Puppet Dance Part 2: Dancing On A String

Her homework had helped her stay distracted, as had continuing to read through the latest Twilight novel, but now Gwen Stacy had finished them both. Unfortunately, now she didn't have anything to do, and Gwen found her thoughts drifting back to the grisly things costumed supervillains could do to their victims. In her mind, she saw her Aunt Nancy bound at her wrists, ankles and throat with wire, Rick Sheridan lying in a coma in the hospital and her father George with a hole blown in his chest, lying dead with a look of pure terror on his face.

As the spectacular Spider-Woman, Gwen had seen the massacres committed by her supervillain enemies, monsters like Supercharger and Firebrand. She'd been horrified and saddened by the tragedies, of course, but the reality of what supervillain victims had to face had become all the more apparent to Gwen when the victims were people she knew, or were friends of people she knew. She was also connected to them as Spider-Woman, given that her enemies Moonstone and Jack O' Lantern were the ones who had hurt them before she could finally stop them. Supercharger's rampage at Macy's Department Store was another example, given that the electrically-powered maniac had done it to force Spider-Woman to fight him.

Seeing Rick Sheridan in the hospital had reminded Gwen of all this. Try as she might, she couldn't keep herself from wondering if all this suffering was somehow her fault. After all, she was the one who had failed to stop Moonstone, and she was the one who Supercharger was so obsessed with.

Once again, Gwen found herself hugging her teddy bear Theodore, which always cheered her up whenever she was feeling stressed out.

She was doing a lot of that these days.

SPIDER-WOMAN #44

PUPPET DANCE, PART TWO

"DANCING ON A STRING"

Randy Robertson had a lot on his mind as well, wondering about how to handle the issues he was having with his girlfriend Gwen. After Gwen had mysteriously disappeared during a crime spree caused by the bizarre supervillain showman called the Brothers Grimm, and then reappeared with strange wounds, Randy had begun to wonder if she might have been a costumed superheroine. Gwen had been evasive about where she was when she'd disappeared, and Randy could instinctively tell she was lying to him. However, Randy couldn't be sure his instincts were right, and Gwen might just have been terrified enough to run away.

Randy had always been suspicious of costumed superheroes, particularly given the way that they hid their identities behind masks and costumes. There was no way of keeping any of them accountable, or of knowing whether they might just decide to go bad and commit the same kind of crimes as the supervillains they fought. Randy also wasn't fond of the way their supervillain enemies kept trying to get revenge on them, as the innocent bystanders of New York were typically the ones to get hurt by it.

Now, the question of where Gwen had gone on New Year's Eve was hanging in the air, as was the feeling that Gwen was lying. Neither Randy or Gwen was directly dealing with the issue, something that grated on Randy's nerves. He hated leaving these kinds of things hanging without knowing where he stood on them one way or another.

I can't let things go like this, Randy thought to himself. I should ask Gwen what's really going on. If there's really nothing going on, then we can just drop the issue. But if Gwen's really Spider-Woman, then I can get an idea of why she never told me about it...and why she's doing it.

That was the reason Randy hadn't already confronted Gwen. Her friend Liz Allan had told Randy about Gwen's difficult childhood, which made him wonder if that had affected her decision to become a superhero...if in fact she was Spider-Woman in the first place.

In that case, maybe we can talk it out, Randy realized. Maybe there's some way I can help her...

Anger at being lied to was being replaced more and more with confusion, as Randy tried to imagine what Gwen must be going through.

Vincent Gonzalez read through the updates his friends were sending him, his smile growing wider and wider. Ever since he'd started his hate campaign against Spider-Woman, his following had rapidly grown. His supporters included anti-mutant crusaders who thought that Spider-Woman was a mutant, anti-superhero activists and street criminals who'd been caught by Spider-Woman. Almost thirty of them had volunteered their money, their services or their connections. They paid for the Internet site and other promotional materials he was using to promote his movement, they used their connections to get him media interviews, and they were serving as boots on the ground in other areas.

