The La Brea Tar Pits—Lair of the Pride

A pride is a group that runs in a pack. The word usually refers to a nomadic squad of lions, led by an alpha male. When a threat is posed to the alpha male’s pride, the duty is his to defend his followers against it. Thus, the duty fell to Geoffrey Wilder to defend his Pride against the imposing figure who had just materialized in the center of their conference room’s table.

The figure appeared to be male and was massively muscle-bound. His skin was patterned in patches of forest green and sickening yellow, running in lines near his face. The man’s eyes were red and glowed in the semi-darkness of the room. He called himself Cyanide.

Geoff wiped a bit of sweat from his dark-skinned brow before looking Cyanide in the eyes. “What exactly makes you think that the Pride is open for members? Or that we can’t succeed in our mission without you?”

This earned a hearty, frightening laugh from the man. “You are open for members because of the arcane laws that were imposed at your formation. The Pride must consist of Twelve—a couple from each realm. You are short a scientist, and I intend to fulfill that position. As for why I believe you cannot succeed…you have deviated. You are not running your business. You are searching for your children! A Pride that has lost the respect of its children cannot survive the coming Armageddon!”

“We’re working on that,” Geoff said, gritting his teeth. “We don’t need an Apocalypse-wannabe watching us every other step of the way. What we need is our children back, and we need them right away. What can you do to help us with that?”

The other members of the Pride looked at the scene anxiously, wishing that the strange visitor would explain other things, such as how he had found their lair and how he knew so much about them. They held their tongues, however, knowing that it would be unwise to earn either Geoff or Cyanide’s wrath.

“I’ll do nothing of the sort, Wilder,” Cyanide said, narrowing his eyes. “I will return before the night is over. Consider my words well.”

There was a new flash of purple, and just as he’d entered, the man called Cyanide disappeared. Geoff slumped back into his seat and slammed a fist on the table. “How fast can the villains be ready to find our kids?” he demanded.

“Half an hour at the least, Geoff,” said Catherine, his wife. She looked sincerely worried for her husband. “How soon do you need them?”

“Faster than that,” Geoff muttered. “I want Chase prepped and outfitted for this operation yesterday. Then, I need to borrow the Leapfrog, Janet.”

“Where are you going?” inquired Janet Stein, both Chase’s mother and the woman who had built the Leapfrog.

Geoff grimaced. “Cyanide’s words stung. I’m going to the Vivarium, to go see the Gibborim. Maybe they’ll have a more permanent solution…”

CLUB BUSTING

Part II: Party Crashers

By Hunter Lambright

The Calientísima Strip Club, Los Angeles

The young woman known only as Chance sat in the back room of the strip club. Music thudded through the walls and she could hear the general chatter of the clubbers as they chatted, talked, and sang. The former Fallen Angel scowled, thinking about how far her life had fallen since the times she’d spent on Beat Street, chilling with the Fallen Angels crew. Now what was she worth? She was running a strip club in Los Angeles for a hell-sent group of screwballs that went around calling themselves the Pride!

Chance glanced at herself in the mirror in the room and scowled. Her dark hair had grown out since her younger days, but there was still the rebel glance in her slanted eyes. There was still a part of her that wanted to scrap with someone. She could laugh at her mutant gift nowadays. Double or nothing—that’s what she called her powers. This time I rolled a “nothing,” she thought to herself.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Chance muttered, seeing the gelled, pink hair of her partner-in-crime, Ariel. “What do you want?” she grunted.

Ariel peered over her star-shaped sunglasses to give Chance a scowling glance with her eyes. The native resident of the off-planet Coconut Grove was Chance’s total opposite. She dressed in vibrant colors and weird outfits and possessed a buoyant attitude about most things. Their friendship was probably the only reason Chance had stayed in L.A. after she found out that they’d be working with the Pride.

“I wanted to come see how you were doing,” Ariel said. “You know, like the last ten times I checked on you. But something else is happening now.”

