Splash page! The Scorpion has the Green Goblin and the Gremlin on the ropes! That massive, powerful tail, his phenomenal superhuman strength, his quick and deadly reflexes! Even when the Goblin tries to toss a pumpkin-bomb, the Scorpion can dive out of the way. And before you know it, his tail knocks out a chimney, sending shrapnel over to pelt the Gremlin! But how did the Scorpion become so transformed? How can a once-desperate and merely human man become a veritable powerhouse like the SCORPION?
***
Our story begins not with the Green Goblin and the Gremlin. If fact, they only look on from above-- the rafters of the warehouse make great shadowy, goblin-hiding places, after all. Instead, the NYPD's super-powered Enforcers show off their unique powers on a group of thugs. The poor saps! They thought it was a simple matter of unpacking some black market weapons for the streets. But that's not packing material, it's sand! In fact, it's not sand-- it's the Sandman! He flows upward and his sand-hammer fists knock them away from the materials. Hammerhead rams the thugs' leader, making his shots go wild and tossing his gun into the air. With the leader tackled, Hammerhead's in place to catch the gun. "Thanks, daddy-o!" The Shocker's vibration field serves to deflect the hail of bullets coming his way, and when he extends it forward-- FZZT! But where's the Big Man? Ah, there he is, growing to 30 feet tall behind the last of the criminals-- he picks them up and hangs them on the warehouse's overhead crane.
The Gremlin has to admit he's impressed. He notes the level of power behind the Enforcers, and the fact that they can put on a badge and operate however they need. The Gremlin wonders if it's even worth it-- dressing up as an urban legend to strike from the shadows. But the Green Goblin has already moved on, and the Gremlin leaps from rafter to rafter to catch up. "What's going to be left for the rest of us?" he wonders.
***
"What's going to be left for the rest of us?" wonders Arthur Stacy. He's complaining to his brother, police captain George Stacy, in the hustle and bustle of the police station. It's a different world. The only way to keep the city safe anymore seems to be with super-powered agents! Captain Stacy disregards the question, reading Arthur's letter-- was it true? Was Arthur going to retire his private investigation practice? Arthur says he has to. George has seen to that. Capt. Stacy sits down with a frown, "I've just done whatever I could to keep this city safe." Arthur yells back: "At what cost?!" Selling-out to super-powered individuals?! Sacrificing his own health?! True, admits Capt. Stacy. If only his health were better. If only he wasn't getting so old… So why not retire along with Arthur? For that, Capt. Stacy did not have a ready answer. There still seemed so much to do…
***
"But you still have so much to do!" whined Harry. His dad busied himself with his necktie, remarking that if it was important to the Stacys, it should be important to him and Harry. But Harry didn't see it that way. After all, didn't they keep their lives as the Green Goblin and the Gremlin separate from their everyday lives? How was THIS any different?! Harry's worlds were colliding-- Norman Osborn was going to have dinner with Capt. Stacy! Osborn smiled at his son's nervousness, patting him on the shoulder. He was just going to meet Norman at the golf club. It wasn't anything sinister; their children WERE dating, after all. Harry rolled his eyes. He made his father PROMISE that this wasn't another aspect of your "controlling" issues: "You don't have to control EVERY aspect of my life, you know!" Osborn raised an eyebrow, trying not to be too offended of his son's "wigginess." It was Capt Stacy's idea to meet in the first place, so he shouldn't worry.
***
"I wouldn't worry," Captain Stacy remarked. He was sitting, chatting and smoking pipes with newspaper mogul J. Jonah Jameson, while Norman Osborn arrived and joined the two.
Jameson pressed the issue, continuing their earlier conversation. After all, the members of 4-Victory and the majority of the Avengers were all "hi-tech heroes"-- self-made men, models of scientific progress. The Enforcers were people who just… stumbled into happy accidents.
(Osborn tried to change the topic: "What about the Green Goblin?" To which Jameson scoffed. He didn't believed it existed. Simply an urban legend, a boogeyman to keep people off the streets at night.)
Captain Stacy demurred, saying that there needed to be a place for these individuals to use their new powers for the public good. But he was forced to agree. Almost as if he was thinking aloud, Stacy trailed off, wondering if more people could have access to hi-tech devices to be made into super-powered Enforcers… Jameson turned to Osborn. Wasn't there a Dr. Stillwell working for OsCorp that was researching animal mutation? What if such research was turned to human experimentation?
