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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 9:52:11 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 9:46:39 GMT -5
l1701e said:
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 9:42:49 GMT -5
Please take a moment and let us know what you thought of this classic issue from one of our sister sites!
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 8:08:48 GMT -5
Tony Stark has gone through a lot in his life, but the one thing he's always tried to do, is better himself. Well, after a life changing accident, billions of dollars, and a few years cooped away in his workshop, that's not changed. Tony Stark is about to return to the world, and he doesn't intend to return alone...Invincible Iron ManIssue One: "Human Plus; Part One: Mr Self Destruct"Written by Charles HoM with thanks to DrDread Cover by Craig Cermak Edited by Brian Burchette Thin fingers played across circuit boards, wiring, fiddling and changing configurations slowly, and with much thought. He was surrounded by machinery, soldering irons and strange machinery constructed by hand, from the base up. Everything in the workshop was made by him. He didn’t trust anyone else. His fingers slipped, catching a wire and pulling it out of place, and he cursed and spat and he kicked the worktop he was working at. He climbed out of his seat, and stumbled across the room, back to another worktop, with another similarly ruined piece of machinery sitting there waiting to be continued. He climbed back into his seat, grabbed a soldering iron, and continued to work on it. He mumbled things to himself: equations, poems, songs, little snippets of conversations he had once heard and couldn’t help but remember, but he concentrated on these pieces of metal before him, his thin fingers playing across circuit boards and wiring. Tony Stark murmured to himself, lost in thought. *** Despite his name sake, ‘Happy’ Hogan was not a cheerful man right now. He had been in charge of Stark Industries for a couple of years now, and he had been able to keep them afloat, but without Tony there by his side, every day had become a chore. The board had begrudgingly accepted his position as acting-CEO, as Stark had complete trust in him, but they couldn’t help but think that they were following the directions of an idiot; given Hogan’s past career as a pugilist. “You’re doing well, Hap,” reassured Pepper Potts, his long-time fiancée. She had been there with him every step of the way, and that reassured him some what. They were in a limo heading back to their apartment situated near Columbus Circle. Traffic was bad, as usual, and Happy, as usual, doubted himself. “Oh come on Pep, we both know the only reason I’m sitting at the head of the company desk is because Tone implanted an intelligence chip in my head with all his savvy. Stark Industries ain’t nothing without him in charge. We’re stagnating, especially since Tone explicitly said he don’t want us accepting any more weapons contracts. That was our biggest area of revenue, and now we’re settling for what? The scraps. I swear we’re losing billions from nothing, but losing billions from billions when you’re stagnating… Accounting says everything is on the up and up, but jus’ look at our--” Pepper kissed him softly on the lips, withdrew slowly, and then smiled. “We’ll head to the coast this weekend and check up on him, ok? We’ll see if we can’t coax him back. I know I wouldn’t mind having my fiancée all to myself for longer than the few hours between meetings.” She winked, and then took out her PDA. “You and the board have a meeting with Justin Hammer’s people to discuss the joint venture our companies will be undertaking tonight, and then tomorrow is now--” She pressed a button on her PDA, “Clear for us to head to the coast. I’ll order Quinjet Zero to be fuelled up and ready at JFK tomorrow, alright?” “Thanks Pep,” smiled Happy sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Thanks a lot.” “My pleasure, honey,” smiled Pepper. *** Tony Stark jerked up in the darkness, clambered out of bed, and stumbled across the room. He barely made two steps across the cold wooden floor before he keeled over and hit the deck hard. He clutched his chest, and writhed around, eventually ending up on his back, the pain shooting through his limbs and down his nerves. “Aahh! Oh God, oh, God, my… Oh, Jesus Christ, what’s… happened…?” His hands dabbed his chest, and they found a dirty bandage that covered his chest. It was wet with blood. “Mr Stark, you currently have a shard of your own munitions grinding its way through bone and muscle and into your heart. That is my prognosis.” Tony looked up, his eyes frantically searching for whoever just spoke. It was an elderly man; his voice was solemn and calm. “Who, who the… Argh, Jesus…” “I am Doctor Ho Yinsen. We have met before. You are dying. We are in enemy territory; held captive by terrorists. But this is not then. This is a dream. Wake up.” “Whaaa--” The room contorted and twisted, and then suddenly he blinked, and he was back in the workshop. “--tt?” Waking fever dream. Not good. The machines must be eating into memory tissue, the hippocampus spewing memories like a nightmare through his mind’s eye. He looked over to a computer that was situated across the room. He left his second workbench and headed over to it. He began typing manically. “Reprogram. Divert… Away. For now…” He watched as a syringe filled with blue liquid beside the computer, and then took it from its receptacle, and looked at his arm, track marks up and around his forearm. He stabbed the needle deep into his flesh, and plunged the liquid into his veins, and he let out a quite yelp as the contents of the vial went to work. “Stark,” barked the man, as he walked toward the dishevelled inventor, working away at his work bench. Tony couldn’t remember how he ended back at his stool, but his soldering iron was hot, and he working again. That was something. The man behind him removed the cigar from his mouth, and then continued, same barking tone, same anger at the edges of his voice. “You listening to me, Stark?” “Go away, busy, working, leave,” mumbled the man, his fingers red and raw from working. His long black hair was dirty and greasy, his beard long and unkempt, flecks of white hair present around his temples and chin. He wore goggles with red lenses, and his white tank top was covered in holes made from rogue sparks. “Work.” “Damn, Stark,” grunted the man, as he placed a hand on the busy worker’s shoulder, “you’re gone.” “Work!” shouted the man, as he flinched back. He looked around, and there was no one there. “Work. Finish this-- HUIRRHHK--” He clutched his chest suddenly, awkwardly, a grey metal cylinder visible through his tank top and seemingly melded with part of his chest. Flesh and metal intertwined. He clutches it, cries out for a moment, blue lights flashing in sequence around the edge of the cylinder, and then stares at the work in front of him. “God… Damn…” He looked over to the massive black doors that were on the far side of the workshop, and grit his teeth. “Come on, you son of a bitch, come on.” *** I can’t do this Pep, cancel the meeting with Hammer’s goons, we’re going up now. We can get to the coast in a couple of hours in the Quinjet.” Hogan removed his tie and jacket, and threw them onto his sofa. He looked at Pepper, who had a look of shock on her face. “I know this is a bad business decision, but the chip in my head doesn’t make me a floozy for this company, it makes me know what’s best, and right now, I don’t need a chip to say go see Tony. We’re going to see Tony.” Pepper looked at him, and her expression changed from shock to relief. “Took you long enough. The jet is fuelled; I was just waiting for you to get all the postulating out of your system. The limo did a lap of the block and is waiting outside. Let’s go.” “I love you, Pepper Potts,” Harry ‘Happy’ Hogan grinned, as he took her in his arms and kissed her. “And I love you, Happy,” she kissed him back, and then giggled. “Get your coat; we’ll be there in a few hours if you don’t get distracted.” Happy chuckled. “With you here, I can’t help myself.” *** “The boss says he has technology delivered here that makes no sense. And that, to the boss, means that Tony Stark is making weapons. And that his whole little complex is one big weapons lab waiting for some opportunistic so-and-so’s to come in and make a little mess and bring out some of the good stuff.” The man took a large, deadly looking device from his back, and flicked a switch on the side of it. There were four of them, wearing identical purple and black armour, though the one talking had a large black panel across his own chest, as if to signify his authority over the rest of his team. Their faces were obscured, though their lower jaws were uncovered, though just visible under the seam of the edges visible was a clear plastic mask, ready to cover the users face in case of gas attack. They were standing near the coast side of Tony Stark’s coastal hide away, and ready for business. He aimed the weapon at the wall, and grinned. “Alright, this little bad boy is going to take the molecules of the wall out of synch with each other, and we can walk right on through. Easy enough. Just walk in a straight line, and keep your eye on the prize. You don’t know what he’s got roaming the halls, alright?” “Yes, sir!” The man grinned. “Green light. Go.” He activated his weapon, and the wall began to shimmer. They ran through, weapons at the ready. *** The monitors revealed all that was transpiring outside of his workshop. He hadn’t slept in days. He’d been so busy, so frantic to get his work done, that the only time he slept was for twenty three minutes, and then he was back on the caffeine, working away, his mind awash with ideas and activity. He couldn’t trust his eyes. He wasn’t sure anything was real but the tools he held in his hands, and the things he worked on. His computer whistled under the pressure, and scans verified the fact that there were people making their way toward his sanctuary. “Progress,” he hissed at his computer, as it began to work over time. He took a pair of scissors from a work bench, and began to cut at his beard, the long hair flittering to the ground as he did so. He then pulled the rest of his hair in a ponytail, and cut that off too. He didn’t look good, but he was getting there. The computer buzzed alive, giving him the much needed answers he wanted. <<Nano-composite complete>> “The coolant?” <<Cooling process complete>> “Ok, ok, good, let’s get moving with the final stage.” He pulled off his tank top, revealing the machine built directly into his chest to keep him alive. “Power cells have been failing for too long, need an outside source to get it kick started again, begin release.” He looked at his arms, and then began to peel off a layer of fake epidermis. Beneath this layer of skin was another layer of flesh, and gold plugs that lead directly into his body. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing he had done to himself, but it was a necessary pain. “Come on, let’s get going with this.” He walked toward the black doors at the end of his workshop, and they opened without a touch or a word. He shuddered, a cold wind sweeping past him as they creaked open on automatic, and then stepped inside. He didn’t say a word, and then removed his trousers, and opened his arms wide. Wires began to run down from the ceiling, and he plugged them into the holes in his arms. “God. Damn.” <<Nano-sheath process ready: Continue?>> Tony tensed his muscles, his insides were already churning; readying himself from the eventual pain of what would come next. “God damn, son of a bitch, DO IT!” The machine began to work. Tony Stark began to scream. *** “What the hell was that?!” One of the team members gasped, the noise of Tony Stark’s screams sounding foreign and alien as they travelled through the air vents and were distributed above the interlopers heads. “What?” inquired the leader of the squad, his weapon ready. The group was twitchy. “What do you mean?” The other man was frantic. “You hear that, that noise?!” “Keep your head in the game, man; keep your head in the game.” The man didn’t shut up. He kept rambling, in a panic. “It’s like he’s torturing someone, somewhere in the complex! Jesus H--” The team leader’s weapon discharged silently. The panicking man fell down hard; his head no longer anywhere near his shoulders. “We keep moving. To the workshop.” *** Justin Hammer paced the room. He was angry. Brimming with anger; overflowing with anger. “That retarded little son of a bitch!” He slammed his fist into his desk. “He dares cancel on me? He’s lucky I don’t have him killed.” His secretary entered the office, and saw her boss in his current state. She back tracked, and then knocked on the door tentatively. “Sir?” “What?” “You ordered the satellites to track Mr Hogan? He boarded the Stark Enterprises private yet and is headed to Tony Stark’s last known location, his coastal retreat?” “The coastal retreat?” Hammer’s eyes open wide. “Ah. That could be interesting.” He smiled and then nodded at the woman who brought him this information. “Thank you, Laura.” “I’m Claire,” corrected the secretary without thinking. She bit her lip as her name left her mouth. Justin Hammer smiled and nodded again, just as before, comfortingly, understandingly, and then spat: “I really don’t give a damn, leave.” The entry to his office closed, and a man stepped out from a secret door near the window. The door opened, and a shimmering blue wall, like a vertical sea of water, was visible. A man stepped through this weird division, and shook his head. “Sir.” He wore a blue exo-skeleton, his face was horrifically scarred, and his teeth cracked messes. As he spoke, he spat, and he walked toward Hammer with intent. “Don’t you think it best to call off the Shimmer Men?” “Professor Sandhurst,” started Hammer, as he returned to his desk, “If Hogan is caught in our agents corporate raid of Stark’s property, caught, as in killed dead, then that is just an awful shame.” His lips formed a thin smile, his skin thin and wrinkled. “Yes, I would have preferred to bring him under our control with those nifty little devices you have created, but if he dies, well, it’ll be easier to take control of the board of directors and buy Stark Enterprises out from underneath them.” Sandhurst grinned. His crooked teeth made it look more like a snarl than a smile, but Hammer understood. “I look forward to using my slave-discs on them.” “Me too,” nodded Hammer. “Yes, it’s a shame we couldn’t get Hogan today, and if the Shimmer Men fail, we’ll try again some other time.” He looked around. “I have a meeting with Roxxon now, you know what that means. Head back to the lab through the tesseract veil, and we’ll talk later.” “Here.” Sandhurst paused for a minute, and then pressed a button on his gauntlet, and a small circular device rose out of his armour. He took this between his fingers, and placed it softly on Hammer’s desk. He then turned around, his costume roaring as his exo-skeleton powered back up, and he vanished through the door in the wall, the blue wall enveloping as he passed through it. Hammer looked at it, and then grinned. Claire knocked on the door of his office, and Hammer cleared his throat. “Yes?” She entered, and smiled. “Sir, Hugh Jones is here to see you.” “Lead him in, Claire, lead him in.” Hammer smiled his thin lips, and palmed the device. “I’ll see you soon, Hogan,” he whispered to himself. *** “The screams came from in there... the ambient audio scanners tell us that much,” noted one of the three armoured men working their way toward Tony Stark’s inner sanctum. “But the broad spectrum sensors can’t penetrate the walls--” The team leader pointed to the long stick thin device on one of his men’s backs. “Can we use the molecular destabilser on them?” “Too dense,” stated the other squad member. “That’s got to be some kind of adamantium weave, I don’t know, we’re not getting through that with this thing.” “Alright, then get to work with the explosives around the blast door. We’ll see if we can’t talk this out.” He cleared his throat, and found the vent that lead into the workshop. “Stark, we know you’re in there! We want your technology, it’s as clichéd as that! You come on out, hands out and open, and we won’t cripple you.” His fingers were crossed. There was no reply. Stark was busy. His body was smoking. Thin wisps of smoke rising out of his pores as his body somehow overheated and cooled at the same time. A thin gold sheath of protective layering was forming as this smoke dissipated. He knew that the friction of metal on his bare flesh would eventually skin him alive, and he had through that through. The sheath became his skin. He looked over to his work table, and then smiled. It was all coming together. His sheath had contact points all over it. The armour wound plug into his nervous system. He concentrated, and another chamber of his workshop popped open. There it was. He smiled. He actually smiled. No stray thoughts, no crazy things popping into his head. He was happy. The armour hissed as it came out of the coolant lock. He opened his arms, his body covered in the golden under sheath, and then the armour… Stepped forward. The front panelling opened up, and Tony turned, and stepped up on the tips of his toes as the armour stepped into him, and then with another hiss, and the whining of newly born joints and connections, it sealed up, him inside. “No reply, sir, do we trigger the explosives?” The leader nodded. “Do it.” The armour roared alive as the men triggered the explosives around the blast door that lead inside. Liquid semtex had been poured into the lock, the hinges, and caused the door to simply fall forward. The three men stormed inside, their weapons raised. “Holy mother of God.” “Servos working.” Tony was speaking to no one but himself, making notes on his armour out loud for himself (and internal recorders) to hear. He had yet to open up the speaker so those outside could her him. Iron Man threw one of the men across the room before he could blink. Tony Stark smiled within the armour. It was like a second skin. Like he could manipulate the armour’s movement as if he were wearing a shirt. “Fire your bastard weapons!” Energy rifles discharged and struck Iron Man on the chest. He stumbled back, more out of surprise than anything. “Energy absorbers working too. Great. Rerouting extra charge to magnetic projectors.” He opened up his hand, servos whirring, and a ball of blue energy flew out of his palm and struck one of the men on his chest, and he suddenly flew across the room, and collided with the wall. He didn’t move off it. The squad leader turned, and looked at his two teammates, beaten already. “Anti-magnetic plating was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.” “Who the hell are you?” “I’m Iron Man.” Tony grinned. Then he realised no one else could hear him. He turned on the speakers with a thought. Everything ran on a whole new, near telepathic level. <I’m Mister Starks’ bodyguard. You can call me ‘Iron Man’; when you wake up.