Columbia Metropolitan Hospital
Atlanta; Georgia

Doctor Clifford Myers looked over the comatose patient that lay in the bed before him. He made a note of the readouts from the machines attached to the Hispanic man’s body and glanced at the nurse who stood by his side.

“Doesn’t look like any change,” he said. He closed the chart and slipped the pen into the pocket of his white jacket. “Our John Doe is still comatose.”

“How long’s he been here?” asked the nurse.

“Not quite sure offhand,” replied Myers. “A few years, maybe three or four. Before your time, Grace. He was found lying by the side of the road. Only thing he had on were the clothes on his back. No ID, nothing. We tried to see if we could find any next of kin, but no one had ever seen him before. Ran his photo up against missing person files—nothing came up.”

“Poor guy,” said Grace. “I wonder what happened to him?”

“That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for the past few years,” said Myers. He looked at his watch, then back at Grace and offered a warm smile. “But that’s a story for another time, I guess. It’s about quarter after twelve, so why don’t we go down and see what the cafeteria is trying to poison us with today?”

Grace smiled and nodded. Myers motioned for her to go first and she led the way out of the small hospital room with him following. Myers closed the door behind him.

In the bed, the index finger of John Doe’s left hand began to twitch. There was a sudden spike in the brainwave patterns and his body began to twitch entirely. Soon, it was convulsing and the machines started beeping louder and louder. The door flung open and Doctor Myers and Grace ran back inside the room. Other nurses and doctors followed to see what the commotion was.

“What’s happening?” asked Grace.

“I don’t know,” replied Myers. “He was fine a few moments ago, now his body is going into convulsions!”

The doctors rushed past the nurses to see if they could help out. Many of them tried to hold down John Doe, try to contain his seizure if at all possible. Restraint seemed almost impossible, the comatose man kept bucking.

“What’s wrong with his hand?” one of the doctors asked. Myers looked down at John Doe’s left hand and saw what his colleague had referred to. It had turned from its natural brownish hue to pitch black, which seemed to be almost viscous. It seemed like the hand had been dipped in motor oil.

The material that covered his hand shot out and engulfed Doctor Myers. He fell back and some nurses and doctors rushed to aid him, while the rest continued to try and restrain the John Doe.

“What the hell is happening?!”

John Doe’s eyes suddenly snapped open and they, like his hand, were pitch black. Dark energy surrounded him and forced the doctors and nurses away from his body. He slowly began to rise from the bed, surrounded by the dark aura. He lifted his left hand and with a gesture, as if he were God, he fired a burst of dark energy that seared the flesh from the bones of the people before him.

The remaining screamed in shock and he turned his attention to them, his eyes still pitch black. The material that had engulfed Doctor Myers leapt from him to them, leaving nothing more than a charred skeleton in its wake. It continued to do the same to the remaining people in the room.

Grace attempted to run, but John Doe followed. He hovered a few inches above the ground, pursuing her. Grace ran as fast as she could, rushing down the steps of the fire escape. She ran outside the building and slowly backed away from the fire escape exit. Sweat dripped down her forehead, but she knew that she had escaped whatever that… thing inside was.

As she slowly backed away, she hit someone. She turned to see who it was and it was the John Doe from inside. Somehow, he was able to get out faster than she was. She wasn’t sure how, when she didn’t even see him following her.

“Thought it would be that easy, huh?” he asked. She tried to run but found her body paralyzed with fear. John Doe gripped her head with his left hand and the dark energy seeped from it onto her body, searing the skin from her bones.

He released her and her lifeless, charred skeleton fell to the ground, smoke slowly rising from the bones. Turning around, he looked at the midday sun and smiled to himself.

“Now… to see what I’ve missed.”

FOR THE CHILDREN

Part II: In The Dark

By Dino Pollard

Empire State University

Johnny Gallo stretched out on the bed, one arm behind his head. His eyes focused on the combination television and VCR sitting atop the mini-fridge. It had a thirteen-inch screen and it was hooked up to an Xbox videogame system. The dorm room was filled with posters. Most of them were for older musicians, like Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, the Beatles and others. On the other side of the room, across from the bed, was a small futon.

There were also two desks on either side of the mini-fridge. One held a computer, printer, and several notebooks and textbooks. The other was more of a workbench, filled with a variety of bits and pieces from different electronic components. A young man was sitting at that desk, with purple-tinted glasses. He had short, dark hair and a small goatee. One of his arms was crippled, palsied. Completely useless to him. This was Eddie McDonough.

“Never anything good on…” muttered Johnny. He held the remote in his hand, flipping through television channels while Eddie was busy tinkering with something on the desk. Johnny had known him for quite some time, since the two first met at ESU.

“I barely even watch TV anymore,” said Eddie.

