My name’s Peter Parker, and my life isn’t all it’s cracked up to me. Mostly because I’ve got to lead two of them. By day, I’m a nerdy but lovable high school science teacher. And by night (okay, sometimes during the day, too) I put on a costume and swing from rooftop to rooftop as the Amazing Spider-Man.

And it’s the Spidey-portion that regularly intrudes on the Parker-side.

I recently had a dream starring Ben Reilly, my dead clone. The closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. He looked like something out of a George Romero flick and told me he wasn’t dead, that he needed my help. Normally, something like this would just be written off as a bad night, right?

Except it was so…real. And it’s not the first time people have come back from the dead in some form or another. I could probably write an encyclopedia on all the bad guys who have come back from the dead to make my life miserable (and a real encyclopedia—y’know, those massive books, not your fancy Wikipedia).

So I went to the one guy who specializes in the weird—Doctor Strange. He’s the Sorcerer Supreme and probably one of the creepiest guys you’ll ever meet. And he told me that there was something weird going on. But instead of helping me out, he told me to go see Brother Voodoo. A guy who’s probably even creepier. Playing with snakes and bugs and chicken bones…at least Strange’s magicks are pretty clean.

And he also sent some other guys with me, two of the Defenders. One of them is Nighthawk. He’s an okay guy, but he’s one of these dime-a-dozen masked vigilantes running around New York. The other is yet another creepy guy—Hellstorm. Used to call himself the Son of Satan and I have no idea if that’s a metaphor or if he’s literallyRosemary’s baby. But he’s apparently a Lord of Hell and even took us on a detour through there on the way to meet up with Brother Voodoo.

Brother Voodoo took us into the Realm of the Dead, which is a pretty damn creepy place. The sky is dark red and the place isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s kind of like a city, but a weird, twisted city. Buildings are made out of twisted and spiraling metal, almost like overgrown, out of control trees. And they seem to be somehow organic, too. If we had the time, the science geek in me would like to study them. But geek-me is currently overshadowed by scared-out-of-my-webs-me.

These guys are the Defenders, and since I’m with them, I guess that makes me a Defender, too. They’ve always had kind of a loose membership. I was a Defender before, too. And a Secret Defender. Really, they’ll let anyone join. Even Dracula was a Defender once.

At least I was an Avenger…kind of. For about five minutes, but it still counts! And I sometimes get an invite to the annual Avengers picnic. Y’know…when they remember that I was a member.

Right now, I just want to find Ben and get out of here. And then I want to take a bath. For like a month.

Did I mention it really stinks here? Seriously, I’d rather be in the sewers fighting the Lizard.

CITY OF DEAD

Part II

By Dino Pollard

“I just wanted to let it be known,” began Spider-Man, “I really don’t like this.”

“Noted, now kindly shut up,” said Hellstorm.

“I have a question. If this is the Realm of the Dead, then is this Heaven or Hell?” asked Nighthawk.

“Neither,” said Brother Voodoo. “Heaven and Hell are simply possible dimensions one can find themselves in after freed from the limitations of the physical body.”

“Always had a feeling my Sunday School teacher was full of shit,” said Nighthawk.

“What now?” asked Spider-Man. “I’m not sure what’s what, but my Spider Sense is going wonky, picking up things from every angle.”

“Now, we need a guide,” said Brother Voodoo.

“Something tells me we won’t find any sherpas around here,” said Spider-Man.

“No, but there’s a reason I was able to pull us here. Like Spider-Man, I’ve got a connection to this place.”

“What up?”

Brother Voodoo sighed. A young man who bore a striking resemblance to Drumm appeared, dressed in baggy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with sunglasses on and gold chains lining his neck.

“Thought you were done with that crap, Daniel?” asked Brother Voodoo.

“Don’t be trippin’,” said Daniel.

“Who’s this?” asked Spider-Man.

“I put the ‘Brotha’ in ‘Brother Voodoo,’ cracka.”

“Daniel’s my brother, after his death his spirit was bonded with me,” said Brother Voodoo. “He’s connected to the Realm of the Dead and I’m connected with him.”

“Yeah, all that funky shit. So what we doin’ here anyway, Jay-Dee?” asked Daniel.