“What are you talking about?” Chance asked, but it was slowly becoming apparent. The music was no longer pulsing through the wall and the chatter had taken a much different tone—fear. “Oh, hell. What’s going on out there?”

“I don’t know,” Ariel said, “but I have a good feeling that it’s going to be up to us to stop it.”

Karolina Dean’s body glowed in a myriad of Easter colors as her light powers ignited. She fired bursts of solar energy at focal points, like the lights and the sound equipment, just to let the strippers and clientele know that it was time to go home for the night. She struggled not to be distracted as women rushed past clothed only in a thong and bra. They had a mission to complete.

“Be careful not to hurt anyone, Primo!” Karolina called out as she flew deeper into the establishment.

Primo Falcone grimaced from atop his mutant energy falcon, derived from the tattoo that had appeared on his back at puberty. The gigantic, glowing green menace tore and pecked at the roofing of the Calientísima as more and more of the staff and partiers rushed from the scene. “You didn’t need to tell me twice, Karolina. Let alone five times…” he muttered under his breath, just as his head was nearly taken off by an energy blast from below.

“Hey!” Primo called out, whipping the falcon around to see the source of the blast. “Nobody told me this place had a mutant bouncer!”

The bouncer was a thickly built man whose hands had turned into cannons that were still smoking with raw power. His skin was orange and his mustache was cleanly shaven. “The name’s Blunderbuss, kid, and nobody gets into the club if they aren’t on the list!” he shouted, powering up his twin cannons again.

Primo turned the falcon into a dive, folding himself tightly against its back as it picked up speed. With a shocking reaction time, Primo dove to the right quickly to avoid Blunderbuss’s shots before turning directly back toward the large mutant, knocking him backwards into the walls.

Taking back off into the sky, Primo circled around, trying to see whether or not Blunderbuss would continue to be a threat. There was a sudden burst of heat and light against his chest, and Primo knew that the threat was still very real. He tumbled off his falcon toward the ground. Losing contact with the falcon caused it to return to its shape as a tattoo on his back, so Primo fell without hope of rescue. He crashed onto a mound of mulch, shaken but unbroken.

Blunderbuss stomped over to where Primo landed, watching the winded boy struggle to pull himself out of the mulch. He powered up his arm cannons again, this time for the finishing blow. “Closing time,” Blunderbuss muttered, prepared to unleash certain death upon the stunned boy.

Then a sudden cracking sound came from between Blunderbuss’s legs as a twelve-year-old leg connected with the man’s softer side. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he crumpled backwards unmoving. Molly Hayes, the youngest Runaway, stood behind Blunderbuss, watching as the hulking man fell to the ground.

Primo turned to Molly in shocked silence at what she’d done. “Thanks for fixing my bed!” she exclaimed jovially in her naïve little way before rushing off to complete more of the club’s disassembly. Primo shook his head in disbelief before jumping up and back into the fray once more…

The Juice Box

Within the oddly-designed room called the Juice Box, blue and yellow swirled together in a spiral form. This vertical design let the eccentric, oddly-dressed Pusher Man know that a teleportation portal had opened somewhere in one of his dealers and that soon a customer would come flying through.

Alex Wilder was not accustomed to teleportation whatsoever. As he was launched from the portal to the floor of the Juice Box, he suppressed the urge to vomit. Behind him came Nico Minoru, the girl who wielded the mystical Staff of One, and Gertrude Yorkes, daughter of time-traveling despots. Nico swayed from the teleportation’s aftereffects, but Gert remained steady as ever while Alex picked himself up off the floor.

From his desk, the Pusher Man put his feet down and leaned forward. “Well, well,” he grinned. “What have we here? Three more of the Pride’s children? Isn’t that sweet, hm, Bo?” He folded his hands, encased in metal gauntlets that he called Pimp Hands, and smiled an evil grin.

“Exactly what the doctor ordered,” Bo said. The woman with the short, reddish hair paused, brushing her fighting staff gingerly. “How unhurt did Hayes say she wanted their children back?”

