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Post by Admin on Jan 7, 2024 16:32:23 GMT
"Hard to believe we're really taking a vacation, eh, Hawkshaw?" Beautiful blonde Carol Clews complained mildly as she and her partner, ruggedly handsome Dan Dare relaxed in the comfortable cockpit of their second-hand Lear Jet, currently zooming across the sky at 600 MPH from San Diego on their way to visit their friends, Jim and Sue Barr (Bulletman and Bulletwoman) in Fawcett City, all the way across the continent. The plane was wrapped inside a streamlined yellow force field and the jets were on the lowest power, as Carol's 'sunny side up' energy powers provided most of the propulsion. "Kind of nice to relax for a change!"
"Yeah, we've pretty much been on the run since our long nap, eh, Sally?" Dan winked at her shocked expression. "Gotta call you something, since I can't use those 'cutesy' nicknames any longer. I get 'Hawkshaw the Detective', you get 'Sally the Sleuth'." She quickly realized she shouldn't have been surprised that a detective as sharp as Dan would notice her new-found obsession for collecting old editions of 'Spicy Detective' magazine, which featured a strip named 'Sally the Sleuth'.
"Women weren't suppose to read read that stuff back then, you know," she noted with wry amusement. "And a gal's gotta have something to keep her busy in her spare time - not that our job leaves me much of that!" Then a thought struck her, and she continued eagerly: "Say, I wonder if Captain Kent ever read Spicy Detective? Maybe he's got some back issues in his attic or basement!" Captain Kent was Sue Bar's father, and he'd been a cop all his life, from patrolman to Sergeant to Detective to Chief of Police. Then she added musingly, "I wonder how he felt after his daughter had been missing for 20 years - and then she turned up, still in her late 20s? What a weird experience... like everything surrounding these unscheduled time jaunts!"
He nodded as they both mentally reviewed their previous cases since they'd been restored from being trapped for almost 45 years in a suspended animation spell... fighting a squad of Nazi soldiers who'd been caught in the same spell on a South Sea Island, their first case back in which Dan had busted his leg jumping off a speeding truck, Carol's South Sea adventure where she'd fought an immortal caveman and breathed the fumes that gave her energy control super powers, another Carol solo adventure with Lance O'Casey when she revealed her new identity as Sunbeam, her solo adventures in space and time, their encounter in the park while bodyguarding for reclusive millionaire Lawrence Library, and their almost fatal encounter with one of their earliest foes, the Spider Sinister... and finally, vacation!
"You know, I loved the PI Flyer, but this one's got it all beat for comfort and speed!" Dan laughed and sounded a little nostalgic. Back in 'the day', he and Carol were always flying across the country from one case to another in Dan's heavily-customized Aeronca 65CA Super Chief, which had been capable of over 300 MPH. The plane had been abandoned at the airfield on Rarotonga Island for years after Dan and Carol had been trapped in the time-stop spell, and eventually just disappeared. Dan had discovered the Lear Jet in a junk yard and had plans to have it fully restored, but most of the onboard amenities and the plane's superior top speed were currently provided by Carol's energy powers. Before the plane had been flightworthy, she'd done the all their flying herself, carrying Dan along in an energy bubble, but both of them were relieved to be back in a plane again. They were still learning more about Carol's 'sunny side up' powers and neither was 100% confident that she wouldn't run out of power 3 miles up in the middle of a long flight. And sitting in recliners in the Lear Jet's cockpit was a lot more comfortable for Dan than the energy bubbles had been!
"I know you're looking forward to talking detective stuff with Jim - a bunch of old fogies you two are! Sue's booked us at the most expensive day spa in the north-east, and I'm going to savor every minute of it! Hope you fogies take a break for some fun!" Carol laughed.
"I just hope he's got some interesting cases going on to discuss. And I definitely want to hear more about detective technology that was invented while we were asleep - I'm sure the bad guys have tricks we've never even imagined by now!" he replied. "We talked about a round of golf, but he had to give it up the first time he made a drive after he'd got his powers - his poor ball exploded into teeny tiny shards when he hit it!" He added, "You really might find some of Sue's cases interesting - she has been establishing quite a formidable reputation as an independent detective in her own right!"
"I guess we'll need _something_ to talk about when we're sweating in the sauna, or lounging around getting our nails, hair, and makeup done. And you guys had better notice when go out on the town! I'm sure there will be a lot of other guys looking our way!"
Yup, vacation sure sounded nice!
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Post by Admin on Jan 10, 2024 15:24:40 GMT
"GAAH!!!" He was trapped in a room with thousands of spiders, seemingly all of them bent on attacking him! They were swarming over him and biting him, and he had felt his limbs and his mind going numb. He struck out and thrashed around violently, smashing everything around him - and he gradually realized he was no longer numb and he had crushed and destroyed everything nearby and he was no longer under attack, and fought to regain control. He couldn't see anything around him, but he didn't expect to, he was blind, after all! But he could mentally sense the presence of dozens of spiders nearby - spiders who were cautiously aware of him, but not immediately hostile. He 'extended' his mind the way he'd learned in that awful French dungeon, and gathered in the sensory data of all the nearby spiders, and suddenly he could 'see' the room he was in, better, in fact, than he would have been able to see with his own eyes, as the room was in pitch darkness.
It was some sort of store room. His body had been wrapped in a canvas bag and stored in a big wooden shipping crate along with at least half a dozen other bodies. It was hard to tell - his struggles had demolished the crate and broken several of the other bodies into pieces. He heard a noise - someone was unlocking the door to this room! His attention switched in that direction, and suddenly he was able to 'see' into the next room - although the details were less clear. He couldn't be sure if that was because there were fewer spiders in the adjacent room or he had problems sensing what they sensed because they were farther away and on the other side of the wall. But he could tell that two men opening the door, a security guard with his gun drawn and a janitor. He quickly hid behind some of the debris, meanwhile wondering how he'd gotten here. And how he was going to get out of here!
He considered the spiders in the room, and realized he was in luck. In the corner between ceiling and wall not far from the door, several yellow sac spiders had made nests. Almost as soon as he realized that, these spiders were all scurrying from the nests to be directly over the door as fast as their eight legs could carry them! And as soon as the door opened, they pounced!! Or rather, dropped onto the head and shoulders of the two men entering the room, and moved as quickly as they could to exposed flesh while the men were backing away and shrieking in horror! A yellow sac spider bite is rarely fatal, but often feels like being stung by a bee, and each man was bitten several times, and as they were reeling with the unexpected pain, he moved to escape.
He sprang up off the floor and was amazed when he leaped more than 15 feet and zoomed into the hallway. Moving on instinct, he turned back and bit each man - and they fell to the floor, paralyzed! He then realized he was without clothes - a few seconds later, he was wearing the security guard's uniform, except that his feet were bare. When he was fully dressed, again acting on instinct, he leaped again to the ceiling and clung, scuttling along the ceiling as he raced down the hallway towards an Exit sign, moving at fast running speed! Up the stairs, and he could see through a pair of big double windows that it was night outside. He continued to scuttle across the ceiling and he realized he felt very light, almost as if his bones were hollow (later investigation showed that they were indeed now hollow...). 'The venom from all the different spiders that bit me must have changed me - given me spider powers and instincts!' he theorized as he scuttled.
As he passed each door, he 'reached out' to the spiders inside to see what was in each room, and soon realized that he must be in a college building surrounded by classrooms. Some of the rooms were easier to sense than others, apparently depending on which rooms were the homes to more or fewer spiders. Rather than continue searching for the door, he entered one of the classrooms, picked up the heavy teacher's desk and easily heaved it through the window. Then he leaped after it. A strand of silk grew out of an opening on the bottom of his left foot, trailing behind him as he zoomed through the air. By the time he'd reached the top of his leap, it was longer than he was. He bent down and grabbed it in both hands, pulling it free of the orifice, which then closed. As he fell, the strand was pulled into a vertical position - and then he stopped falling and started to rise!! He was ballooning, a technique spiders use to fly.