“Looking for someone,” said Spider-Man. “A friend of mine is trapped in this place and he’s in pain. I need to get him out.”

“Not gonna happen,” said Daniel. “Look man, you can’t just bust in and resurrect anyone you please. Don’t work like that. There are consequences.”

“There’s something wrong here, Daniel. I can feel it so I know you can,” said Brother Voodoo.

“As can I,” said Hellstorm. “There’s a mystic disturbance in this place.”

“Look man, you guys do not wanna keep on this road. I’m tellin’ you for your own good, go back to the Big Easy now. Go get drunk, get laid, but get outta here. What’s in this place, it’s bad.”

“What aren’t you telling us?” asked Hellstorm.

“Just go!”

Hellstorm brought his trident up defiantly. Daniel looked at it and just chuckled a little. “C’mon man, I’m a ghost. How you gonna stab a ghost with that big-ass fork?”

Hellstorm cracked a sly grin and thrust the trident through Daniel’s incorporeal form. Daniel Drumm began to convulse and he let loose with a blood-curdling scream. Hellstorm withdrew the trident and stood over the spirit, who was now on his knees.

“I’m a Lord of Hell, little ghost. Do you truly want to cross me?”

Brother Voodoo put himself between Hellstorm and Daniel, shoving back the Son of Satan. “Watch yourself, devil-boy. Touch my brother again, I’ll have you beggin’ for your daddy’s spankin’s.”

Hellstorm’s eyes burned like hot coals. “We have a job to do and we don’t have time to put up with a cowardly spirit guide.”

“I get that, but let me talk to him.”

“You’re wasting time.”

“Yeah, so are you by arguin’ with me! Now back the hell off,” said Brother Voodoo.

Hellstorm’s trident vanished in a flash of flame and he stood back, crossing his arms. Brother Voodoo knelt down next to Daniel, looking him in the face. “C’mon bro, we need your help with this. What’s going on here?”

“When I’m not manifested in your world, I float between the two. Can’t affect one or the other, not really. But I can see. An’ I see that there’s some force here, some force that’s fuckin’ shit up. No one knows what it really is. Alls they know is it calls itself the Ripper.

“And what’s it doing here?” asked Brother Voodoo.

“It eats the souls of the dead. So guess what that means? It’s gonna go all Old Country Buffet on this bitch.”

Ben Reilly awoke when a bucket of ice water was thrown on his naked body. He shivered and struggled against the chains that bound him. Slowly opening his swollen eyes, he saw the thing who had thrown the water on him was some sort of zombified corpse. It moved away from him and stood in a corner of the room.

The room itself was almost bare and dark. The only light came from the illumination of the blood-red sky, which seeped in through the large windows on the slanted wall. Ben could hear the sound of metal scraping against leather and as he allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark, he could scarcely make out the outline of a man sitting on a chair.

“So good to see you’ve finally awoken from your sleep, Mr. Reilly. I was beginning to think my manservants were a tad too rough when they brought you in.”

“Wh-where am I?” asked Ben, shivering in the cold.

“My humble abode. As for why you are here, I believe you already know the answer to that. Due to your…unique origin, you apparently have a tether to the land of the living. Your soul is linked with that of your template.”

“Peter.”

“Yes, precisely. And you were able to not only escape my manservants when they first came to apprehend you, but you were able to send a message to this Peter. Now that, my dear lad, is simply unacceptable.”

“What the hell are you?” asked Ben.

The man stood from his chair and slowly stepped into the dim light. He looked like he stepped out of the nineteenth century and removed his top hat, offering a slight bow. “To many, I am simply called Jack. But you may call me the Ripper.”

“Jack the Ripper, huh?” asked Ben with a slight chuckle. “Buddy, you have any idea how many nutjobs I took down in my web-slinging days who claimed they were Jack the Ripper? Some of them didn’t even bother with a bad accent.”

“Oh, I am not what you think, Mr. Reilly.” The Ripper approached, raising the large knife and lightly dragging it up Ben’s chest. “Tell me, have you any idea what it feels like to undergo an autopsy while you are still alive?”

He jammed the knife inside Ben’s chest and the Scarlet Spider screamed.

“You’re about to find out,” said the Ripper, his tongue tasting the blood upon his blade.