> “Sonofa--” The man swung round the molecular destabilser and Iron Man was already two steps ahead of him. He grabbed the long metal pole and spun it around, aiming it squarely at the squad leader’s head. He had his finger tight on the trigger, ready to fire. He stared at his reflection in Iron Man’s golden mask. <Pull that trigger and you may very well turn your skull into nothing but a cloud of molecules and your blood and muscle and brain will simply fall past your jaw line and rest comfortably in your neck. That will result in a very painful death. I promise you. I’m not threatening you, I’m not saying that will happen, but you’ve broken into this workshop, you’ve been the one who threatened my boss, and let me tell you, he doesn’t take very kindly to things like that. So if you’re feeling lucky, pull that trigger. You might catch my faceplate in the blast. But what’s that going to do?> “You… You…” <I’ll tell you what, mister. Nothing.> “This only works on inorganic material and non Stark origin metals, idiot. I should know because I…” Iron Man used the hesitation to his advantage. He crushed the rod, snapping it in two, separating the trigger from the barrel. Iron Man analysed the schematics of the technology with a glance, x-ray lasers making 3-d diagrams in his minds eye and being stored in the extra memory space he had been building in his brain. “My God.” He then proceeded to pick up the man. <Where’d you get this technology?> “S-screw you man!” Iron Man looked at him for a moment. <This is Stark Industries technology.> “I built this. I built this and put it in cold storage before I left. This is R&D trash… What the hell is going on here?” <Tony Stark designed this himself. Where’d you get this?> The man spat at Iron Man’s face plate. Tony mumbled something to himself. He then raised his palm to the man’s face. <Goodnight.> “Low frequency.” A repulsor beam shot out, and fired the man across the room and into the wall. He landed unconscious next to his team mate who was stuck to the wall, and near the knocked out third member. Tony nodded slowly, and looked at his hands. His armour shone, even in the dim light of the workshop. “I need to get back.” *** “Tony?” Pepper Potts and Harry Hogan wandered through the residential floors of the coastal retreat. The waves crashed on the cliffs outside, and they could hear the water fall back upon itself, and smell the salt in the air. “Tony, you there?” there was a certain twang of fear in Pepper’s voice. There was so much dust on everything. No one had lived here. No one could. “Happy, I think you should call--” “What the hell?” Happy opened a door, and found three men, tied, gagged, and in their underwear, on the ground, unconscious. On the other side of the room sat three suits of armour, one cracked in the chest plate, one with a dented mask, and another that looked relatively unharmed. “What the hell is going on?” “I wouldn’t bother with the police, Pepper. They’re already on their way, and they take their sweet time coming to the coast.” Tony Stark smiled, as he walked toward them, wearing a pair of black jeans and an open white dress shirt. Beneath that was a vest, and Hogan and Potts saw the familiar sight of the device that kept him alive buzzing away on his chest. “It’s been a long time.” Happy grinned, then took his friends hand and shook it vigorously. “What’s happened, Tone? What’s up with those guys?” “Let’s take this out of here. Give those burglars some privacy.” Tony winked and closed the door behind Pepper and Happy as they left the room. “I need to show you something.” “What is it Pepper? Are you ok? You’re sweating? And your hair… Your beard…” Tony waved his hand at her, dismissing her concerns. “I’ll shave later. Something big happened today. A major break-through.” “With what?” “Remember the stories I told you about my time in Iraq?” “How you built a suit of armour based on all your dreams to escape, I remember them, yeah,” nodded Harry. “We’ve got the suit sitting in Stark Enterprises reception area. What of it?” “Happy, I have spent my life building machines. I could build a computer in a week, from the circuit boards up, in a god damn week, and you know what I’ve spent the last few years doing? Building more armour. I started big, like the big, bastard machine that got me out of that terrorist camp and failed to save Yinsen. Great big suits of armour, big enough to protect me from the world; because you know what? I’m scared. I’m scared of getting hurt, I’m scared of dying, and in Iraq, in the Gulf, and I nearly died. Had a piece of metal get jammed in my chest so tight that if it comes out I will die in seconds… seconds. So I built a machine directly into my chest to make sure nothing nudges it in the wrong direction. Blood and wire all mixing together in my sternum, made with whatever rusting tools we… Ho Yinsen and I… could get our damned hands on. When I got back to America I refined it, I fixed it, made it better, but you know what, having a clean machine built into your heart by hand, under mild anaesthetic, is a teeny-tiny step up from having a dirty machine built into your heart by shaking hands, under no anaesthetic at all. But then… I started thinking smaller. On a smaller scale. If a big suit of armour could save me, what about a small one? And for a year I spent building tiny machines that would go beneath my skin and protect me from the inside out.” He took a breath, and looked around, a wild grin on his face. “Sorry, I forgot to breathe for a minute there.” He was leading down to the lower levels of his coastal retreat; to the workshop. Pepper Potts moved toward her former employer, a hand reaching out to him, another touching her mouth, fear running through her. “Tony, are you ok?” She had never seen him like this before. Even during after the accident when he himself was so scared, so afraid to step out his apartment… “The machines, I’ve been updating them every few weeks, they’ve been rewiring my thought processes and I go a bit schizophrenic every now and then, but the latest batch, it’s erased all the bad nannites, and replaced them, reprogrammed their computer cores and sent the final intelligence package into the reboot stage. My mind is now a computer, a machine built right into my brain to make the armour work by thought, a cortical interface, locked into the algorithms of the armour, Converting raw dreams and wishes into complex binary code--!” Happy stopped walking, and Pepper and Tony turned to him. “More armour? You actually built more armour?” Tony didn’t say anything for a minute. He stepped over the fallen blast door; the walls still singed, and held Pepper’s hand as she joined him. Happy followed shortly, and the duo was amazed at the site. The workshop was a mess of tools, metals, weird machines and other strange contraptions. Pieces of paper littered the walls, designs for armour variations, weapons, machines, everything. In the corner was a small cot, and Pepper yelped as she nearly slipped on a pile of hair. “Ignore that. The nannites protect my brain. The armour my body. And the chest plate is the battery. You put them together and you’ve got an Iron Man (I love that song, and it seems fitting). When I was in that terrorist camp with Doctor Ho Yinsen, we had little over a week to build something that could keep me alive.” He touches his chest, where the cylinder of metal was whirring alive, “And that machine was shoddy and nearly fell apart after I got to safety. Brief charge. But it kept me alive, and got me home, and that’s more than enough.” Happy took another look around the room, and then turned back to Tony. “Boss, you look… Ill.” “It’s the rush. God, it’s like I can hear everything at once. I’ve been regrowing body tissue after all that self-enforced malnutrition I put myself through over the past few years. It’s all a test! Human plus. The first Iron Man. God,” he shook his head, and then turned back to Happy. “Remember those ideas I bounced off you before I left? I’ve refined them. Remade them. Repulsor beams. Anti-grav panelling. Micro-munitions. Tiny, smart bombs. Contact lenses built to channel satellite footage! It’s all here! In me!” “That was all hypothetical though Tone, you, you said we didn’t have the time or the funding to do all that work, and…” happy paused. “You’ve been siphoning funds off Stark Enterprises haven’t you? That’s how you afforded all this.” “It’s all legal and above board, and I’ve been supplementing the withdrawals with cool, calculated, computer-like investments in whatever machinery that would bring in funds back in. I think you’ll find Happy, my dear friend, Stark Enterprises is about to be more productive than ever.” “What do you mean? How do you… What have…? How?” “Non-lethal munitions, producing early versions of everything I’ve refined in my Iron Man armour. Repulsor rifles, anti-gravity hull plating. Let’s just say I have an old family friend up in the sky who will be very interested in some of the leaps we’re making with science.” Happy fell silent. Tony just looked at him. “And what about those guys upstairs?” Pepper motioned above her head. “Shimmer Men. I downloaded their armour specs into my brain as soon as I saw them. Industrial terrorists. Hired, I assume, to steal whatever it was I’ve been working on for the past few years whilst I’ve been here. They didn’t know I was working on myself. I’m a living weapon. But somehow, my friends, they got their hands on old R&D technology we put into cold storage before I left. The military applications. How is that possible?” “I don’t know Tony, I’ll have to--” Tony interrupted. “We’ll have to check it back. I’m coming back. I’m coming back to Stark Enterprises. I’m coming back to New York.” Pepper smiled, “are you sure?” “I have to. I have to sort this out. I have to find out who’s been raiding our warehouses undetected, and I have to take Stark back to the top.” Happy nodded. “It’d be good to have you back Boss. But just… Just one thing…” “What’s that, Hap?” “Aren’t you going to show us the armour?” Tony Stark grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.” TO BE CONTINUED
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COMING SOON IN INVINCIBLE IRON MAN--! “I’m the technologist, I work with machines, I build things. Banner was the biologist, not wildly different schools, but different enough. When we had to opportunity to work together, to work on building a better human, to put it mildly, our theories were different. I wanted to use machines. It’s what I’m best at. He, on the other hand, wanted to use radiation. He said he had the raw materials available in the human body, and all he would have to do is change them. I didn’t laugh, I didn’t scoff, because I was going to build armour and unfortunately, I was sounding like the crazier of our little mad scientist duo. Sadly he got called away to work on some government project in New Mexico, but I filed away all our ideas in my head, all my armour designs and schematics, and I hoped that one day we’d be able to work together on something like that. Then there was the accident, my kidnapping, and I got back to America and I heard he’d died in a gamma radiation accident….”
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:47:55 GMT -5
l1701e said:
Brian said:
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:43:35 GMT -5
The HULK / INVINCIBLE IRON MAN crossover continues here!
HulkIssue 4: “Minus Human; Part Two: The Wretched” Written by Charles HoM Cover by Craig Cermak Edited by Aaron Martel “Blonsky, what the Hell are you doing?”
“This is it, isn’t it Banner? What you’ve been working on?”
“Y-yeah, I guess, but what… what are you doing with it?”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to be more, Bruce? Ever wanted to be free of all the constraints of society? This is that way out! You can be the next Captain America! We can both be!”
“It’s not tested, Emil. You… you don’t know what you’re doing…”
“I know enough. And I know enough that the top military brass wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have it ready for practical application.”
“Put it down, Blonsky!!”*** “DUHHHHHH!” Bruce Banner gasped, warm air filling his lungs. Everything was numb. Everything was a blur… but his memories still kept him company. ”Nahhhhhh… Nuuuahhhh…” That memory. So sharp. So razor sharp. Blonsky. Blonsky. “Naahhh… Hhh… Hhhuh…” “You’re awake.” Bruce looked up through a haze, a strange looking man before him smiling. “Guhhhh… Guhhhh…” “I’m sorry about the pain. It’s to be expected.” The man checked Bruce’s restraints. Everything was as it should be. “Good. Good.” Bruce was gasping for more of the humid air. He needed to breathe. His chest hurt. His lungs burned. He couldn’t feel his legs but everything above his waist was… needles. Needles of pain penetrating his nerves. “Whhuuuuuhhhh… What have you done…?” “Look down, Doctor Banner. Look at yourself.” The tone was mocking. That voice, so familiar… Bruce complied, and saw the first tube digging into his chest. His heart began to pick up. He looked down, and saw that there were tubes digging in all over his body, and inside them… red. “We’re harvesting the very beautiful bio-weapon that is in your blood,” the man sneered. Bruce tensed his muscles and clenched his fist. He gritted his teeth and begged for the release that would come as the adrenaline pumped through his veins. “Gaahhhh…!” Hulk. Hulk. Hulk.“Of course, you’re wondering why you aren’t triggering the Hulk manifestation. It’s quite simple. The reservoir in your spine that you can’t really see because you can’t turn your head 360 degrees is preventing you from transforming. We pump out the blood and we pump in a cocktail of my own devising. Soon you’ll be a drugged-up sack of skin. But right now you’re a weapon that we can use. Blanco--” The strange man ushered another man behind him inside the room. The new man was all muscle, a tattoo of an Iron Cross on one arm and a swastika on the other. “--Blanco is a friend of mine. He hates everyone. Blacks. Jews. Gays. But he has a soft spot for green skinned folk, Doctor. And I offered him the opportunity to become one.” Blanco grinned. “Yuh. Yuh. You don’t know… what you’re doing…” Bruce sputtered. Blanco stepped forward, and slapped Bruce in the face. “Eyes down, you little bitch. I didn’t give you permission to talk.” The strange man said, “I do know what I’m doing, Banner. We all do. We always will. Now sleep, and let the world around you burn.” The man left, turning off the light as he went. “…Nuuuhhh.” Bruce remembered what the voice reminded him of. His father. *** The darkness welcomed Bruce with open arms, and soon he was in another place. A familiar place. The dreamscape that allowed Hulk and Banner to interact was fully formed. The Hulk was standing before his creator/captor, and he was angry. “Hulk trapped, Banner! Why is Hulk trapped?!”“I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t think straight…” “Let Hulk out, Banner. Let Hulk out now or Hulk smash Banner!”“You can’t smash me, Hulk! We’re one and the same. Two sides of the same coin. But the line is beginning to blur…” Bruce looked at the Hulk. The raging behemoth of destruction. “… I want you to come out. I do. So much. But… his drugs. I can’t let it happen, no matter how much I want it. I can’t trigger the change.” “Banner… want Hulk? Hulk free?”