Behind The Mask: The Gathering Storm

An afternoon at Bloomingdale's always cheered Gwen Stacy up, even if she was forced to mostly do window shopping these days due to her rather limited finances. Even then, she had fun looking at all the latest summer collections and posing with them in front of the mirror.

After her life or death fight with the Constrictor, when she'd managed to save her mother and Aunt Nancy from being murdered by the serpentine killer, Gwen had wanted to unwind. For all that she'd enjoyed being able to get back to a normal routine after everything that had happened over the last few weeks, at the back of her mind Gwen was constantly alert for any sign that Jack O' Lantern or any other member of her rogues' gallery might try something.

Then again, maybe I'm worrying too much, Gwen thought to herself as she tried on a lovely Donna Karan sweater. Mom's doing a lot better now, and I've got the lead role in that new production of The Wiz, she smiled.

And yet, try as she might, she couldn't forget the memory of Jack O' Lantern's hellish, bone-chilling laughter as it echoed in her mind.

SPIDER-WOMAN #29

BEHIND THE MASK, PART ONE

"THE GATHERING STORM"

One thing that provided a useful distraction was the collection of super-cute Converse All-Stars that caught Gwen's eye as she passed by the shoe store. If there was one thing Gwen just couldn't get enough of, it was shoes. While she already had various boots, platforms, high heels, ballet flats, sandals and about fourteen pairs of Converse sneakers, Gwen was always ready to add another pair. Even better, these ones were on sale, something which Gwen always appreciated.

At first, Gwen was so busy glancing through the display to find a color that she liked that she didn't hear the argument behind her. It was only after she was jolted out of her reverie by the loud, shrill yelling that Gwen recognized the uniquely obnoxious customer that the voice belonged to. Turning around with a distinctly sour look on her face, Gwen recognized Mrs. Jannetty all too well. Gwen had waited on Mrs. Jannetty one night at the coffee shop, and her rude, nasty treatment had been the final straw after Gwen had already been extremely stressed out. She'd snapped and yelled at Mrs. Jannetty, who'd gotten her in trouble with her boss.

Mrs. Jannetty was in rare form today, angrily throwing a pair of pink pumps at the hapless shoe salesman who was waiting on her. The shoes bounced off the head of the salesman, who merely rubbed his temples and tried to stammer out a reply to her continued demands.

"Does this look like pink to you?" Mrs. Jannetty thundered, before grabbing the next pair the salesman offered to her and throwing them over her shoulder. "I said pink, you idiot!"

"Ma'am, I-" the flustered salesman stammered.

"Let me guess," Mrs. Jannetty sneered. "You've never been Employee of the Month, have you?"

Several of the other customers in the store looked at Mrs. Jannetty in shock, but they all seemed too intimidated to speak up.

Gwen had no such reservations.

"Maybe not, but somehow I doubt he's been banned from every all you can eat restaurant in town, either," she interrupted, coming around into Mrs. Jannetty's line of sight.

"WHAT?" Mrs. Jannetty screeched in anger, rising up from her chair to confront Gwen. While she was at least a foot taller and a hundred and fifty pounds heavier, Gwen wasn't intimidated in the last.

"You heard me," Gwen shot back, disgusted by the larger woman's attitude. "Maybe if you took some money out of your fried cheese budget and actually took some classes on manners, you'd know how to actually behave in public."

"How dare you-" Mrs. Jannetty began, before Gwen interrupted her.

"I'd also point out how you're causing problems for the other customers, but somehow I doubt you could hear me over the sizzling of the bacon you probably keep in your purse," Gwen continued. "So, if you're done insulting this poor guy, who's done nothing but try and help you, maybe you could go gorge at a trough somewhere and let the rest of us get on with our shopping?"

Mrs. Jannetty's face turned a deep enraged crimson, as she picked up her purse.

"This isn't over, you little brat," she hissed at Gwen. "I can assure you, you're going to pay for this."

Gwen just rolled her eyes and turned away as the larger woman stomped out of the store, muttering angrily under her breath.

As soon as Mrs. Jannetty was gone, the salesman and the other customers suddenly burst out in applause, catching Gwen by surprise. She smiled hesitantly, suddenly caught off guard as she realized what she'd done.