“I’m trying to wrap my head around this,” said Spider-Man. “This Ripper, it’s going to eat everyone here, right? Including Ben. Except Ben’s dead. So once the Ripper chows down, what’s that mean? He’s going to be deader?”

“He’ll cease to exist,” said Hellstorm. “The body is just a vessel, a limitation. The soul is what matters. If the Ripper succeeds, it will devour every soul on this plane of existence. And somehow I doubt it will be satisfied.”

“So it’s up to the four of us to stop this thing before it breaks through dimensional barriers,” said Nighthawk. “How exactly are we supposed to find it, or Spidey’s clone?” He looked at Daniel. “You have any idea?”

“What’m I, Google Earth?” asked Daniel. “Gotta find him yourselves, bro. All I know is what’s goin’ down. Anythin’ else, that’s your deal, you dig?”

“In that case, we should come together again. We’re stronger together than apart, an’ somethin’ tells me we’re gonna need that,” said Brother Voodoo.

“So how are we going to find Ben?” asked Spider-Man.

“Don’t need me when they got you, Webs,” said Daniel. He walked over to Brother Voodoo, his spirit merging with the body of Jericho Drumm. “Peace out, yo.”

“Thank god, that was getting annoying,” said Nighthawk.

“Try living with it,” said Brother Voodoo.

“I’m confused. He said we don’t need him when we’ve got me? How’s that work? I don’t know where we are, I’m lucky if I can navigate the New York subway system.”

“You said you saw your clone in a dream, that means he tried to contact you. The two of you are connected and we can use that connection to find him,” said Hellstorm.

“Right, connection, okay. I got that part. What I don’t get is what does that even mean? I don’t know where to go in this place.”

“It’s not like a GPS, it’s more like instinct,” said Brother Voodoo. “Think about him, focus your thoughts on him. You’ll know where to go.”

“Okay, sure thing…” said Spider-Man. He took a deep breath. “Focusing on Ben. Thinking of Ben. Going towards Ben.”

“Spidey?” asked Nighthawk.

Spider-Man said nothing but jumped into the air and fired off a webline. He began swinging off into the distance. The other three Defenders exchanged glances and Nighthawk was the first to speak up. “So…we should follow him, right? We’re sure about this?”

With a gesture, a chariot appeared before them, pulled by two demonic horses. Hellstorm stepped into the chariot with Brother Voodoo joining him. The Prince of Lies took another glance at Nighthawk before the chariot rose into the air. “What do you think, Richmond?”

Nighthawk sighed as he took to the air under the power of his equipment. “I really hate that guy.”

“Now what is this?” asked the Ripper, turning away from carving into Ben’s body. His zombified manservants limped towards him. “We have new players on my chessboard. And…oh dear…they’re alive!” He patted Ben’s cheek. “My dear boy, is this what you’ve done? Ordered take-out? Marvelous, good lad! This calls for a reward!”

The Ripper zig-zagged his finger across the gaping gash down Ben’s chest. The clone’s body magically knit itself back together in the blink of an eye, without even a scar to show. “There, that’s better, don’t you think? Although we may have to play again later.”

The Ripper looked back to his manservants. “Go on, lads! Bring our new guests to me!”

Spider-Man flipped in the air and landed on the ground. Hellstorm’s chariot landed beside him, followed finally by Nighthawk. Spider-Man looked around the area, which seemed to be in the center of the strange, disfigured city. “This is it,” he said. “The trail just…stops. I don’t feel anything else.”

“Must mean he’s close,” said Brother Voodoo.

“One of the buildings, maybe?” asked Nighthawk. “What are we gonna do, search each one?”

“If we find the clone, we find the Ripper,” said Hellstorm. “There may not be any other choice.”

“Umm, guys?” asked Spider-Man.

“Gotta be a better way to find ‘im,” said Brother Voodoo. “Maybe I could call on the Loa to guide u—”

“The Loa will be of no help here, houngan,” said Hellstorm.

“Hey, guys…?” asked Spider-Man again.

“Got any better suggestions, Damien?” asked Brother Voodoo.

“My name is Daimon.”

“Actually, that’s a pop-culture reference. The little kid in The Omen? His name was Damien,” said Nighthawk.