The last of these areas was the one Vincent was most proud of. Ever since his hate campaign had begun, he'd been receiving angry e-mails and web postings from people who admired Spider-Woman, either because she'd saved them at some point or because they were general superhero fans in general. Vincent had been carefully keeping a list of the people who'd been criticizing his movement, and he'd been carefully planning his responses.

Harold and Sierra Weston were the first of the Spider-Woman supporters who Vincent had arranged to give a particularly blunt rebuttal to. They'd been among the people who were at Macy's Department Store when Supercharger had attacked the place to draw Spider-Woman out, having taken their son to see Santa Claus. When they'd heard about Vincent's anti-Spider-Woman campaign, they'd angrily contacted him for it, claiming that Spider-Woman had saved them all from the electrically charged maniac.

The beating Vincent's supporters had given the Westons was just the first step, of course. Spider-Woman hadn't been there when the Westons needed her, and she wouldn't be there for any of her other fans when Vincent's friends paid them a "visit" as well.

That fact would make for some excellent media copy, proving just how ineffective Spider-Woman, and by extension all these "superheroes", actually were.

While Liz Allan wasn't really troubled by the matter, she was somewhat puzzled as to why Gwen was reluctant to confide in Randy about the problems she was supposedly having, and what she could be hiding. The matter had mostly passed out of Liz's mind in the week and a half since Randy had asked her about it, but it had come back to her a couple of days ago when Liz, Gwen and their friend Kitty Pryde had gone out to the Blue Star restaurant for some drinks and dancing.

Whatever was up with Gwen, it was clearly bothering Randy. Liz couldn't imagine what it was, as Gwen seemed to have gotten over all her old anger issues and had come to terms with her father's death. While Gwen's emotional nature had made her stress over her grades and her money problems, Liz hadn't noticed anything about Gwen that would have given her more cause for concern.

The strange injuries Gwen had suffered weren't necessarily all that unusual, given that New Yorkers lived under the constant threat of supervillain attacks every day, with the exception of the burns Gwen had when she'd come to visit Liz in the hospital after Liz had been attacked by Firebrand. Gwen had been lying about that-Liz had always known Gwen as a bad liar, and her training as a nurse told her that Gwen would never have been discharged from the hospital with the burns she'd suffered-but she was perplexed nonetheless by why Gwen would be out and about, and why she'd be lying about it.

Whether or not she should ask Gwen about it was another question entirely. She'd already advised Randy to talk to Gwen about his concerns, but she wasn't sure if she should be doing the same thing. There didn't seem to be anything wrong, so why bother Gwen?

Even as Liz told herself that, the doubts continued to lurk at the back of her mind.

"The media perpetrates specific standards of worth for both men and women related to sexuality," Professor Moore explained in her Women's Studies class the next day. "The worth of men is judged by things like how many sexual partners they have. Having a lot of sex makes them 'real men', while having one partner might lead them to be accused of being 'whipped' by their girlfriends or wives. Being a virgin is something that men have to be ashamed of."

"With women, it's almost the other way around," Professor Moore continued, as her students read the notes she was projecting from her computer onto a screen hanging from the wall. "Women are judged on their physical attractiveness, as you might expect, but they're also judged based on how little sex they have. Being a virgin is something a lot of men like to see, while women who have a lot of sexual activity is often called a whore, a slut, use whatever epithet you like," she sighed.

Gwen rubbed her chin as she thought about that. In high school, she'd been too guarded to have sex, and had always refused the advances of the boys she'd dated whenever they proposed it. It was part of her strategy to look available and be unobtainable, keeping the boys interested enough to want to date her but keeping them at enough of a distance that they couldn't get too close.

"Isn't there another aspect to it, though?" another student spoke up. "I've noticed that a lot of prominent women who've entered traditionally male-dominated professions like politics or business are still evaluated on their looks and more generally sexualized."