“That depends on how bad we want them,” said the Pusher Man, nodding. “We collect these cats and we’re set for life…”

“Incentive enough,” Bo nodded. She whipped a syringe of a tar-like substance from the shelf behind her and injected it wincingly into her arm. “As long as the heads are attached to breathing bodies, they’re happy.”

“Always the threats,” sighed Alex, placing his headset database over his ears. “W.A.T.E.R., please activate defensive mechanism on command.”

“Awaiting signal, Master Wilder,” came the cold, computer voice of the headset.

Alex turned to Nico as the Pusher Man and Bo anticipated their next move. “NOW!” he shouted. As he spoke the word, a blast of blue electricity pulsed from W.A.T.E.R. to the Pusher Man’s body.

While the P.M. was distracted, Nico held the Staff of One high above her head and, before Bo could stop her, shouted, “BREAKING THE HABIT!”

Instantly, the walls began crackling as every ounce of every drug in the room produced a ripple effect, crumbling into dust and exploding. Some burst into flame while others degraded into a dead state automatically.

“NO!” shouted the Pusher Man, recovering from Alex’s blast. “My life!” He lifted his Pimp Hands up over his head, ready to crash them down on Alex’s head. There was a sudden whack as Gert brought a stick down atop his head. She’d gathered the piece of wood just before they’d stepped into the portal because she knew that, without powers, she’d be next to useless on this mission.

“That’s what you get for being…” Gert trailed off as her body became ensnared in a swirling of pitch black energy. “…Cold…” she muttered. “So cold…”

“That’s what Darkforce tastes like, pudge,” Bo explained, holding her hands out to dictate the spreading blackness. “I just took a shot of Cape, and it made me just like Cloak—ain’t that sweet?”

Nico held her Staff in front of her as a security blanket, not sure what it would take for her abilities to prevail. “Don’t worry, hon,” Bo said, seeing Nico’s plight. “There’s plenty you can do…as soon as we turn you back in to your parents…” She let out a vicious laugh that caught the three Runaways off-guard.

Alex shook his head and readjusted his glasses. “See? That’s one thing you shouldn’t have threatened us with. Now we just have to fight even harder…”

The Pusher Man lifted himself off the floor, brushing himself off in the temporary stalemate. “Oh, really now, is that so?” he asked, nodding. “Come, child. Let’s dance…”

The La Brea Tar Pits

Chase Stein pushed his X-ray goggles up onto his forehead, brushing his long blond bangs out of the way. His fingers operated mechanically, encased within the flame-spewing Fistigon gloves, as he completed the finishing touches upon the lengthy, silver rod that lay on his father’s old worktable. Chase heard Geoffrey Wilder’s footsteps but continued working for a few moments before acknowledging the man’s presence. “What do you want, Mr. Wilder?”

Geoff leaned against the doorway, hand stroking his beard. “I was wondering what you were working on,” he said, genuinely interested in the skill Chase had shown in his parents’ line of work.

“Oh, this?” Chase asked, flipping the staff around and directing it at a wall. By squeezing it in precisely the right place, he forced out a burst of electricity that left a black mark on the already-scarred paneling. “This is what my dad was working on before he died. I saw the plans, and I figured it was up to me to complete it. Dad called it the Lightning Rod. Guess he ran out of creative names after ‘Fistigons,’ huh?”

“So, you figured out how to put it together, just like that?” Geoff asked skeptically. He didn’t doubt the boy’s prowess, but he had been almost certain that between the shock of Victor’s death and his high that morning, there was no way he could have completed the weapon so easily.

Chase shrugged. “Only classes I ever got an ‘A’ in were gym and shop. I guess this stuff’s inherited.” He turned back to the Lightning Rod before opening his mouth to speak again. “So, Mr. Wilder. What did you really come down here for?”

