Lying Truth

The early February morning was decidedly chilly, but it brought a bright glow to Gwen Stacy's cheeks as she stood waiting for her boyfriend Randy Robertson. It had been over two and a half weeks since they'd last gone out together, and the pall over their relationship had only gotten worse in that time. They'd gone days at a time without speaking to one another, and Gwen worried that they were drifting apart. She suspected that it had to do with his suspecting her dual identity as the heroic Spider-Woman, and that she'd lied to him about why she'd run away when the Brothers Grimm had gone on a rampage on New Year's Eve. Gwen had hesitated about telling Randy, given his professed dislike of costumed heroes, and how she thought he'd react. Now, though, she realized she'd probably made a serious mistake in not telling Randy before now.

So it was that when Randy called her yesterday and asked her to meet him outside the Student's Union Building at Empire State University, she'd eagerly agreed. It was just before the appointed time, and she was looking around anxiously for him to arrive. When he finally rounded the corner, Gwen ran up to him and wrapped him in a tight hug, catching him off guard.

"Hi, sweetie!" she said brightly, eager to see him again.

Randy stumbled back for a moment before he regained his balance, surprised by Gwen's warm welcome. He managed to extricate himself from her hug, and took her hands in his, nodding briefly at her. He gave her a small smile in return, although it wasn't nearly as large as the wide, hopeful grin she was giving him.

"What did you have planned?" Gwen asked as they started walking.

Randy opened his mouth as if to say something, before sighing and shaking his head.

"...Is something wrong?" Gwen asked in surprise.

"No...it's...alright," Randy shook his head. "I just need to..." he trailed off, before closing his eyes as if to must up his courage. He glanced around to determine just how many people were nearby, and nodded in satisfaction as he realized that the only other students in the area were far enough away that they couldn't hear the conversation.

"There's something I need to ask you, Gwen," he finally said, forcing himself to say it.

"...What is it?" Gwen asked him. Now it was her turn to muster up her courage, waiting for him to answer the question he knew was coming.

"Are you Spider-Woman?" he finally asked her.

For too long, Gwen and Randy been dancing around the question, but now it was out in the open. They'd both correctly suspected that the other one was thinking about, and now they were going to have to deal with it.

Taking a deep breath, Gwen gave her answer. She been grossly unfair to Randy in hiding the truth from him, and now she intended to make up for it.

"Yes I am," Gwen nodded calmly. "I'm Spider-Woman, and I have been for over a year now."

They walked in silence for several minutes, as they let the implications of what they'd just said, and everything they'd previously said and thought that was related to it, sink in.

SPIDER-WOMAN #46

"LYING TRUTH"

"So you lied to me about where you had to go on New Year's Eve," Randy finally pointed out.

"I suppose I did," Gwen replied. "But you told me about how much you hated superheroes. I wasn't sure how you'd react if I told you the truth."

"It's not so much that I don't hate them," Randy explained, "so much as I don't trust them. There's no way we can keep superheroes accountable if they screw up. How do we know they won't go bad at some point?"

"The fact that superheroes stick their necks on the line and are always protecting people for no profit ought to be a good sign," Gwen noted. "Costumed heroes could probably make a lot more money as supervillains-even police and other emergency workers get pay and benefit packages for risking their lives. Considering the abuse heroes sometimes get from the very people whose lives they saved, it's probably a miracle that none of them have become criminals yet," she concluded.

They kept walking all the while, Randy's arm wrapped around Gwen's shoulders as she leaned against him.

"So why do they do it, then?" Randy asked curiously. "Why do you do it?"

There wasn't any anger in his voice, just a genuine curiosity.

"It's...complicated," Gwen sighed, not entirely sure where to begin. "When I was growing up, my father abused my mother and I and was always cheating on Mom with younger women. Eventually, he threw us out of the house and forced us to move in with my Aunt Nancy. I felt so angry...helpless...and guilty."

"Guilty?" blinked Randy.

