Dream And Nightmare

The month of June was when summer came into full blossom, filling the trees and the grass with life. The sun's bright, shining light made people begin to relax and enjoy themselves. They planned vacations, went on picnics, enjoyed the sense of warmth and restoration that summer offered.

Some days were entirely different, of course. On days like that, the wind howled and the sky screamed with the roar of thunder, as lightning snaked across the sky in harsh, jagged patterns. The thunderstorm had been bad all day, and only got worse as night fell, until it seemed almost as if Hell itself was manifesting on Earth.

The streets were completely deserted, as not even the city's most hardened criminals cared to be out on such a night.

It was well after midnight, and almost everyone in the entire city was asleep.

Alone with their dreams.

SPIDER-WOMAN #61

"DREAM AND NIGHTMARE"

Jackson Arvad, alias Will O' the Wisp, slept silently in his cell at the Raft, the superhuman wing of Riker's Island Penitentiary.

Will O' the Wisp was a star-literally. The center of his own universe, the sun that all of the planets in his life revolved around. There was his hated ex-wife Maureen (now a dead world) revolving closest to him, his family members (mostly distant and cold, he rarely touched them with his light), his hated superhero nemesis Spider-Woman (a gas giant, a budding star in her own right, and one that he loathed for impeding his goals), and many of his ex-coworkers at Roxxon (taunting, hateful worlds who had leached off his hard work) and their families (the moons and satellites that revolved around these planets).

The Wisp radiated contempt, and then hatred.

Slowly he began to expand, going nova.

Maureen was the first to explode, being ground into dust-he had already snuffed her out.

His family members went quickly-the Wisp did not care about them much.

Spider-Woman was brutally destroyed, shattered into a million pieces for interfering with his progress.

His Roxxon coworkers and their families suffered the most, slowly and painfully vaporized as they withered and died under his hate.

In the women's wing of the raft, J. Olivia Yanizewski, alias Joystick, was sleeping in her cell.

It was like Las Vegas on an acid trip. Huge buildings were everywhere, covered in multicolored lights that glittered in a rainbow of colors. The buildings had canals carved into them through which champagne flowed in bright, bubbly rivers and waterfalls. Fabulously decorated Christmas trees sprouted at random, dropping presents that were full of drugs and syringes. People of all shapes, sizes and genders fornicated in the streets, doing things that would have put most pornographic movies to shame.

Joystick sat on a throne above it all, gazing over her kingdom as she was waited on by a bevy of handsome and buff young men, each of whom was wearing nothing more than a Speedo. One of them fed her grapes by hand, another fanned her, and two more were giving her pedicures, one on each foot.

At a snap of her fingers, all of the men stopped what they were doing and lined up in front of her.

Joystick only smirked.

It was suppertime.

Polestar lay slumped in the corner of his cell, the flesh and blood part of his body sleeping as the mechanical parts of his body had shut down for the night.

There he was, surrounded by all of them. Originally, they'd all mocked him as sad-sack Thomas Duffy, the loser who could never get it together and who had long served as life's crap bucket.

Now look at them.

His parents, half-starved and living off their meagre pensions, when they'd used to deride him for his not getting the same academic or athletic awards his siblings had.

His brother, who'd been the upstanding, all-American jock, now reduced to working for minimum wage in a dead-end retail job after he knocked up his girlfriend, lost his scholarship and ended up with three kids.

His sister, who'd been the brainy genius, now slaving away as a single mother after her husband left her for his bimbo secretary, forced to do all the shit work while her boss took all the credit for her unit's performance, doing the work of five people while getting the pay of one.

His ex-wife, who'd run off with the TV repairman, now living in a dingy apartment after she'd learned that their repairman was an alcoholic with a rap sheet who'd fallen off the wagon again after they'd hooked up, and had trouble standing on his own two feet, much less earn a steady paycheck.

And look at him, the beaten-down, worn-out loser, who'd always been overshadowed by someone better, now a supervillain with deadly magnetic power who'd humiliated his family by causing a massacre on Fire Island and publicly revealing his ties to them.