"That's true, unfortunately," Professor Moore nodded. "Female politicians, businesspeople, athletes and other professionals are often sexualized in ways that their male counterparts aren't."

Gwen frowned at that, being reminded of the way many of the male villains and criminals she fought had hit on her when she'd first started out as Spider-Woman. Anger rose up within her as she then recalled the posters on Vincent Gonzalez's Spider-Woman hate site, when many of the people who'd posted on the site had made lewd comments about her, some even going so far as to express a desire to sexually assault her.

Once again, Gwen bitterly realized that male heroes like Spider-Man, Captain America or Daredevil probably didn't have to worry about that sort of thing.

As part of the requirements for her Drama degree, Gwen was required to take a certain number of credits in non-fine arts courses. She had already dealt with most of the social science requirements of her degree with the Biology courses she'd taken with Dr. Curt Connors, and this semester she'd decided to take care of the social science credits her degree required. One of the social science courses she'd decided to take was Professor Moore's Women's Studies class, and the other one was Criminology.

Although Gwen would probably never have otherwise taken a class having to do with the justice system, she thought that this class might help her somehow when she fought crime as Spider-Woman. So far the class hadn't been anything special, though. Her experiences as Spider-Woman had given Gwen an idea of what Professor Vargas was talking about, so she had a head start in a class that was meant for students who were completely new to learning about the justice system.

Now, as the month of January was coming to a close, Professor Vargas had prepared a special surprise for the class. He'd arranged for a special guest lecturer to help teach the class, one who could give the students additional insight from his years of experience as a member of the New York Police Department. To Gwen's surprise, the guest lecturer turned out to be Captain Philip Watson, head of the NYPD's Organized Crime unit. Although Gwen had never met him either in her civilian identity or as Spider-Woman, she'd heard Peter Parker praise him as one of the best and most competent officers on the force.

"Good afternoon, everyone," Captain Watson smiled at the students as he stood at the lecture hall podium. "It's a pleasure to be here, and I hope you'll find my lectures worthwhile. Professor Vargas has been bugging me to do this for a few years now-this is probably the one occasion where I won't go to jail for accepting a bribe," he grinned, prompting several snickers from the class. Captain Watson was a tall, imposing man with a thick mane of black hair, conveying both an air of stern authority and a gentler paternal kindness. He was older than Gwen would have expected, although his well-toned figure and black eyes radiated a spirit that belied his age.

"I thought I'd start things off by giving you an overview of the various task forces within the police department, and how they relate to what you've been discussing so far," Captain Watson began, shuffling his notes. "The NYPD has several task forces, all of which are dedicated to particular types of crime. For instance, there's the Homicide unit, there's the Vice unit, the Hate Crimes unit, the Superhuman Activities unit, the Gang unit and the Organized Crimes unit. My unit, as you might expect, is related to the organized criminal cartels that unfortunately operate in New York. My responsibilities include-"

That was as far as Captain Watson got in his lecture, as the wall of the lecture hall was smashed open by something that hurtled through it with frightening speed. The students screamed and got up from their chairs, startled by the impact, until they got a good look at the object that had broken through the wall. It looked like a large coffee table, one of the ones set outside for students to sit and study at. Confusion replaced shock as the students murmured to each other, wondering what could have hurled the table through the wall.

The answer wasn't long in coming. Stepping through the hole in the wall was a man clad in what looked like a suit of black Kevlar body armor, with white gloves and boots. Bizarrely, he held what looked like a cue stick in one hand, and carried a bag of billiard balls at his waist. Perhaps most strangely of all was his helmet, which was painted to resemble a giant 8 ball. A few of the students gave shocked cries of recognition, as did Captain Watson, who knew him all too well. He was known as a rising star in the supervillain community, having gained notoriety from his battles with the mysterious costumed hero Sleepwalker, his gaining employment with the Kingpin, his blowing up the Domino Pool Hall and his killing the hired assassin Bullseye in single combat.