"I couldn't do anything to stop Dad from hurting Mom," Gwen frowned and shook her head. "When I tried to stop him, he'd just turn his beatings on me," she shook her head. "But he was an expert at putting on a mask in public-he always made sure we looked like a happy family whenever we went out, and even paid my way in university to keep up appearances. Mom and I saw what he was really like, though."

Randy only frowned at that.

"So-" he began.

"A little over a year ago, just after I turned nineteen, I started to develop my spider powers. I thought I was a mutant, and then I realized what my Dad would probably have said. He was a bigot on top of being abusive-he hated mutants, blacks, Muslims, pretty much anybody that wasn't a white male. That just made me even angrier, and then I remembered how much he hated superheroes, too. That's what gave me the idea to become Spider-Woman. I did it mostly to spite my father."

Randy's eyes widened at that.

"I took my anger out on the villains I fought, and I nearly hurt a lot of innocent people in the process. I pushed away the people around me. When they called me out on it, I realized what an idiot I'd been," Gwen continued.

"So why did you still do it?" Randy wondered.

"I felt so powerless whenever Dad would beat on Mom or me," Gwen explained. "I just wished there was something I could do. Now, with my spider powers, I can actually do something. Whenever I see supervillains or other criminals picking on people who can't defend themselves, I just can't help myself. I have to try and stop them. How many more people could end up being hurt or killed if I wasn't there to protect them? I'd never be able to forgive myself if I didn't at least try to help them."

Randy was shaken by the intensity of Gwen's voice.

"But what does it do to your grades?" Randy asked her. "And what about your loved ones? What happens if you get killed by some costumed nutcase? How would your mother or your aunt react to that?"

"I think about that all the time," Gwen nodded. "That's one reason I never told my aunt or anyone else about my being a superhero-I didn't want them always worrying about it. My Mom only found out about it by accident, like you did. And being Spider-Woman has caused me all kinds of grief. But being Spider-Woman has enabled me to help a lot of people I care about. Mom...Aunt Nancy...Jill...Kong...Kitty...Harry and Liz...what would have happened to them if I hadn't been there?"

Randy thought on that for a while as they continued walking.

"...And that's why you can't stop, isn't it?" he sighed.

"...No," Gwen shook her head. "It's...it's a part of who I am, Randy. Every time I think about stopping, I remember the people who've helped and I realize I have to do this."

Randy frowned, but he wasn't about to give up just yet.

"But Kitty doesn't do any of that stuff," he persisted. "She refused to join the X-Men, remember? And you mentioned all the problems being Spider-Woman causes you. What does this do to your grades, or your career?"

Gwen looked down at the ground, and Randy knew he'd hit on something she'd been thinking about for a long time.

"Someone else reminded me about my responsibilities to myself," Gwen nodded, "and that's something I need to think about. Maybe I don't need to spend as much time being a superhero as I used to, but I can't stop it altogether."

"What about Kitty?" Randy pressed.

"That was Kitty's decision to make," Gwen explained. "She didn't think her phasing powers would be of much use in crimefighting anyway. If she's comfortable with not using her powers, then that's her business."

Randy closed his eyes and shook his head, as he tried to figure out what to say next.

"But what about your enemies?" Randy tried again. "I mean, there's that Jack O' Lantern freak, Polestar, Tarot and God knows who else! What if one of them finally kills you? What if they find out who you really are?"

"If they hadn't become part of my rogues gallery, they would have become part of someone else's," Gwen pointed out. "And Jack O' Lantern does know who I am. I don't know how he found out, but he somehow discovered my secret identity."

Randy recoiled in horror at that, breaking away from Gwen and staring at her in disbelief.

"He knows who you are?" Randy asked incredulously. "How could you let that happen? What if that sick freak-"

"You think I haven't thought about that?" Gwen replied, her voice starting to crack. "You think I don't know that Jack O' Lantern could ruin my life just by revealing my secret identity, or by going after my loved ones? But what can I do about it if he tries, except stop him as Spider-Woman?"

"And I suppose you never thought about all the other people you were putting in danger by letting that psychopath find out about who you really were, did you?" Randy accused her, his voice rising in anger. "Now they're going to have to spend all their time looking over their shoulders!"