“With this crap that’s on, I don’t blame you,” said Johnny. He sighed and hit the power button on the remote with his thumb. He sat up in the bed and his eyes drifted to whatever it was Eddie was working on.

“What’ve you got there?” he asked.

“Oh, just tinkering,” replied Eddie.

“With what?”

“The old armor.”

“Whoa, you mean you’re still doing the Hornet thing?” asked Johnny. He leapt off the bed and landed beside Eddie’s chair. The two had met when Eddie and Johnny, along with two other people their age, served as members of the short-lived team called the Slingers. After the team disbanded, Eddie had retired the Hornet armor.

“No, not at all,” said Eddie. “I’ve just been tinkering with the armor, developing it, changing it, that sort of thing.”

“Why’s that?” asked Johnny. “I mean, if you’re not even using it, what’s the point?”

“I’ve been reading up on trade journals these days, and I really understand a lot more about this kind of stuff than I did when the Black Marvel first gave me this suit. I’m thinking maybe if I keep at it, it’ll give me an edge when I graduate. Maybe I can impress someone like Tony Stark into getting me a job.”

“You saying you want to be Iron Man?”

“No, I want to design Iron Man.”

“Okay, not as big a goal as actually being Iron Man, but it’s definitely up there. So you keep tinkering with your armor because you think you might be able to build an Iron Man suit?”

“No way I’d be able to do it with what I’ve got. Something like that is way too complex for me, at least at this stage. But I’ll at least have skills that put me ahead of the rest of the pack when it comes time for internships and job recruitment.”

“Not bad.”

“What about you?” asked Eddie. He turned in his chair to face his former teammate. “What’ve you been up to these days? Haven’t seen you around lately.”

“Yeah, I’ve been keeping busy.”

“Still doing the superhero thing, I see,” said Eddie. Johnny looked at him in surprise. “Oh c’mon, Rico. I may not watch a lot of TV, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t hear about your little fight at the Taylor Foundation. And that incident with some mutant killer at the art exhibit was on the front page of the campus paper.”

“Really? What’d they say about me?”

“Don’t get too excited, superstar. They just talked about how you and some chick with pink skin took him down. So what’s the deal with you running around with other heroes? Or actually, what’s the deal, period? I thought we were all done with those costumes after that thing with Mephisto.”

“Yeah well, I kinda missed it. It was small at first. I would just put on the costume and go out at night, just for kicks, y’know? Just to get out, hit the rooftops, that sort of thing. But then one night, I ran across this guy beating his girlfriend, so I got involved. Took the guy down, told him that if he ever touched her again, I’d break his arms. And then more and more, I was doing it sort of as a part-time thing. Just going out once or twice a week, seeing if I found anything going on. Then one night, a find a note telling me to meet at our old meeting place.”

“You mean the billboard?”

“Yeah, and when I’m there, I meet these three other heroes. And this guy comes up to us, dressed up kinda like Captain America’s old sidekick. You know who I’m talking about, Kid America or something? Guy from World War II.”

“You mean Bucky?”

“Right, Bucky, that’s what I said.”

“No it’s not.”

“Whatever. Anyway, he comes up to us, and he’s the one who organized this little meeting. Says he’s starting up the New Warriors, wants us to join.”

“Who is he?”

“He calls himself Patriot, but that’s all I know about him. Anyway, so I agree, because I want to know what his deal is. So we’ve got this team together and we meet at the headquarters—”

“Wait, headquarters?! We never got a headquarters!”

“I know, but let me finish. So we go there and we find out that some dude named Firebrand is attacking the Taylor Foundation. Head out over there and we put a stop to him. Later on, the guy who runs the Taylor Foundation shows up at our headquarters with two of the guys from the last team of Warriors. Tells us he’ll fund our operation if we let these two join and if we don’t, there’s gonna be trouble.”

“So what happened?”

“Patriot agreed and now we’ve got a team of like, eight people.”

“Wow. Who’s on the team?”

“Mostly new guys, no one you’ve probably heard of. There’s me and Patriot, obviously. This chick Joystick, who I guess used to be an ex-con or something, I dunno, never heard of her before. Some teenage Spider-Woman. A robot or something who calls himself Machine Teen. A guy called Gravity, who just came to New York. Then the two guys Taylor wanted on the team are Speedball and Rage.”

“How’s it going so far?”

“It’s different, but so far, so good. Just waiting to see how this all develops, I guess. And I wanna know just what game Patriot’s playing here. Plus, I wanna know why Taylor’s so interested in the Warriors to begin with. But this is actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“…oh no.”

“Huh? You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“Oh yes I do. You want me to put on the Hornet suit again, don’t you? Join up with the team so you can have someone there you trust, right?”

“Well… yes and no. Look, I wouldn’t ask you to put on the suit again. I know you’re done with that. But the thing is… we need tech support.”