"Ah, name recognition," 8-Ball sighed mockingly, glancing around the room. "This is a Criminology course, isn't it? Well, you kids are pretty lucky-you're about to get a lot more education than you bargained for!"

In response, Captain Watson had whipped out his gun and prepared to shoot at 8-Ball, but the costumed criminal was quicker. Stepping behind one of the chairs in the front row of the lecture hall, he flicked it with his cue stick. Unbelievably, the chair was torn from its roots and flew at Captain Watson like a guided missile, perfectly guided by 8-Ball's sure aim. His cue stick was a miracle of propulsion engineering, able to take any force applied to it and magnify it a thousand times, turning anything it struck into a potentially lethal missile. Captain Watson ducked behind the podium to try and avoid the missile, but the chair simply smashed into and through it, catching him in the chest and sending him flying back to crash heavily into the wall. The blow would have killed Captain Watson if it hadn't been slowed down by the podium, but as it was Watson's entire body was throbbing with pain and he could barely move.

Several of the students screamed and ran in terror, while some of the others, as well as Professor Vega, attacked 8-Ball to try and protect Captain Watson. Gwen was the only student who did neither, joining in with the rest of the students who were running while quickly glancing around for a place she could change costume.

Professor Vega and the students who tried to protect Captain Watson could have been praised for their courage, but their efforts to stop 8-Ball were utterly futile. Leaping out of the way of their clumsy attacks, 8-Ball pulled a billiard ball out of the pouch at his side and threw it on the floor. The ball bomb exploded into a thick choking gas that caused Professor Vega and the students to wheeze and gag, falling to the floor and completely unable to fight back.

"Sad," 8-Ball shook his head as he turned to Captain Watson. "Looks like that'll be all she wrote, Captain-if Sleepwalker were going to try and stop me, he'd have shown up by now. So, I'll just be repeating my head-in-the-garbage-can trick," he grinned, holding up his cue stick, "and it's game over."

8-Ball never got the chance to line up his cue shot, as a bolt of energy shot out from the side and nearly struck him. The experienced criminal rolled out of the way and stood up, expecting to see Sleepwalker waiting to fight him. What he actually saw was another matter entirely-a beautiful young woman clad in a red and gold costume, with long black hair and a determined look on her angelic face.

"So much for Sleepwalker showing up to try and stop me," 8-Ball frowned. "It's...Spider-Woman, isn't it?" he asked, slowly edging around behind the broken podium. "Never thought I'd run into someone like you-don't you usually fight guys like Polestar, Firebrand or Will O' the Wisp?" he asked her.

Spider-Woman didn't answer, shooting a double blast of webbing at 8-Ball in an attempt to entangle him. 8-Ball replied by flicking the broken base of the podium with his cue stick, sending it flying at Spider-Woman. The podium flew at her, knocking her webbing aside, and slammed into the wall as she dodged it. Springing into the air and swinging on a webline, she prepared to shoot another line of webbing at 8-Ball with her free hand. 8-Ball was faster than she expected, ducking behind the desk at the front of the lecture hall. He sent it flying at her with his cue stick, aiming it perfectly so that it caught Spider-Woman full on as she was swinging by. Losing her grip on her webline, Spider-Woman fell and crashed into the rows of chairs and desks below her, as the desk landed on top of her.

Pain exploded through Spider-Woman's body as she threw the large desk off her and struggled to her feet. She didn't dare use her sting blasts while 8-Ball was standing among the students, who were all too sick to get out of the way. Her mind raced as she thought of what to do, realizing that 8-Ball could just as easily attack Captain Watson, Professor Vega or the students himself. 8-Ball clearly knew it too, pointing his cue stick at the nearest prone student as he pulled a ball bomb from his bag with his free hand.

"Why are you doing this?" Spider-Woman demanded, slowly moving to the side.