“GUYS!”

“What do you want, you irritating little—” Hellstorm silenced himself as he turned and saw what Spider-Man was trying to notify them of. Zombies stood before them, dressed in tuxedos and they started to advance on the quartet.

“I think we’ve got a bit of a zombie problem,” said Spider-Man.

Hellstorm raised his trident and rammed it into one of the zombies as hellfire bursts from his eyes engulfed another. “Destroy them all!”

Talons extended from the tips of Nighthawk’s gauntlets and he dove into the fray, tearing into the zombie flesh. “Anyone know why these guys are so well-dressed? I’ve never heard of a well-dressed zombie. Let alone an army of them.”

Spider-Man fired an impact webbing ball at a zombie, completely encasing him in the substance. Another came at him from behind and he jumped forward onto his palms, then pushed back, his legs springing into the attacker. “Maybe they’re the zombified corpses of those Queer Eye guys?”

Brother Voodoo ducked a punch from a zombie and returned with an uppercut. As two others closed in on him, with a wave of his hands they burst into flames. He turned to face another zombie, staring into its eyes. The zombie stopped and hesitated, then turned and attacked one of its brothers.

“How do we stop these guys?” asked Spider-Man.

“Haven’t you ever watched a zombie flick?” asked Nighthawk. “Decapitation is probably the best way to go.”

“I’m not going to decapitate anyone!”

“In the name of all that’s unholy, they’re already dead, you moron!” spat Hellstorm.

“Excuse me for having a conscience,” said Spider-Man.

Nighthawk took off the head of one zombie with his claws. He saw another prepared to ambush Spider-Man. “Hey Webs, duck!”

Spider-Man did as he was told as Nighthawk raised his arm and fired a laser from his gauntlet that obliterated the zombie’s head, covering Spider-Man in blood and skin. He tried brushing it off his costume.

“Ugh…and people wonder why I don’t like horror movies?”

The zombies ceased their attack and began to back off from the four heroes. The Defenders watched in confusion as they did so, when they heard something from above. They looked up and watched a man clad in an old trench coat fell from the building and landed in a crouch before them. He stood, dusted off his top hat, and placed it on his head.

“I do believe that’s quite enough,” he said. “Good day, gentlemen. Please permit an introduction. I am Jack of the Rippers.” He removed his hat and took a deep bow. “Words cannot describe how pleased I am you’ve decided to come for dinner.”

“Ripper? So your brother meant Jack the Ripper?” asked Spider-Man. “Like, the Jack the Ripper? From Hell’s Jack the Ripper?”

“Looks like it,” said Brother Voodoo.

“Don’t you guys ever fight anyone normal?” asked Spider-Man.

“So you’ve heard of the most infamous of us. My brothers and I, yes, we have done our share of possession in the land of the living. Drove men to commit heinous acts of violence. The visage of Jack is one we have grown comfortable in. But we have been around for centuries. We feast on the souls of the dead, and there is no soul tastier than one recently slain in an act of bloodthirsty rage. After you’ve had that, natural deaths simply do not satisfy. It’s the equivalent of comparing Hamburger Helper to filet mignon.”

“Then you’re in the wrong place, aren’t you?” asked Brother Voodoo.

“I was banished from your world, and while trying to find my way back, ended up here. I’ve done my work strip-mining these souls, creating these creatures to be my servants. And soon, I’ll have enough power to cross over into the land of the living once again.”

“I got news for you, Jackie-boy,” said Nighthawk, baring the talons from his gauntlets. “You’ve gotta go through the Defenders first.”

The Ripper reached inside his jacket, taking a blade in each hand and grinned. “If you insist.”

Inside Jack’s tower, Ben struggled against his chains to no avail. He could feel Peter’s presence nearby and now, he could tell his brother needed help. He started to wonder about the chains that bound him, about the place he found himself in. The realm of the dead is what the Ripper called it. But he remembered his death, remembered disintegrating, a result of his being a clone. So how could his body actually be here?

“No, there is no body,” said Ben. “This is all metaphysical. And if there’s no body, then there aren’t any chains. These are just imaginary constructs, they’re not actually there.”