And then, exultantly: "Watch out world! The BLACK SPIDER lives AGAIN!!!"
For the first story of the Black Spider, see Bulletman #1, June 1941. Or, read on for more information:
The Black Spider was Jules Rey, a French murderer who escaped to the US, where he was captured by Police Sergeant Kent and after a trial presided over by Judge HatPath (where future Mayor Crittendon was foreman of the jury, which included John Moog, Thomas Hill, Ben Berger, Pat Casey, and Addison Bell), based on evidentiary testimony by Jim Barr and Susan Kent, he was extradited to France, where he was imprisoned in a dungeon. In the dungeon, he was bitten by several varieties of spider, and the venom combination blinded him but gave him the power to mentally control spiders and sense his surroundings via their senses. When they realized he was blind, the French authorities relaxed their vigilance, and he managed to escape. He used his new abilities to steal enough money for a ticket back to the states, where he adopted the identity of the Black Spider.
In a museum exhibit of poisonous spiders, he mentally took control of them and caused them to attack everyone in attendance, and in the confusion he escaped with a Black Widow spider he named 'Suzy'. Suzy killed a gang leader and the Black Spider took over the gang and began a campaign of vengeance against those who had been part of his trial. His gang abducted those on his list one by one, and delivered them to the Black Spider's secret underground sanctum, entered through a disguised door in the side of a huge oak tree in a swamp outside the city. Bulletman and Bulletgirl uncovered the scheme but were unable to prevent the abduction and death of Judge Hatpath and the abduction of Sergeant Kent - but they arrived before Kent was killed. The Black Spider attempted to trap Kent and the heroes in a room with thousands of spiders but his trap backfired, and the spiders swarmed and bit him instead of his intended victims. He was pronounced dead and delivered to the city morgue. The doctor at the morgue had a side deal selling unwanted cadavers to a local medical school, and that's where the body ended up. Unfortunately for the school, its crooked accounting was discovered shortly afterward, and all the assets were sold at auction. The Black Spider's cadaver, along with half a dozen others, were purchased by another medical store and put into storage - and forgotten about for over 40 years.
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Post by Admin on Jan 15, 2024 14:53:38 GMT
Not long after... Dan Dare and Jim Barr were sitting in a quiet corner of Pepper's Pub, around the corner from police HQ, and a favorite after-shift hangout of cops and firefighters because it was open 24 hours and was owned by a woman who had been a longtime undercover cop in the local police department. They were discussing some of their more recent cases and also the effort needed to adapt to modern society after their respective 'time jump' experiences. Jim's temporal dislocation had been less severe (20 years as opposed to 45) and he'd had more then 15 years to adapt, and Dan needed his advice - he kept running into situations where things he'd learned growing up made it harder for him to succeed. For example, cars and trucks today were capable of both faster acceleration and higher speeds than he was used to, a factor the led him to jumping off a speeding truck during his first case 'back' and breaking his leg. Or the fights he'd with the hospital staff before he had accepted being treated by a female doctor and male nurses, or even his recent dressing down by his partner on the way he treated women. "Sue drilled this one into me over and over again," Jim recounted ruefully. "Sometimes you'll see things that you always believed were impossible when you were younger, like a woman in the Supreme Court or women wearing miniskirts on the street, or color televisions and radios you can carry in your hand, to a single bomb capable of destroying an entire city. When you actually SEE something your mind is telling you is impossible, believe your eyes!" 4 men stepped around a corner, and Jim's eyes went wide. "The Black Spider! But you died in 1941!" he started to say in disbelief - but never finished. Even with his enhanced reaction time, he was unable to avoid the lunging man who dove onto the table and bit his hand - and within an instant he was paralyzed! Dan had leaped to his feet by then but the other 3 men were covering him, and the rest of the patrons in the lounge, with Tommy guns. One of them knocked him out with the butt of his gun. The Black Spider easily picked up the paralyzed Jim Barr and threw him over his shoulder. One of the others pointed his gun at Jim's head. "One false move by anyone - and Barr's brains get spattered all over this beautiful bar!" the Black Spider warned. Jim had recognized him as he was dressed similarly to his attire in 1941 - a black cowl that covered his eyes and nose, a black business suit and a black cape. The 4 raced outside to a waiting vehicle and vanished into the city before the on-duty police arrived. On the way out, two of them tossed Molotov cocktails and in the ensuing confusion, it wasn't until Dan was revived a half hour later that an APB went out about Jim being kidnapped. The getaway car was found abandoned several blocks away in a large municipal parking lot an hour later. But Jim and the criminals were long gone by then... |
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Post by Admin on Jan 16, 2024 13:14:52 GMT
Sue Barr and Carol Clews were being pampered at the best Day Spa in the Tri-state area! 'Susan Kent, Specialty Detective' had just helped Interpol break up an international human trafficking ring and Sue's reward had been a cool million dollars - on top of the satisfaction of freeing hundreds from slavery and sending a dozen or so vicious international criminals to prison! Carol was complaining mildly about her own recent cases without rewards as they reclined in the luxurious salon chairs and were pampered by teams of spa attendants.
"We've finally got 'The Daring Duo Detective Agency' incorporated and even had a few cases, but no rewards yet, darn it! We got a nice payday from Lawrence Library, and then we captured the Spider Sinister, but there was no reward for him, he'd been 'retired' from the crime biz for over 40 years. It's hard to believe that he only returned to crime to get revenge against me and Dan for putting him in prison in 1941! But at least people in San Diego are starting to hear about us again!"
"Ironic, isn't it, that after more than 40 years ago, the Black Spider is back for revenge on the accursed Kent family as well!" a high-pitched voice announced out of nowhere against a sudden loud hissing. All those who were standing quickly slumped to the floor, and Sue and Carol could tell they were starting to pass out.
"Oh, no! My father..." Sue gasped and then was silent. Carol was holding her breath but it was too late; the gas was already in her system. She saw 4 masked men enter the room, one of them wearing an evil looking black helmet or hood with sinister looking horns and a black business suit. When she and everyone else awakened an hour later, Sue was gone!
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Post by Admin on Jan 16, 2024 23:29:03 GMT
Carol awakened shortly afterward, though the attendants around her were still unconscious. She verified that they were still breathing, and it was Sunbeam who exited their private room and flashed through the spa. The spa was littered with sprawled bodies - apparently the bad guys had gassed the whole place! She checked everyone she saw to confirm they were all breathing as she headed for the exit. She could hear sirens outside, but just to be sure she stopped to place a 911 call, and then she raced out of the building and zoomed into the air. She was acting on Sue's desperate mention of her father - her friend's first thought on hearing the Black Spider name had been her dad, so Sunbeam decided her next top priority was to check on Major Kent's safety.
Fortunately, she and Sue had visited him yesterday, so finding his house wasn't hard. She landed behind his garage out of sight of the street and Carol raced to the front door. She was relieved to discover Major Kent was home and safe - so far!
As soon as he opened the front door, she burst out: "Sue has been kidnapped by some thug claiming the name of the Black Spider! And she appeared to think you might be in danger!"
Kent looked a bit bemused rather than being as alarmed as Carol had expected. "The Black Spider was reported dead more than 45 years ago! I wonder if this is really the same guy?"