Finally, he turned to Spider-Woman, the little superhero bitch who'd gotten in his way more than once.

She was still at large, but that didn't bother him too much.

The next time they met, he'd crush her like her namesake.

Even with his powers neutralized by the special manacles he wore around his wrists, Firebrand's body still glowed with the heat of his inner flames.

It looked like a scene out of hell, a night sky illuminated by the glow of the fires burning all around him. Random fires exploded out of the ground, shooting up towards the heavens that seemed so bleak and lifeless above them. The landscape was hilly, scorched to bare dirt and rock by the burnings of countless flames. All around there were random scatterings of what looked to have once been buildings, towers and houses made of stone but now destroyed and melted into piles of rubble and slag.

Above it all loomed Firebrand, a king on a throne of stone. At his command, fireballs exploded from the ground, incinerating the corpses of the people who had once inhabited the buildings he lay to waste. None of them now lived, dying from the fiery hell and death he had rained down on them.

Firebrand laughed at that.

His laughter grew louder and louder, until it suffused the entire scene.

Black Mamba slept serenely next to Copperhead in bed, seemingly at peace.

Before Tanya Sealy had become a call girl, she had been an exotic dancer. Some exotic dancers used snakes as living props in their "performances", although Tanya had never done so.

And yet now, she could feel the darkness slithering all around her, as she began the dance. Tanya felt it slide up, down and all around, caressing her all the way. It felt serpentine, twisting all around Tanya even as its cold, hard gaze seemed to stare into her very soul. The Darkforce was more than a tool or even a superpower to Tanya-it was both a separate thing and an integral part of her soul, linked forever unto death.

It was the source of a new life for Tanya, but to others it was the source of misery and death.

The irony was not lost on Tanya as she continued the dance, realizing that her joy was the source of others' misery.

The storm was so violent that it extended across all of New York State, even into the neighboring state of Massachusetts. Supercharger slept in his cell at the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, twitching and mumbling to himself in his sleep. He seemed disturbed, constantly twitching back and forth from one direction to the other in bed.

Supercharger felt the highs, and he felt the lows.

His heart soared as he saw Spider-Woman, the beautiful, pure goddess of his dreams, the nurturing guardian angel who had laid her life on the line to protect him. Untouched and unsullied, she could and would support him in every way. He loved her, and she loved him, a loving maiden dressed all in loose-fitting white robes.

Then his heart shattered as Spider-Woman rejected him and called him a sick, depraved freak. Now Spider-Woman was wearing a tight-fitting and tattered black and red minidress, fishnets and boots, her attire reflecting the disgraced whore she was. She and Supercharger hated each other, Spider-Woman disgusted by his not being good enough for her and Supercharger hating the temptress for leading him on.

The bizarre-looking Netshape lay sound asleep in what passed for a juvenile wing at the Raft, the branch of Riker's Island Penitentiary where superpowered offenders were kept.

Nothing could stop Netshape, reveling in the power he wielded as he channeled the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox and crushed the Koopa Troopas like flies. The pathetic turtles ran for their lives, knowing they couldn't stand against him.

Frieza came to their defense, and Netshape changed tactics. Summoning Bahamut, he easily blasted the wicked space tyrant into nothing.

And yet, the fight was not over, as Frieza's atoms coalesced into the form of Sephiroth, who charged at Netshape with his huge sword.

And yet, could even Sephiroth hope to stand against Superman? Now Netshape wielded the power of the last son of Krypton, laughing as Sephiroth's sword shattered against his chest. All it took was one punch, and Sephiroth's skull was immediately shattered.

Pressing further into the darkness, Netshape saw who the true mastermind of it all was. Predictably, it was Ozymandias, manipulating the rest of his opponents the way that he had in the original Watchmen comics.

It hardly mattered, as Netshape destroyed him with a single blow.

Soon, Netshape stood in triumph, as everyone from Princess Peach to Lois Lane to Misa Amane all flocked to him, praising him warmly for his success in rescuing them.

He smiled back, basking in the admiration all of the other characters felt for him.

Moonstone had been awake for the longest time, staring out into the darkness at the raging storm, until she too felt a wave of fatigue and finally fell asleep.