“Tech support?”

“Yeah, we need someone who can keep in contact with all of us, man the chopper, that sort of thing. And Taylor’s done some business with Stark in the past, he could be a great reference.”

“Hold on, I dunno if this—wait, did you say I get to fly a helicopter?!”

Johnny smiled.

Mattie Franklin disembarked from the city bus, her backpack slung over one shoulder. She looked down at her watch and saw the time was almost four. Silently, she cursed herself, realizing she was late.

She darted down the street and down an alleyway. Quickly, she shed her clothes, revealing a red and black bodysuit beneath them. She pulled on the mask and gloves of her Spider-Woman costume and stuffed her clothes in her backpack. She leapt up on the wall and quickly scaled it.

She ran across the rooftop and leapt from it. She spread her arms out and the web cape attached to her shoulders caught the wind. Her natural powers of flight carried her the rest of the way.

Her descent began as she recognized the area she was in and she landed before the entrance to a basement apartment. Mattie leapt across the steps and landed before the door, opening it and walking inside.

A woman sat at a table in a wheelchair, her eyes covered by a pair of red-tinted sunglasses. She was middle-aged and wore a black dress with a red spider on it. Spread out on the table before her were tarot cards.

“You’re late, Martha,” she said.

“Yeah sorry, got caught up at school,” replied Mattie.

Madame Web looked up at Mattie and removed her glasses. Her eyes were opaque, and it always made Mattie a little nervous whenever Madame Web did that.

“You’re in costume,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. Despite her blindness, Madame Web was quite a powerful psychic.

“Yeah sorry, I was—”

“Running late, so you put it on and used your powers to get here faster.”

“Y’know, it’s that kind of thing that makes—”

“That makes it difficult for you to have a conversation with me,” said Madame Web. “Yes, I know.”

“So why do you keep doing it?” asked Mattie.

“Sit.”

Mattie frowned and took a seat across from Madame Web. She dropped her backpack by her side and leaned forward on the table on her elbows.

“Take off your mask.”

Beneath the mask’s lenses, Mattie rolled her eyes and pulled her mask off.

“I sense bad tidings ahead,” said Madame Web.

“What do you mean?”

“These young heroes you’ve allied yourself with, these New Warriors. I feel there will be some difficult situations you will be involved in.”

“Well yeah, but isn’t that what being a superhero is all about?”

“It’s about more than that, child. It’s about sacrifice to do the right thing. Not about excitement and thrills. This is something you will learn in time. You and those like you.”

“What about this bad tiding stuff? What’s going to happen?”

“That I cannot say. You have trials coming, Martha. You can try to prepare for them if you wish, but when the time comes, you won’t be ready.”

“Umm… okay,” said Mattie.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” asked Madame Web.

“Answer wha—”

Before Mattie could finish her question, she heard a beeping noise. She shuffled in her bag and found the source of it. It was a small, triangle-shaped object. A signal badge Dwayne Taylor had given all the Warriors, so they could be notified when something had come up.

“I’ve gotta—”

“You have to meet the rest of your teammates.”

“Okay… stop doing that!” exclaimed Mattie.

Max Elliston quaked with fear. The stench that invaded his nostrils was overpowering and putrid. He was afraid to even open his eyes to look upon the face of his tormentor. But he could feel the creature’s presence grow ever closer to him. One of the creature’s fingers slowly lifted his head up.

“Open your eyes, little piglet.”

Max’s eyelids slowly rose and he saw the face of the creature before him. He was a disgusting, grotesque, overweight… thing. He looked like something out of a nightmare. His skin was like leather draped over his body and sagged to the ground. He was covered in boils and warts. His one good eye was large and like amber. He had pointed teeth.

“Now, why would you *HHORTTTT* try to run like that?” asked the Pig. “You should know better, especially after the way I’ve treated you. After I’ve been so good to you.”

A herder held Max still while the Pig continued his little speech.

“You were nothing more than a runaway. No one wanted you. Not your parents, not your teachers. No one but me. And this is the thanks I get after taking you in? You ungrateful little brat.”

“What should we do with him, sir?” asked the herder.

“I think a visit to the *HHHORTTT* Boogeyman might be in order.”

“No!” exclaimed Max. “Please no, I promise I’ll be good! I promise I won’t run anymore! Just not the Boogeyman!”

“No, punishment is in order,” said the Pig. He looked up at the herder. “Take him to the Boogeyman.”

The herder nodded and dragged young Max Elliston away, who continued to cry out in fear, shouting protests, trying everything, but it was no use. Soon, his screams faded and the Pig turned to another of his herders.

“Well?” he asked.

“The retrieval was a success,” replied the herder.

“How many?”

“About fifteen.”

“Perfect,” said the Pig. “Any difficulty?”