"Dan and I were reported dead more than 45 years ago, too!" Carol pointed out. "And you and Sue, and hundreds of others, were 'dead' for 20 years. This Black Spider might have a similar story! Sue's in deadly danger, and we have to do _something_!!"
"Even if this really is the same Black Spider, he may have bitten off more than he can chew," Major Kent replied. "Not just with Sue, but me, too, now that you're here, eh? But don't worry, we'll do something."
"Ah - you know?" Carol asked carefully. She didn't want to give away anything.
Kent laughed briefly and replied while he was dialing the phone. "C'mon, young lady, give me _some_ credit! I was a cop, and a good one, for more than 40 years. Of course I know! I knew the day she put on the helmet, though I pretended not to - they seemed so focused on keeping the secret I didn't want to spoil it for them. But if YOU know, that seems to confirm my suspicions about you, as well, Miss Clews - or should I say, 'Sunbeam'?"
At that instant, both of them were surrounded in yellow auras, as Carol realized that they were vulnerable to another gas attack. "I guess I should have done this sooner - but we're safe from knockout and poisonous gasses now," she explained a bit sheepishly...
Major Kent wasn't quite as casual after he finished his phone call. "Looks like the Spider got Jim too. This is getting more serious! They just clubbed your partner, but before that he saw the Spider _bite_ Jim, which knocked him out, then other witnesses reported that he picked Jim up and easily carried him out of the building, and outside he leaped like 30 feet, still carrying Jim like he was weightless. It looks like somehow, he's gained super powers!"
"We should go to the police station and get you some protection, then Dan and I will go after the Black Spider!" Carol proclaimed, but Kent objected.
"He's got MY DAUGHTER! And my son-in-law!"
Carol was about to gently point out that Major Kent was not nearly as young as he used to be and might no longer be capable of mixing it up on an even basis with super powered villains, but at that instant, the light in the living room went out - and an instant later, something smashed through the kitchen door! A quick thought from Carol, and she was gone, replaced by... a bulky humanoid figure, outlined in flickering yellow light that obscured any identifying features, a disguise she had used in the past as well. 4 men wearing black masks, three of them carrying machine guns and the other one the Black Spider, burst into the room from the kitchen.
The Spider reacted more quickly than Carol, and leaped across the room with his fists outstretched in front of him, while yelling at his men: "You take care of Kent!" and then he slammed into Sunbeam's force shield. His leap had not been powerful enough to break through the shield, but she was knocked over backward and he landed on top of her, and started pounding. Meanwhile, the other 3 surrounded Major Kent, who really was no longer up to the task of fighting 3 men at once, and it wasn't long before one of them managed to slam the stock of his gun into the back of the beleaguered ex-cop's head, knocking him out.
Even back before their unexpected 'nap', Carol and Dan had always practiced hand-to-hand combat skills occasionally together. Dan was a highly skilled brawler and fighter and Carol's ability to fight back had served her well in many of their cases. And since she'd gained her 'sunny-side-up' powers, they had added practice when she was powered up to their standard routine. The Black Spider was much stronger than Dan, but her force field was proof against machine gun fire (admittedly, machine gun rounds hurt like the dickens!), so she could withstand his blows. But they came fast and furious, and jarred her around inside her shell, making it hard to think or react. But she also had some good friends with super powers, and both Bulletwoman and Corona had warned her that she should have at least one escape strategy or tactic that was drilled into her so that it was almost instinctive and she wouldn't have to think about it, for situations similar to this one...
"UP!!!" she thought urgently, and her power responded and she rocketed upward, smashing through the living room ceiling, and then through a bedroom ceiling and then through the attic and the roof! The Spider had been on top of her and he was slammed into and through the ceiling joists, which actually peeled him off and he fell back to the floor of the living room - more than a little battered and bruised! She didn't slow down until she recovered enough to realize she was no longer under attack. She zoomed back down to the house and was able to see a truck racing down the street - and she also noticed that there was a large, open crate in Mr. Kent's back yard and there was a carpet of brown and black flowing out the crate and into the yard...
'Better check on what that is, first - might be dangerous!' she thought, torn between checking and chasing the truck. And her decision to check first was right - the 'carpet' was more spiders than she had ever thought existed! Carol didn't find spiders to be scary or abhorrent, but she knew even common spider bites could be dangerous - and she had no idea whether any of these spiders were poisonous or not. But she couldn't let them infest Mr. Kent's house and all the neighbors' yards.
From well above the house, she instantly formed a dome on the lawn in front of the leading edge of the rippling blanket. "I'm sure I don't have them all, but this should capture most of them! Now for that truck!" From constant practice with Dan (and her adventures with Corona and Atom Blake) she knew she could leave the structure unattended for about an hour before it began to 'decay', so now she had a deadline!
By now there was a several people gathered on the sidewalk watching this very unusual, incredible show... People were used to superheroes by now, but Sunbeam was the only energy-controlling hero she knew about. She approached the closest, flying very slowly.
"A dangerous super villain named the Black Spider just released swarms of poisonous spiders in Major Kent's lawn!" she warned them urgently. "And kidnapped Major Kent! Someone please call an exterminator for the ones I missed, and someone else please call the police! My name is Sunbeam; the cops will know who I am. I'm going after the Spider!" She zoomed up higher and started flying in the direction the truck had been going. It wasn't too far away, still driving recklessly at high speeds. She zoomed off in that direction and overtook it in only a few seconds, and then created several energy 'hands' in front of the truck, with the palms of each of the hands pressed against the front of the truck to slow it down.
She'd never used this exact tactic before, although she and Dan had discussed how she would stop a speeding vehicle. She had discovered that using her powers, she was able to lift an unloaded train box car, at least, so she should have enough power to stop a truck - but she didn't want to endanger people around, and sometimes she still dropped heavy things, so she resorted to trying to slow it down rather than carrying it away.
Rather than slowing down, the truck driver stomped on the gas pedal - and the front of the truck started to crumple. This panicked the driver and he slammed on the breaks and the truck screeched to a halt! Sunbeam instantly enclosed it in another energy dome, yellow and transparent, and she could see that there was only one person in the cab - he was trying to open the door, but her energy barrier prevented it. He was not masked and was dressed differently than the men who had burst into Kent's house. She scooted around back, and created some energy hands to rip open the back of the truck...
"Uh-oh!" she moaned in dismay. It was empty!