"Thank you so much," the salesman sighed in relief, seeming as if he had a weight lifted off his chest. "I can't count the number of times she's come in here and started bossing everyone around like she owns the place..."

"It's no problem," Gwen assured him. "I ran into her at my job once, and I know what she's like. Anyway, how much for these Chucks?" she asked, holding her selection up.

"Hey, for getting rid of the female Homer Simpson, they're on the house," the salesman only smiled.

"What?" Gwen asked in amazement. "No...really, I can't-"

"It's the least I can do," he assured her. "Trust me."

Gwen only blinked in surprise, before she gratefully nodded in acceptance and left the store, an additional bounce in her step.

Maybe things were shaping up better than she'd expected, after all.

"I'm flattered that you'd want to interview me," Dr. Karla Sofen told Maggie Beck as they sat in her office at the Ravencroft Asylum for the Criminally Insane. In her late twenties, Dr. Sofen was considerably younger than most of the rest of Ravencroft's psychiatric staff, with long blonde hair and bright crystal-blue eyes. She was a marked contrast to Maggie, who was several years younger and whose hair and clothing were entirely dark. Maggie had begun work on her graduate thesis on criminal psychology, and she had come to interview Dr. Sofen, who was one of the brightest young talents in the country when it came to criminal psychology.

"So," Dr. Sofen continued, as she leaned forward in her chair and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "What's your thesis about, again?"

"I'm discussing the evolution of criminal psychology in the last decade, since the rise of the costumed supervillain," Maggie explained. "I've noticed that one of the major themes in your work has been the obsolescence of many aspects of criminal profiling?"

"That's right," Dr. Sofen nodded. "The simple fact is that many costumed criminals simply don't conform to conventional psychological expectations. No straightforward theory has ever been put forward as to why, with the advent of humans gaining all manner of bizarre and fantastic abilities, so many of them feel compelled to dress in outlandish costumes and commit all kinds of bizarre crimes."

"That's one of the main things I'm trying to determine," Maggie replied. "My hypothesis is that many costumed criminals-and costumed heroes, for that matter-dress the way they do as a means of expressing different parts of their personalities that they otherwise wouldn't show. The medium of dressing in costumes reflects decades of social conditioning by comic books, but it's merely the latest manifestation of a centuries-old tradition of people donning masks and costumes for rituals, festivals and disguises."

"It's a fascinating line of thinking," Dr. Sofen nodded approvingly. "Were there any cases in particular you were thinking of studying?"

"I have to admit that this Jack O' Lantern character intrigues me," Maggie said, "particularly since he's actually addressed a number of the points that I'm studying. He's gone on and on about how his mask is actually his true face, and it allows him to be his evil self in public, or something like that."

"How do you know Jack O' Lantern is a he?" Dr. Sofen asked.

"I don't," Maggie replied without missing a beat. "Jack could just as easily be a she."

Her eyes gleamed at this.

"Well, Jack is a very interesting case," Dr. Sofen pointed out. "He-we'll use the male pronoun as generic-started out robbing banks, before he rose to terrorizing party guests and attempting to rob them blind, and now he's graduated to mass murder with all the people he's killed, especially all those people in the Maggia. It wouldn't surprise me if he's escalating."

"Escalating?" Maggie asked in surprise.

"Very much so," Dr. Sofen nodded. "One could only imagine what his next criminal scheme would be."

"I wonder what motivated him-and again, we're using a generic pronoun-to put on his costume in the first place," Maggie reflected.

"It could be for any number of reasons," Dr. Sofen answered. "Certainly, if you ask any of my patients they'll all tell you a different story. In Jack's case, though, I wouldn't be surprised if he was a previously innocuous member of society who had taken on his criminal identity to act out his innermost fantasies."

"...Fascinating," Maggie finally said, after rubbing her chin for several minutes. "So you're saying that we haven't seen the end of Jack's criminal escalations?"

"That's right," Dr. Sofen nodded. "I can only imagine what his ultimate goals would be, but somehow I doubt they could be anything good."

Maggie didn't say anything in reply, but Dr. Sofen took note of how her eyes gleamed when she heard those words.