Geoff sighed, walking further into the workshop. “We’ve got a way to find your friends. The Pride wants their children to know that we’re doing what we’re doing for them. I think that the only way to convince Alex, Nico, Karolina, Gert, and Molly that what we’re doing is the right thing is for you to show them. You’re the one who believes in us now—and you’re the oldest. You, Chase, can be an example to our kids and show them the truth. It’s what your father would have want—”

“Dude, cut the crap!” Chase said, holding up his left hand and igniting the Fistigon. The flames crackled over the fireproof circuitry. “You’ve been pulling this crap about what my dad would have wanted left and right since he died! I’ll do whatever the hell you need me to do, okay? Just keep my dad out of the picture. We don’t need you soiling his word any more than you already have…”

Geoff nodded, unsure of what to say. He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of his words. Finally, he simply said, “I’m sorry,” before walking out of the underground workshop.

Chase continued to work on his Lightning Rod, fine-tuning the last of the wiring and making sure it all fit within the slender casing. Then, there was a sudden burst of purple gas in the room, and out stepped Cyanide.

Looking at the fiendish man, Chase raised an eyebrow. “Cyanide, right? The futuristic madman who claims he wants my dad’s spot on the Pride?”

“Yes,” said Cyanide in a rasping voice. “That is me.”

“Hnh,” Chase muttered. “Look, I’m flattered that you wanna do my dad’s job, but I’m really not the person to talk to about—”

“I am not here for that,” said Cyanide. “I am here because I need your help.”

“And why exactly would you need that from me, Mr. I-teleport-in-whenever-the-hell-I-want-to?” Chase asked, holding the Lightning Rod at the ready in case Cyanide mounted an attack.

“Because I am not really called Cyanide,” he said, the eyes of his masquerade growing dim. He removed the helmet, revealing the true person inside the disguise. Chase’s eyes grew wide as he recognized the person inside. “I’m here because we both play on the same side—and you’re the only one who can help me make sure that nobody dies tonight…”

The Calientísima

The falcon’s claws ripped through the ceiling as Primo dove again and again, delivering as much damage as he could without permanently condemning the structure. The adrenaline rush that came as a side-effect of flight was amazing. The wind ripped at Primo just as his falcon’s talons tore through the beams and concrete.

Then, suddenly, it was gone.

Primo tumbled, for the second time, through the sky and landed atop the ceiling, nearly falling through one of the holes that he’d worked so hard to create. “What the hell!” Primo shouted in disgust. He couldn’t call the bird back from his skin—it was a shadow of its full strength.

“Sorry, that would be my fault,” said Chance, crouching in a tomboyish position on the roof, her dark blue trench coat whipping in the wind. “Flip a coin—heads or tails, double or nothing. That’s the game of Chance, and, sorry kid, you just flipped tails.”

Primo ground his teeth together. “Just because my power’s gone doesn’t mean I can’t fight you. And just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean I won’t.”

Chance laughed at that. “I’ve fought off street kids like you since I lived on the streets in New York. I clawed my way to the top by beating up on kids—boys—twice my size. Look at you—do they make you in pint-size, too? What are you, twelve?”

“No…fourteen,” Primo said embarrassedly. He put his fists up into the ready position he’d seen so many times in movies and those lame self-defense videos that Matti had often nicked from the dollar store because of a smart sense of paranoia. “I know how to fight.”

“Good,” Chance said, springing forward. She leapt into the air, bringing herself down behind Primo, swiveling a foot around to catch the boy in the side. Primo swung toward Chance’s abdomen and missed, flailing his arms to catch his balance.

Chance used this opportunity to show her hardened heart and pulled out her switchblade, slicing it across Primo’s underarm. Primo cried out in pain, but his eyes were filled with a determination not to stop fighting. Chance was caught off-guard as Primo tackled her like he was playing football and landed on top of her. He brought a fist up to punch her face, but hesitated.