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Post by Admin on Jan 18, 2024 0:09:28 GMT
By now, there was a police car approaching with lights flashing and sirens blaring, attracted by the blaring horn and the squealing of tires. Sunbeam needed to get ahead of this game! She remained stationary, floating a foot off the ground as the cops got out of the car with their guns pulled. One stayed behind to cover the other as he approached her cautiously. "Officers, you may have heard of me, my name is Sunbeam from San Diego. I have reason to believe that the driver of this truck is part of the Black Spider's gang and they have just kidnapped Jim Barr of your Police Department, his wife, Susan Barr, PI, and her husband, retired Major Kent, also of your Police Department. This guy will probably tell you he has no idea why I stopped him and wrecked his truck, but if you can't hold him until I can get you more evidence that he's part of the gang, please make sure you have a positive ID so we can pick him up later!" As far as she knew, no cops had seen him speeding through the streets, and these guys had no more reason to trust Sunbeam than they had to trust an anonymous phone call. "I have to go - gotta find the Black Spider before he kills his hostages!" She lifted into the air and zoomed away - toward police headquarters, not Major Kent's house. She wanted to connect with her partner so they could get their own search for their friends started! She left her energy barrier in existence - it would hold him for another half hour or so. If this guy wasn't part of the Spider's gang, she was probably going to have a lawsuit on her hands... She knew where police HQ was; Jim had given them a quick tour yesterday. As soon as she was out of sight of the cops near the captured truck, she lessened the glow of her aura, making herself as inconspicuous as possible - a trick she'd learned playing Sky Tag with Atom Blake and Corona. Then she landed in an alley and turned back to Carol. She was still wearing the sweatsuit she'd had on back at the spa. She rushed inside and asked the sergeant at the front desk if Dan Dare was still here - and he was, he was still going over every detail, again and again, with investigating officers. "It will probably be another hour, miss," one of the officers told her... So she tried to make good use of the time, and asked to see the departments files on The Black Spider. She had to dig a lot - there was only a slim folder, and it was in a cabinet drawer dated 1941, and the drawer probably hadn't been opened in 40 years... even inside the closed door, it was covered in dust. She had a lot of recent experience sorting dusty dusty files, though and knew some sunny-side-up tricks... an almost invisible dust mask, a really bright, tightly focused light, even a bright, diffuse light on the underside of a page to help make words stand out better. She didn't learn much... (see Bulletman #1 at Comic Book Plus or the Black Spider bio synopsis at the DC Comics Fandom Wiki) but other than his presumed ability to command spiders, there was no mention of other powers - but also no mention about how he had managed to survive being bitten by maybe hundreds of poisonous spiders (although WE readers know how!!) Even though they were practically frantic about their missing friends, it really was another hour before Dan was released by the investigators. Dan and Carol were at least at little gratified that the Police Department put out APBs on Major Kent, Jim and Sue immediately after Carol told them of Major Kent's abduction, but they had to wait until the authorities were satisfied before THEY could join in the search. Meanwhile, while she waited for Dan, Carol still had an errand waiting for her. She flew back to Major Kent's house. By now there was a fairly large crowd on the sidewalk, and an exterminator on the scene. They had sprayed Kent's yard and were reasonably sure they'd got rid of any spiders Sunbeam hadn't originally trapped - but there were still a LOT of live spiders in the energy bubble - and they could tell that some of them, at least, were dangerous. She landed and began talking to the exterminators. "I don't want to just kill them," she explained, "but I don't know what to do with them? I can't keep them penned up like this for too long, but I don't want to just release them here either." "Well..." one of the them answered slowly. "If there was some way to get them there, it would probably be OK to release them in 'the Great Swamp' - it's about 6000 acres of swampland, and they'd be right at home." "Where's that?" she asked quickly, and was told that it was about 35 miles due west. She made up her mind in a hurry - she'd make it up to Major Kent later, somehow. She extended her bubble under the lawn and picked up about an inch of the lawn plus all the spiders inside it, and zoomed off due west. She was back at the police station in less than an hour - and all the spiders had been released on an island surrounded by long stretches of swamp in all directions. "Well, cruddy-dud-dud!" Carol complained, perhaps using somewhat stronger language, when they finally had a little privacy. "We just got done with our own Spider-emulating nemesis, and now we're faced with another one! I'm a detective, not an exterminator!" As Dan chuckled wryly, she continued. "Not sure how we should go about this search, partner? We don't have any informants in this city, and since he's only just come out of wherever he's been hiding since 1941, it's not likely any of the 'usual suspects' will know anything about him anyway... I wish I could have 'tagged' Sue somehow, but the gas got me before I had a chance to even think of it..." Then she used some more bad words. Dan thought it over. "He had at least 4 guys working for him and three of them, at least, carry machine guns. That sounds like a mob rather than a bunch of guys he just met at a bar. Maybe he somehow took over an established gang. I'm going to see if the Organized Crime Unit has heard about anything like that." "OK, and I'll check out the recent papers at the library," she agreed, and they went off on their separate tasks. |
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Post by Admin on Jan 19, 2024 15:01:54 GMT
Their separate lines of investigation both uncovered that, within the past week, local mob boss Joe "The Reporter" Hack had been found dead in his home. The cause of death had been determined to be several bites from brown recluse spiders; exterminators called to his house had discovered a large nest of these spiders in his attic, so it was ruled to be death by natural causes.
The official police report had ended there, but one of the newspaper stories included excerpts from an interview with Dr. Mary Parker, a local arachnologist who had noted that it was unusual that Bullhead's autopsy showed that he must have been bitten by multiple spiders (based on the number of bites and the amount of venom in his system) and it didn't seem likely that he would have encountered such a large swam so far from the nest, but law enforcement hadn't seemed inclined to follow up on her suspicions. After all, the dead guy was a mob boss.
Carol investigated Dr. Parker a bit more, thinking perhaps she and Dan should go talk to her - and found her obituary and an article from a few days after Bullhead's death, reporting that Dr. Parker had died of suicide: in the middle of the night, the police had received a frantic call from a motorist who told them he'd seem somebody jump off of the Captain Billy Bridge into the Passaic River, and not long afterward, the Coast Guard had recovered her body. Her injuries were consistent with striking the water at high speed, confirming the suicide. Carol didn't believe it...
And when they got back together, Dan had more related information as well... he'd spent some time digging into Joe 'The Reporter' Hack's background, and had been stunned to realize he'd met the man once - more than 40 years ago!
So he'd talked some Organized Crime detectives out of the names of some of the members of Hack's mob, and where some of them normally hung out. "Time for some of that legwork, Sally Sleuth!" he quipped enthusiastically. When Dan was involved, legwork usually involved busting some heads, one of his favorite pastimes. "Let's get started. Officer Jackson, who was Major Kent's last partner, suggests our best bet is to start with this place..." He pointed to an address and a name on a file card "... and see if we can find this guy."
***
"Two PIs walked into a bar..."
Two men with fedoras pulled low over their faces, one athletically trim and the other quite stocky, walked into a bar in one of the less desirable neighborhoods in Fawcett City. The stocky one, moving stiffly as if heavily afflicted by arthritis, sat down at an empty table while the other approached the bar to order.
"Two draft beers, please," he said, and the bartender knew by his accent that he was from out of town. He made no attempt to keep his voice down - and perhaps he was even deliberately attempting to be overheard. "And, say, do you know anyone who was an associate of Joe 'The Reporter' Hack?" The bartender looked very alarmed at hearing the name. "No, it's OK!" the customer assured the server quickly. "See, I'm a PI from San Diego..." he slowly pulled his wallet from his inside jacket pocket, while the still-cautious bartender reached under the bar. "Funny, see, it was in Hack's will that if he were murdered, his lawyer was supposed to hire me to track down his killer!" He shrugged his puzzlement. "His lawyer contacted me, and, well, here I am..."
"Sounds like a crock to me!" the bartender insisted. "How would Hack even know a PI from San Diego? I think you better leave, buddy, and like yesterday!" His hand came out from under the bar holding a pistol. Dan's hand was at his side, and he made a subtle gesture to the other man at the table, who was watching the pair closely.
"Hey, hold on!" Dan objected, sounding more than a little scared. "You've heard about all the people who got shanghaied into space by the evil genius Sivana, right? Missing for years and then they just showed up again, young as ever?"
"Everybody heard that story, mug. So what?"
"Well, you know how Hack came from Connecticut, right?" The bartender shook his head dubiously. He wasn't really up on the bios of all the top crooks in the city.
"Well, long time ago, before I got shanghaied in time, a friend of mine who was the President of the Westville Bank in Connecticut called me in to solve a counterfeiting case. Hack worked for the counterfeiter at the time. He was sure it was an operation that would NEVER be touched, and he was impressed as hell when I broke it up - in fact, at his trail, before his sentencing, he told me that if he ever needed a PI, he'd look me up. I guess he never needed one before." He shrugged again. "Who ever heard of a mob boss hiring a PI, anyway?"
