called the Critic recruited forces to combat this 'Cosmic Squish' disaster." Grim Reaper has but one hand, and he does his air-quotes with but it. Mean-spirited M'Baku and Nekra giggle at his disability.
Lethal leader continues some more, "The Critic came upon Pevely convalescing in Mystic Meadows nursing home. Together, they battled a 'Band of the Bland' causing the crisis [see Sensational She-Hulk #15-17]."
Nekra is further amused, "The Band of the Bland are Howard the Duck foes!"
"Yes. How did you know that?" Reaper wonders.
"Well, Floyd Mangles—a.k.a. Dr. Angst—did time at the same Masschusetts prison that I once did. Dr. Angst leads the Band of the Bland," Nekra recounts, "He and I chatted at a prison dance while enjoying the mighty liberal Bay State penal arrangements."
"I hope that you did not enjoy the penal arrangements too much," says envious Eric to his Nekra.
M'Baku whacks Williams' back. M'Baku kids, "Oh, don't be so grim, Reaper. Angst and Nekra could not have gotten serious. Howard the Duck's rogues are generally silly situations living in silly situations."
"Says the man in the gorilla costume," Eric thinks to himself.
The Lethal leader replies aloud, "Tell that to Band member Sitting Bullseye. Terror tore into him something good. After the first aid, Sitting Bullseye looked like a teepeed tree."
M'Baku guffaws in Eric's face, "There's a 'super' villain dubbed Sitting Bullseye?! Ah s***! I did not know that s***! Haw-haw-haw!"
The terrible trio has reached at the van in which the fourth Lethal Legion member guards the blood booty for their witching-hour work. Within, Black Talon startles when the van's aft squeaks open abruptly. It is only the Grim Reaper who has snuck-up on him. The spook stands silhouetted in the eerie illumination of the moon.
"Samuel Barone," the Grim Reaper calls Black Talon's name, "It is time for our just rewards." The scythe-wielder points to the ill-gotten gains.
The low pallet of greenbacks is a great and odd mix of denominations. Both Ben Franklin and U.S. Grant look back at the Lethal Legion, and both Washington and Hamilton do too. And, if one inspected them, the bills are from a variety of decades, and the "dead presidents" are in a variety of conditions.
"Can you believe this s***? The money is as old as the men f***ing on it," quips Nekra cutely.
"Yeah, that money is in fugly," Talon assesses aesthetics, "But, it is beautifully mixed and, therefore, untraceable."
"Who the f*** hired you, Eric?" M'Baku inquires, "A kid with a really large piggy bank?"
"Our benefactor is much older than a child," Grim Reaper informs, "But, you guys do not need to know his exact identity. Having commissioned a murder, he wishes to remain somewhat anonymous."
"You can't hide secrets from us," the wily Wakandan winks, "I thought that the Lethal Legion was a team."
"We are," Grim Reaper pats the pallet of payment, "That is why I included you in this job. The solicitor to murder only hired me, but I wanted to include my partners-in-crime."
"Why?" Samuel asks, "Were you worried that the old Terror might terrorize you?" Black Talon has seen the dead come to life before.
Reaper shakes his head, "Nah. It's just that I'm undead. I don't eat or do a lot of other s***. I wander the Earth like the damned except when I find a hidey-hole to chill in for a while. A dead man does not use much money. You might be surprised."
"Zombies do lead simple lives," the voodoo priest notes grinning.
"However, zombies' houngans needn't be so austere, so let us cut this money four ways before going our separate ways," Grim Reaper directs.
"That is fine by me," M'Baku cuts before his director, "I am best able to carry five hundred pounds, a quarter of these bills."
"I have incredible strength too when I get angry enough," Nekra reminds M'Baku of her similar might.
The big man pats her head patronizingly without a word.
"And, I am getting mad enough to do so," Nekra snarls.
Having rattled Nekra, smiling M'Baku silently rattles loose an aluminum tote from a pile in the van. His huge hands and arms scoop money into the big box. Then, the murderous marauder, who recently slew an old man, hefts the booty upon his big shoulder, and he strides up the shore to some illicit vessel hidden in the ebon early morn.
Grim Reaper informs Black Talon, "You need not drive our Wakandan friend to the airport. Black Panther's security ever tracks him, especially at airports. Man-Ape prefers to leave Connecticut by boat. Fortunately, a Masons Island Yacht Club member has agreed to some late-night sailing."
"Which member?" Nekra is nosy. Perhaps, a good bad guy is a snoop.
"I don't know, and I don't want to know," Eric Williams states, "We 'supervillains' work in the shadows. I don't need to know everything about everyone's plans. For example, I don't know where Black Talon and you now flee to, and you don't know where I head. By not knowing, no one gives up squat in possible SHIELD interrogation later."
Nekra kisses her beau's cheek, "You may know where I am going, dear. I go to Staten Island before fleeing to the Florida Keys. Meet me in Key West soon. From there, we can fly to Haiti and live like kings. Haiti has only one superhero."
Black Talon warns, "That lone hero is Brother Voodoo, a better practitioner of voodoo than you two. He is even a former Sorcerer Supreme of all of Earth."
Grim Reaper ignores Black Talon. Eric returns Nekra's kiss. His caressing hand guides her to the van back, "Please take my gift to you. You did a lovely job of fooling Laslo Pevely, kidnapping him, and delivering the old fellow to his unnatural death."
"Why thank you," Nekra takes a tote and crams it with cash. Without, the murderess beams at her beau while her heart swells within. She is giddy while greedily getting the gift that wrath won her.
The girl beseeches her boy, "I want to see you off, honey. How are you escaping?"
"I suppose that I could show you," Grim Reaper grants. Nekra's affection has affected Grim Reaper's grinchy heart.
Grim Reaper deposits deniro into a plastic bag lining the remaining steel crate. He wishes to waterproof the precious paper.
Of course, the scary supervillain has only but one hand. One hand is an armament. So, Nekra assists her man in packing his plunder. The femme fatale's bare foot plays along his calf as they collaborate.
Looking on, Black Talon grows impatient, "Hurry up, you two. I need to get the chalky cheri to Kingpin's Staten Island airstrip soon so that I can get the hell out of the New York metro myself."
"Do you wish to beat morning rush hour too?" Grim Reaper jokes.
Nervous Sam Barone shakes his head, "Yeah sure, that too."
The chicken villain in the rooster mask runs to New Orleans after this New York job, and he wants to get home at some point. Like M'Baku, Samuel Barone is a wanted man who cannot simply board a commercial flight. Thus, he need get his ass and van hightailing out of Fun City and onto I-95 toward Philadelphia. In the City of Brotherly Love, criminal colleagues can provide an inconspicuous car to continue southward. The van is on Connecticut surveillance.
Looking on, Black Talon watches Grim Reaper stride back down the pier to the edge. Nekra tramps with him. Then, Reaper drops into the water. Nekra watches the wraith walk along the bottom until the dark waters under the dead of night obscure her lover from her sight. Nekra sighs. Then, she sprints back to Black Talon and gets on with her getaway.
A piece northeast, M'Baku arrives at his escape craft too. He greets the boat captain, "Good morning, Minnie. Permission to come abroad?"
"Permission granted," Minerva Tuttle takes the known offender's hand as though to guide him. But, she instead lightly kisses his opisthenar. Big M'Baku gives the middle-aged woman an odd look.