“We lost one of the herders, he never met at the rendezvous point.”

“Hmm, not a total loss,” said the Pig. “Come, let us take a look at our new recruits.”

Crash Pad

The herder was bound to a chair. His arms were pulled behind his back and shackles covered his hands and legs. Machine Teen stood behind him with his arms crossed over his chest. Patriot, Gravity, Speedball, Rage, Joystick and Ricochet stood nearby. Suddenly, the figure of Spider-Woman dropped in from the skylight.

“Well, looks like Spider-Girl finally decided to show up,” said Joystick.

“Bite me, bitch,” snapped Spider-Woman. “I had to come from across town, gimme a break.”

“If you want, I’ll definitely break something…” muttered Joystick.

“Ladies, please,” said Patriot. “Machine Teen was just informing us of the situation.”

“Go ahead, MT,” said Speedball.

“Like I was saying, I coach little league football and after I sent the kids to change, I started to gather up the equipment and that’s when I found this guy spying on me,” said Machine Teen and he tapped the herder on the shoulder. “He said he was there to keep me busy. I knocked him unconscious and ran to the gym. The kids still had their stuff there, all their equipment and bags were lying on the locker room floor. But they were nowhere in sight. I couldn’t find them anywhere. This guy obviously had something to do with it, and I wanna find out what.”

“Kidnapping kids, that’s pretty low,” said Rage.

“Then let’s get some answers out of him,” said Patriot. He stepped up to the herder and pulled his mask off. The man beneath it had pale skin and a shaved head. “Are you ready to talk?”

The herder spat in Patriot’s face and followed it up with the words, “blow me, freak.” Patriot wiped the saliva off his mask and punched the herder across the jaw.

“Wrong answer,” he said. He cracked his knuckles. “We can do this one of two ways. Either you can cooperate with us and tell us what we want to know, or I can beat it out of you. Either one sits perfectly fine with me.”

“Sure you don’t want any help with that second option?” asked Rage.

“Why not,” said Patriot. “After all, we need to develop our teamwork skills.”

“No wait,” said Spider-Woman. “There’s a third way.”

“What’s that?” asked Ricochet. “You know something we don’t?”

“No, but I can find out a lot faster,” replied Spider-Woman. “I have some psychic abilities.”

“You can read minds?” asked Patriot.

“Well… sort of,” replied Spider-Woman.

“Sort of?” asked Joystick. “Either you can or you can’t. There’s no real in-between, kid.”

“I’m still learning how to use them,” said Spider-Woman, glaring at Joystick beneath her mask. “I can’t guarantee anything, but it’s worth a shot.”

“I say we let her try,” said Gravity. “What’ve we got to lose?”

“You heard her, she can’t really control them,” said Joystick. “What if she ends up liquefying his brain and then we lose the one lead we have.”

“They’re not that strong,” said Spider-Woman. “All I can really do is read thoughts and even that takes a lot of concentration.”

“I say go for it,” said Ricochet.

“Yeah, me too,” said Speedball. “Don’t get me wrong, the guy deserves a beating. But maybe we should try it Spider-Woman’s way first. No offense, big guy.”

“None taken,” said Rage.

“Your call, Patriot,” said Machine Teen.

“Try it,” said Patriot. “If it doesn’t work, we go back to our first method.”

Spider-Woman stepped up to the herder and placed her fingers on his temples. Beneath her mask, her eyelids closed and she concentrated hard on his mind. It was slow at first, just scanning the surface. Then, as she began to probe a little deeper, the images raced across her mind’s eye. Her own eyes snapped open and she released her grip on his head.

“Well?” asked Joystick.

“He’s a herder,” she replied. “Works for someone called the Pig.”

“Never heard of him,” said Ricochet.

“Not many people have, he’s really underground,” said Spider-Woman. “His herders, they kidnap children. Enslave them. Dehumanize them and train them to be soldiers. Then, when they’re old enough, he sells them off to different terrorist organizations. That’s where guys like HYDRA and AIM get their cannon fodder from.”

“Not anymore,” said Patriot. “Prep the War Chopper.”

NEXT: The Warriors go up against the Pig and his herders! Plus, more on the mystery of the Boogeyman!

WAR ROOM

First off, an apology to everyone. I know the blurb at the end of issue #3 said that this issue would feature the Boogeyman. But the scene between Eddie and Johnny ended up going longer than I thought, and I didn’t want to cut any of it out. Next issue though, I promise you’ll figure out what his involvement with the Pig is. Also, an apology for the lateness of the issue. I was hoping to get it out before the end of December, but with the launch of DC Omega and the stress of the holidays, I fell behind.

A word of thanks to Ian Astheimer for helping me out a bit with this issue, as well as providing me some ideas for future issues.
That’s it for now. Until next time, I remain:

Dino Pollard