Later that evening, Gwen was going over some bills at the kitchen table while Kitty watched TV in her bedroom. She didn't hear the knock on the door to their apartment at first, but the second and more insistent knock jolted her out of her concentration.

Blinking in surprise, Gwen got up and answered the door. She found that her visitor was a tall man in a dark conservative suit, with hard grey eyes and close-cropped dark hair that was turning grey at the edges. He stared intently at Gwen, appraising her before he finally opened his mouth to speak.

"Are you Gwen Stacy?" the man asked in a harsh voice.

"...Who are you?" Gwen demanded suspiciously.

"I'm Detective Jason Phillip Macendale, NYPD Superhuman Activities Unit," Macendale introduced himself, displaying his badge. "May I come in?"

"What do you want?" Gwen asked him, making no move to let the detective in.

"I've been assigned to your father's murder case," Detective Macendale replied. "I had a few questions to ask, if I may."

The first thing that came to Gwen's mind was a sarcastic comment about how the detective had taken his sweet time in getting around to talking to her, but she bit it back, realizing that she hadn't been in any shape to talk to the police before now and that the police had probably had all they could handle in dealing with the mob war.

"All right," she finally nodded, standing aside to let Detective Macendale into the apartment. "Do you want some coffee or something?" she asked him as she shut the door and followed him into the apartment.

"I only drink water," Detective Macendale replied bluntly. "Now," he asked Gwen after she'd gotten some coffee and sat down on the couch across from him, "do you have any idea who might have wanted your father dead?"

At first, Gwen wondered if Detective Macendale was serious, what with her father's various business rivals, mutant extremists, and the various organized crime figures George Stacy had crossed in apparently orchestrating this gang war. She studied him for a moment, but aside from a hard light in his eyes, there didn't seem anything at all unusual about him.

"My mother and I weren't really privy to any of his business dealings," Gwen shook her head. "As far as I can imagine, it would probably be one of his business rivals, or maybe someone who was upset with his stance on mutant rights," she shrugged.

"He never said anything to you?" Detective Macendale asked, writing in his notebook. "Did you have much contact with him in the last few months?"

"No, I didn't," Gwen replied.

"And you never knew anything about his alleged involvement with the various organized crime syndicates in this city?" Detective Macendale persisted.

"He would never have told us," Gwen replied. "For all we knew, he was just an ordinary businessman."

"So he hid everything he did behind a mask?" Detective Macendale asked, raising an eyebrow. "He kept his true nature hidden?" he wondered, a sharp edge in his voice.

"I..." Gwen trailed off, surprised by the sudden change in Detective Macendale's voice. "I...suppose...that..." she stammered, trying to figure out what the detective is getting at. "That might be one way to put it."

"Typical," Detective Macendale sighed in disgust. "That's the sort of bullshit I've had to deal with in my job for years. People make a big show of looking like good citizens, but behind closed doors they have orgies, they watch snuff films, they beat their families. It makes me so goddamn sick..."

"...Are you okay?" Gwen asked, blinking in surprise as she wondered what was wrong with the detective.

Detective Macendale seemed to catch himself, as he realized what he was saying.

"I'm sorry," he said, rubbing his temples. "I'm just stressed-sometimes I think I'm suffering from burnout," he claimed. "You wouldn't believe what I've seen on this job..."

"I can imagine," Gwen frowned sympathetically. "I wish there was something more I could do to help."

"There isn't much," Macendale said ruefully, "unless you can tell me how Jack O' Lantern knew where to find your father. He never said where he was hiding out, right?"

"No," Gwen shook her head again.

"That's what I figured," Macendale grumbled. "Thank you for your time," he said, as he stood up to leave. "We'll be in touch if we get any more leads."

Gwen nodded and accompanied him back to the door as he left. As she shut the door behind him, she felt a sudden realization.

Just how had Jack O' Lantern known where to find her father, anyway?

And how had he been able to arrive just before she'd gotten there as Spider-Woman?

For that matter, why had Macendale gone off on that tangent just now?

It was a slow day at the Empire State Coffee Shop the next day, and for the most part Gwen only had a few customers to deal with. Not that she necessarily minded, as she had a number of things on her mind, not the least of which was going to be trying to find the money for all the classes she wanted to take when school started up again in September. She'd already gotten a considerable amount of student loan debt, and unless she found some better paying work...