Osborn deflected the question, with a wink, asking Jameson to speak with his publicist if he wanted an interview. Fair enough! Fair enough. Ha, ha, ha!
****
"Ha, ha, ha!" Osborn laughed at his son's expectant expression. Of course he wanted to know all about the dinner. Osborn related that, actually, despite some pleasantries, the two fathers didn't talk about him that much. What *did* they talk about? Business, current events, family. Osborn also remarked that he was asked to help George with his brother. He was going to see if he couldn't get Arthur Stacy a job as head of security with OsCorp. Capt. Stacy just kept saying that he wanted to do what was best for the city and for his family. ("In that," Osborn trailed off, "it seems we have … a lot in common.")
Harry couldn't wait to talk to Gwen on the phone. "The alert level can be lowered to yellow," he reported. Gwen, curled up on a little couch on the other end of the line, wondered what Osborn had said when her dad told him about all those truancies he was going to have to arrest Harry and Gwen for. Wha--?! Truancies?! Arrests?! Harry's eyes bugged out until he realized, "Oh, you're bad, girl!" Gwen smiled, with a mischievous squint. "I know. Downright terrible!"
***
"It's terrible!" Dr. Stillwell remarked. His lab had been broken into! Stillwell and Arthur Stacy review the footage of Spider-Man infiltrating the lab, sneaking around the experiments on display, turning suddenly at the camera ("as if he knew it was right there!") and webbing it up, reducing the image to static.
Also present is Captain Stacy and Norman Osborn. At Osborn's questions, Stillwell remarks that no, nothing was stolen or tampered with, and yes, Spider-Man seemed to know what he was looking at, rifling through years of research. Hmm. Could he be simply curious about animal mutations? Could it have something to do with his own powers?
Arthur pulled Captain Stacy aside for a little rant. He's more than a little bitter that he was forced to agree to this new job. Two weeks in, and now was his big chance! But he can't even BE a simple security guard if even the CRIMINALS are super powered! He knows that the Captain has particular reasons of his own to look after Osborn's operations. But he'll do this one on his own.
Arthur thanked George's offer of help. But maybe George was getting too old for this. Arthur Stacy doesn't need his big brother anymore to come along and mop up after him! (Wow-- Capt. Stacy's face was a mixture of sadness and resentment at that.) "I'll take care of it!"
***
"We better take care of it," Osborn told his son, affixing his goblin-mask. The alarms were from Dr. Stillwell's department. Perhaps Spider-Man had returned… or it was something else entirely. Either way, he hadn't heard from Stillwell or Arthur Stacy.
It was late, nearly dark with the absence of moon when the Goblins arrived at the labs of OsCorp. They were nearly completely destroyed! But this couldn't have been Spider-Man, the Green Goblin remarked. He seemed genuinely *interested* in the work, not in destroying it! The Gremlin wondered why the police hadn't arrived. Capt. Stacy was all over the earlier situation. (Privately, the Gremlin wondered if that was because the Capt. had already treated it as a "family" affair.)
The Goblin followed the sound of a soft groan, to find Dr. Stillwell buried under a ton of rubble and broken experiments. Lifting it all with ease, he helped the doctor out, but the scientist was too hurt, still too disorientated. He couldn't answer the Goblin's question about the security. He just kept mumbling about how it "worked" but was "too unstable." Well, at least the Goblin wouldn't have to worry about being recognized or freaking out at the appearance of his grinning face. "Hey," the Gremlin asked the Goblin if there was any special project between Stillwell and Captain Stacy. No, why? Well, that's what these papers seem to suggest, the Gremlin held up some memos from the wreckage. "What does it mean?"
That's when a thunderous explosion ripped out the wall behind them all. Out of it stepped a bluish-black costumed man. "It means that's evidence-- and it and this entire laboratory must be destroyed!"
"Stacy?" wondered the Goblin. The man launched at him with uncanny speed. "Stacy was weak and worthless. Now it's the SCORPION you must contend with!"