Some of this story was true - George Eaton, then president of the Westville Bank, had asked him to investigate the counterfeiters, and he (and Carol) had indeed broken up the ring. It had been run by Mr. Hagstrom, publisher of the local paper, and Joe Hack had been one of Hagstrom's minions (see Whiz Comics #8, cover date September, 1940). But Dan hadn't actually stuck around for the trial, he was already on the way to Los Angeles for his next case.
"So, I'm just trying to track down the guy that killed The Reporter. Jackson, over at the police station, told me I might find his left hand man, 'Sinister' Blackheart, here. Do you know the guy?" Once again, he seemed to be speaking loudly enough to insure that he was overheard.
"Listen, buddy, even if I knew a buncha mobsters, which I don't, I wouldn't be telling no private dicks how to find 'em, ya know? Get me killed fer sure! Even you standin' there axin' about them is dangerous, so why don't you get your PI butts outta here right now before somebody has ta carry them out?"
"Listen, pal, I'll make a boatload of cash if I track down the murderer, so you can't just scare me off!" The bartender pulled back the hammer on his pistol. "OK, OK, I'm leavin'. Too bad, I woulda cut you in big for a tip, but I'll just have to find someone else..." He put both hands up in front of him and backed away, cautiously. His partner pushed his chair back to stand up from the table, and the bartender looked away for just an instant - and when he looked back, Dan's hand was filled with his own pistol.
"Don't worry, 'mug'," Dan said in a reassuring tone of voice. "I just want to be sure I'm not shot in the back on my way out. So, very slowly... put your own gun down, and we'll be leaving, and everyone will be happy, right?" He cocked the hammer on his own pistol. "And just in case you're seriously thinking of shooting - check out my partner again..."
The partner also had a pistol, and it was pointed right at the bartender - who very slowly put his own gun back under the bar.
"Good choice - we'll be leaving now. But just remember, when we find the killer and some other guy makes a lot of money for giving us a tip... you had your chance!"
Dan walked to the door, and took over the job of covering the room while his stouter partner moved to the door as well, and then they both stepped outside... They walked away from the bar, turned a corner onto a smaller street - and stopped as Dan pulled out a map of the city, and the two examined it, each, in turn, pointing in one direction or the other. Their quiet conversation was totally unrelated to their actions.
"Three guys at at a table in the corner were really, really interested after you dropped Hack's name, and when you mentioned Blackheart's name, one of them headed toward the men's room and probably slipped out the side door, while a second one headed for the phone booth. But I got trackers on all three of them!" the second 'man' said, in Carol's voice. "The two following us, and the other guy is headed somewhere else." Neither had needed Carol's tracking tokens to be aware of the two men who were trying to pretend they weren't following them.
Carol had quickly put into use to her realization earlier today that she could use her energy constructs as tracking devices! Her 'tracking tokens' were small disks of solid energy the size of quarters that she had materialized inside the pockets of other customers. If she chose to follow a specific one of them, it would remain solid indefinitely; because of their small sizes, she was sure that the others wouldn't start to decay for least a couple of hours, so if the first guy they followed didn't pan out, there was a good chance they'd be able to locate at least one of the others.
Finally, one of the two men arguing over where to go next just threw up his hands, and the other pointed into an alley nearby, and they entered the alley, while continuously glancing back over their shoulders to be sure they weren't being followed, with the glances becoming less frequent the closer they came to the other end. About two thirds of the way down the alley, the probably didn't hear the two silenced pistol shots behind them, but they certainly felt them! Both stiffened instantly and then slumped to the pavement.
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Post by Admin on Jan 28, 2024 18:54:36 GMT
Three guys in masks cautiously entered the alley, then hurried to the fallen detectives. Carol had landed on her back, and the bulky force field she'd maintained under her suit had vanished - revealing some unmistakably female features underneath the too-large suit. "Hey, dis one's a bimbo!" the closest masked man proclaimed. He pulled back his right foot to kick her - and something grabbed his left ankle, pulled it forward so he fell over backward, and then lifted him into the air by one foot - unfortunately (?) not soon enough to prevent his head from cracking into the pavement before he was suspended a couple of feet off the sidewalk. When the other two were gaping at their partner in stunned amazement, Dan furiously erupted from the pavement, scrambling to his feet and leveling one of them with a wicked uppercut to the bottom of the jaw that threw him backward into the wall, and then turned to the other - who was by now pointing his silenced pistol at Dan's chest.
"You bast..." the crook started snarling, then pulled the trigger as Dan totally ignored the gun and launched another viscous roundhouse. Something deflected his pistol and the shot missed - but Dan's haymaker didn't. The man was totally spun around and staggered for a step and a half and then collapsed as well. Two more yellow energy hands picked the two men up, again by their ankles, and they dangled in the air while Dan collected their pistols. Yellow bands also appeared covering the mouths of each dangling prisoner, and their hands were locked behind their backs in glowing yellow handcuffs.
"Ow!" Dan complained, rubbing a spot on his back he could barely reach. "Next time, could you make my padding a little thicker?" His fingers encountered a large hole in the back of his jacket. "You'd better not give me grief when I put a new jacket on the corporate expense account!" (Carol was the accountant for the Daring Duo Detective Agency). Then he examined the pistols. "Hey, this one's a Glock - nice! Think I'll keep it." While he'd been in the hospital for his broken leg, he'd gotten caught up on the history of pistols. "Take care of these, will you?"
He unloaded the two other silenced pistols and placed them on the pavement, with a pile of bullets next to them. A yellow bubble scooped up the bullets and then shrunk, glowing brighter as it got smaller, and then there was a long flash of light from inside and a stuttering explosion, and then the globe opened up and deposited a lump of mashed up brass and lead.
"It's not easy keeping that pad in place when we're walking, you know," Carol pointed out. "I _could_ just wrap you up like I wrapped me up..."
Meanwhile, two more yellow globes crumpled the pistols and dumped the rough steel balls next to the mashed up ammunition. Neither detective paid any attention to the process as they talked.
"But then I'd look stout and walk like an old man!" Dan complained some more. "I gotta think of my image, you know!"
Carol laughed. "Take the jacket to the Stitch Witch when we get back," she suggested, a tailor on the same block as their new office. Meanwhile, her yellow energy was busy again, and yellow cocoons appeared around the three dangling crooks, and they were rotated head-side up - with what appeared to be washertubs of glowing yellow concrete around their feet. "So, whata we do with the garbage, here? Think they'll talk, or should I just dump them in the harbor?"
The heard tires squealing on the street in front of them; a yellow shield snapped up around Dan and Carol, and then the three captured criminals took the brunt of a burst of machine gun fire from a speeding car. Carol was in the air instantly, now surrounded by her burly yellow disguise. She was out over the street in just under a second.
"OK, I've had enough of this crap!" she swore to herself. "No more Ms. Nice Gal!" She caught up to the speeding car, and then a giant, very sharp, yellow glowing box nail slammed down through the engine compartment, driven so hard that it dug into the pavement beneath the car and the car slammed violently to a halt, half shredded. As glowing yellow hands tore the car apart and glowing yellow restraints appeared on the occupants, she tuned her Squadron of Justice (Valued Associate) communicator to the police band and called for a couple ambulances and the police.
Though the protection had been incidental (and accidental), all three cocooned hoods were uninjured by the machine gun fire, though, like Dan, they were likely to have ugly bruises where the bullets had struck the energy constructs. "Serves them right!" Dan thought as he finished a quick exam of the three, and then rushed out to the street to see what the crash had been all about. He stopped in awe - he'd never seen Sunbeam unload like that before!
"Wow, Mesmer, remind me to never get you angry at me!" he half whispered.