Moonstone was surrounded by a collection of giant bookcases. Their shelves groaned under the weight of heavy, ponderous tomes full of insights and observations. A wide smile crossed the young woman's face, as she thought of the knowledge contained within them.

At her beckoning, one of the books lowered itself from the shelves and floated over to her. The book opened at her command, and she began gazing through it, nodding to herself as she confirmed her assessment of the book's subject.

That book was returned to the shelf, and soon another book came to replace it, opening at her command and then returning to the shelf as soon as she was done with it. It in turn was replaced by another book, and another, and another…

Moonstone smiled to herself as she finished her readings, confirming her initial observations. Typhoid Mary's personalities reflecting the Maiden, Mother and Crone personalities of the triple goddess; Blackout feeling all lost and alone in the Darkforce that surrounded him; Waxman being obsessed with "holding himself together"; the Brothers Grimm being a pair of perverted showmen who enjoyed using macabre art and perverted childhood fantasies to "entertain" people; the Abomination feeling that he ought to live up to his childhood nickname through mass murderer; Psyko reflecting the elements of primal fears, living nightmares, intimate violations, the monster that hid under the bed, the boogeyman that left its victims with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

She could read them all like a book.

Finally, one more tome came down, of its own volition, and blocked Moonstone's path as it turned to leave.

She tried to dismiss it, but the book opened of its own volition and stared her in the face before slamming shut.

The other books had had the names of the supervillains they talked about for titles, and this one had her name prominently scrawled across the front of it.

There were two Blizzards imprisoned at the Raft. One was Donald Gill, whose dreams were fairly pleasant, centering around the good things in life he would be able to enjoy once he finally got the big score. He was surrounded by beautiful women, enjoyed fine food, and watched wrestling and mixed martial arts on his big screen TV.

The other Blizzard was Gregor Shapanka.

Tony Stark…Iron Man…Donald Gill…Spider-Woman.

One moment, he was cutting their throats with a long knife.

The next, he was shooting them in the face with a sawed-off shotgun.

After that, he was brutally beating them with a baseball bat.

Then, he was slowly strangling them with his bare hands.

From there, it all began again.

Not all supervillains went to the Raft. Villains whose powers came from their equipment, like the killer for hire Constrictor, were instead sent to Attica Prison when they were imprisoned among the general population.

He could see them looming out of the darkness, faces of every size, shape and color. Some of them he'd murdered back when he was just another generic mob killer, but the others had been killed after he'd taken up the costumed identity of the Constrictor. Generic hitmen were getting less and less work these days, as people looking to hire assassinations preferred to hire the more versatile and more skilled supervillains.

The faces of his victims all stared at him accusingly, causing the Constrictor to feel a true sense of accomplishment.

A man had to take pride in his work, after all.

The Brothers Grimm lay cuddled under his blankets in his cell at Ravencroft, sleeping like a baby despite the loudness of the storm.

The circus melody was played with discordant tubas, trumpets and saxophones, interspersed with rhythmic chants. The circus tent itself was colored in black and white stripes, filtering the outside light in a bizarre, almost otherworldly way.

The Brothers Grimm were normally two people in one, a chimera caused by the fusion of their DNA. Here, though, Percy and Barton Grimes were two separate people, two separate ringmasters who oversaw the chaos together and yet separately.

Everything around them was madness. Characters from the macabre paintings of Francisco Goya, Edvard Munch, Hieronymous Bosch, Francis Bacon and Salvador Dali cavorted, fought and danced alongside other creatures that looked like they came from warped childhood fairytales-skeletal toy soldiers, teddy bears dressed like executioners, skull-faced jack-in-the-boxes, and more. Seated in the audience, forced to watch the whole bizarre show, were what Percy and Barton called the "normals", the ordinary, unimaginative people who muddled through their everyday lives without a spark of imagination or an appreciation for the dramatic.

Now, though, Percy and Barton were giving them a gift, an opportunity to relive their childhoods, exercise their imaginations, and even learn a thing or two in the process. It was a pity that so few of them seemed to appreciate the opportunity, screaming and crying as they tried to escape. So ungrateful were they, that the Brothers Grimm had to chain them to their seats until the show was over.