"I don't know how he found out my identity!" Gwen replied, tears forming in her eyes. "If I knew what I did to let him find out, I would have never let it happen! Besides, don't you think Kitty and Ben are already in danger from him? How do you know Jack won't go after them just to spite his family?"

Randy wanted to yell at Gwen, to chew her out for putting herself and her loved ones in danger, for being so thoughtless and careless. Looking at her, though, he saw the guilt and the pain etched all too clearly on her face, and realized she was probably already telling herself those things. She was doing her best to hold back her tears, although she clearly didn't know what else to say or do.

It was then that Randy wondered what he would have said or done if he had been the one to develop spider-powers. Would he have been able to just stand by while costumed freaks like Jack O' Lantern or Netshape hurt people who couldn't fight back? How would he have been able to look himself in the mirror if he didn't do something?

Coming forward, he embraced Gwen, who leaned into him, returning his hug tightly.

"I'm so sorry, Randy," Gwen said softly.

"It's okay," he assured her, stroking her hair.

They stood there for several minutes, before separating. Gwen looked at him with a grateful smile, her eyes sparkling brightly.

"Thank you so much," she said, hugging him again. "This means a lot to me."

"I'm sure it does," Randy assured her. "Like you said, it's a part of who you are. And as long as you need me, I'll be there for you."

They resumed their walk, but now with a burden lifted off their shoulders.

"Watch the block!" Davis Lawfers reminded Tanya Sealy as he came at her with another kick. Tanya had blocked too low, and Davis's foot was barely an inch away from her face when they stopped moving.

"See, I could have taken your head off with that kick," Davis pointed out to her as they stopped to take a break. "Your foot speed's really improved, though," he complimented her.

"Thanks," Tanya nodded. Instinctively she took a breath, before realizing that she was barely winded. At first she'd resented the gruelling workouts Davis had subjected her to, but that was before she realized how much they were building up her stamina. Her reflexes had dramatically improved as well, and she was now able to keep up with Davis in their sparring sessions.

Originally a high-class call girl, Tanya had been recruited by Davis after he'd seen how she'd been abused by some of her other clients. Davis himself was a member of the Serpent Society, a supervillain mercenary team whose members based themselves and their powers off various types of snakes. Much to Tanya's amazement, he'd offered her a position with the Serpent Society, replacing a female member by the name of Black Mamba, who'd been killed by the supervillain 8-Ball during a failed mission last year. Although Tanya didn't have any real combat training or superpowers, Davis had offered to train her himself and said that the Serpent Society would be able to provide her with powers.

"I'm really proud of you, Tan," Davis smiled warmly as they drank some water. "I'd be amazed at how far you've come...if I didn't already know that I'm such a good teacher," he grinned.

Tanya only snickered at that. At first she'd thought that Davis was crazy, offering to make her into a costumed killer, and only accepted his offer because she thought she'd be able to use the training to better protect herself from abusive johns. The idea of being a hired killer didn't really bother her, particularly since she'd killed more than one john who had tried to take things too far. Associating with known criminals and murderers didn't bother her either, particularly since most of her clients were wealthy criminals, corrupt business executives or supervillains. Indeed, Davis and several of the other male members of the Society had been some of her best customers. They'd also been unfailingly polite to her, being some of the best tippers.

Having spent the last two months in the company of the rest of the Society, Tanya found herself liking the idea of joining their ranks. From her youth growing up in foster care to starting a career as an exotic dancer and eventually a call girl, Tanya hadn't had many close friends or even family, only people that she'd exploited or been exploited by. With the Serpent Society, it was different-Davis had been the first person to ever really express concern for her wellbeing, and she'd been able to build on the cordial relationships she'd been able to form with the other Serpents who were her former customers. It didn't take long for Asp, Fer-de-Lance and the other female Society members to start treating her like one of the girls, helping her physically and mentally prepare for the procedure that would imbue her with superpowers.

It was strange, but among these criminals and murderers Tanya felt something she'd never really felt before.

She felt like she belonged.