"Captain Watson here is the head of the NYPD Organized Crime unit," 8-Ball explained, watching Spider-Woman warily. "I work for the Kingpin, head of one of this city's major crime cartels. Do the math," he sneered.

"Okay, so why kill him here and now?" Spider-Woman asked him, reaching the steps that stood between the rows of desks and the wall of the lecture theatre.

"Public exposure, of course," 8-Ball said matter-of-factly, constantly shifting his glance between Spider-Woman and Captain Watson to make sure neither one of them tried anything funny. "This way, we send a nice, public message to the NYPD."

"That's sick," Spider-Woman muttered in disgust, her hands sparkling with the energy of her sting blasts.

"I'm a sick man," 8-Ball smirked behind his helmet. "That's why I'm going to throw this ball bomb if you try anything funny. It's full of rather nasty shrapnel. That stuff won't hurt me through my armor, it'll hurt a lot of these kids really badly if you try anything funny. All I need to do is crush Captain Watson's skull, and then I'll be on my way."

"That's not going to happen," Spider-Woman warned him.

"Look, kid," 8-Ball shot back, his eyes narrowing behind his helmet, "either Captain Watson's head becomes my cueball, or all these people are going to be picking shrapnel out of their asses. What's it going to be?" he demanded.

"How about neither?" Spider-Woman demanded, leaping towards 8-Ball. The billiard-headed killer moved to throw the ball bomb, but Spider-Woman caught it in midair with a webline and threw it over her shoulder towards the back of the lecture hall. The ball bomb exploded, releasing a hail of shrapnel blades, but they were too far away to hurt anyone. With her other hand, Spider-Woman shot a webline at 8-Ball, catching him in the chest. As she landed on the floor, she swung the webline, flinging 8-Ball out the door of the lecture hall and away from Captain Watson and the others. 8-Ball landed heavily on the floor of the foyer, grunting in pain from the collision and rolling across the floor before leaping to his feet.

Spider-Woman had taken a risky gamble in trying to catch the ball bomb with her webbing before it hit anything, but it had paid off. Now, with more room to maneuver and 8-Ball away from Captain Watson and the others, she could go after him with everything she had. Jumping into the air to avoid the chair that 8-Ball flicked at her with his cue stick, she fired back with her bioelectric stings, forcing 8-Ball to dodge. Clinging to the walls, she kept up firing at 8-Ball, keeping him off balance until he threw another ball bomb at her. Firing yet another sting blast at this bomb, it exploded in a bright flash of light, blinding Spider-Woman and leaving her vulnerable to the piece of broken rubble 8-Ball flicked at her with his cue stick.

The rubble smashed into Spider-Woman and caused her to lose her grip on the wall, falling to the floor. With lightning speed, 8-Ball flicked yet another piece of debris at her, following up quickly with a ball bomb that burst into a slippery pile of ooze that spread all over the floor. Losing her footing, Spider-Woman fell off balance and was unable to avoid being hit by yet another chair flicked at her by 8-Ball's cue stick. Dizziness spun through her head as she slammed into the far wall, seemingly slumping to the ground.

His battles with Sleepwalker having taught him never to underestimate any superhero, 8-Ball walked over to Spider-Woman only to see her spring to her feet yet again. Leaping over the ball bomb he threw at her, Spider-Woman landed behind 8-Ball. As they turned to face each other, Spider-Woman shot a sting blast at 8-Ball, forcing him to dodge. She then fired a webline at him with her other hand, deliberately missing as she snagged the chair behind 8-Ball. Pulling it back reflexively, she used it to knock 8-Ball off balance and forced him to drop the next ball bomb he was readying to throw at her. The ball bomb exploded at his feet, blowing him back.

Spider-Woman fired her webbing again, intending to entangle him, but 8-Ball wasn't finished. Rolling out of the way of her webbing, he threw yet another ball bomb, one that exploded in a flash of light, although this time Spider-Woman was prepared and shielded her eyes before the burst exploded in full. 8-Ball moved to a nearby table and flicked it at her once more, but this time Spider-Woman saw it coming and dodged yet again. She fired a webline at 8-Ball with one hand, but he dodged it, just as he dodged the chair Spider-Woman pulled at him.