She immediately put the thought of Roderick Kingsley out of her mind. Even now, she couldn't help but feel her skin crawl whenever she thought of him.

Aside from that, there was still the question of Jack O'Lantern and Moonstone. Gwen was sickened by what she'd read in that morning's Daily Bugle about the murders Jack O'Lantern had been committing over the last week or so, but in spite of all her efforts she hadn't been able to find him when she went out patrolling at night. He always seemed to be one step ahead of her, sadistically cackling all the while.

Moonstone, for her part, seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth, for which Gwen was rather grateful. She had enough problems to deal with already. Unfortunately, just as she had with the rest of her enemies, Gwen realized that if Moonstone ever showed up again, she was probably going to be the one who'd have to deal with her. If that happened, Gwen was determined to be ready.

Still, it wasn't all bad-her mother's therapy seemed to be working wonders, and indeed Helen Stacy seemed as strong, if not stronger, than she'd ever been. Not to mention she was really looking forward to starting rehearsals tonight with The Wiz-she really wanted to do the character and the script justice...

A brief glance at the clock caught Gwen by surprise, as she realized that her shift was over. Blinking in surprise at how quickly the day had gone by, she moved to take her tray and the last collection of dirty dishes into the kitchen to be washed, before getting ready to leave.

As she headed back into the break room to gather her things, she saw her boss Mr. Spencer waiting for her. He had an ugly look stamped on his face, glaring at Gwen as she retrieved her tote bag.

"Gwen?" he asked her as she turned to leave.

"...Yeah?" she asked Mr. Spencer curiously.

"What's this I hear about you getting into a fight with Mrs. Jannetty at a shoe store yesterday?" he demanded.

"Well, I..." Gwen started, before she frowned. "Wait...how do you know about that?"

"Because she told me," Mr. Spencer explained, an angry frown crossing his face. "She said you were extremely rude and made a number of jokes about her weight."

"Um, excuse me, she was the one being rude," Gwen protested, "and she was treating the salesman like he was her slave. I only spoke up when no one else would. And what does it matter what I do on my own time, anyway?" she scowled back at him.

"It matters when you insult one of my best customers," Mr. Spencer shot back. "Mrs. Jannetty has been coming to this shop for over ten years, and I've lost track of how much money she's spent here. She's a close personal friend, and I won't stand for having one of my employees treat her like that."

"But that all happened on my own time!" Gwen protested. "It's none of your business when-"

"It is mybusiness when you humiliate one of my best friends and make my business look bad," Mr. Spencer replied angrily. "I had to give Mrs. Jannetty another $300 gift certificate because of what you did, and I'm taking it out of your salary."

"But, Mr. Spencer-" Gwen protested.

"No buts!" Mr. Spencer scowled. "I'm also going to be taking the money you make in tips for the rest of the month, too. That will go towards another gift certificate for Mrs. Jannetty, along with a letter of apology that you're going to write to her. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," Gwen muttered through gritted teeth.

"And let me be perfectly clear," Mr. Spencer continued. "If I ever hear about you getting into an argument with Mrs. Jannetty again, either here or out in public, you're fired. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," Gwen mumbled as she took a deep breath and did her best to contain her rising temper. Nodding curtly, Mr. Spencer dismissed her with a wave and she stomped towards the exit, seething with frustration.

Gwen was fuming as she left the coffee shop, outraged at Mr. Spencer and Mrs. Jannetty for what they'd done. She was especially irritated at having another three hundred dollars taken out of her salary, particularly when she needed every cent she could-

She managed to catch herself before she ran headlong into the tall man, who also quickly stopped himself. As Gwen stammered out an apology, she recognized the thick dark hair and handsome, finely sculpted features of the man standing before her.

"You're..." Gwen began.

"Kitty's Uncle Steve," Steven Mark Levins replied with a warm smile. "And you're her roommate Gwen, right?"

"Yeah," Gwen replied, slightly embarrassed. "I'm really sorry I almost hit you, I was just really distracted."

"You seem kind of flustered," Steven replied, a hint of concern in his voice. "Did you want to talk about it?"