"Maybe I went a little too far?" she asked him, sounding a bit shook up. "Can I put it on the expense account if they charge me for fixing the street?" Then she shook her head. "The one that snuck out the back is still on the loose. Wanna go look him up? It may be a while before any of these mugs are up to talking."
"Yeah, and I think it might be a good idea to get out of here before the cops try to arrest us too!" he chuckled. "Take me away, Domino Lady!" She wrapped him in a glowing yellow shell and the two lifted into the air, headed west.
"Can you drop me at the south corner of Military Park?" Dan asked his partner. "One of the pieces in the Black Spider evidence file was his handwritten list of intended victims. Other than us and your dad, only one of them is left alive - Presley Eldridge. He's a City Councilor these days and he lives near the Park. I looked up his address, and I think he needs protection. So you keep looking for the Spider and I'll keep an eye on Eldridge!"
"Just point the way, Hawkshaw!" she agreed. Fortunately, Military Park wasn't too far from Police HQ and the park had a very distinctive shape, so they were easily able to spot it from the air. "I need some kind Navstar for my power!" she quipped as she dropped him off. "I won't always have a guy with me who knows how to get where he's going without stopping for directions!" Dan didn't tell her that he planned to ask the nearest pedestrian how to get from Military Park to Warren St. (named for an Army General from Fawcett City who eventually became the Military Governor of California in 1847).
And then they were away on their separate chores, Carol to track the Black Spider's henchman, and Dan to protect Councilor Eldridge...
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Post by Admin on Feb 3, 2024 20:32:35 GMT
Susan Barr was not yet fully awake, and in a lot of pain... and she could hear voices. One of them was her father!
"What have you done to them?" Major Kent was demanding, but unlike his normal strong tone and demeanor, he sounded old and weak.
"I've injected them with Black Spider venom - not enough to kill them, but they will be unconscious until I administer the anti-venom - just before I poison them, and you, and Presley Eldridge, with the most painful venom in the world, and then I will laugh as you struggle and DIE in exquisite agony!" a rough voice sounded, and then laughed an evil laugh. Although the spelling doesn't show it, his accent was distinctly French.
When the words penetrated and Sue understood them, she was jolted further towards full awareness and her system instantly began flooding her bloodstream with adrenaline, temporarily banishing her throbbing headache and the sharp shooting pains in seemingly every muscle in her body. Her head seemed to be aimed in the direction of the voices, so she peeked out through slitted eyes - to see the Black Spider standing in front of her father, who was strapped down to a common camping cot. Major Kent was securely bound in ropes with his hands and ankles tied to the frame of the cot, and his face and clothes were covered in dried blood. The Black Spider's attention was fully on Kent. Sue stayed silent and still... for the moment. Maybe she could learn more about the Spider's plans.
"My men are locating Presley Eldridge now - the last survivor of the jury that sent me back to France, to a life sentence in a dungeon. Ironic, is it not, that is was my imprisonment in that dungeon that gave me the powers of the Black Spider, and your own death sentences!"
"Yes, we were stupid to turn you over to the French authorities for extradition. You should have been executed for murder!" Kent snarled.
Through a door Sue could just barely make out, another man entered the room. The Spider snarled a question at him and the man responded, "The guys found Eldridge - they'll follow him until you show up!"
"I go to capture my last surviving enemy!" Black Spider said, holding his head close to Kent's and spraying him with spittle as he spoke. "When I return, you shall die in exquisite pain!"
"You'll end up on Death Row!" Kent warned.
The Spider slapped him hard, and bent forward. "This will shut you up!" He opened his mouth as he prepared to bite Major Kent. This was too much for Sue!
She had silently tested her bonds already, and realized that she was apparently trussed like her father, wrapped in rope with her hands and ankles bound to the frame of the cot she way lying on. She couldn't feel any give in the bonds - but the cot was another matter. She forced her legs together and flexed her arms upward, and the wooden frame of the cot shattered with snaps like small explosions! Now she could move, although with the remains of the cot still strapped to her, she was awkward. But she had Jim Barr's anti-crime serum coursing through her veins, and she was furious that this murder was threatening her father!
The Black Spider was momentarily stunned, not believing that his captive was even conscious yet, much less able to break free. He jolted upright and staggered backwards, and Sue drove toward him with all the power she could call from her legs. She tripped over the bindings and remains of the cot, but this actually helped her attack - she twisted her head to the side and slammed her shoulder into his stomach. She tried to wrap her arms around him, but was hampered by the canvas still attached to her wrists, but her Bulletwoman strength prevailed and the canvas tore, and she drove him back until he hit another cot behind him and fell to the ground with Sue on top!
But she couldn't wrap him up - she had dowels of strong wood with shattered ends still tied to her wrists and ankles, and torn strips of canvas fluttering from them. He pushed her off, and she was astounded when she bounced off the ceiling - the Black Spider was STRONG! But so was she - by the time she fell to the floor, she was struggling with her bonds again. She instantly noted that the bonds were not rope, but some pearly white substance that she didn't recognize immediately, but which she was unable to break, even with her enhanced strength. So she bent over and snapped the dowels still attached to her legs, leaving the ankles wrapped with this substance, but now she could maneuver.
But she wasn't going to have time to free her hands just yet. The Black Spider leaped to the ceiling, scuttled to a spot above her, and dropped. Sue jumped forward and spun around, swinging an arm at his head. She was still clumsy and missed, but the dowel whacked him on the side of the head and he grabbed it, spun around, and threw her across the room, then leaped back to the ceiling and scuttled after him. She was pretty much recovered now, and she had thousands of hours of flying experience, so with her enhanced reflexes and speed, it was pretty easy to turn and use her legs to cushion the impact, and the slight delay gave her the time to break loose of all the remaining debris of the cot.
"OK, monsieur le murderer, let's see what you got!" she snarled at him as she threw the rest of the debris at him. It was sort of disconcerting seeing him scuttle across the ceiling - even years of aerial combat hadn't quite prepared her for this! She risked a glance around the room, and when he saw this, he leaped again, this time arrowing straight at her. She didn't have time to move aside, and he crashed into her and smashed her back into the wall. They both crashed through the wall and both were momentarily stunned as they tore through the electrical wiring, and again they fell to the floor, this time with the Spider on top.
"OK, buddy, see how YOU like it!" She pushed him off her with all her strength, and he was thrown to the ceiling - but unlike Sue earlier, he didn't crash back down, but twisted and clung, hanging above her and looking down at her.
"A FATAL mistake!" he snarled in triumph. his face contorted, and there was a second of silence, and then he spit a glob of something at her. Sue rolled aside, but the glob flew incredibly fast, and hit her in side - and hit the floor at the same time, and it stung through the fabric - and her sweatshirt was stuck to the floor! She was easily able to rip free - but now there was one more thing to worry about. He didn't spit again right away, and she thought his face had showed a 'tell' this time, so she kept a close eye on him.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you that spitting at other people is rude? But hardly fatal." she quipped. She leaped and grabbed his legs; her additional weight pulled him free of the ceiling. He twisted free and they both landed on their feet.
"You are stronger and faster than I expected, but with my new powers, I am vastly your superior," he mocked her as he held up his fists like a boxer.
"I'm not going to tell him I've had my own powers for 30 years!" she thought. Out loud: "Let me guess, you were bitten by a lovesick female spider? Yuck!" Sue had some training in boxing; she doubted the Brown Spider had ever had a tutor like Minuteman. She stepped forward confidently and launched some jabs, which he blocked easily, and then surprised her with a round-house kick to the side! She was too startled to knock it away and his ankle smashed into her hip; if she hadn't had super strength and enhanced durability, it might have broken the hip. As it was, she was knocked to the side by the blow, so she dove that way and rolled and came up some distance away. And then dove again to the side as he spit another glob of sticky poison at her.