He pulled his arms apart forcefully and the chains broke with little to no effort. Ben went to the slanted windows and looked down. He saw Spider-Man down there, alongside three others. Fighting against the Ripper and his manservants. Ben sprung through the glass, shattering it and plummeting towards the ground.

When he landed on the ground, he was no longer naked. Instead, he was covered from head-to-toe in a form-fitting red bodysuit, with a beat-up blue sweatshirt over his chest that bore a spider emblem on the front. Spider-Man turned in shock at seeing his brother, who stood upright.

“Impossible,” said Jack. “You couldn’t have escaped.”

“No such thing as impossible in a place like this, is there Jack?” asked the Scarlet Spider.

“Very well,” said the Ripper. He rushed at the Scarlet Spider, thrusting forward with one blade. Ben jumped to avoid the strike and kicked the Ripper in the head. He landed on the ground in a crouch and sprung with an uppercut.

The Ripper pulled back slightly and raised his weapons. But when he tried to attack again, something held him back. Spider-Man stood behind him, holding twin weblines affixed to Jack’s arms. “Whoops, sorry about that.” He yanked on the webs and Jack went flying back, slamming into the wall of his tower.

Before he could get up, a wall of fire formed around him. Brother Voodoo casually walked through the flames, gesturing with his hand. Following him through the flames were the Ripper’s zombified slaves, who held him down.

“You not the only one with power over the dead,” said Jericho Drumm.

Nighthawk descended from the sky, rocketing down and slashing into Jack’s chest with his talons. He fixed his hard gaze on the demonic entity but when he raised his arm for another strike, a hand grabbed his wrist. He looked to the side to see Hellstorm holding a firm grip.

“This isn’t your time, Richmond.”

“What do you mean?” asked Nighthawk. Hellstorm watched with a blank face as Richmond’s blood-red and snake-like eyes reverted back to their more human appearance.

“You’ll know soon enough,” said Hellstorm. His flaming trident emerged from his hand and he drove it into the Ripper’s chest. Jack gagged and then fell limp on it, his body quickly burning up into ash.

Spider-Man took a massive gasp of air as he regained consciousness. The last thing he remembered was Hellstorm killing the Ripper but now, he was lying on the hardwood floor of Brother Voodoo’s place. He pulled himself into a sitting position and the other Defenders began to wake as well.

“What happened?” asked Nighthawk, shaking his head. “Does this mean we won?”

“Looks so,” said Brother Voodoo.

“Wait, what about Ben?” asked Spider-Man. “What happened to him?”

“Your clone is dead, Spider-Man. Perhaps it’s time you accept—”

Hellstorm’s words were drowned out by a scream of pain. In the center of the circle they had formed, a skeleton appeared. Muscle, blood, and skin quickly began to grow over it. The naked young man’s screams began to subside and he lay motionless for a few moments with his eyes wide open. Slowly, he sat up and looked from Defender to Defender. He looked down at his body and moved his hands over his crotch.

“So…umm…this is kinda embarrassing…” said Ben Reilly.

New York City

Spider-Man sat perched on a gargoyle and looked to his side. The Scarlet Spider was perched on the next one over. It was a strange experience to be back among the living, and Peter wasn’t sure how to even begin to address it all.

“This is kinda awkward,” he said.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” said Ben.

“Well look, my place isn’t much, but you can stay there for a while,” said Peter. “Or hey, maybe you should go see Aunt May?”

“Aunt May’s alive?” asked Ben.

“And she knows about my extracurricular activities,” said Peter.

“I…think I’ll need some time,” said Ben. “And I appreciate the offer to move in with you, but probably a bit too soon for that.”

“So what are your plans?” asked Peter.

“There’s a lot I don’t know about what happened to me,” said Ben. “Think I might stay with the Defenders for a little. See what Doc Strange can tell me about all this. Y’know, once he gets back from wherever it is he went off to.”

“You sure about that?” asked Peter. “I mean me, I can’t wait to get back to my magic-free world.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Ben. “But I’ll be around.”

The Scarlet Spider jumped from the gargoyle and shot out a webline. He swung back towards Greenwich Village, where the Sanctum Sanctorum awaited him.

NEXT: First check out The Incredible Hulk #15, then be back here for part two of What Do You Get When You Mix Red and Green?