"No, it's alright," Gwen fumbled, rubbing the back of her neck in a slightly nervous fashion. "I mean, you've probably got somewhere you need to be, and-"

"I'm actually just on my way home from work," Steven interrupted. "I don't have anywhere I need to be. Were you in a rush?"

"Well, no," Gwen shook her head. "I mean, I've got rehearsals tonight, but not for a few hours yet."

"Then why don't we get some coffee?" Steven offered. "There's a Starbucks I really like about a block from here."

Gwen brightened at that.

"You mean the one down the street from the Empire State Coffee Shop?" she grinned.

Steven only nodded.

"Count me in," Gwen smiled.

"So what exactly is the problem?" Steven asked Gwen after they'd sat down.

"Suffice it to say that I'm more than a little bitter," Gwen concluded after she'd told Steven about her altercations with Mrs. Jannetty and Mr. Spencer docking her pay in return. "The first time, I was just having a really bad day and Mrs. Jannetty pushed me past the breaking point. The second time, though, was because that fat slob was bullying that poor shoe salesman. She was being a bully. I hate bullies," she sighed in frustration, "and I just couldn't stop myself from speaking up."

"You seem to make a habit of that," Steven smiled. "Didn't you help Kitty out after her dorm room was vandalized by those anti-mutant thugs?"

"Yeah, but what was I supposed to do?" Gwen shrugged. "I couldn't just leave her hanging. Besides, I needed a new apartment anyway once I couldn't afford the old one."

"Most people wouldn't do that, you know," Steven reminded her. "If anything, they'd just turn their backs and walk away."

"Well, what good would that do?" Gwen frowned. "It wouldn't solve the problem."

"And that says a lot right there," Steven pointed out. "It shows what kind of a person you are."

Gwen blinked in surprise at that.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You don't deserve the bad rap Ben's parents give you," Steven replied. "They-oh, I'm sorry," he apologized, seeing the pained look on Gwen's face.

"It's...okay," Gwen frowned, before sipping at her latte. "It...just..."

"Hurt?" Steven asked. "Yeah, I don't totally get it. I mean, from everything I've seen, you're not like your father at all."

Gwen pursed her lips in disgust at the mention of her father.

"I met him a few times when I was working for Hammer Labs," Steven replied, "and that was when I got to see what he was really like under his mask."

"Under his mask...Yeah, that's a good way of putting it," Gwen stared into her coffee. "He showed who he really was underneath it all, especially after he got involved in that gang war."

"Yeah, and that's why I owe you an apology," Steven replied.

"What do you mean?" Gwen asked, looking up in surprise.

"I used to think you were like him," Steven explained, shame crossing his face. "Ben's parents and I figured that, since George Stacy acted the way he did, the apple wouldn't fall far from the tree."

"Well, as Kitty will tell you, I haven't always been the easiest person to get along with," Gwen replied with a rueful smile. "It says a lot about people like her and Liz that they were able to put up with my crap for so long."

"That's probably because they managed to see behind the mask and get a glimpse of the real you," Steven grinned. "I didn't, at least until now. But that's the funny thing, you know? People have so many sides to them, so many things they keep bottled up or hidden from everyone else. You think you know someone, but then something happens and you see their true colors."

"Yeah, that's true," Gwen smiled back.

"But see, the way you stuck up for people like Kitty and that shoe salesman shows who you really are," Steve explained. "And the way people like your boss and that fat lady act just show what they're really like, too," he continued, a trace of disgust in his voice.

"I never really thought of it that way," Gwen said after a few moments. "Thanks a lot, Mr. Levins...I feel a lot better now."

"My pleasure," he grinned back at her.

"I've got to go now, though," Gwen apologized, checking her watch. "I've got to get home and get ready for rehearsals tonight. I'll tell Kitty you said hi!"

"Take care!" Steven waved to her as she got up and headed for the door.

Steven Mark Levins sat there for another hour, contemplating the talk he'd had with Gwen.

He'd talked a lot about masks, which was fairly ironic considering the one he'd had to wear just now. While he'd understood why Kitty was friends with Gwen, he was still bemused by the extent of Ben's infatuation with her. Granted, that was one thing they both had in common, namely that they were headstrong kids who tended to dive into whatever it was they planned to do without thinking about the consequences.