First, it had been the Westons who'd been beaten to within an inch of their lives at the hands of the mysterious, black-clad individuals who broke into their home. Even several weeks after the attack, their son still woke up screaming in the middle of the night and both Harold and Sierra were still having nightmares about the incident.

Then it had been the Petersens, who had been forced by the home invaders to watch as their children's throats were slit and they slowly bled out. Since that time, Mr. Petersen had a nervous breakdown after Mrs. Petersen had killed herself.

Stephen Krieger and Hiroshi Suzumiya were permanently crippled, and various other shootings, rapes and beatings had taken place.

The one thing all of these people had in common was the fact that they had given angry replies to Vincent Gonzalez's anti-Spider-Woman hate campaign, in many cases because they themselves had been saved by Spider-Woman in her previous efforts. Vincent had subsequently arranged for some of his "friends" to pay them a visit and give them a blunt "rebuttal" of his own.

Vincent had to give his friends credit-in their home invasions, they'd left very little evidence for the police to go on. Even if some enterprising detective managed to connect the dots between all the victims, what did that matter? Vincent had carefully selected which of the people replying to his hate campaign he would have his friends assault-the majority of the people who'd spoken out against him remained unharmed, after all.

The first part of Vincent's plan was complete-he'd delivered the rebuttal he'd wanted to the people who'd dared to criticize him. Now on to the second part, blaming Spider-Woman for being unable to protect the very people who respected and admired her. What kind of superhero would do that?

That would get even more of the public turned against her. Hell, he might even get some positive press from the Daily Bugle, given J. Jonah Jameson's well-known dislike of costumed superheroes and his calls for superheroes to be officially registered before they could fight crime. Spider-Man might have been the main focus of Jameson's editorials, but Spider-Woman would almost certainly get some unpleasant attention from Jameson due to her similarity to the male web-slinger.

Yes, it was all working out nicely.

Moonstone's arrest and subsequent exposure as Dr. Karla Sofen, senior psychiatrist at the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, caused an uproar in the media, a scandal in Congress and a political hot potato for those Senate candidates who were up for reelection this year, including Senator Thomas Finster of New Jersey and Senator Robert Kelly of New York State. It had also reignited a fierce debate in the New York state legislature over the merits of amending the state's constitution to bring back the death penalty specifically for costumed supervillains, as the death penalty had previously been deemed unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court in 2004. There was also a considerable debate as to what to do with the prisoners in Ravencroft, who had previously been remanded to the asylum under the insanity defense when they were brought to trial. There was talk of retrying many of them for their crimes, which would in turn cause all kinds of administrative chaos in the court system.

Previously known as the ghoulish costumed psychopath called Jack O' Lantern, Stephen Mark Levins had eventually been defeated by Spider-Woman after his attempt to form the Tomorrow Legion, a new informal supervillain cartel whose members would coordinate their crimes to increase the chaos, suffering and profit they would reap from their sadistic activities. Now, following the proceedings from the Raft, the superhuman wing of Ryker's Island Prison, Levins found the whole situation absolutely hilarious.

"Can you believe it, Jackson?" Levins cackled to Jackson Arvad, more commonly known as Will O' the Wisp and another one of Spider-Woman's enemies, as they ate dinner in the prison lunchroom one evening. "I mean, I knew the system was messed up, but to this extent? This just confirms all the stuff I was saying about how most people are sheep-they're too stupid to see danger when it's creeping up on them, and then when a crisis hits, they all go into a panic!"

"Didn't you actually meet with her once, when she asked you for an interview?" Jackson asked.

"You bet," Levins grinned. "I was actually pretty impressed at the time with how smart she was, and I remember thinking about how she could have made a really good supervillain herself! God, I love being right!" he laughed, before he instantly calmed, a look of seething rage suddenly crossing his face.

"Is something wrong, Jack?" Jackson asked, remembering how much Levins demanded that he be addressed by his supervillain name.

"No," Levins lied. Inwardly he was thinking again about how much he hated Gwen Stacy, alias the spectacular Spider-Woman, and how much of her own villainous potential she had wasted. She wasted her power protecting those same pathetic, snivelling people he wanted to prey on, ruining his fun and-

"...Never mind," Levins shook his head. "I'm glad that young lady's made an effort to revive the spirit of the Tomorrow Legion," he finished, making an effort to force himself to smile.