That was what Spider-Woman had anticipated. With her free hand, she fired a sting blast directly at 8-Ball's cue stick, shattering the front part of it. As 8-Ball dropped the cue stick, shouting in alarm, she quickly snagged the bag of ball bombs at his side and pulled it away, leaving 8-Ball defenseless. The billiard-based killer tried to run, but Spider-Woman blasted him off his feet with a sting blast and quickly caught up with him as he tried to get to his feet. She wasted no time entangling him in webbing for the police she could already hear in the distance, before making haste to return to where she'd kept her street clothes.

To Gwen's relief, neither her classmates, Professor Vega or Captain Watson had noticed she was missing. The thick sweater and jeans she had been wearing as street clothes also concealed almost all the bruises she'd suffered as Spider-Woman, and the one bruise on her cheek she could explain as coming from the debris 8-Ball had sent flying when he'd smashed his way into the lecture theater. Best of all, she found that while Captain Watson was badly hurt, the paramedics assured everyone that his injuries were not life-threatening. Captain Watson even joked that he would just spend his convalescing time at a desk job, something he probably should have done a long time ago.

While her injuries were painful, Gwen knew that they would heal soon enough. She was just glad she'd been able to save Captain Watson, especially considering all the other hassles she was dealing with as Spider-Woman.

Now, if only she could figure out what to say to Randy...

Yancy Street was commonly known as the "ass crack of New York", an epithet given for what usually tended to come out of it. It was known throughout New York, and even New York State, as a hive of prostitution, drug dealing and gang violence. Every law-abiding person who could afford to do so had long fled Yancy Street, while those few that remained lived in fear of the thugs and criminals who made the street their base of dealings. Most feared of all was the Yancy Street Gang, a collection of vicious gangbangers who ran the street as their own personal fiefdom and made sure that the independent pimps and drug dealers paid very dearly for the privilege of being able to operate on their turf.

There were some powers that even the Yancy Street Gang knew better than to mess with, however. One building was a rundown community centre, constructed in better times when there was still a flicker of hope for Yancy Street. The criminals and the few law-abiding residents who still remained both gave the centre a very wide berth, for it had been the headquarters of the Tomorrow Legion, an informal crime cartel made up of supervillains who had decided to pool their efforts for greater profit and greater mayhem. While Spider-Woman had defeated Jack O' Lantern, the ghoulish criminal mastermind who'd first formed the Legion, its original crime spree had been very successful and the criminals who'd participated decided to keep it going. However, they had elected Doctor Octopus as the Legion's new leader.

Instead of running the Legion as the collaborative, mutually profitable enterprise that Jack O' Lantern had envisioned, Doctor Octopus ran it more like an incarnation of the Masters of Evil. Octopus treated the other villains like his subordinates, ordering them around and directing them to perform only the missions he himself wanted, instead of incorporating their own projects into his larger plan the way Jack O' Lantern would have. The rest of the Legion deeply resented Octopus's arrogant, dictatorial leadership, and so none of them made any move to help him when Moon Knight fought and defeated the eight-limbed supervillain. The Legion eventually dissolved, as many of the villains had become disillusioned by Octopus's treating them like his hired thugs.

Now, though, someone was trying to revive the Legion. Moonstone was a rising star in the supervillain world, having distinguished herself in her initial service to Doctor Octopus when she joined his version of the Legion, as well as the increasingly destructive crimes she had been committing. So it was that many of New York's supervillains eagerly accepted Moonstone's invitations to meet them at the site where Jack O' Lantern had founded the first version of the Tomorrow Legion.