"OHO! Savatie!" She pronounced it like 'karate'. "I guess mama never told you not to hit a woman, either?" This was getting old. She decided on a direct attack, and sprang forward, once again tackling him. Before he could recover, she clouted him with the old 1, 2, rocking his head back and forth. He rolled away towards a panel on the wall, and flicked a switch on the panel before Sue could stop him.
"This activated a bomb that will explode in 30 seconds, destroying this house and everything in it. You can continue to chase me or you can save your father and husband!" He then turned and exited the room.
"It looks like a normal light switch - but who knows what a killer will do?" Sue thought. "He's probably bluffing, but no lights went on or off when he threw the switch." She made up her mind in a hurry! She grabbed Major Kent and his cot under one arm and Jim and his cot under the other and hurried through the same door the Spider had used, smashing the legs off of both cots as she did, and then raced through an outside door. The Spider was nowhere to be seen, so she just concentrated on getting as far from the house as possible. She heard a sound behind her; the man who had given the Spider the message about Eldridge was racing after her, his face twisted in fear.
She was far enough away that she was sure 30 seconds had gone by, and there was no explosion. Another 10 seconds, still nothing. "It must have been a bluff, damn him!" she thought furiously. She looked around but didn't see him, she looked upward and some distance away she did see him - he was flying somehow. It was weird, he was upright and holding a rope or pole that stretched up into the sky, but wasn't connected to anything - 'like he's being carried away by the Indian rope trick!' she thought with wonder. She couldn't fly without her helmet and belt, so it looked like the Black Spider would get away... this time. But she vowed that Bulletwoman and Bulletman would track him down soon! And then she realized that, with the excitement fading, she still felt like crap...
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Post by Admin on Feb 14, 2024 13:55:21 GMT
Carol had dropped Dan off behind a large monument, so as few people as possible saw them together. There was no real reason for secrecy but people might interact differently with a random man on the street as opposed to the partner of a super heroine. As soon as Carol had taken to the air again, Dan hustled out to the main street and quickly stopped a couple, courteously asking for directions to Warren St. He was paying particular attention to his surroundings, and noted a man on the corner nearest Eldridge's address wearing the same black suit as the men who had abducted Jim Barr, hanging out and trying not to look suspicious. He didn't recognize the man - the abductors had been wearing masks - but he was sure this must be one of the Black Spider's minions. He stopped in the phone booth on the corner and made a call, appeared to be in serious discussion for a few minutes, and then stepped back out on the street with a satisfied smile.
He entered the foyer of Eldridge's building and stopped to read the names on the mailboxes, then continued into the building's reception lobby. Besides the receptionist, a man in a black suit, there were 4 other people in the spacious lobby, sitting in the TV area - two women, an older woman dressed for the blustery day outside and a younger woman in a pretty, short-sleeve blouse and knee length skirt, and two men in black suits. The older woman had several shopping bags at her feet, and both women looked unhappy, while the two men were blank-faced. All 4, and the receptionist, watched him closely as he strode confidently to the desk.
"Say, where's Bethany?" he asked loudly.
"She called in sick today, and the agency sent me. So whadda you want?" The response was rather rude.
"Well, my name is Councilor Presley Eldridge and I live in Apartment 2A, and I left this morning without my key. Can you let me in?"
All 3 men stared at him even more intensely at the mention of Eldridge's name. "Dat's bullcrap!" the receptionist barked back. "You ain't Eldridge; what are you trying to pull? You better leave, buddy, before I call the police!"
Dan actually laughed at that, then stopped as he was suddenly facing a pistol. "Ya better shut your yap and go siddown with the skirts, if you want to keep breathing, buddy!" the pistol-wielding receptionist said. "We'll be done here soon and if you keep your yap shut, you'll be just fine. You make a peep and you get ventilated!"
When Dan turned to the TV area, he wasn't surprised to see that he was covered by the other two men as well. He slowly raised his hands. "Hey, look... fe...fel... fellas, I'm not l.. l... l.. looking for trouble..." he stammered as he moved slowly in that direction.
"Funny, ya found it, wise guy! Now shaddup and siddown!" one of the other men waved his pistol towards the sofa.
Suddenly, Dan tripped on a corner of the rug, and as he fell, he moved VERY fast, rolling behind the sofa. The two seated me were on their feet and shooting almost instantly, and half a dozen shots rang out as the 'receptionist' yelled at his cohorts to stop shooting. For an instant there was silence, broken only by Dan moaning behind the sofa, then the receptionist started giving orders.
"We gotta get outta here, those shots are sure to bring the coppers! You guys off the skirts and I'll shut up the wise guy!"
And suddenly, a totally uninjured Dan Dare reappeared, rising from behind the sofa, a pistol in each hand, and before the bad guys could react, he fired three times - and the bad guys started screaming in pain as their pistols were torn from their hands by Dan's well-placed shots.
"One Shot Dare - still got it!" he chuckled triumphantly as he sprang forward and unloaded on the closest man, hitting him with a powerful uppercut that actually lifted him off his feet and threw him backwards, unconscious. "Well, at least he's not whining in pain any longer!" He raced toward the reception desk. "Ladies, can you keep the other guy busy for a few seconds? This won't take long!" he threw over his shoulder, and noticed that both women were already advancing on the other moaning man in black. He turned back to the faux receptionist and laughed at the man, who had stepped out from behind the desk and assumed a boxing stance.
"C'mon, smart guy, let's see whatcha got! Dey don't call me Hammerhands fer nuthin'!"
"Guess you East Coast bad guys never heard of me," Dan chuckled again as he began jabbing with his left. "Well, Hamhands, you can tell 'em all about me in prison!" he spoke confidently as he launched a powerful blow with his right. "Hey, nice move!" he noted approvingly as it was blocked adroitly. "This could be fun, been a long time since I've been in a good fight!" But a few seconds later, it was clear that this wouldn't be the long awaited 'good fight' - throughout his career, Dan regularly held his own with three or 4 opponents, and this guy was no match. "This ends here! Watch your head!" he even warned his opponent, then launched a powerful left hook - and when the bad guy blocked, he stepped in with a right to the stomach, and the man in black bent forward with a painful "OOF" and Dan brought up his knee to the man's jaw - and it was over.
"Hope you didn't expect Marquis de Queensbury Rules," the barely winded detective mocked his fallen foe, "but I don't bring rules to a gunfight!"
He turned around to find the two women sitting on the back of the other bad guy, who was squirming weakly. The older woman was jabbing the back of his neck with her battered umbrella, which was now bent in the middle after she'd whacked him firmly over the head with it. It would never work as an umbrella again, but she would proudly keep it as a souvenir.
"You two keep an eye on these two until the police get here!" he told them. "I called them before I came in - and here they are! I'm going to check on Eldridge!"
He could hear the police coming through the front door as he turned and hurried up the stairs. He burst into 2A and discovered Presley Eldridge tied up on the floor. "Guess they gift wrapped you for the Black Spider!" he noted as he untied the elderly councilor. "Well, he won't get away from my partner!" He helped the man to a comfortable seat as they waited for the cops to arrive.
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Post by Admin on Feb 16, 2024 12:37:13 GMT
The Black Spider quickly spun a long thread of silk, detached it, and watch the free end float upward, then hung on as the thread lifted into the air and pulled him with it. He only had limited electrostatic control over the direction it would pull him, not nearly enough to overcome the stiff breeze, so he was blown back towards Fawcett City. As soon as he was out of sight of the abandoned warehouse headquarters he'd taken over after murdering Joe Hack and several of his lieutenants, he released the line and sort of fluttered to the ground like a piece of paper rather than a normal human body. There was a car approaching him at high speed; he stepped out into the road, preparing to leap onto it as he passed - and then he changed his plans as the car squealed to a stop and one of his new lieutenants hopped out.