“Yes! We’re dying! We’ve been trapped and that madman is strip mining my--” Bruce paused. “He’s strip mining our body. If I die, you die, I think… I don’t know… I need you out. If you come out, we regenerate. My body is intact when you emerge. All the blood will be regenerated, muscles will grow back, oxygen starved lungs will be enriched. I need you to live.” He fell to his knees. “I need you so that I live.” *** The Leader began pulling at levers and typing into his makeshift computer. “This will hurt. This will hurt so very much. It’s going to be delicious.” Blanco was strapped to a table. Intravenous lines were in his arms, just beneath his tattoos, and he had a mouth guard in between his teeth. “Geeer on wid id.” “Hhh…” The Leader clutched at his enlarged temple, and nearly toppled to the ground. He steadied himself, and then looked on at Blanco, who had noticed. “Yes. Steel yourself, Blanco. This will be beautiful.” Blood began to pump as the Leader began the process. Banner’s blood hit the inside of Blanco’s veins and Blanco, if he were in the thinking mood, would say that it felt cold. Ice cold. But as he was currently strapped down to a table being pumped with the blood of a mutated son of a bitch, he wasn’t in the musing mood. “It’s simple, Blanco,” continued the Leader. “The transfusion will allow the unactivated Hulk cells to be immersed in your bloodstream. Then…” He clicked his fingers, and small, misshapen creatures emerged from the walls, carrying a massive device. “… Then this will activate them.” “Hhhhf. Wd is dat?” The device was attached to a rail above Blanco’s head, and hoisted up so it pointed down at him. The Leader explained, “Gamma radiation projector. It has much more finesse than a gamma bomb. If Banner was Hulk, Mk I, you’ll be Hulk, Mk 1000. He will be Arnold Schwarzenegger to your Robert Patrick.” “Radiation?!” “Yes. Goodnight.” VZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!The scream woke Bruce Banner up. He jolted awake with a start, and the scream continued. The scream triggered an influx of memory inside him. He drifted back into the darkness… *** “Stupid bastard!” The needle plunged into Bruce’s neck as Emil lunged for him and slipped. Banner looked up as the green chemical emptied out of the hypodermic. “E-Emil!” “You… You made me do that…” “I… God…” “Bastard!” Emil slammed a folder into Bruce’s face, and he fell backwards. “Stupid bastard! You used it all up!” “You… junkie… bastard…” Bruce stammered. “Big words, little man!” Emil kicked Bruce in the chest, sending him sprawling toward the door. “Here we go, here we go, more of the stuff. I’m going to be Captain America, Bruce, Captain Goddamn America!” Bruce pulled himself up. He tried to slow his heartbeat, tried to calm down, tried to slow the progress of the serum inside his veins, but he couldn’t… “Nuhhhh…” Emil pushed Bruce down again and headed out the door. Bruce could hear Emil start up his truck as he pulled himself up again. What could he do? What could he do? Fear filled him. He was full of a biological attack agent. In his veins was a weapon of mass destruction. He hadn’t yet performed trials! The top brass were here because they wanted to shut down the project! The gamma bomb took precedence! The gamma bomb… He looked over to the monitors that showed the testing grounds. The bomb wasn’t active yet. He’d have… what was he thinking? What… He ran over to the monitor that showed the boundaries of the bomb site. A red convertible had just crossed into the grounds. His heart raced. Someone was headed straight for the zero site! His heart raced and his blood was pumping. He had to hurry! *** “Rick…” Bruce groaned. “Wanting a friend, Banner?” Bruce opened his eyes and the Leader grinned. The lights were on bright but Banner’s eyes had adjusted, and he could see his captor fully now. His head was unnaturally enlarged, and his skin pigment… green? “Who’re… you?” “I’m the Leader. That’s my name now. My emancipation from the human race was thrust upon me, but I accept that now. I am part of the homo superior!” “You’re a mutant?” The Leader paused. “…No.” He cleared his throat. “Would you like to meet my friend Blanco again?” “Whuh… What?” “Blanco!” The ground quaked. The world shook. “He’s put on a bit of weight. Don’t mention that, though- he’ll get all angry.” The doorway to the room smashed open as a behemoth entered. He was almost as big as Leonard Samson had been, but instead of his flesh being green, he was albino, and the little skin he had left was stretched tightly over bulging muscles. “Hhhhhhhhrrr.” “He’s still a bit woozy from the procedure, but I thought you’d love to meet your ‘brother’, as it were.” “You’re… insane…” “Maybe. But at least I use my insanity for the forces of… science!” He turned to Blanco. “Now, you, go stretch your legs. One of my animates will lead you to the surface, and you can go try out your new abilities. How does that sound…?” Blanco grinned, flashing large, yellow teeth. “Sounds… worth… it…” “Good.” The Leader watched as Blanco left, and when he was out of ear shot, turned back to Bruce. “Won’t be long now, Banner. A normal man would have died by now, but you’re still regenerating cells, even in your default form. Isn’t that fascinating.” Bruce didn’t reply. His head hung limply down. “Banner? Nothing to say?” The Leader approached him slowly, and pushed his head back. “Well, Banner?” The Leader didn’t notice the subtle change in pigmentation in the thin scientist’s eyes. It was beneath him to notice such meaningless things. “I…” Bruce gathered his strength, and then spat in the Leader’s eye. “…I’m going to kill you.” *** “Hulk feels… tired…”“I think… we’re dying,” Bruce said. “Hulk will not die! Hulk strongest… one… there… Hulk is tired…”“You need to focus. We both need to focus. On anything…” “Anything…?”*** Bruce pushed the car to its limits. Everything was becoming sharper. The parked red convertible was just within his sights, and he had to get there before… why couldn’t he think straight? Why couldn’t he keep one thought in his head for longer than a few… push the car to its limits. “YOU! YOU!” Rick Jones unhooked his headphones from his ears, and looked confused. “What’s up, man?” “You idiot! You’re… hhhhhhgghh… you’re in danger!” Rick moved his hand to start his car up. “Yeah man, from you, it looks like… S’up?” “This is a testing site! A military testing site! Didn’t you see the signs?!” “Dude, we all know that the man puts that crap up to keep people penned in. You’re joking.” Banner leapt out of his car and pointed to the massive structure to their left. “Then what’s that?!” “Dunno. Why is it flashing?” “It’s a BOMB! We’ve got to… GHhhhh…” “You alright man?” “NO! WE’RE GOING TO DIE!” He grabbed Rick, and pulled him out of the car with inhuman strength. “Come ON…” “Where are we going..?” “The bunker! Just…” Sirens blared. <<GAMMA BOMB DESIGNATE ZERO POINT ONE: FIRING.>> “… Oh God.” He pushed Rick down into the bunker, and felt his blood pumping in his ears. He looked down at his hands, and could swear… they were growing? Rick looked up from the bunker. “Come on, man! Come on!” “Hhhh…” Bruce reeled back, his clothes beginning to tear, and then the gamma bomb exploded… Green light bathed him, and then everything went dark. *** “Oh. God,” Bruce said. “Hulk does not understand.”“It wasn’t the gamma radiation… You… you weren’t caused by the gamma radiation…” *** His muscles tensed. Blood began to pump inside him. Blood began to spontaneously form inside his bone marrow… his skin hardened. The tubes inside his chest were rejected violently, pushed out by newly forming body mass, and blood spilled out of the openings as they hit the ground. The spinal reservoir keeping him sedated was on the ground in seconds, and the damage from the rejection, a torn spinal cord, was quickly fixed as new nerves grew. “Hhh…” Bruce Banner screamed in defiance as the Hulk began to emerge. “Give… give… them… Hell…” His skin changed colour, his muscles multiplied again and again until he was stronger than anything, and then, as he stepped off the rack that helped him down, he stretched outwards. “Hulk… Will… SMASH!” *** The Leader wasn’t amused when the alarm blared. “Huh. Well. That’s interesting.” Security cameras flickered online, and then the green blood inside the Leader drained from his face. “Oh, lord.” The Hulk was free. He stepped toward the crumbled doorway that led into the main complex and then hesitated. The Hulk turned and looked at the camera. He pointed at it. That lingering look of defiance. And then in a blur, the entire underground complex shook as the Hulk leapt upwards. Higher and higher until… Air!The Hulk was free. He fought the urge to run, to be free, and instead turned. He felt something pulling at him. He took a step forward, and just in view was Blanco, holding something that glistened in the sunlight. Blanco. His enemy. Fueled by his own blood. The Hulk roared, and began to run. *** “…You… weren’t needed… but… it was… fun…” Blanco dropped the metallic, glistening man, and looked around. “The Leader… will… be pleased…” “HULK SMASH!” Blanco spun around too late, and his face was shattered by a blow from the raging Hulk. He pirouetted on the sand, and hit the ground hard. Hulk roared in anger, and pounded on his fallen adversary, fist meeting flesh and muscle, slamming down harder and harder. “Ggggghhh… Banner… No…” Blanco pleaded. “EYES DOWN!” Hulk punched him again “HULK DIDN’T GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO TALK!” He punched him again and again and again. “B-Bruce?” Another voice. Hulk screamed and pounded his own chest as he stood up from where he had been crouching, and then turned towards the voice. “Is… that you?” the metallic man asked. Hulk approached the man, who was encased in gold and red. “Who… is… tin man…?” “Oh God, Bruce, it’s me. It’s Tony Stark…” The man coughed blood. “Don’t you remember?” TO BE CONTINUED IN INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:30:58 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:22:20 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:18:53 GMT -5
Brian said:
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:15:44 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:13:55 GMT -5
HulkIssue Three: " Minus Human; Prologue" Written by Charles HoM Cover by Craig Cermak Edited by Aaron Martel “ Ssssss.” The ragged claw dug into the old, cracked sand, dragging itself toward the irradiated soil that surrounded Gamma Base. “ Sssss.” The ragged claw, pulling a ragged body, a ragged body bred for survival, a ragged body with an order fully in the front of its mind. “ Sssss.” The ragged body opened itself up, stretching its gullet open to reveal a sterile pouch of flesh, and tiny clawed hands reached out from inside the chest cavity. The hands scooped up the soil that had been dyed green with the blood of a monster, and then the body sealed up, and the ragged claws began to burrow, and head deep within the Earth, deeper and deeper, tiny black eyes bred exactly for this kind of work, until it reached the massive cavern of its master. “ Sssssss.” It crawled toward the massive stone throne in the centre of the darkened cavern, pulled itself up the side of the chair, and fell into the green hand of its master. “Ah, you have returned to me, my pretty little delight.” The master stood, and nearly fell over, but supported himself by holding onto the throne. “Oh, this will mean such more fun. So much more fodder for my experiments.” “ Ssssss,” replied the creature, before keeling over and dying. *** “I-idiot.” Bruce Banner gripped the bathroom sink tightly between thin fingers. “Stupid, s-stupid idiot.” He was shaking. He couldn’t control it. “What were you th-thinking?” He looked up at his reflection, gaunt and thin, but with more life in it than there had been for years. He let the monster loose. He lost all control. Any remote sign of anger, or any emotion at all, could trigger the change, but he had done just that, let the monster loose, and it had rampaged across the desert. How many people could have died? How many did? He thought back to the entire confrontation- the simple fact that he had faced Ross again, and this time… he didn’t shy away. Though the anger… the anger he felt… and the loss… He looked down at the sink full of water below him. The loss. His head began to throb. “No. Nnno.” His grip tightened on the sink, the porcelain began to crack. “Control, Bruce, control…” He released the edge of the sink, gritted his teeth, and then took a breath. “Good. Ok. Good.” He splashed his face with water. He looked up to his face again, and was met by the face of the monster, the face that tried to contain within his soul. “JESUS!” He fell backwards, slammed into the wall behind him, banging his head on the plaster. “Out. Out. Let me out. Let Hulk out.”His hand began to shake even more so than before. His veins throbbed green. Blood that wasn’t his own began to form. “Calm. A sea. A memory. Pull yourself into a state of tranquility. Remember. Rememberrrrrr.” He pulled himself out of the panic, out of the transformation. “God, oh God.” “OUT. OUT. LET ME OUT. LET HULK OUT. LET HULK OUT, PUNY BANNER.”He looked around. Where was that voice coming from? This mocking, incredulous tone? He touched his mouth. The words. The words were coming from him. “LET HULK OUT TO PLAY, BANNER! LET HULK OUT! LET HULK OUT NOW, BANNER! LET HULK OUT!” “Nuhno! YES! OUT! OUT!” His hands began to quake, his blood began to boil, his skin began to harden. Muscles began to form where muscles weren’t before, and before he knew what was happening, everything went black. *** Everything came into focus with a jolt of electricity. “GAHHH!” He jerked up in the middle of nowhere, torn, baggy trousers around his ankles, the bright sunlight blinding him momentarily. “No, no, NO!” He stood up, pulling the massively oversized purple jeans up toward his waist. He checked his pockets. Nothing. The motel room contained all his life on the road. What little money he had earned doing odd jobs, from stealing, was probably strewn across the room. And in his bathroom, where there wasn’t before, was most certainly a massive hole in the wall. “JESUS!” He stood up, shook his fists at the sky like some ham actor, and then looked around. Just within sight was a small trailer, DINER plastered across one side. “Uh.” He looked around again. Weird. He pulled up his trousers, and began to trudge toward it. The door to the diner wheezed open, the cold air produced by fans attached to the ceiling hitting Bruce’s bare chest and causing him to shiver, even though he had been outside in the sweltering heat moments before. He looked around at the assorted people inside. A shiver crept down his spine. It wasn’t from the cold air. “Eh, hello, is there a pay phone anywhere nearby?” The woman behind the counter smiled, completely ignoring the fact he was basically naked. “You can use ours, it’s down there.” She motioned to the end of the counter top, and Bruce smiled. “Thanks.” He went over to the phone, picked up the receiver, and heard only static. “I think your phone’s out.” “Oh,” she pouted. “It does that sometimes. It’ll kick back in soon. You want something to drink?” Bruce shuffled his hands inside his pockets, and looked up awkwardly. “Ah, I’m afraid I don’t have any money on me…” “Stag party?” “Excuse me?” The woman smiled. “Your friends drove you out to the desert and left you? Stag night, looks like.” “Ha. Yeah, kind of. I have this… friend… he enjoys doing things like this to me.” “Sounds like a fun friend to have.” “You don’t know the half of it.” “Well, I suppose the house could cover your expenses if…” Bruce looked at her quizzically. “If…?” “… You promise to come back and pay your tab…” She winked at him. He liked that. So many months he’d had no company but himself and his inner demons. Human contact relaxed him. Then terrified him. He was scared the beast would cling onto a stray neural burst, a stray piece of emotion, and erupt out of him. “I think… I could do that…” He smiled, and looked at the three other people sitting in the diner. One was reading a newspaper, trucker cap pulled over his face, sitting rigid in a booth far away from him in the corner. Another, a brick house of a man, was snoring near the door, and the third man was eating cherry pie and drinking a cup of coffee. “I’m Ann.” “Br--” He caught himself. “Robert. Nice to meet you.” “What can I get you?” Bruce looked around. “Water please, Ann.” There was something off about this place. This weird niggling feeling in the back of his head. “ Run. Run. Run. Run,” the voice in his head whispered behind his eyes. At least his mouth wasn’t being co-opted this time around. “Robert,” came a voice from behind him, the third man approaching him with a smile on his face. “That is your name, correct?” “Yes, and you are?” “Oh, my name is inconsequential, but you can call me Simon,” he winked. Bruce didn’t like that at all. The sense of wrongness was beginning to grow. “I was wondering if you knew where you were.” “A diner? In the middle of nowhere? Being… interrogated (if you don’t mind me saying) by a curious fellow going by the name of Simon?” Simon leaned in close. The first man, reading his newspaper, was now standing. The snoring from the second man had ceased. He too was standing. “You’re in the belly of the beast.” Bruce’s heart wasn’t racing. His blood wasn’t pumping. “Are you threatening me?” “Do you feel threatened?” Bruce didn’t. The world was… spinning. Tilting on its axis. “You don’t, do you?” “What… have you done… to me?” “Thank Ann. Mike, if you could?” Bruce was picked up roughly by the largest man, and flung over his shoulder. “We’re immune to each other’s powers, so we’re not feeling as lucid as you are. We’ve been hired by an old friend of yours.” “ RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN.” “Let me… go… Put me… dowwn. Pleassssse.” “No, Bruce. Yes, we know your name. We can’t put you down.” “He’ll comeeeee.” “The monster inside you is chained up. Don’t worry. That won’t last forever. That’s when the fun begins.” And then everything faded to black. *** Everything was electric. The air snapped him into cold focus. He looked around, the darkness surrounding him and clawing at his bare skin. He was in the middle of nowhere, nowhere he could name, and in the darkness, he could hear voices. “Who’s there?” “ PUNY BANNER!” Bruce fell back, the massive body of his alter ego slamming into the ground in front of him, snarling and thrashing about like a caged animal, the darkness playing around on the green-skinned monstrosity’s body like ants. “…This is impossible.” Bruce rubbed his eyes. “This really is impossible.” “ PUNY BANNER GOT HULK TRAPPED. HULK TRAPPED NOW. HULK TRAPPED WITH BANNER.” “Oh, God, we’re in my head. I’m in my head. I’m unconscious, and- and I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m a scientist, not a psychiatrist!” He looked about the darkness, the shadows going off in every direction, no end in sight. “Those… four people… caught me. Caught me completely unaware. Idiot! I’m an idiot.” “ PUNY—” “Let me THINK! That’s ALWAYS been your problem! You never let me think! Always with your fists, never with my head, and…” He looked around. “I have no idea what they’re doing to me. We’re trapped here together. It’s all so clear.” The Hulk rubbed its nose, and looked around. “ Trapped.” Bruce shook his head, desperation hitting him suddenly. “You need to get out of here. You need to get out of here else we’re going to be killed. They’re going to kill us.” “ Hrrm?” “GO. SAVE US.” “Mike, you got him?” another voice broke in. “Yeah, Simon, he’s…” Mike tapped Bruce on the back. Then Bruce was flung over Mike’s shoulder, the big man carrying the smaller scientist as they headed toward the desert. “He’s still out. This wasn’t so hard.” Ann rolled her eyes. “Not hard for you! I had to regulate the release of the sedative in such a way his body wouldn’t react and compensate to it! For some guy that’s housing a monster inside of him, they sure do share a ridiculously messed up biology…” “Heavy little bugger too, it’s like he’s put on a hundred pounds since… Oh, God…” Mike looked at Bruce’s fist as it tripled in size and collided hard with his face. He fell to the floor, and Bruce flipped on to his feet, and continued to grow in stature. “Try and TRAP Hulk?” “Jimmy, hit him with your gamma rays! It’ll--” Simon was hit straight in the fact by a ton of desert rock as it was torn up from the ground by the Hulk, who was now completely green, completely ready for battle. “HULK SMASH!” The green goliath threw himself at the man who was carrying him, who was busy tearing off a layer of what appeared to be flesh from his face, revealing a shining chrome finish underneath. “Yeah, you think? COME ON THEN!” The Hulk collided with the metal man, who battered his fists down on the emerald flesh of his enemy. The Hulk grabbed the man by his torso and threw him up in the air, before spinning around again, ready to face whatever threat was left for him. “Puny human!” “Not anymore,” came the reply of the man who was burning off the same flesh coloured skin as he began to power up. “Not human.” His hands began to blur as a blast of swarming green energy hit the Hulk square in the chest. The Hulk gnashed his teeth, spat and swore, and began to push forward, even as the bombardment of radiation burnt away layers of skin and muscle, only for them to be replaced again and again, his body adapting to all the conditions thrown against him. The man’s eyes widened. “Sister, help?” “On it, Jimmy!” Ann was suddenly a spinning vortex of gas. She threw up her immaterial hands and a gust of poisonous gas hit the Hulk. “This should put him out like a light--” The Hulk fell silent, and Simon pulled himself up, his own skin now flaking off like paper, revealing a gold and black body suit underneath. He too joined the bombardment, razor sharp blades of pure mental power joining the fray. “Put him in the ground!” The Hulk was nearly overwhelmed. The power of these individuals was monumental. Sand kicked up in his face, and yet he soldiered on. He was suddenly standing right in front of the lithest man, who was bombarding him with radioactive energy. A flick to the face put him out like a light. He grabbed the man by his ankle, and turned to the apparent leader of the group. “Uh, no--!” Simon was hit straight across the face with Jimmy, and they were on the ground in seconds. The Hulk finally turned his attention to Ann, who was still upping the ante with the chemical storm she was releasing into the air. “Come on! Come on! Fall, dammit!” Ann screamed. The Hulk shook his head slowly, and then released the lungful of air he had taken in before her attack directly at her, dissipating her completely, scattering her across the desert. The metal man climbed up next. “Y’think you’re… so damn strong…” He trudged slowly across the desert, fists balled up, heading straight for the Hulk. “… I’ll show you… strong…” “No need, Ironclad,” came another voice, and the Hulk turned to be confronted by a strange sight. “I’ll sort this problem out.” The man pulled up a weapon. “Thank General Ross for this, Banner.” The weapon fired, hitting the Hulk square in the chest, and energy wracked about his body, the discharge being absorbed into his every orifice. “The Gamma-Booster-DNA-Extrapolator-Ray-Blaster has so much potential. Not to kill, of course, but it can force the absorption of gamma radiation into subjects, and it can, of course, trigger the change in YOU, Banner.” Bruce Banner staggered about, suddenly human, suddenly weak. “Wh-who are you?” “Who am I, Banner? Who are you” He approached the weakened scientist, and grabbed him by the throat, scrawny fingers clawing at his jugular. “Are you man? Are you monster? Or are you neither? Are you something less than the sum of your parts? Less than human?” “Whh… Whhh…” “I am the Leader, Banner. I am your better. Goodnight.” He stabbed him in the neck with a hypodermic needle, and everything went black. TO BE CONTINUED
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:07:12 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:05:41 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 7:04:07 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 6:59:20 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 6:55:30 GMT -5
HulkIssue Two: “Pilgrimage; Part Two: The Wretched”Written by Charles HoM Cover by Craig Cermak Edited by Aaron Martel They whisper to me in the night. The monsters hiding in my DNA. They want release, and I can’t afford to give it to them. When they are unleashed, I am aware, somewhat, of what I am doing. Or what they are doing with my body. I know that with every transformation they take another step toward total control. Every time the beasts take control of me, they stay a bit longer. Every time the beasts take control of me, they become stronger. And I know that one day, I will no longer be able to be pulled back from the brink. They will be in control, and they will be unstoppable.*** The ground shook as the Hulk took the most powerful punch he had ever felt squarely on the jaw. Considering that this was the first punch that he had ever felt, let alone the first punch he had taken squarely on the jaw, it was quite a shock to him to feel green blood dribble and bubble around the edge of his mouth. His jaw was shattered. The Abomination howled a guttural howl and trudged forward as the Hulk staggered back. He looked around. His first instinct was to jump, to escape, but he knew that this creature in front of him could follow. He didn’t know how, but he felt it. In addition to the Abomination, suits of armour surrounded him. They were big. Nearly as big as him. He gritted his teeth as his jaw realigned and shards of bone were snapped back into place by new strands of muscle that were growing instantly. He pawed at his mouth, looked at the blood, and then cleared his throat. Spat the grunge out from inside him. The Abomination was making its way toward him, throwing the suits of armour out of the way as if they were nothing to him. He was an engine of destruction. Just. Like.Hulk.Hulk squatted down, muscles tightening, and then he leapt forward, smashing into the Abomination, and sending them hurtling through the Hulkbuster units. Metal tore and screamed, electricity sparked, and the Hulk roared, “UGLY MAN HURT HULK!” He slammed a fist into the Abomination’s face, and teeth cracked and scales ruptured. Ichor glistened out from beneath his flesh. Abomination snarled. He bared his teeth, each razor sharp fang darkened by the blood oozing out of him, and beads of the liquid dribbled down the Hulk’s fist. “UG LEE. HUR TT HKK.” *** General Ross watched as the carnage unfolded. He looked at the weapon in his hands, and then at the Hulkbusters standing in disarray. “Fall back.” It was but a whisper. He saw that three of the suits of armour were wrecked completely. Torn apart on impact by the Hulk and the Abomination creature that Len Samson had become because of him. The pilots must have been dead. Or injured. A voice buzzed in his ear; it was one of the pilots of the suits of armour. “Sir? Please, repeat your orders, sir!” General Ross collected all the machismo he could from his years of service. “Get your asses in gear and recover our injured, then make a beeline for the complex! We’ll wait until one of these creatures kills the other, and then we’ll move in and take on the winner!” *** Abomination slammed his head into the Hulk’s nose, and blood sprayed down as bones gave away. Hulk howled in pain. He’d never felt pain before today. He only had flickers of memory of human pain, human distress, all snatched from the consciousness that he shared with Bruce Banner. Banner. Banner. Hulk growled and caught the Abomination’s head in his hands. He jammed his two giant thumbs in the monster’s eyes, and latched the rest of his fingers around the beast’s head. He squeezed. The Abomination roared, and threw his fists up and drove them between the Hulk’s hands. He pushed. The Hulk pushed back. It was like a tug of war, and the more pain Abomination went through, the harder he pushed. Hulk had a single name repeating in his head. Banner. Banner. Banner. Puny man. Puny little Banner. Abomination roared, broke the Hulk’s grip, and then kicked upwards. He howled again, and pawed at his eye sockets. He looked up, through green stained vision, and saw the Hulk outraged at his sudden defiance. “RR?” “UGLY MAN PAY!” Hulk shoulder barged Abomination, swung his fist upward, and caught Abomination on the chin, sending him flying upwards. Hulk followed through by leaping up after the beast, and then hitting him again, his momentum throwing them both higher and higher with each blow. When his momentum was lost, Hulk grabbed the Abomination, held him in front of him, and then they fell back down to Earth together, and their sudden impact into the ground caused the ground to crack and shudder. Hulk rose up out of the smoke and rubble, grinning. “Ugly man bleed.” Abomination’s hand jutted out suddenly, grabbing Hulk by the throat, and then followed through using his other arm with an uppercut that sent the Hulk sprawling across the desert. He rose up, his broken bones cracking back into place with an insane echo. *** “Oh, this ghost will win my host, it's lingering-- In me, and around my neck, it taps on my head, while I'm asleep…”The bar was dimly lit, a thin layer of smoke sticking to the ceiling like a protective barrier against the rest of the world. Everyone was looking toward the small stage in the corner, where one man stood with his guitar, strumming away and singing with the voice of an angel. He had everyone’s attention. The spotlight was on him, and he just concentrated on giving his best. He couldn’t see anyone, those lights were so bright, but he knew they were there, so he gave his best. That’s all he could ever ask of himself, and that’s all anyone could ask of him. “--Memory's a secret handshake, shakes you with, speaks my language, cease, I cease to believe, you're gonna leave…”He took a breath, and the crowd breathed with him. His final strum, a moment of silence, and then the bar erupted in applause. He smiled, moved his hand in front of his eyes to block out the spotlight, and then removed his guitar. He made an awkward bow, and then stepped off the stage, and headed toward the bar. “That was a cool set, Ritchie,” nodded the bartender. “Drink?” “Sure, thanks mate.” He took the glass and downed the contents, and then nodded. “What I owe you?” “On the house. After a performance like that, eh…” The bartender smiled. “Same time next week?” “That’s what I signed up for.” Ritchie stood up, took his guitar from where he left it, and then exited the bar. The city streets were dimly lit, the streetlights flickering on and off. A thin layer of fog had settled on the ground since he had been performing, and he smiled. The air was crisp and cold and as it went inside him he felt alive. “Rick?” The name whispered out of the fog, and he spun around. He didn’t go by that name anymore. For two years, he’d been living with friends, not using any bank accounts, getting jobs he could get paid in cash for. Gigs mostly. Low scale. “Is that you, Rick?” “I think you got the wrong man,” he replied, speaking into the darkness. He picked up his pace. “We sniffed you out from the desert to the city, sniffed out the stench of him.” Rick Jones spun around, his guitar case raised as a weapon. “That has got to be the most menacing greeting anyone has ever used. Who the hell are you?” He sounded defiant but really he was scared. Because this was the reason he had ran. He was the reason the Hulk had been created. He was the reason an entire city had been brought to its knees. The fog began to move. Shift and shiver across the ground, pooling, away from Rick. He was shaking now. “We are his agents, Rick Jones, and we have been sent for you!” The fog shot straight at Rick, and fought its way into his lungs. He gagged and clawed at the mist, but his fingers passed through it pathetically. The fight was over before it had begun. He was unconscious, the oxygen pulled from his body with ease. *** General “Thunderbolt” Ross swung his fist as the Abomination did, and watched as the Hulk’s blood sprayed across the desert. Green, thick, disgusting blood, flying like a web of ichor across the hot baked sands. “Good God.” The scientists behind him, monitoring the fight with their own consoles and instruments, buzzed about each other. “(Is he losing mass?)” “(That massive radiation spike, what is that?)” “(Hulk’s adrenal release response is… dropping?)” “(Is… the Hulk losing color?)” “Sir!” shouted one of the scientists, “My God, sir!” He leapt up from his seat and hopped over to the General, and then pulled him over to his station. “Look at this!” “What am I looking at, Jenkins?” The man pointed to the lines on his computer screen. “There! We have a baseline of the Hulk effect, we recorded it when Banner was stung by the scorpion, and look at this! Normally, the longer a Hulk manifestation lasts, the stronger the Hulk gets, the more muscle mass he grows beneath his flesh!” He paused, and latticed his fingers. “We know that the more adrenaline that is released in the Hulk, the tighter his muscle strands become, and they grow instantaneously, a reaction to the outside force trying to damage the main entity. But now he’s getting SMALLER!” “What does this mean?” “That… ehh, what me and the lab rats have nicknamed ‘Abomination’, is sucking the radiation straight out of the Hulk’s body! The gamma spike that is part and parcel of the Hulk’s presence is lessening, and being sucked somehow into the Abomination!” “Oh, my--” *** The Hulk gasped for air. The Abomination towered over him, and was laughing to itself. “HR HR HR.” “Hulk… is… tired…” He looked at what used to be his big green hands. They were small. Green, still, but only because they were covered in his own blood. Beneath the blood layer was dull grey flesh. “This… bites…” He looked up, green eyes sparking with determination. “God… you’re… ugly…” He gritted his teeth, and then leapt straight at the Abomination, as hard and as fast as he could, and he only then realized that every time he came in contact with the Abomination’s hard, scaly body… it hurt. The Hulk grabbed the Abomination’s shoulders, flipped himself over the top of the monster, and then kicked back on the Abomination’s shoulder blades, pushing the stumbling Abomination to the ground, and sending the Hulk back toward Gamma Base. The gray Hulk sprinted toward the bunker, and as he did so, his body began to shrink. The closer he got to Gamma Base, the smaller and weaker he became, until he was naked, the stretched, torn denim jeans he was wearing left behind him somewhere. He was back to normal. He was Banner. He reached the blast doors. He banged blood caked fists against the hard metal. “ROSS! Let me in!” "Thunderbolt" Ross watched through the computer screen as Banner pounded on the doors. He watched and he thought. The Abomination was behind Banner, pulling its massive body mass off the ground. Angry. “Sir?” inquired one of the soldiers, asking a silent question that everyone else wanted to pose. Ross didn’t speak. He thought. Banner was dying. Weakening. He couldn’t maintain the Hulk manifestation, but was this due to the proximity of the transformed Samson? Or was it because two years of being irradiated and surviving eventually turns your cell structure to mud? “Open the blast doors,” he whispered. “Quickly.” The blast doors opened with a roar. Banner didn’t wait till they were fully open, rolling his naked body beneath the massive, meters-thick metal and getting to the other side as quickly as he could. As soon as he was inside, with guns trained on him instantly, he looked around. “Come on!” he shouted. Reverse them! If he gets in here we’re all dead!” Ross was still watching from the control room. “Do it.” The doors reversed their movement, and sealed shut, the Abomination trudging toward the entrance with a steely determination. “God damn.” Ross grabbed his jacket and headed toward the entrance. Banner was looking around frantically, rubbing his temples, shaking his head. As soon as General Ross was present he began talking. “Samson’s cells have been mutated so that he’s absorbing radiation! The Hulk was a deep food source but apparently not infinite, and soon he’ll be wanting to eat more and more. Len isn’t fighting for fighting’s sake, he’s hungry!” Thunderbolt looked at the small, naked man and grunted, “You’re under arrest, Banner.” “Yes, yes, I know, but we need to stop Len! You’ve not thought this through! Gamma Base is fueled by a nuclear reactor! Five of them, unless you’ve upgraded since two years ago, and then if you have we’re even more royally screwed than before!” “The cores are contained. Sealed up,” replied Ross, as he took a pair of handcuffs from one of the MPs beside him. He grabbed Banner and spun him around, slapping the cuffs onto one wrist and then about to proceed to the next. “And Len will fight his way into the base, head down to the basement, and destroy your containment rods and unleash a nuclear winter unlike anything the world has witnessed before! My God, Ross, are you so blind by your insane vendetta against me that you’ll screw over America and the world just for your satisfaction that I’m in chains?” Banner pulled his arm out of Ross’ grip, exhibiting a strength Ross hadn’t witnessed before. Banner didn’t stop. “What would Betty say, Ross? What would your daughter say?” Ross pulled his gun out before anyone could stop him. His hand moved so fast that Banner was on the floor before he realized it, as blood- red, human blood- trickled down Banner’s nose and out his mouth. “You. Do. Not. Speak. Her--” TOOM!Dark green fists pummeled the outside of Gamma Base. Rifles were spun from being trained on Banner to the blast door. Banner wiped his mouth with his wrist, his Hulk blood congealing with his human blood, and stood up. “You’re insane. But if you don’t let me help, the world will die. Simple as that.” TOOM!