And as Steven knew, there were always consequences.

Grinning to himself, he stood up and threw away his empty coffee cup, before heading for the door, putting all thoughts of Gwen Stacy and Ben Reilly out of his mind.

He had a lot of planning to do for tonight.

After getting something to eat back at her apartment, Gwen had met Randy Robertson at the subway station before they took the next train to the theater. Gwen had that same feeling she always did before the first rehearsal, when she was about to meet her castmates-a sense of eager anticipation, a creative energy that she was eager to release. Much to her delight, but not to her surprise, she saw that Randy felt the same way, his eyes shining brightly and his face set in a wide grin.

"You'll like Mr. Ferguson," Randy told her as they left the subway station and came back to street level. "He's got a real passion for the theater."

"I'm still a little surprised he liked my singing so much," Gwen replied. "Like I said, I never thought I was really that good."

"That's because you don't give yourself enough credit," Randy reassured her. "Trust me, you'll nail it."

"That means a lot to me," Gwen replied, a smile of sincere appreciation crossing her face as she hugged him briefly.

Randy only grinned back as he returned the hug twofold.

Just as Randy had told her, Gwen saw that her fellow cast members were a wide ethnic mix. About half the cast was black, with a sizable minority of Hispanics, a few scattered whites and the odd Asian. Gwen and Randy both recognized many of them immediately, and they spent several minutes chatting with their old acquaintances, telling them what they'd been up to since they'd last worked together.

Eventually Randy introduced Gwen to Mr. Ferguson, the director. He was a tall, chubby man with a brush cut and a thick moustache, with solid gray temples that gave him an air of refinement, although his smiling, jovial manner kept him from appearing stuffy or uptight. Holding a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, he was dressed in a casual T-shirt and jeans.

"Tom Ferguson, at your service," the director grinned, tipping the baseball cap he was wearing in a gentlemanly manner.

Gwen smiled back, before a funny look crossed her face.

"Is something wrong?" Mr. Ferguson asked her.

"I know you from somewhere," Gwen replied, frowning as she searched her memory. "I just can't think of where. Your voice sounds really familiar..."

"I take it you're a fan, then?" Mr. Ferguson grinned.

"...Huh?" Gwen asked in confusion, as Randy chuckled.

"Do you listen to Better In the Dark?" Mr. Ferguson asked, as he removed his baseball cap and gave it to Gwen. As she looked at it, she recognized the logo of radio station HABQ-FM, and her eyes lit up as she realized where she recognized him from.

"You're one of the Boys Outta Brooklyn, right?" Gwen grinned, as she handed Mr. Ferguson's cap back to him. Along with his partner Derrick Deja, Tom Ferguson co-hosted an entertainment news and talk show every morning on HABQ-FM, which Gwen regularly listened to so she could keep up on the theater scene.

"Oh, man..." she blushed in embarrassment. "I didn't even recognize you...I'm sorry..."

"Most people don't," Mr. Ferguson reassured her. "That's the nice thing about being on radio-you go out in public, and most people won't recognize you. It's always nice to meet a fan, though. I'm looking forward to working with you."

"Well," Gwen smiled, suddenly a bit nervous, "Randy was really the one who encouraged me to try out. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him," she nodded at Randy, who had gotten into a conversation with another member of the cast.

"See, that's the cool thing about all great stories," Mr. Ferguson replied.

"What do you mean?" Gwen asked him curiously.

"One of the big themes of The Wizard of Oz was that people oftentimes already have what they're looking for, they just don't believe in themselves. When they do, they're capable of a lot more than they realize. That's been a problem we've had to deal with for a long time," he frowned.

Gwen was about to ask him what he meant, before she quickly understood.

"That's a theme that The Wiz really plays up, especially in the movie," Mr. Ferguson continued. "That's why it's one of my favorite films."

"It's funny," Gwen reflected, as Randy came back to join them.

"What's that?" he asked.

"People often don't realize what they have or what they can do until someone else backs them up. Without Dorothy, her friends would never have grown the way they did. And without them, she never would have been able to get back to Kansas...or New York, in our case," she grinned.

Randy and Mr. Ferguson just laughed.

Later that night...