Moonstone cut a distinguished figure as she strode out on stage in front of the myriad costumed criminals in the audience, all of whom stared at her expectantly. Everything was ready-over the past several weeks she'd been committing increasingly destructive crimes to boost her reputation, talking to her fellow villains about the Legion in informal settings to get them thinking about it and associate it with her, and in her civilian guise of Dr. Karla Sofen had arranged the escape of several inmates of the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, whose actions would strengthen her argument, as did the random crimes committed by various other supervillains.

The energy was at a boil, eagerly awaiting release. Now, with the right words and tone of voice, Moonstone would direct and shape that energy to her own ends.

"It's been an eventful few weeks, hasn't it?" Moonstone started out by addressing her audience.

Some of the villains mumbled to one another in confusion, wondering what she was talking about.

Good, she wanted them open to her ideas.

"Mr. FX and the Brothers Grimm running amuck on New Year's Eve," Moonstone explained. "Flying Tiger robbing that telethon for the victims of supervillain crime. The Brothers Grimm and the hostages he took. Lady Deathstrike and her attempt to murder the governor at that Rangers game. Supercharger and his killing spree at Macy's Department Store. Speedfreek attacking that mutant rights parade. The Ice Princess and her Fifth Avenue robberies. 8-Ball trying to kill Captain Philip Watson. What do all these things have in common?"

"They're all crimes," the Porcupine pointed out. "What's your point?"

"Acting on their own, most of those criminals failed. That was because they didn't take the opportunity to pool their resources and combine their mayhem with those of the other criminals. The wounds they caused were scattershot, each easier to heal from on its own."

"What are you talking about?" Sandman wondered.

She had their attention now, wondering what she was getting at.

"Have you ever heard of 'death by a thousand cuts?'" Moonstone asked her audience. "It's a rather fascinating way of killing someone-they bleed to death from a thousand shallow cuts. Each wound may not be very much on its own, but their combined effort will seriously weaken and eventually kill the victim. That's what we're capable of as the Tomorrow Legion, causing more pain and making more money when we each apply a cut at just the right time," she grinned, revealing a line of perfect white teeth.

Several of the more sadistic villains in the audience grinned and laughed, as they began talking to one another. Others were clearly dreaming of the additional profits that they could reap from coordinating their crimes.

She had them on the line, and now she just had to reel them in.

"Jack O' Lantern might have been defeated by Spider-Woman, but most of the other villains who participated made a pretty nice profit, didn't they? I notice that there are a lot of you here tonight," she continued, noticing the smiles and cheers from several of the villains in the audience. "After the way Doctor Octopus treated you like subordinates, like petty henchmen. That wasn't what the Legion was for!"

They were all attention now, as she'd spoken directly to what they were thinking. Octopus had made a hash of the Legion, but when Jack O' Lantern was in charge it had been both profitable and fun.

"And with me as the leader, that's what the Legion will be like again!" Moonstone proclaimed, her voice rising in pitch. "Jack O' Lantern's dream lives on with me, a dream where you are active participants, where your plans join with mine! Together we can crush anyone who stands in our way! Together we can bleed this city dry! Together we are Legion!"

The eager cries and shouts told Moonstone that she had them eating out of her hand. They yearned for a return to Jack O' Lantern's version of the Legion, where they were active partners, rather than mere henchmen.

She smiled at that thought, particularly since they didn't realize they were playing right into her true plan.

Let them rob their banks and murder their victims, it didn't matter. They were dancing on her strings, like the puppets they were.

Dancing towards her ultimate goal.

(Next Issue: Gwen has faced many foes as Spider-Woman, surviving against overwhelming odds. However, can she, and all of New York, hope to possibly survive against Moonstone's new Tomorrow Legion? Not only must Spider-Woman deal with Moonstone, but she and the rest of New York's heroes must struggle to contain a mass supervillain crime spree. Even that is not the only issue Spider-Woman faces, when she discovers the horrifying truth behind Moonstone's plan and her true goal! All this and more in the Sleepwalker/Spider-Woman Crossover: Master Of Puppets!)