“Now take me to that stupid weapon you thought could take down the Hulk and let’s see what I can do to reverse this stupid mess you’ve made.” Banner and Ross were staring each other down, Ross chomping on his cigar, taking out his stress and anger on it, while Banner was simply looking the General straight in the eye. “And while you’re at it, General. I’d like some pants.” Ross snarled and then relented. “This way, Banner.” *** “Sonofabitch!” Rick Jones came round with a start, and thrashed about as he discovered he was chained to a cavern wall. “Son! Of! A! Bitch!” His wrists hurt, his shoulders ached and his head was a mess of broken glass and shrapnel, all being shaken about by every thought he had. But he was alive, and for that, he was thankful. “I hope one of you guys picked up my guitar! That was irreplaceable!” “H-Hello?” Another voice. Female, again, but this one was softer. He looked around the darkness. He couldn’t see anything. The voice called out, “Who’s there?” He felt he could trust her. “Umm, I’m Rick Jones? Do I know you?” The voice was weak. His heart broke with every word she was able to whisper. “Do you know my f-fiancé? Do you know Bruce?” Rick was surprised by this question, so surprised that his reply was more an ejaculation than an answer. “Banner?!” *** Bruce grabbed a white lab coat and pulled on the tracksuit bottoms he had been handed. “Right, so you obviously made a ridiculous weapon to kill me. I gathered that much. But something happened and you hit Len Samson, one of the few good men I know in this world.” He examined the weapon, looked it over, inside and out. “Let me guess… you modulated the energy burst to react to Hulk cells? Probably recovered them from the Oklahoma incident or something… umm. Right, and it hit Samson, and his body had to react as best it could so somehow his irradiated body somehow sucked in all the gamma radiation it could, and considering that radiation was two years ago and lingering about the desert for that long… Len absorbed tainted gamma radiation, and his body mutated into that ‘Abomination’ thing you’re calling it. And now it’s got a craving for radiation and Hulk gave it a real nice main course and it wants to take all that nuclear power down below as a dessert. Fun.” The lab technicians swarmed around him. They murmured in agreement. “What are you going to do, Banner?” Banner looked up at Ross, and heaved up the G-Cannon. “You boys and your toys…” KRAKATOOM!Banner looked up as the lights in the facility went out and everything went green. “What’s this?” Ross cleared his throat. “Hulk incursion.” “What?” repeated Banner, confused. “We designed those doors so nothing could get in, but we knew that the Hulk… Well, he gets stronger with each transformation. So… if something does get in… Hulk incursion.” “And everything goes GREEN? God, this’ll go to my head.” He looked to the corridor, and grimaced. Gun fire, rocket fire, and all around havoc was audible from the entrance to the complex. “It’s him. He’s in.” “What are you going to do, Banner?” asked Ross again. “I’ve reversed the polarity of the energy frequency, so hopefully, if we get in front of the Abomination and the nuclear core before he reaches it, we might have a chance to save the world.” Ross turned to the men and women gathered in the room. “Retreat back to GB2.” He pulled his radio from his belt and lifted it to his mouth and barked an order. “Retreat! Do not engage the intruder!” Banner looked at Ross, confused. “You and me, Banner, are you up for it?” Banner nodded. “Yeah.” The duo headed into the corridor, running past the men and women retreating in the opposite direction. Banner held the weapon tightly to his chest, not wanting it to be damaged or broken. As if it just occurred to him, Ross demanded, “Where have you been, Banner? You’ve been off the map for eighteen months- where have you been?” Banner looked back at Ross as they turned the corner. “I traveled a bit. I had some business in New York three months ago but I got out of there as soon as I could.” “Your cousin? You went to visit your cousin?” “No, General. If I had, I’m sure the men you have watching her would notice. I haven’t seen her for a good long time.” “So she claimed,” replied Ross, “But relatives cover for each other all the time.” “She’s a lawyer, General, she wouldn’t lie!” snapped Banner in mock shock. “And, besides--” He fell silent as he turned a corner. “--Oh God, now I know how everyone else feels.” The Abomination was right in front of them. As big as a brick house, and built as strong as one, too. He snarled, his long tongue flittering out and spitting saliva as he did so. “RRRRRRRR!” Banner brought up the weapon. It fizzed and bubbled, and a blast of green energy hit the Abomination squarely in the chest. The monster howled and thrashed about as the energy wrapped itself around the monster’s body, and then as the pressure was on, the monster began to stumble back, being driven toward the blast doors that had been torn open. Something began to be rejected from the creature’s body. Big clouds of radioactive mist began to seep out from his large, finned ears and huge, fanged mouth, his flared nostrils and scale-covered pores all seeping the overabundance of radioactivity inside him. Then he began to shrink, just as the Hulk had before. “ARRRRRRRGHHHHHH!” it screamed, the mouth shrinking, the fangs dissolving, the scales peeling off of its body like dead skin, the ears jutted back into the skull, and flaking back to the sides of its face. Len Samson fell to his knees, naked, his muscles still bulging, his formerly long blonde hair now emerald green and his body shaking. He looked up at Bruce, his eyes glassy and full of mist. “Huh. Huh. Huh.” Banner smiled, and lowered the weapon. “You alright, Len?” “Huh. Huh. Hurts.” Banner turned to the General, and the General nodded slowly. “Buh. Buh. Bruce… Yuh. You saved muh-me?” Samson sputtered. “It was a joint effort.” Banner put his wrists out for Ross, and Ross looked at them slowly. “Ross did the leg work. I did the heavy lifting. An odd reversal of old events.” “I guess,” whispered Len Samson. He looked around at the carnage, the mayhem he had caused. “Oh, God, this was me?” Ross was still looking at Banner’s wrists. “We couldn’t contain you, really, could we? You came here to give yourself up. Sit in a cell and just stay away from the world.” Ross took a deep breath. “You’re not a weapon, God dammit.” “General?” “Go, Bruce. Go.” Ross walked past Banner and went over to Len, who was changed in every way from his experience. “Come on Len, let’s get you to the medical bay. We may have a wait- everyone’s at GB2.” Len climbed to his feet. “You moved everyone to Gamma Base 2?! It was that bad?” “Yeah, Len, it was.” Ross turned to where Banner had stood, and saw the white lab coat on the floor. Bruce was gone. “He’s gone.” Len looked at Ross. “You did the right thing.” “Maybe. Or maybe I did the worst thing I could have done. Maybe I let him go because he thinks I trust him now. Maybe he’ll lie low for another two years, but I get a feeling he won’t. He’s going to try and contain what’s inside him. He’s going to fight it tooth and nail. And we’re not going to be lying down waiting for him to surface again. We’ve got baseline analysis of his transformations. We’ve got blood cells, skin scrapings, and we’ve got a weapon that can create something powerful enough to defeat him. And thanks to Doctor Banner, we have a weapon to take down that creation, too.” Len pulled himself away from Ross. “You’re a monster, General.” “My daughter is DEAD, Samson, because of what he became! And we couldn’t even recover a body, the damage to the city was that bad! He is everything I hate because he cost me the one thing I had left in this life! If I’m the monster, then I’m a necessary God-damn evil because the Hulk killed my daughter!” THE END...?
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 6:44:47 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 6:40:03 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 6:37:21 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 12, 2019 6:31:27 GMT -5
HulkIssue One: “ Pilgrimage; Part One: Anniversary.” Written by Charles HoM Cover by Craig Cermak Edited by Aaron Martel EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO: The two men surveying the damage wore yellow hard hats, and had clipboards in their hands. Buildings still smoked, rubble was strewn across the streets, and there was nothing but destruction all around them. They scribbled notes on their papers. “Major property damage, check.” The tallest man looked at his friend and tipped his hat up, so he could see his face. “You got the report on how many dead?” “No reported casualties yet, it’s just property damage. It’s insane.” He flicked through his papers, looking for notes and details. “Like a tornado ran through the streets and just… selectively destroyed.” “It wasn’t a tornado though, was it? I heard rumors that the Fantastic Four were here. Dunno if it’s true or anything, but wouldn’t that be cool? The FF in our neighborhood?” The second man hesitated before speaking. “S-So you think the rumors are true?” “Yeah. There’s a monster loose in America, and the press are calling it the ‘Hulk’.” THE PRESENT: The explosion wasn’t like a bomb going off. There was none of the BOOMing you’d expect from an explosion of its magnitude. It was more like a shrill cry, like a banshee’s wail, and it was all he heard when he closed his eyes to sleep. He remembered how it felt for his body to be caught in the glowing emerald blast. He remembered how it felt as his life changed so monumentally. He remembered it all… Right now. The wail screeched into his ears, and he himself screamed. Fever dream. Cold sweat covering his body. He tossed and he turned, flashes of memory filled his mind’s eye. They convalesced together, cascaded across his subconscious, colours and shapes, noises and sounds, screams and shouts. His limbs quivered. He couldn’t control himself. He jerked awake, and looked around. Bruce Banner groped for his glasses, placed them on his face, and ran a thin hand through his thick, brown hair. The motel room wasn’t the best, but with what little money he had on him, it was all he could afford. He climbed out of the bed, and staggered toward the bathroom, barely aware of his surroundings. He hadn’t eaten properly for days, living off granola bars and bottles of water. He couldn’t afford the expense. His stomach was a pit. He was half the man he had been before the accident; what little meat there was on his body was lithe muscle. He was gaunt, tired, and he had to keep moving. He’d be out of this place in less than an hour, and then he’d hitchhike down the country, like he had been for months now. He ran the cold water tap, removed his glasses, and submerged his face into the icy waters of the wash bowl. Clarity met him within a moment of the sharp pang of the cold. Memories flooded to him, as he floated there. Betty. Old “Thunderbolt” Ross. Len. Bruce himself, before the accident. The accident. It wasn’t an accident though, was it? Not an accident that made his body into the cage. The brittle human cage that housed an engine of destruction. He pulled himself out of the memories. Memories were all that held him together, like he was made of twigs, and those remembrances kept the wind at bay. Kept his cage together. If he lingered in them too long, he would break down. He couldn’t afford that. He looked at himself in the mirror and nearly staggered back. A flash of green, of rage, and a snarl like a caged animal. It couldn’t be, not now. But that’s what it was. He shook his head, looked back at the reflection and saw a tired, worn man. The beard that covered his face wasn’t for fashion, but to disguise him. He was a wanted man, after all. He was wanted by the government because he was their property. Because the “Gamma Bomb” experiment and all its results and findings were property of the good ol’ US of A. And it was legal, too. He had signed it over to get himself further funding. To get himself to the big kahuna. But look how that turned out. He scratched his beard, and then turned on the shower. He was close now. Closer than ever. GAMMA BASE: General “Thunderbolt” Ross stood before a single man in the briefing room, empty but for them, as he clicked through a slide show of destruction. He chewed on a cigar, blustering his way through a briefing. “This is all his doing.” Click. A photo of Bruce Banner, from when he first entered the G-Bomb program, flashed onto the projection screen. “Bruce Banner is a threat to all society. Instead of the gamma radiation released by the G-Bomb melting him down to primordial soup, like we had all expected it to, he became the ‘Hulk’.” Click. News headlines flashed onto the projection screen. 'Hulk?!' “A glorious name coined by the press. They glorified a weapon. A living weapon of mass destruction. After six months of activity Banner dropped off the map. It’s been two years close to the day since the G-Bomb went off. Two years close to the day when the ‘Hulk’ was created. Now tell me, Doctor Samson, how close are you to tracking him down?” Len Samson latticed his fingers and pressed them against him bottom lip, and then continued to stare at General Ross. “We’re close to the day now,” he whispered. SOMEWHERE IN NEW MEXICO: “Where you headed, mate?” asked the truck driver in a distinctly British accent. Bruce had been standing at the side of the road for about an hour before the truck had pulled over and picked him up. “A while down the highway,” replied Banner, as he kept looking forward. “Nothing on the highway apart from petrol stations and tumbleweed. This is New Mexico, not New York.” “I know that, but where I’m headed isn’t on any maps,” shrugged Banner. The truck driver went silent for a moment, and continued to drive down the sparse road. The desert was on either side of them, mountains visible in the distance. “You one of those conspiracy theorists? Looking for Area 51?” Banner looked at the driver and watched as he began to laugh to himself. “Not exactly.” He put out a hand, and the driver took it, keeping one hand on the wheel. “I’m David. Thanks for this. I didn’t think anyone would give me a ride.” “No worries. I’m Greg,” smiled the man. “I needed the company. Need someone to talk to. Where you from, Dave?” He paused again. “I can call you Dave, right?” “Sure. I’m from New York, got a cousin up there… not visited her for a couple of years now…” Greg nodded as he listened. “Long way from home, then.” “As are you, by your accent,” noted Banner. “Yeah, well, I love the road, and we don’t have enough roads back in the UK. I love the sand and the wind and the warm nights. We don’t have enough of them in the UK either. I got my green card as it were, and I’m here hauling cargo for a living. Me and the open road.” “I can relate. All I do is move nowadays. Not one day in the same place.” “And that’s how it should be!” exclaimed Greg. “We’re nomadic people by nature, but we’ve forgotten how it should be. We’ve been forced into towns and villages because we think we should be! We’re not cattle. We’ve got to keep moving.” Bruce thought this over for a moment, applying it to his own existence. He had driven himself away from towns because if he had an episode in a densely populated area, he could risk so much. So many lives. He kept moving, because that’s all he could do. Apart from one time, three months ago, when he returned to New York to leave a message for a close friend… he kept moving, because it’s all he could do. All the control he could exert. “Interesting hypothesis.” “Yeah, I thought so. I’m not eloquent enough, I guess, to get it out there how I want to. But we are travelers. So let’s travel. Don’t let anything hold us back.” “Sometimes you need that restraint,” whispered Banner, not thinking. “Sometimes you need something holding you back. Before you fall over the edge.” Greg chuckled. “We talking about the nomadic