Three o'clock in the morning was usually a time when most people were asleep, although the criminals who operated the city's drug labs, bordellos, smuggling warehouses and gambling parlors were typically up and about conducting their unsavory business.

The inhabitants of one particular meth lab in the Bronx were one of the scattered bands left over from the collapse of the Maggia, the crime syndicate that had been all but decapitated by the gang war. Its underbosses had been murdered by the rival syndicates, who had also looted those bank accounts that the cops hadn't seized first. Violence had claimed many of the Maggia's henchmen, although no more so than the typical crossfire of the gang war.

Indeed, it was likely that the Maggia could have survived if not for the interventions of one supervillain, a crazed wild card who had invaded and destroyed many of the Maggia's holdings and murdered dozens of its operatives, crippling the syndicate's efforts to fight back against the police and its criminal rivals. Although most of the Maggia's underbosses had been murdered by the supervillains hired by its rivals, Jack O' Lantern had been the one to slaughter its executive leadership, including its overall leader, Silvermane.

A few of the scattered survivors of the Maggia's collapse were trying to reassert the organization, although they weren't having much success. With the Green Goblin's organization on shaky ground and Crimewave, Philippe Bazin and the Kingpin having retrenched and expanded, there was little to no room left for the Maggia.

Of course, as the residents of the Bronx meth lab found out, their criminal rivals weren't their only hazard.

The explosion of liquid napalm that blew open the roof of the building was the drug dealers' first warning, along with the bone-chilling laughter that followed. As the men scrambled to get to their feet, caught off guard by the explosion, Jack O' Lantern himself descended into view. His gloves and boots resembled dead skeletal limbs, and his chestplate was covered in what looked like tiny skull motifs, and his head was a flaming pumpkin, wreathed in dark flames and carved with a depraved, sadistic grin. The flames on the roof and ceiling suffused the room with a hellish glow, accenting Jack O' Lantern's demonic appearance, a monster descending into an abyss of his own creation.

"Are you ready to play?" Jack laughed as he released a deadly double blast from his wrist lasers, striking down two thugs who were cocking their pistols. Whirling around the bullets of two others who were shooting at him from behind, Jack tossed a pumpkin-shaped grenade at them that exploded in a burst of bladed shrapnel, cutting the men all over as they screamed in pain. Jack began laughing maniacally as he made his way through the rest of the lab, killing nine of the ten men who tried to fight back in less than a minute.

One of the drug workers tried to run, but Jack crippled him with a laser blast to the back of his leg before he could get out the door. Hopping off his skull-ringed hover disc, Jack slowly advanced on the last drug worker, who was begging incoherently for his life as he lay curled up on the floor.

"What's the matter?" Jack O' Lantern asked the sobbing drug worker. "I take it you're not enjoying my game?"

"Why...why...why you doin' this, man?" the gangbanger begged.

"Because it's fun," Jack O' Lantern replied, seeming to leer behind the perpetual grin that was carved into his pumpkin mask. "And because I'm more evil than you'll ever be. You just do this for money. I do what I do because I want to see you suffer. I want to see you bleed. I want to see you beg for mercy. I want you to see me in your nightmares."

The gangbanger was simply too frightened to say anything, and could only watch as Jack O' Lantern extended his talons and ripped the man's throat open.

"He bleeds pretty well," Jack observed to himself. "It doesn't look like I'll have any trouble with this one," he continued as he dipped his finger into the man's blood.

Once he had finished his business, Jack O' Lantern hopped back onto his hover disc and took off into the night, laughing insanely.

When the police came upon the scene several hours later, all they found was the destroyed equipment, ten maimed corpses, and a grisly message written on the wall in blood.

BEWARE, BEWARE! NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, JACK O'LANTERN IS COMING FOR YOU!

(Next Issue: Gwen continues to experience ups and downs in her normal life, but things have become very quiet in her costumed life as Spider-Woman. The path of destruction Jack O'Lantern has cut through the Maggia and its remains has earned him a fearsome reptuation in the New York criminal underworld. Until now, however, he has not interacted with his fellow supervillains. What will happen, then, when he presents his vision to his fellow costumed criminals at the Bar With No Name? All this and more in Spider-Woman #30: Behind the Mask, Part Two: Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself!)