"Yes," Jackson replied sourly, annoyed at having missed yet another opportunity to participate in the Legion. "They're having all the fun, while we're rotting in this hellhole-"

"I take it you haven't spoken to Mr. Fear yet," Levins smirked, his good mood returning.

"Why would I have spoken to him?" Jackson asked.

Instead of replying, Levins was looking up at the clock on the wall.

"Right about...now!" he laughed. "What perfect timing!"

Almost immediately, there was a loud electric crackling in the air, buzzing for several seconds before falling silent once again. Many of the supervillains in the lunchroom stood up and began shouting to one another in alarm, until they realized their power-disabling restraints had been disabled. Jackson and Levins both immediately recognized the sound as that of an electromagnetic pulse, which could disable any electrical device within the range of its being set off.

It was then that a truly bizarre sight appeared. A round black circle, an oversized dot, appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Several of the villains stared at it incredulously, before a human figure seemed to poke his head out of it. The figure was unlike any human most of them had ever seen. His skin was pure white and marked all over with black polka dots. Some of the villains recoiled in surprise, others started laughing at the weird individual, and still others cheered as they recognized their salvation.

The Spot may not have been the most sadistic or cruel of supervillains, but he was widely respected for his bizarre transportation abilities. He could take the spots he was covered with right off his body and convert them into portals that, when jumped into, could function as portals to wherever the Spot imagined them to go.

Chaos erupted as the guards tried to restrain the prisoners, although they were badly outmatched against their superpowered charges. In the middle of it all, the Spot began tearing spots off his body and throwing them at the supervillain inmates surrounding him.

"You can be here, there or everywhere!" the Spot chanted as many of the villains began eagerly running for the portals, while others continued to fight back against the guards and the Guardsmen who were now coming on the scene. "Just think of where you want to go, and that's where you'll be! All thanks to the wonderful Wizard of A.I.M.!"

Will O' the Wisp and Jack O' Lantern had eagerly joined in the fight, tearing through the guards who were attacking them. With his superhuman strength, Jack easily manhandled the vulnerable guards who tried to subdue him, while Will O' the Wisp had shifted into his ethereal form, a ball of golden light, and flown into the powered armor of the Guardsman attacking him. One of the Wisp's powers was his ability to enter and take control of electrically-powered devices, and he used this power to good effect as he forced the Guardsman's armor to remove its helmet and then use a repulsor blast to shatter the skull of the now helpless human trapped inside it.

"What is that fool prattling about?" Will o' the Wisp wondered, resuming his human form as Jack O' Lantern snapped the neck of the last guard he was fighting.

"He was likely referring to the Wizard," Jack surmised, referring to the brilliant criminal scientist who used to lead the supervillain team that called itself the Frightful Four, before becoming one of the top scientists at the technocratic terrorist organization A.I.M. "I'd venture that the Wizard developed some sort of device that allows the Spot to alter his portals so they attune themselves to whoever's passing through them and take that person wherever he or she wants to go."

"In other words, it's our way out of here?" Will o' the Wisp laughed.

Jack O' Lantern only smirked in return.

They each made for the closest portal and were instantly gone, carried to wherever they themselves most wanted to go.

In all, almost forty supervillains escaped from the Raft that day, leaving a slaughterhouse of dead prison guards in their wake.

The scandal was going to get all the greater when the media and the politicians got wind of just how easily the Spot had arranged the escape of so many dangerous criminals, but that was the least of the concerns faced by the heroes who'd originally incarcerated these villains to begin with.

(Next Issue: While Gwen has apparently patched things up with Randy, things go from bad to worse for her with Vincent Gonzalez's hate campaign as he takes it to the next level, personally blaming Spider-Woman for his own thugs' rampages and calling for a larger ban on superheroic activities! Even that might not be the worst of the problems Spider-Woman has to deal with, as a number of her old enemies begin hatching new schemes after escaping from jail! All this and more in Spider-Woman #47: Public Relations!)