lifestyle of the new age traveler, or something else, Dave?” Banner turned to him. “Something else. Probably.” He turned back to the road, and arched an eyebrow. “We’re off road.” “Short cut,” said Greg, smiling. “To where?” A different knot tightened in Bruce’s chest. Not the knot that reminded of his lack of nutrition. Not the knot of sickness that he had been feeling for two years. The other feeling. The feeling of something writhing in his soul. Something rumbling, growing, begging, growling for release. GAMMA BASE: The scientist rubbed below his nose nervously, sniveling before his superior. “I think we have the answer, General. The first Hulkbuster device that is viable in its method of killing the Hulk.” “Banner. His name is Banner, not that Hulk bullcrap,” huffed Ross as he paced the lab. He paced a lot. He was an impatient man. “You have a weapon to kill a weapon? What you calling it?” The scientist looked excited at this question, and took a deep, calculated breath. “The Gamma-Booster-DNA-Extrapolator-Ray-Blaster.” “… Are you serious?” “Yes sir! Very, sir!” Ross looked at him disdainfully. “Alright, it’s the G-Cannon, and no arguments. I am not green lighting a weapon called the Gamma-Booster-DNA-extrapapa-whatever. G-Cannon.” Ross nodded slowly to himself. “G-Cannon. Very nice. We need that weapon ready for use within the next few hours. We don’t know when Banner will strike next.” Doctor Len Samson took a step forward, and shook his head. “General Ross, I object to this. Banner has not been active for eighteen months. Eighteen months since his rampage through Oklahoma. We don’t know where he’s been, or what he’s been doing, but from what we can tell, the Hulk has not been present for that time.” Ross blustered, chewing on his cigar with frightening intensity. “Banner destroyed Oklahoma City--” “And no one died! Yes, major property damage was incurred, but he is not a murderer!” “Someone died, Len. And you know that.” “Dammit, General, you don’t know that! You don’t know that was Bruce!” “Listen to me, Samson! Banner has the potential to be the most deadly weapon of mass destruction this world has ever seen, and I will not rest until he has been taken down! You know Banner? Well, I know this mutation of his, this Hulk freak he unleashes when he’s a bit upset, and it is a monster! A dumb, stupid monster with the power to destroy an entire city!” “We need to help him. We owe it to Bruce- we owe it to ourselves to help him.” Ross mumbled something to himself. “I’m sick of the threat looming over us. We created a monster, Banner and me. We did this. And we knew the risks, but we pressed on, and we lost so much to it.” “Promise me, General, that you’ll go with the sedatives first. Try and calm him down. The med-team has been working on something that could theoretically take down Banner, just as your weapon could theoretically kill him.” “Or they could just make him angrier,” noted the General. “General…” “Okay. Tranqs first, and if that fails...” He looked over to the G-Cannon. “...My favorite new toy.” SOMEWHERE IN NEW MEXICO: “Greg, not to sound like I’m terrified or anything, but if you could… hrrghh,” Bruce grabbed his chest, his heart pounding. “If you could explain to me where you’re going, I’d really appreciate it.” He looked up, and was met by the barrel of a gun. “Ah, that isn’t good.” “I like the desert. It’s quiet. Even when it’s dark, there’s some light. And those mountains. You could lose yourself in those mountains. Wonderful.” “You don’t want to do this, Greg, you really, hggg, you really don’t want to--” “Shut up,” snapped Greg. “Think. Come on Dave, it’s obvious what’s happening here. It’s survival of the fittest, and you’re a wee slip of a lad and I carry a rather large bowie knife. Survival of the fittest!” “Of the strongest…” mumbled Bruce, as he looked at Greg. He was no longer shaking, and a kind of serene clarity spread over his body and mind. “Strongest.” “Yeah, and out here,” grinned Greg, “I’m--” “--The strongest there is.” “Yeah, I, oh my God--” The truck careened across the desert. Metal tore and wrenched, screaming as the truck came to an abrupt stop. GAMMA BASE: Gamma Base was situated on the site of the fateful, long-ago G-Bomb testing. The radiation was still present, but it wasn’t harmful to humans, the gamma waves having dissipated across the desert and lingering just enough to make a Geiger counter go a bit sideways if turned on. Len Samson stood where the G-Bomb had originally been detonated, the concrete mount still intact, though visibly singed. “You were always a strange little man, Bruce.” Len Samson was a tall man. Broad shouldered, imposing like a wrestler, but he was well spoken, though when he spoke, he spoke with force. He chose his words carefully. His long, blonde hair was tied in a pony tail behind his back, and he wore a red shirt with a black suit jacket over it. He smiled, remembering the past, remembering his time spent at the dinner table of Bruce and Betty Banner. “Strange, destructive little man,” Len spoke wistfully. “N-not nice to talk about your friends like that, L-Len,” mumbled a man as he limped toward the mount. “Even if they’re walking dead men.” His breath was visible in front of his mouth, even though they were in the desert. Ever since the detonation of the gamma bomb weapon, it was always cold at this site. Bruce?!” exclaimed Samson, rushing over to his old friend who was wearing rags, his jeans torn and stretched. “I-- oh, oh God, I didn’t think, what are you, what are you…?” “I’m here because it’s been calling to me, Len. It’s the place where I was reborn, don’t you get it?” Bruce shook his head. “Like a whisper in the night. It was time to face my fear.” “Fear?” “My life was falling apart before the blast. After Emil’s attack, the explosion, the transformations, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had to--” The floor began to shake. “Bruce, you shouldn’t have come here, you walked right into Ross’ hands!” “I don’t care, I just had to end this--” From underneath the desert floor, metal slats began to rise up, and massive machines roared out of their storage compartments. Suddenly the duo was surrounded by Hulkbuster mech, and Banner was smiling. General Ross stepped forward with the G-Cannon. “Banner! On the ground! Don’t even think of getting emotional! You knew this had to happen!” “Yes, General, I did, I’m calmly getting to my knees, and I’m calmly handing myself over to you. It’s taken me two years to work up the courage. Two years and a lot of travelling, but I’m calm now, and I’m giving myself up to you. Lock me away with all the other monsters.” Len backed away, and Banner began to get to his knees, when a pain rushed through his foot. He looked down, his eyes wide. A curiously green scorpion withdrew its tail from his foot, and blood trickled out of the wound. “No. Oh, God, no, no…” Pain rushed through his veins from his foot upward. “Oh, Jesus…” Len looked on in horror. “Fire! Fire the tranqs!” Tranquilizers slammed into Banner’s body, from dozens of needles fired from the Hulkbusters. Too late. The pinpricks of pain only made it worse. He quivered and he shook, and Ross shook his head. “Oh, Betty, I’m so sorry.” He leveled the weapon at Banner, and pulled the trigger without hesitation. He didn’t see Samson diving in front of the beam without thinking. His eyes widened as he saw the green beam strike the psychiatrist. “LEN, NO!” Len fell to the ground, green energy wracking his body. His muscles began to bulge. His skin stretched. Green blood dribbled from his mouth and nose, and his eyes as well. He screamed and screamed as his body contorted and shifted. His muscles grew uncontrollably, his flesh hardened. Banner too, was changing. His skin turned green as he grew larger and larger, his super strong flesh rejecting the needles and chemically processing the sedatives into nothingness. He was suddenly larger than before, a living monolith, ready to destroy anything that got in his way. The Hulk turned to Samson, and watched as the doctor stood up, his body still growing and contorting. By now, Samson was a mess of muscles, nearly as big as the Hulk. Ross pressed a finger in his ear. “The beam missed! It got Samson! He’s changing! Tell me what’s happening, you sonsofbitches!” A scientist replied within moments. “Oh, sweet Jesus. Samson’s cells aren’t built like the Hulk’s-- I meant Banner’s, sorry sir…” Thunderbolt spat as he spoke. “Doesn’t matter! Tell me what’s happening!” “He’s mutating, sir. We won’t know into what until we get him on the table, but I can probably guess it’s not pretty… According to our sensors, his body is absorbing all the gamma radiation in the vicinity, corrupted from the past two years of lingering with God knows what…” “It’s an abomination…” whispered Thunderbolt, as the man formerly known as Len Samson towered over Banner. By now, Len was a scaled beast, with muscles still growing and pushing the scales up over his body. His eyes were black spheres in his skull. His flesh was a darker shade of green than the Hulk’s. “HLLLLLLK…” grunted Len, his teeth razor sharp, his tongue long and dripping with saliva. “SMSSSSSSSSSH…” A clawed fist slashed outward, colliding with the Hulk’s jaw and sending him flying into the Hulkbusters, their armor shattering on impact. Thunderbolt hated doing it, but in his head he was making notes on improvements to be made to their equipment. Samson didn’t stop mutating. More muscles grew. His scales jutted out, his eyes flickered open and shut like a reptile. The Hulk clambered out of the metal suit, at first seemingly puzzled by this slight, but then his eyes widened at the sight of the Abomination. A large smile grew on his green face. “Ugly thing… hurt Hulk? HULK HURT UGLY THING! HULK SMASH!” TO BE CONTINUED
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 18:00:57 GMT -5
batmantwinky said:
vorror said:
Aaron (the author) replied:
Brian said:
Charlie said:
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:58:36 GMT -5
Please take a moment and let us know what you thought of this classic issue from one of our sister sites!
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:57:43 GMT -5
Attorney-at-law Matt Murdock is blind, but his four remaining senses have been heightened and function with superhuman sharpness. Possessing a built-in “radar sense” and incredible fighting skills, Matt protects Hell’s Kitchen as the crimson clad hero known as Daredevil!Previously, in DAREDEVIL... The law firm of Nelson and Murdock has taken on Vadim Gorsky, a Russian mobster accused of murder, as a client. Knowing the accused is innocent, Daredevil gathers information from reporter Ben Urich and confronts the Russian mob boss, who had not ordered a hit on the deceased and has no knowledge that can help DD. Daredevil goes to the deceased’s apartment, where he encounters a beautiful and mysterious black leather-garbed woman who had stolen secret files from the deceased’s computer. During the ensuing fight, DD senses a launched explosive charge hurtling toward the apartment, and he dives with the woman behind a large sofa just as the bomb explodes.Daredevil, The Man Without Fear! Issue 3: "The Russian Connection, Part 2" Written by Aaron Martel My name is Matthew Murdock, and I’m Daredevil.
I first gained that “Daredevil” nickname as a child, because the other kids in the neighborhood knew I wasn’t afraid to do anything- I'd take any dare they'd throw at me. I guess I was sort of a rascal, the kind of kid who found trouble and took pleasure in thumbing my nose at it. To this day, I can still hear the others say things like, “Get ‘Daredevil’ Murdock to do it. He’s not scared of nothin’.” Those were carefree days playing on the mean streets of Hell’s Kitchen, and I can still picture them in my mind. Because back then I could see the world around me.
When I decided to take up this second life as a costumed crime fighter I had to figure out what to call myself. In the wake of the newly emerging “superhero” scene it seemed that a catchy yet distinctively foreboding name would be a necessity. The crooks would know who it was that busted them, and they would whisper the name in apprehension from that moment on. The choice became easy for me.
I would become Daredevil again, reclaiming the name of my youth, only this time the moniker would carry much heavier weight and a far deeper meaning. The kid who wasn’t “scared of nothin’” had grown into an unyielding Man Without Fear.SOMEWHERE: Darkness. Matt Murdock opened his eyes and saw only darkness. But that was normal, because Matt hadn’t seen any light in a long time. His head swam, and he felt as if the room were spinning. Matt held down the vomit burbling up in his throat and tried to focus, to access his amazing senses and get an idea of where he was and what was happening. But it was difficult to get beyond the painful fog that clouded his brain. He was aware that he was sitting, most likely in a chair; his arms were behind his back, and his entire body ached with throbbing soreness. He had gotten to this point by- Gorsky. Vadim Gorsky. My client. Accused of murdering Bela Osipov. I went to Osipov’s apartment, and there was a woman there-Matt began to come around, and the smells began to assault his nostrils- stale sweat, body odor, urine, feces, and an overwhelming aroma of blood- some of it old, dried blood. He winced, and tried to utilize his radar- The woman fought me hand-to-hand like a well-trained combatant, and she hit me with some sort of ray blast that took me down. Then there was a bomb, and we dove behind the couch-“I see you’re awake.” Matt snapped back to reality at the sound of the woman’s voice, and was able to get his radar sense functioning at last. He scanned the room, and determined that he was tied by his hands and feet with thick ropes to a chair, and not ten feet away from him the woman he had battled in Osipov’s apartment was in a similar predicament. The room they were in was very plain, with no furniture save the chairs they were bound in, and there was an operating video camera mounted up in the far corner. Matt pulled at his bonds, and they were reasonably tight, but his gloves had been removed and thus with his fingertips he could touch the knots of his ropes. “Can you understand me?” the woman asked. Matt raised his head. “Where are we?” The woman paused, looking at him, and Matt heard her slight but sharp intake of breath. “Can you not see? Are you blind?” she asked, disbelieving. Matt realized with a start that he was wearing his Daredevil outfit, tattered and torn as it was, but his mask was missing. He was unmasked! His mind whirling, Matt reached out with his radar and “saw” his mask, gloves and billy clubs lying in the corner under the camera, along with the woman’s belt, bracelet blasters, and a clutch of hair that could only be a wig. Frowning, Matt repeated, “Where are we?” The woman, who now sported shoulder length red/auburn hair, said, “An interrogation room, obviously. I’ve just regained consciousness myself. We’ve been captured.” The woman spoke flawless English with a trace of a Russian accent. “Who are you?” Matt demanded. “I do not believe we are enemies.” “You’re a spy?” “No," the woman said. Matt detected the faintest jump in her heartbeat and knew she was lying. But he stayed silent, trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened. Why would a spy be prowling around a dead Russian immigrant’s apartment? True, she had been copying information from Osipov’s computer, so maybe there was more to Osipov than he first thought- “You are the ‘devil-man’ from the paper?” inquired the woman. The Daily Bugle newspaper had confirmed the existence of Daredevil as the costumed protector of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. “I’m Daredevil.” “Then you do not know who has captured us?” “No.” Matt was suspicious. “Do you?” Before the woman could reply, the door swung open and two men walked in. One, a tubby sort with a thick beard, eyeglasses, and a butcher’s apron, pushed a wheeled cart with a serving tray on top of it into the room. The other was taller, slighter, and sharply dressed, with a neatly trimmed goatee and piercing dark eyes. This man walked over to the woman in the chair and spoke to her in carefully enunciated Russian, though he distinctly said the word “Daredevil” and Matt knew the man had been listening to their conversation. The woman, for her part, replied with a fierce snarl in guttural Russian. Chuckling, the neat man approached Matt and addressed him in Russian as well, and Matt kept his head down and said nothing. The man glanced over to the woman, smirked, and verbalized again to Matt in fairly good English. “So, Mr. Daredevil, you are American, no? Ah yes, I see you can understand me.” The man roughly tilted Matt’s head up, and looked into his eyes. “So you truly cannot see?” He looked quizzically at the woman. “Natasha, who is this man?” “He does not work with me,” the woman said. The man’s eyes glittered wickedly, and he turned to Matt. “Ah, of course. So you don’t know who you are working with, Mr. Daredevil? Well, I can tell you everything about her. I know her a long time, yes?” Matt listened to the man’s breathing and heartbeat, and they were both steady; this man was supremely confident, and Matt knew that the man had no intention of allowing Matt and the woman to leave this room alive. Using his astoundingly sensitive fingertips, Matt felt for the knots on his ropes and began to surreptitiously tug at them. “Mr. Daredevil, you have been working with Natasha Romanov, the famous Black Widow, herself,” the man sneered with relish. “She was once greatest Russian spy, then she defect to the American capitalist pigs. Now she works