Steven Mark Levins, more commonly known as the dreaded Jack O' Lantern, slept serenely in the midst of the storm. The contented smile and peaceful breathing were those of a man enjoying his dreams, and perfectly at ease in the midst of the nightmarish storm outside the prison.

It was a pleasant sight, Jack mused, gazing all around him. The cave was cold and lifeless one moment, then glowing with a hellish red light and filled with piercing screams the next. Cold malice and burning hatred filled the air, shifting even as the lights and sounds did.

His lips turning up in amusement, Jack proceeded down the corridor.

First there was all the people he had seen in his civilian identity, for years on end, before he'd ever assumed his costumed identity as a supervillain. They were kept chained up against the walls of the cavern, paralyzed and unable to move, but fully awake for all that. It was so much like their lives, Jack knew, living as mindless cattle too afraid to live, to fully embrace who they really were and what they could potentially do.

For them, Jack felt little more than contempt. It was fun to inflict pain on them, to inflict misery and suffering, to fill them with terror and despair.

The laughter started as Jack passed through the cavern and went down the stairs.

The next cavern was filled with all of the people Jack had personally murdered in his supervillain identity, constantly reliving the gruesome fates Jack had inflicted on them. This sight filled him with joy, reminded him of the good times he'd had, the feeling of power and control he'd wielded over them, the fact that the last thing they saw was death coming for them in his form.

The laughter grew louder as Jack passed through this cavern and went down the next set of stairs.

Here, Jack was filled with rage. This cavern was filled with his family members, ranging from his sisters Karen and Danielle to his parents to his nieces and nephews, such as Kitty Pryde and Ben Reilly. They were condemned to a slow death, being eaten from the inside, until they finally died, after which the process would begin again.

Jack hated them, in part because they were much like the same pathetic wastes of skin in the first cavern. His hatred ran deeper for them, though, because they shared his bloodline and either did not act on their potential (with his parents and his sisters) or they were so coddled they could never be worthy successors to him (as with Kitty, Ben and all the rest.)

He took a few moments to revel in their suffering, before he went down the stairs to the last cavern.

His laughter took on a decidedly more manic tone now, even as it grew even louder.

There was only one inhabitant in this final cavern-Gwen Stacy, the spectacular Spider-Woman. Unlike his family members, who Jack was content merely to have slowly suffer, Jack saw Spider-Woman repeatedly suffer one gruesome fate after another. No sooner had she died than she revived once more, and was horrifically killed another way. It went on, over and over again, reflecting Jack's hatred and loathing of someone who not only interfered with his sadistic fun, but who also represented everything he hated about the world, who had wasted her own nearly limitless potential on protecting the people Jack had targeted.

Jack's laughter was at a fever pitch now, interspersed with screaming cries of rage.

Watching Spider-Woman die over and over again only increased Jack's joy and rage all at the same time.

Gwen Stacy's eyes snapped open as she sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. She felt her heart pounding like a jackhammer, and her breathing was like that of a nearly-drowned person gasping for air. Pushing back her long, blonde hair, Gwen looked all around her before she realized that she was sleeping in her own bed.

Taking several slow, deep breaths in an effort to calm down, Gwen got out of bed and went to the bathroom to get a drink of water. Nearly dropping her cup as the thunder crashed outside, Gwen finished her water and then went back to bed.

She wasn't sure what she'd been dreaming about, except that it had been a horrible nightmare.

Shaking her head, Gwen got back into bed and turned out the lights, trying to get to sleep.

Outside her window, the thunder and lightning roared, perfectly complementing the dead of night.

(Next Issue: Gwen waits on pins and needles for the call back for her audition. While she learns that she's gotten the lead in Othello, things are still tense between her and Randy as they try to work out their issues surrounding her fighting crime as Spider-Woman. In the middle of it all, Gwen runs into Black Mamba, and sets out to track the killer down and bring her to justice. All this and more in Spider-Woman #62: Snake In The Grass!)