"Boss, there's a couple'a..." was all he got out before the Spider pounced on him, bit him, and then climbed into the running car, squealed through a turn and started racing back toward Fawcett City.
The moving tracking token Carol was following suddenly stopped. She sped up her flight, and was close enough to see the Black Spider bite his minion and then toss the body aside, then jump into the convertible. She was horrified at the sight, and when the car squealed through a 180 and started racing toward her, she was raging at his apparent callous murder. A giant glowing yellow railroad spike, perhaps 15' tall, appeared and the air and was driven down, through the hood and engine of the car, crushing the front end to the road, and the car bent in the middle and threw the Black Spider into the air. While she was ordering her yellow energy to wrap him up, he spit at her, and a large glob of sticky, gooey goop spattered on the front of her own aura, blocking her vision. She instantly felt as if something was 'scratching' her mind and she realized that somehow this goop was starting to eat through her energy field!
She dissolved that field instantly and formed another one, slightly smaller, and sighed as she saw the glob of goop fall to the road below. In that same instant, the energy that had begun to wrap around the Black Spider also dissolved, and instead of falling heavily to the street, he sort of 'fluttered' downward and rotated to land lightly on his feet. The spike dissolved as well, and he grabbed the wrecked car and threw it at her!
Carol had practiced intensely on how to protect herself in situations where she didn't have time to think, when she needed to react instantly and instinctively to an immediate danger. "UP" she commanded her energy, as powerfully as she could, and once again her ingrained reaction saved her from possible damage, as she rocketed skyward and the car passed underneath her. She spun in the air as quickly as possible, and suddenly there was a giant glowing yellow catcher's mitt in front of the car. The car thumped into the mitt, and then Carol ordered the mitt to set it down on the street, and the mitt vanished and Carol once again looked around for the Black Spider.
He spat at her again, but she knew that trick now. An almost transparent 'outer' aura blocked the goop and then dissolved, at she quickly ordered him trapped in a glowing yellow sphere, and started shaking the sphere violently to prevent him from concentrating, and he was battered from side to side. She wasn't sure what to do next, but she instantly stopped the sphere when he started to scream in pained agony! She had never heard such awful noises from a human and she'd seen some horrible deaths during her career, but nothing like this!
The Black Spider was furious as he was bounced around inside the sphere, and in tremendous pain; some bones were breaking as he bounced, and the combination of fury and agony triggered _something_ in his already mutated body, and he started to change again! His sides began writhing and twisting, and 4 new limbs, covered in black chitin and ending in claws, tore through his shredded clothing. His rear end started to expand and a chitinous, pointed abdomen tore through the back of his pants. His shredded clothes fell away, revealing... the Black Spider, no longer just a super villain code name. Not quite a normal spider, either - a 6 foot long wasp with 8 limbs - the front limbs were human arms, the head was fully human, the rear limbs were human legs, no wings, and a dangerous looking stinger on the end of the abdomen.
Carol was so horrified, the spherical shell dissolved. The monster instantly jumped and clung to the face of a building next to the street, an astonishing 3 stories high. "Can't let that monster escape!" Carol thought the herself, and instantly created a giant 'bug zapperTM (As Seen on TVTM), a long tube with a giant exhaust fan at one end, and the vacuum created by the fan instantly pulled the spider into the tube, ripping some chunks out of the wall as it did. She instantly sealed both ends of the tube and blasted skyward with the tube in tow as fast as she could.
She remembered that when she had been supercharged by the volcano in Lemuria, she'd been able to reach orbit in a matter of minutes. She wasn't currently that fast, but she didn't need to go that high - from years of airplane flying experience with Dan, she remembered that a little above 3 miles high, the air temperature was around zero degrees Fahrenheit, which should be enough to either kill the Black Spider or force him into spider suspended animation. She had to keep reinforcing the shell as he spat some more of that gooey goop inside, but he didn't seem to have an infinite supply, and after awhile, the strange twitching in her mind stopped. She risked making the shell thinner and more transparent so she could see her captive... and he wasn't moving. She hoped she hadn't killed him... but she'd grown up in a different era, when heroes killing the bad guys was pretty much acceptable behavior, and the Black Spider had already proved he was deadly dangerous.
But what should she do now? She didn't know if he was dead or only unconscious, and she didn't want to take a risk of letting him escape by going back down where it was warmer - but she couldn't stay up her indefinitely either! And she finally remembered she had another option... her Squadron of Justice beacon! Last year she'd gone into space with a lot of other super heroes and battled a planet-sized battleship of space, and while she hadn't been offered membership in the prestigious Squadron of Justice ("Yet!"), they had given her a signaling device to call for aid if she needed it. She had never used it before, she and Dan had always been able to handle anything the encountered in their cases, but this seemed like an appropriate occasion!
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Post by Admin on Feb 17, 2024 21:46:58 GMT
Ibis and the Ibistick confirmed that the Black Spider was still alive and in self-induced suspended animation, a condition Jim Barr called diapause, and cast a spell to keep him that way indefinitely. Unfortunately, the minion he had bitten before Sunbeam showed up had been dead before he hit the ground after the Spider had bitten him.
Jim did some scientific analysis, and confirmed that somehow, the Black Spider had indeed once been a human whose body had been mutated several times by the cumulative affect of all the spider venom that his 'pets' had injected in him. "He is a grotesque fusion of the human and arachnid," he shuddered slightly as he gave Dan, Carol, and Sue the results of his analysis. All his bones are hollow, his skin has been replaced by an almost unbreakable chitin, his muscles are stronger and react faster than human muscles, he has myriad tiny hooks on his claws, feet, and hands that allow him to crawl across walls and ceilings, and various of his organs have been modified to produce venom, poisonous spittle, and almost unbreakable silk. We're working on a way to hold him safely, or preferably to reverse his mutations. We're going to have to let him come out of his trance for trial, and he will be very dangerous. In this form, which we can't say for sure, he is stronger than Sue or I, though not in the Marvel class. We know he can spin silk, produce poisonous venom and spittle, and somehow fly using use electrostatic forces. And who knows what other spider-like powers he might have?" He shuddered again and changed the subject... sort of.
"He did teach us a bit more about Carol's Sunbeam powers... for some reason, the very powerful poisonous acid in the Black Spider's spit fluid is able to absorb her energy and thus can erode any of her energy constructs coming into contact with it. Fortunately, as it absorbs her energy, the process vaporizes the fluid, so it is a self-limiting reaction. But she has to keep renewing her energy until the goop is all vaporized - and the sensations produced by the fluid attacking her powers is very disturbing."
Actually, Carol had used some other terms, like gross, disgusting, vile, evil, and some words we can't repeat here, and she also shuddered as she recalled these 'sensations'.
And finally, "Now, the good news! Some of the 'men in black' we captured..." He noticed that Sue, Carol, and Dan were all looking at him quizzically, "er... that YOU guys captured... have squealed on the rest of the mob, and we've been able to make almost a clean sweep of the rest of Joe 'the Reporter' Hack's mob! There were rewards for some of those guys, so even though this wasn't a paid case for Dan and Carol, you guys are making out like bandits on the reward money - and Sue says she'll spring for the rest of our vacation with hers!"
"We're booked into the Bugati Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City for two days, starting tomorrow - but if you boys don't promise to forget crime busting until we check out, I'm sure Carol and I can find other escorts!" She and Carol exchanged an enthusiastic high five. Dan looked at Jim and shrugged...
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