with blind American spies in stupid costumes.” “And what of you, Yuri Korolenko?” the Widow bellowed, and Matt had the strange feeling she wanted the blind captive to hear the neat man’s name. “You were also once a great agent, and now you are nothing more than a cowardly terrorist selling state secrets to rogue nations!” “The great Soviet motherland I once knew as a boy is dead,” Korolenko said, glaring at the Black Widow. “Today, ‘Russia’ is sick and needs a new revolution to cure her. I will provide the tools to start it.” “And what do you have to do with Bela Osipov?” Matt broke in, changing the madman’s focus. “And why did you bomb his apartment?” Korolenko feigned sadness, shaking his head. “Ah. Bela, Bela, Bela…One of my best operatives. Very good with computers. I miss him.” “Osipov was secretly stealing state information from the Kremlin, and downloaded it to his computer,” the Widow spat. “Then he delivered the information to this arrogant scum, to be sold on the open black market.” Korolenko walked leisurely over the Widow, grinning. Then he struck her with a vicious backhand that snapped her head violently back. Matt was amazed- based on her pulse and breathing, not only was the Black Widow unaffected by the blow, she was oddly excited by the aggression. She spat a mouthful of blood on the floor and smiled. “The Americans are on to you,” the Widow guffawed. “They will find you soon.” “The Americans cannot find anyone,” Korolenko shot back. “They are much too overconfident to search for one such as I in their own country. They are far more concerned with the Middle Eastern ‘terrorists’, as you say. Would you not agree, Mr. Daredevil?” Matt had untied most of the ropes binding his hands, and he wanted to keep the terrorist talking, so he said, “As far as I can tell, you’re no revolutionary. You say you hate capitalism, but you've become quite the capitalist yourself You’re just a whack-job with delusions of grandeur.” Korolenko’s grin melted. “Is that so? Do you know what I think, Mr. Daredevil? I think you know much more than you are saying. I think we shall discover just how much you know about me and my mission.” Korolenko gestured, and the other man, who had been standing silently all this time, began to wheel over the cart with the tray atop it. Matt reached out with his radar, and sensed various razor-sharp medical instruments and cutting shears lying on the tray. “Now, Mr. Daredevil,” Korolenko hissed. “Let us discuss my ‘delusions of grandeur.” THE LAW OFFICES OF NELSON AND MURDOCK: Foggy Nelson sat at his desk in his private office, reviewing a law book in which he was looking for a precedent to refer to for his current case: the defense of Vadim Gorsky for the murder of Bela Osipov. Foggy had misgivings about the innocence of his client, but his law partner Matt Murdock had somehow been sure of Gorsky’s innocence, so Foggy deigned to begin the research for Gorsky’s defense. It was night, well after office hours, but Foggy was a diligent sort and so he didn’t mind putting in the extra time. He especially didn’t mind since Karen Page, the law firm’s beautiful new receptionist, had volunteered to stay on and assist him. “Karen, could you get me that book in the ‘V’ section, please?” Foggy had found he very much liked to watch Karen from behind as she retrieved the volumes he required. “Here you go,” Karen said as she handed the tome to Foggy. She brushed away a few strands of loose blonde hair from her blue eyes, and Foggy could see the dark circles under them that marked she was quite fatigued. “Long day,” Foggy said. Karen exhaled. “Yeah, it sure has been. Haven’t even heard from Matt in a while. Isn’t that weird?” Actually, Foggy hadn’t thought of Matt Murdock since he’d gotten back to the office to work with Karen. “Huh. Well, that’s ol’ Matty for you. Guy sometimes just disappears for a while without telling you. He’s always kind of been like that, so I guess I’m just used to it.” Karen leaned back against the desk and crossed her arms. “You’ve known him a long time, haven’t you?” she asked. “Who, Matt? Oh yeah, since college. We were roommates at Columbia U. We went to different grad schools, lost touch for a bit, but I ran into him by chance a few months back, and we found out we were both working for firms here in the Big Apple. We caught up with each other and decided to take a chance on starting our own firm, so here we are.” Karen looked thoughtful. “He seems so… intense. I mean, I like him, but sometimes he’s hard to read, y’know? He’s so strange…mysterious…” “Aw, Matt’s all right,” Foggy said. “He’s got a good heart, and he’s actually got a good sense of humor once you get to know him. And he’s so smart, and a great lawyer. He’s his own man, and never asks or needs help from anybody. Guess being blind makes you always want to prove yourself, but don’t tell him I said that. Okay?” Karen softly laughed. “I won’t, Foggy. And don’t tell him I was talking about him, either. It’s just that I find him so… interesting.” Foggy didn’t like the affectionate look that showed on her face, and he felt a pang of jealousy in the pit of his stomach. “Hey, Karen, let’s call it a day, okay?” “Okay,” Karen said as she left Foggy’s office to go to her desk and grab her coat. Foggy longingly watched her, and tried to summon the nerve to ask her- damn, man, just spit it out- “Karen, are you hungry? Would you like to get some dinner? I know a great little place around the corner,” he blurted, nervous sweat beginning to bead on his brow. Karen looked at him, and then broke into a wide, angelic smile. “That sounds nice, Foggy.” Foggy held back an instinct to whoop for joy as he led Karen out of the office, shutting off the light and locking the door. SOMEWHERE: Yuri Korolenko’s fist slammed into Matt’s cheek for the fourth time, and the blind man limply hung his head in apparent defeat as Korolenko glanced over to the enraged Black Widow, who was struggling vainly against her bonds. “You cowardly bastard!” the Widow shouted. “You don’t dare do that to me, do you?” “Oh, I will have my turn with you, Natasha; there is much for us to- how do they say in America- catch up on.” Korolenko grabbed Matt by his hair and lifted his head so the madman could address him face to face. “I thought you would not be willing to talk, Mr. Daredevil, which is why my friend Boris is here.” The other man with Korolenko had put on rubber gloves and picked up a large scalpel from the serving tray, and the torturer was brandishing the cutting tool lovingly. “We shall see how ‘blind’ you are, Mr. Daredevil, as Boris teaches you the meaning of long and terrible suffering,” Korolenko threatened. “I ask once more: who are you?” Matt’s face twisted into a hard scowl, and he pressed his lips firmly together. “So be it,” Korolenko spat, and forcefully pushed Matt’s head back down to its hanging position. “Pathetic.” Korolenko gestured, and Boris came forward with the scalpel, leaning in close to Matt’s listless, slumped form. Boris reached to grasp Matt’s hair- And Matt abruptly lifted his head with all the power he could muster, crashing into Boris’ jaw and knocking the torturer hard to the floor, unconscious. With a mighty surge of energy, Matt yanked his hands free of the ropes and threw his own body to the floor, feeling for the dropped scalpel and locating it quickly. In one fluid motion, Matt cut through the ropes binding his feet and, guided by his radar sense, rolled from the shots fired by the stunned and panicked Korolenko, who had drawn his weapon and was shooting wildly. Korolenko soon emptied his magazine without hitting his targets and bolted for the door, as Matt hurried to the Black Widow and began to cut her free with the scalpel. As soon as she was liberated from the chair, the Widow ran to the far corner and strapped a bracelet blaster on her wrist, aiming up and immediately blasting the video camera above her to bits. She put her belt and other blaster on, and then tossed Matt’s billy clubs, gloves and mask to the crimson crime fighter, who hastily donned his missing gear. The Black Widow began to move for the open door, but Daredevil put a hand on her shoulder. “What?” the Widow asked, annoyed. Daredevil motioned for her to be quiet as he listened, concentrating on the sounds coming from the other side of the door. “DOWN!” DD bellowed. And the scarlet superhero tackled the Widow to the floor as the room was suddenly pelted with bullets, ripping into the walls and whizzing over their heads, narrowly missing them. Daredevil was practically on top of the Black Widow, and despite the cacophony going on around them he absurdly noticed and was enticed by the feel of the toned, athletic body beneath him. The Widow was apparently aware of this, as DD sensed her own growing arousal and wondered if she was reacting that way to him or to the violence itself. OUTSIDE THE INTERROGATION ROOM: There were ten of them, and they had all opened fire on the torture room as per their leader Korolenko’s instructions. They were all from Russian/Soviet descent, and they believed in the cause- the glorious Second Russian Revolution to come. They despised the label terrorists, but they were willing to go along with it for now if it meant putting fear into the hearts of the arrogant Americans. They operated out of an outwardly ordinary warehouse ironically located right in the heart of the enemy’s territory: New York City. Inside the warehouse, there were stacked crates of firearms and other conventional tactical weapons, illegally shipped to the warehouse and ready to be illegally distributed to other terror cells around the world. There was a sophisticated computer station in one corner of the warehouse, and two large delivery vans dominating the open floor area ready to transport the contraband at a moment’s notice. This terror cell had been operating here for years, under the stewardship of Yuri Korolenko, and the other men were handpicked fanatics who each served his own special function within the organization. The cell had accumulated a vast wealth over all this time, and Korolenko was nearly ready to expand and implement the second phase of his mad plan to throw Russia- and by extension the world- into utter chaos. Now the revolutionaries stood silently, weapons at the ready, as the smoke cleared away from the small interrogation room that had been built off the main warehouse, specifically to torture and kill the organization’s unfortunate captives. Never had any prisoner been able to escape or even attempt to leave the interrogation room, so the terrorists were somewhat nervous and unsure of themselves with these unfamiliar developments. Korolenko had come screaming out of the room without Boris, the chief torturer, and the men had reacted by blasting the hell out of the entire room. They were aware that there were two prisoners, but because the video camera had been destroyed it was impossible to tell if they were still alive- Daredevil and the Black Widow burst through the doorway, staying low, shielding themselves with the chairs they had been tied to, as the men hesitated for a shocked second before opening fire again. Daredevil ran hard at the two closest to him, plowing into them with the chair and toppling them over. With tremendous speed DD’s red-gloved fist kayoed them both, and the crimson crime fighter rolled quickly out of the way as another extremist drew a bead on him. DD came out of his roll on one knee, and he hurled his billy club at the next closest heartbeat, the steel reinforced stick shattering the radical’s jaw, but then the Man without Fear yelped in sudden pain, holding his hands to his ears. The echoing noise of the gunfire was playing havoc with Daredevil’s senses, causing him acute cranial pain, and it had become hard to focus, so he was only able to concentrate on the terrorists’ heartbeats for a split second at a time. Through his blazing headache DD heard the quick footsteps of two more fanatics giving up the battle and running for one of the delivery vans, and he ignored the pain to give chase. Drawing his other billy club, Daredevil pressed a button and the cable he used for rooftop swinging fired out, wrapping around one of the terrorist’s legs. The scarlet superhero yanked on the club and the fanatic was pulled away from the passenger side of the van and down to the floor hard. Springing forward, DD kicked the downed man in the head, taking him out. Then the van itself sputtered and coughed to life, so without hesitation Daredevil wrenched open the passenger door and leaped into the cab, throwing a straight right hand at the terrorist behind the wheel. The blow connected, but the fanatic stomped down on the accelerator, and the van lurched forward. DD grabbed the wheel and turned it forcefully, so that the van veered sharply right and crashed into a stack of crates full of smuggled AK-47 machine guns. The guns spilled over the van and onto the floor, and the terrorist behind the wheel of the van, holding his broken nose, swore loudly at Daredevil in Russian. Wincing in pain, DD elbowed the extremist sharply in the head, and it was all over. Daredevil jumped out of the van and tensed up, ready to do battle with more of the revolutionaries, but to his surprise there were no more sounds of fighting. His radar coming back to him, DD sensed the shapely form of the Black Widow standing to the side, watching him, and it was apparent from the number of the bodies on the floor that the terrorists had all been defeated. The Widow smiled. “What took you so long?” she chided. “I was finished with my half a while ago.” Daredevil assisted the Black Widow with tying up all the terrorists in silence, and the Widow noticed DD’s darkened mood. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re acting like we didn’t win.” “The leader got away,” Daredevil said. “So you believe we failed? We have shut down a major New York terror cell and recovered these weapons.” Her voice hardened. “Make no mistake, I will find Yuri Korolenko. We have a history, he and I, and he has… much to answer for.” Daredevil let that go without asking, and then he remembered something. “One more thing. I know about Osipov’s involvement with this group, but how is Vadim Gorsky connected to all this?” The Black Widow stared at him carefully for a moment before answering. “You asked Korolenko about Osipov, didn’t you? But your concern was actually for Gorsky. That’s why you came to Osipov’s apartment while I was there.” Daredevil nodded. Still studying his face, she said, “Somehow Gorsky found out about Osipov’s connection to Korolenko, and he was blackmailing him. Gorsky was receiving regular payments from Osipov to keep quiet, and I suppose it got to be too much for Osipov, despite Gorsky’s mob ties.” It all made sense to Daredevil now. Gorsky had gone to Osipov’s apartment for a blackmail payment, and Osipov had snapped and tried to kill Gorsky. In the ensuing struggle, Osipov was shot dead. Gorsky had told the truth to Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson- that Osipov was actually killed in self defense. “Now I have one more thing,” the Black Widow said boldly. She paused, and then said, “You really are blind? Then how can you… do what you do?” “My secret,” DD said. The Widow eyed him mischievously. “Then perhaps we could meet again someday and… ‘exchange secrets’?” Daredevil was taken aback- is she flirting with me?- then he allowed himself a tight-lipped smile. “Yes… perhaps.” “Go now,” the Widow said. “My people will be here shortly.” Without another word Daredevil turned and swiftly exited the warehouse. Once outside, he sensed the area around him and fired his cable to the top of the nearest building, swinging up and into the New York City night. THE END
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:36:02 GMT -5
Brian said:
Charlie said:
Hope said:
batmantwinky said:
vorror said:
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:32:07 GMT -5
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:31:27 GMT -5
Attorney-at-law Matt Murdock is blind, but his four remaining senses have been heightened and function with superhuman sharpness. Possessing a built-in “radar sense” and incredible fighting skills, Matt protects Hell’s Kitchen as the crimson clad hero known as Daredevil!Previously, in DAREDEVIL... Matt Murdock and his law partner Foggy Nelson have hired Karen Page, a beautiful new receptionist, to take care of their law offices. Foggy is obviously attracted to Karen, much to the amusement of Matt.
Reporter Ben Urich goes to investigate a mysterious “devil-man” that had been appearing in Hell’s Kitchen and fighting crime on the streets. Urich encounters the costumed vigilante, who calls himself Daredevil, and makes a loose verbal pact to exchange information with the scarlet crimebuster. Urich has his story, and the residents of Hell’s Kitchen learn they have their own nighttime protector… Daredevil, The Man Without Fear! Issue 2: " The Russian Connection, Part 1"Written by Aaron Martel Cover by Trevor Yarmovich Edited by Viktor My name is Matthew Murdock, and I’m also Daredevil, a superhero dressed in a red devil costume.
Why adopt the image of the devil?
In my everyday life I’m a lawyer, so you could say with relative certainty that I love the law. And I do, I really do. I hold the laws of the land in the utmost esteem and I believe that the system of justice in the United States works fairly well most of the time. Most, but not all, of the time. In my line of work I’ve also “seen” far too many cases of injustice served on the unforgiving streets with no one standing up for the innocents crushed under the heels of oppression and intimidation.
True justice is blind, so I decided to do something about it.