The Goblin's electric zaps didn't stop the charging Scorpion, and the two traded punches. Clearly, both were a near match in raw power-- strength for strength, it seemed. But the Scorpion was that much stronger, as if his muscles were even more quickened, concentrated. The Scorpion managed to grip the Goblin as his namesake might, but with his hand about the Goblin's throat, and he lifted him high! "Think, man!" The Green Goblin tried to eke out, "You don't need to do this!" "Oh, I think I've needed to do this for a long time! I'm more powerful now than I ever thought possible! Thanks to OsCorp!"
The Gremlin fired explosive mini-pellets from his gauntlet, staggering his foe and forcing him to drop the Goblin. But he didn't take into account the range of the Scorpion's tail. (SWAT!) "A mechanical tail," the Scorpion introduced it, "to match my raw animal power!" The Goblin took advantage of the tag-team, landing an upper cut (SMAK!) that seemed to rattle him. Or was the Scorpion's brain addled already? ("uh… no!… Stronger!… than ever…)
Hopping on his Broomboard, the Gremlin grabbed the Scorp's tail and flew straight upwards, throwing the Scorpion ahead of him like a baseball bat in order to smash through the ceiling. But once he shook the cobwebs from his brain, the battered Scorpion coiled his tail behind him against a wall, using its fantastic strength to propel himself at the Gremlin. The two were locked in a brief hand-to-hand exchange, and the Gremlin tried to flee, still on the Broomboard as he was. But the Scorpion twisted himself around, bringing that tail to bear once more, and it swatted the Broomboard away, snapping it in two as it did so! The Gremlin retaliated with some tear-gas pellets, and the Scorpion backed away from the enveloping gas cloud.
Down below, the Goblin double-checked on Stillwell. "Stacy… the Scorpion…" he murmured, "for the captain…" The Goblin responded ("Yes, we know. Try to rest here. The danger's past.") before rushing toward and activating his glider. But Stillwell's weak protests "no… wait…" were too faint to be heard. Stillwell knew that the processes wasn't complete. Stacy needed the last part of the process, a serum that might stabilize his mental state. Otherwise, his very sanity was at risk! If he could just reach it--
The Goblin arrived up top atop his glider, and he buzzed the Scorpion for a fly-by punching. But the villain merely roared in his anger; the gas had only served to make him all the more violent, slobbering and ranting at our Goblins! (And which brings us to the opening splash page of our little tale here. See how we have a roundabout way to get to things around here?)
More pummeling, more punching! More explosions, and more extreme fighting! Finally, the Goblin's own pumpkin bomb was swatted aside by the Scorpion's tail, and it exploded just in front of the Gremlin instead! The force knocked the youth backward against a wall, and the Scorpion leaped next to it, gripping his fingers into the brick wall and toppling it downward over the Gremlin! The rest of the building was still intact, of course, as this was merely an lower tier rooftop, and the Scorpion scuttled upward to gain the higher ground of a higher tier. The Green Goblin rushed to help the Gremlin, believing that his son could brush it off and they could continue the chase of the Scorpion together.
He was wrong on both counts. The Gremlin lay still, despite the Goblin's attempt to clear away the remnants of the wall. And while he was distracted, the Scorpion fell upon him from above, adding the momentum of his fall to the mighty swing of his tail. POOM! The Goblin was smacked so hard that he was nearly pushed right through the rooftop! When the dust cleared, the Scorpion stood triumphant!
But his goals haven't been met so far. He must finish off the only loose end remaining. He must finish off-- his family!
2BCont'd!
Cover and text by Danny Wall
Well! This story has been building for a while! It's hard to give Norman and Harry a supporting cast, but a supporting cast is exactly what makes Spider-Man so great. So I've had to slowly tie the Goblins to the Stacys over the issues. The only other option would be to create all-new characters to fill the lives of the Osborns, but I wanted to stay as close to the original comics as possible. Too bad the Osborns don't have many people around them-- although perhaps that's because in the real Marvel U, they were villains!
But if you look closely, we're still not 100% sure who EXACTLY is the Scorpion, do we? Do a double check, and see if I did the "mystery" right. We'll see exactly who it is next month, and whether or not Dr. Stillwell's sanity-saving serum will reach the Scorpion in time, unlike his Marvel Universe counterpart!
Posted by: Danny | October 08, 2007 at 08:08 AM