In some belief systems, the wicked and corrupt meet their terrible fates in hell in the hands of the devil. I determined that I would play upon this instinctive, primal fear of facing eternal punishment for sinful deeds. I would take one of the most recognized symbols of evil and turn it around in the face of evil itself. Besides, I always thought the devil was frightening to begin with, but that might be due to my Catholic upbringing…NYPD MIDTOWN SOUTH PRECINCT, PRIVATE ROOM: Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson sat at a large table across from their client, who was nervously smoking a cigarette and glancing around the sterile, gray-painted room. The client’s name was Vadim Gorsky, and he had been arrested for the murder of one Bela Osipov, a fellow Russian who had lived in a small apartment down in Hell’s Kitchen. “So,” Matt began, lacing his fingers and getting down to business, “Did you murder Mr. Osipov?” “Nyet,” Gorsky said, glancing around, his cigarette shaking. “I did kill him, but is not murder.” “Would you please explain?” Foggy asked sympathetically, his brow furrowed. “I go to his place, he…owe me money. He let me in, and I wait for him to bring my money. He say he no have it, and I tell him he need to pay, then he show me gun.” Matt said, “There was a struggle?” Gorsky nodded. “And gun goes off. Bela fall. Then police come. They arrest me. I don’t know how they get there so fast.” Both Matt and Foggy knew Osipov’s nosy neighbor had called in the disturbance, and an NYPD unit was near the scene at the time. “So you’re saying it was an act of self-defense?” Matt probed. “Yes! Yes! Self-defense! He try to kill me!” Gorsky exclaimed, having found the right words. Matt had been listening to the Russian man’s words intently, reaching out with his incredible senses, paying attention to Gorsky’s heartbeat and pulse rate. He also sensed Foggy’s uncomfortable shift in the seat next to his; Matt’s partner was having his doubts with Gorsky’s story. But Matt had all he needed. “Mr. Gorsky, I believe you,” Matt said. “Mr. Nelson and I will see that you receive the best possible defense, and we’ll do our best to bring you the justice you deserve.” OUTSIDE: “Matt, are you sure about this?” Foggy asked dubiously. The two lawyers were walking down the precinct steps, Matt’s red walking cane tapping out in front of him. It was a typical bustling New York City day, and no one paid much attention to the portly man with the comical bow tie standing next to the blind man with the red-tinted shades. “I think he’s telling the truth,” Matt said. “You do know Gorsky is reputed to have ties to the Russian mob,” Foggy said. “What if it was a drug deal gone bad?” “What if it was?” Matt replied. “That doesn’t make him a murderer. Just because he’s probably a gangster doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be defended.” “I know, but…this is our first murder case. There might even be some media attention with this one.” “Attention we can certainly use,” Matt said. “Trust me, we can win this. Why don’t you head back to the office and you and Karen get started on research while I do a little investigating on my own?” Matt knew this would hook him; Foggy had a serious crush on Karen Page, their new secretary. Foggy immediately brightened. “Yeah! Karen can definitely assist me with this. You’re right, buddy. You’re better at reading people than me. Let’s get ‘em!” Matt thought: if you only knew how good I am at reading people, as Foggy quickly stepped down the street, whistling to himself. Matt smiled inwardly at his friend’s goofy mannerisms, and then turned to walk off in the opposite direction, a plan of action forming in his mind. THAT NIGHT, A HELL'S KITCHEN ALLEYWAY: Ben Urich, investigative reporter for the Daily Bugle, took a final drag on a cigarette and shuffled his feet impatiently while checking his watch. He had been waiting for his contact roughly thirty minutes, and he was ready to give up and go home for the night. He tossed his cigarette, pulled his overcoat closed and prepared to leave- “You made it,” came the low, whispery growl. Urich looked up and saw the crimson figure of Daredevil perched on the fire escape above the journalist’s head. Urich had to stop himself from shuddering, since the vigilante’s appearance had startled him and Urich wanted to maintain his reputation as a tough-as-nails reporter. With a graceful ease, Daredevil leaped from the fire escape, somersaulted once in the air and landed directly in front of the thin, slovenly Urich. “You’re late,” Urich said. Daredevil smirked. “What can you tell me about the Gorsky murder case?” Urich paused. This was their second meeting, and Urich still couldn’t shake the feeling that the red garbed crimefighter wasn’t really making eye contact with him. “I looked into it. What, you gonna hit the Russian mob?” “What do you know about them?” “They’re a pretty small operation,” Urich said. “But they’re growing fast. They mostly deal in drugs and prostitution. So far they’ve been under the Kingpin’s radar, but someday soon that might change.” “Gorsky a member of the mob?” Daredevil asked, referring to the man accused of killing Bela Osipov, and who was also Matt Murdock’s client. Urich nodded. “Oh yeah. Low-level legbreaker. Don’t know what he was doing at Osipov’s apartment that night. Besides the fact that he was also Russian, the deceased wasn’t known to be connected to the mob.” “What did he do?” “Osipov? Computer programmer. Worked freelance out of his apartment. Been in the States four years, became a citizen, no criminal record,” Urich said. “So it wasn’t a mob hit?” Daredevil asked. “Sure seems like it was,” Urich replied. I can’t imagine it being anything else. No drugs were found in the apartment though, so it might be something the cops are missing.” “Who runs the Russian mob?” “Older guy they call ‘Big Leo’,” Urich said with a knowing smile. “Boss of the New York Russians. Operates over on 42nd out of a basement porno shop. Never met him, but I hear he watches The Godfather too much. Acts like Brando and everything.” “Okay. Thanks, Urich.” Daredevil reached for his billy club and pointed it up. “Hey man,” Urich yelled. “Watch out for these guys. They’re crude and they’re vicious.” Without replying, Daredevil pressed a hidden button on his club and a cable shot out of the end, entangling in the fire escape two stories above him. With amazing strength and dexterity, the costumed man quickly pulled himself up the cable to the fire escape, and then swiftly swung on the escape’s iron bars up to the top of the building, as the billy club rapidly retracted the cable. Goddamn, Urich thought. He then remembered something. “Hey! Did you like the article?” Urich had written the story revealing Daredevil’s presence in Hell’s Kitchen, along with the first interview they had done together. But DD was long gone by then. @#$%, I forgot my camera again, Urich thought. 42ND STREET: There was no sign indicating the pornography shop existed; in fact, the shop didn’t even have a name. It was located at the bottom of a flight of stairs and through an ordinary, unmarked door. Inside, a bored man of obvious Eastern European descent sat behind the counter while a few customers of various ages and genders milled about the shop, browsing at movies and various toys designed for sexual activity. When the door banged open, at first no one expressed any interest in the new arrival, but that quickly changed when the red garbed form of Daredevil passed through the doorway and into the shop. DD stood still and reached out with his senses. He heard excited, fearful whispering and chattering among the customers, and he could smell the rising anxiety in the shop attendant’s sweat. There were also the strong odors of plastic and cardboard customary in an establishment of this sort, and before heading for the counter Daredevil overheard a young woman murmur to her male partner: hey, you think you could get a costume like that?The clerk stood up as DD approached the counter, and with a great air of unease the man said, “C-can I help you?” “I’m looking for Big Leo,” Daredevil said. “I’m told he can be found here.” “N-no, I don’t know that person,” the clerk stammered, and his head swiveled toward the back of the shop. DD silently extended out with his radar to the far end of the store and sensed a rear hallway leading to a closed door, and judging from the excited pulse rate of the clerk, the crimson crimefighter knew he had struck a nerve. Ignoring the fevered objections of the clerk, Daredevil strode to the back hallway. BEHIND THE REAR DOOR OF THE PORN SHOP: Leonid Vostok sat in a large room, flanked by three of his personal bodyguards, watching a high definition television set mounted on the wall and lazily smoking a large cigar. Known as “Big Leo” in most criminal circles, he was the overlord of the New York Russian mob, an organization renowned for its brutal, cruel tactics. Big Leo was short, squat and wide, with thin, graying, greased-back hair and a black, pencil-thin mustache. He wore expensive suits to signify his importance, but he didn’t care much about his appearance and seemed rather disheveled most of the time. Big Leo and his flunkies were watching a rerun of the situation comedy Seinfeld, and though none of them truly understood the show’s humor, they laughed with the laugh track nonetheless. The old boss learned much of what he knew about American culture through TV, and it was important to him to stay up to date with American trends and tastes. He had to, so he could be certain he was providing the right services to the complacent American fools who so greedily consumed the products Big Leo sold to them- mostly drugs and women. It was astounding how much easy money there was to made in this bloated, self-important monstrosity of a country. Big Leo was startled from his sitcom by loud, sharp pounding on the door leading to the porn shop, causing him to drop his cigar and nearly jump out of his seat. Frowning, the mob boss pointed to the door, and one of his goons wordlessly moved to answer it. The thug opened the door- And a red-gloved fist flashed through the opening, flattening the surprised goon with tremendous force. The two remaining bodyguards quickly drew their pistols as Daredevil boldly sauntered through the door, moving across the room to stand in front of Big Leo’s desk. DD crossed his arms as Big Leo looked up at him incredulously, the guards aiming their weapons but not firing at the clearly unarmed man. “What is meaning of this?” Big Leo asked, his face twisting into a disbelieving frown. “I want information from you,” Daredevil said in his menacing growl. “You are the ‘devil-man’ from the paper, no?” Big Leo said. “I’m Daredevil.” Big Leo settled back in his chair, making a show of trying to relax, resting his chin on the palm of one hand as his fingers rested on his cheek. He puffed his cheeks out and said, ”You come to me for information, yet you show such disrespect to me in front of my men. Why should I not say to shoot you?” DD didn’t even acknowledge the goons, who were itching to fire on him. “Because you don’t know who knows I’m here, and you don’t want to try to beat a murder rap in this town, in this country.” The old mob leader was acting calm, but Daredevil could hear his racing pulse and smell the white hot anxiety in his sweat. There was no way the old man could know if DD was working with the police, or worse, the press. “My men search you,” Big Leo said. Daredevil raised his arms as the two thugs approached him, and he let one of them pat him down while the other kept his gun trained on the red vigilante. When the goon doing the search reached DD’s billy club holster, with lightning speed Daredevil tightly grabbed the goon’s wrist. The goon tried to pull away but couldn’t, and he looked to Big Leo, who nodded at Daredevil. DD released his grip and the goon walked away, rubbing his sore wrist. “What do you want?” Big Leo asked, satisfied the scarlet superhero wasn’t wearing a wire. “Vadim Gorsky killed Bela Osipov,” Daredevil said. “I want to know if it was a Russian mob hit.” Big Leo chortled. “Russian mob hit? I do not know what you mean.” “Gorsky is a well known member of your group. I don’t think you ordered Osipov killed, but maybe you have some idea why he was killed,” DD said. Big Leo stared hard at the crimson figure, trying to size him up and decide exactly what to say. After a tension filled moment, the mob boss said, ”Osipov. Who is Osipov? He is nothing to me. Vadim maybe have his own deal with Osipov, I cannot say. I have no knowledge of this killing. I am businessman. I have no business with Osipov. Vadim make big mistake- he is on his own.” As big Leo spoke Daredevil listened carefully to the old man’s heartbeat, attempting to detect any slight fluctuations that would indicate the mob boss was lying. When Big Leo finished talking, DD couldn’t suppress a grimace; the old man hadn’t lied about having any knowledge of Bela Osipov’s death. “All right,” Daredevil said. “I believe you.” The scarlet clad man turned to leave the back room, heading for the door to the porn shop, stepping over the goon he had knocked out when he first entered the room. Big Leo stood up from behind the desk and called out to him. “Daredevil!” DD slowly, confidently, turned back to face the old man. “Next time, you will not have so easy a time with us, eh? You should, what do you say- watch your back?” Big Leo threatened. “Yes,” Daredevil hissed, his lips forming a tight grin. “And you should watch yours.” LATER, AT THE FORMER APARTMENT OF BELA OSIPOV: The apartment was a one room studio, with a tiny connecting bathroom and no kitchen space. There was a full size bed in one corner and a large sofa in the middle of the place, with a metal desk containing an elaborate computer setup in another corner. The apartment was sealed, and had been processed as a crime scene, so no one had entered it for an entire day. Yet the computer tower was turned on and blinking, as a beautiful, lithe woman was hastily typing on the keyboard and gazing absorbedly at the monitor screen. The woman was of lean yet muscular build, with short, black hair and emerald green eyes that were capable of laser-like focus. She wore a skin-tight, black leather jumpsuit that covered most of her body but did plunge a ways down her chest, with black leather gloves and boots as well. She sported a modified utility belt and thick, lined bracelets on both her wrists that served a multifunction of clandestine purposes. She had broken into the apartment unobserved through the lone window and quickly took to her task, placing a blank compact disc in the computer tray and waiting patiently as the information she had retrieved from the hard drive burned onto the cd. Ten minutes later her mission was completed and the woman took the disc from the tray, placing it in a case and hiding it in her belt. She quickly shut down the computer and turned to head to the window- To find Daredevil standing in front of the pane with his arms folded and his jaw set. “Who are you?” DD asked. The woman didn’t hesitate, raising her arm and firing a concussive blast from her bracelet, narrowly missing the scarlet superhero and blasting into the window behind him. Amazed that anyone could move so fast, the woman gaped at the hole in the wall as Daredevil rolled forward and attempted a leg sweep. But the black clad female recovered swiftly, leaping over the leg sweep and kicking DD in the face, knocking him back. The woman sought to press her advantage, launching into a series of advanced kung fu strikes, but DD was able to block each one in quick succession. Daredevil followed the last block with a solid right hook to the stomach, and the woman, caught off guard, dropped to the floor. Daredevil straddled the woman and pinned her arms with his knees, immobilizing her. It was then that her scent wafted up to his hypersensitive nose: a tantalizing mixture of sweat, endorphins, and pheromones. She was obviously excited by their fight, nearly aroused, and DD found that intensely alluring. And the feel of her body under him was provoking as well; she wasn’t even remotely winded, and she was obviously in world class athlete shape. She was also clearly one tough customer: she had taken one of his better punches and showed no after effects at all. Daredevil shook his head to regain his focus and addressed the woman again. “Now, let’s go back to where we were. Who are you and what are you doing here?” The woman, who had not been resisting DD’s hold, clenched her teeth in anger. “You…idiot! You have no idea what you’re doing!” she spat in fluent English, but Daredevil detected a trace of a Russian accent in her dialect. “I’ll be the judge of that,” DD said. “Now-“ The woman, sensing that Daredevil had relaxed just a bit, pushed up with all her might, and was able to free one of her arms. She bent her elbow and fired her bracelet blaster again, and this time DD had to roll off her to avoid being hit by the discharge. The woman sprang to her feet and threw a sharp, whip-like kick that tagged the crimson crimefighter under the chin, and his knees buckled. She then fired her blaster once more, and this time it struck Daredevil in the chest, knocking him back onto his ass. Daredevil, his head swimming, tried to get his bearings as best he could. The blast that hit him wasn’t as powerful as the ones she’d fired before- did she purposely take it easy on him? Reaching out with his radar, he could make out her silhouette and it appeared that she was checking something on her belt- Daredevil’s radar suddenly sensed something coming towards them from behind where he was lying. It was a projectile, no doubt, and it was lobbing perfectly for the hole in the wall where the window once was. No time to lose. DD lurched to his feet and ran straight at the shocked woman, bear hugging her and lifting her off her feet. Before the woman could protest, Daredevil dove with her behind the sofa as the mini bomb landed and exploded, devastating most of the apartment into smoking piles of debris. TO BE CONTINUED
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:22:49 GMT -5
Back in 2008, we tried to launch a Marvel fan fiction site in the same style as the DC2.
Thus, the Marvel2 was born...
...And it lasted like six months and then died with a whimper.
There have been other attempts to launch a Marvel"2" since '08, but nothing ever stuck, so... there's that.
I have a lot of feelings on why it failed, but I'm busy, so maybe I'll share them later!
I'm currently migrating issues over from the abandoned site to the DC2, so everything is in one place. Then I'll delete that site for good, and let everything stand here!
I have found that a lot of the covers are dead links and I can't recover them, so you'll see some gaps across the titles-- it's really unfortunate! But I'll post what I can.
Anyway, I better get back to this ridiculous undertaking...
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:17:21 GMT -5
Brian said:
Charlie said:
Hope said:
l1701e said:
mouseman68 said:
Viktor said:
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Post by HoM on May 11, 2019 17:14:30 GMT -5
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