“You know how to fight,” Chance grunted, as she brought up the switchblade against Primo’s torso, “but I know how to win.” The silver blade cut through Primo’s skin with ease, entering just below his rib cage and jabbing deep into his innards. Chance withdrew the blade cleanly, as Primo’s eyes widened in shock.

“Sorry, kid,” Chance said, delivering a blow to Primo’s head that knocked the boy into the blackness of oblivion.

Inside the club, Karolina continued her trail of destruction, using laser-thin light beams to destroy the circuit breakers, cutting power to the rest of the establishment that was still standing. She still had her primary mission, though—to find the club’s owners and deliver Alex’s message.

Finally, Karolina came across the one person who remained in the structure. Ariel sat there in her rolling chair and yawned a Karolina approached from the next room. “So, are you the leader of this attack?” Ariel asked, checking her nails for cracked paint.

“Uh, yeah,” Karolina said, unsure of what to do. She had expected some kind of opposition from the owners of the club. “I have a message to deliver to you from the Children of the Pride.”

“Well, go ahead,” Ariel said, peering at Karolina over her sunglasses. “Deliver away, but come in here. The roof out there looks like it’s going to collapse any second.”

Karolina looked warily at the roof and took Ariel’s advice, noticing milliseconds too late that the doorway began to glow with a sparkling pink energy. Ariel had activated her door-porting powers, using them to send Karolina elsewhere in reality.

“Hm…” Ariel nodded. “That was easy.” She didn’t notice, however, that Molly had walked in at the exact moment.

“Um, Mrs. Bad Lady, what did you do to Karolina?” Molly asked, her eyes glowing in a pink rage. “Because if you hurt her, I’m going to be really, really mad at you.”

Ariel scowled at this turn of events, but knew how to rectify the situation. “Your friend will be just fine, honey,” she said, her voice echoing of hypnotic vibrations. “Come on, now, you look tired. Do you want some candy…?”

Molly appeared to think for a moment, before timidly asking, “What flavor?”

The Juice Box

Inside the tiny room, chaos was king.

Bo’s skin rippled with Darkforce, threatening to consume her very body. Black tendrils reached for Gert and Nico as they dodged, barely able to move before the blackness reached for them again.

Alex was locked in combat against the Pusher Man, firing off electric pulses from his headset. The Pusher Man flicked the electricity away with his flat, three-fingered gauntlets that he called his Pimp Hands. “C’mon, scrapper, show me some real magic!”

“I’ve got some of that,” said Nico. She looked at the Pusher Man and pointed the Staff of One at him. “HANDS OFF!” she shouted, and the Pimp Hands crumbled into scrap metal.

“Enough!” shouted Bo. She spread her arms over her head as the drug-induced Darkforce began to creep from her body all over the room. The desk began to be sucked toward Bo’s body, and soon Alex, Nico, and Gert found themselves being sucked into the dimension from which the force came.

Alex realized what was happening in horror. “No!” he shouted. “She’s gonna kill us!”

Then, somehow, a miracle occurred. The blue and yellow portal swirled together, linking with the door in the Calientísima. Ariel didn’t know that the Juice Box was under attack when she sent Karolina there, but she had done exactly what the Runaways needed.

Karolina spun out of the portal onto the ground, illuminating the darkness with her kaleidoscope effect. “Karolina!” Alex shouted, astounded at the twist of fate, but nonetheless willing to take advantage of it. “Use your light powers against Bo!”

Light began to flow from Karolina’s body against the Darkforce, causing it to recede toward Bo’s body. But, as Bo’s body was a portal to the dark dimension, she began to absorb the light, rapidly using up the Darkforce she’d injected herself with.

“No! Stop it! You’re killing the dark!” Bo shouted, as the power of Cloak faded.

The Pusher Man looked on in amazement. “Like Lucy in the Sky…with Diamonds. Like an overdose on LSD. Amazing…”

Alex nodded to Nico, Gert, and Karolina. “Let’s go!” he shouted, nodding toward the dwindling yellow-blue portal. One by one they dove back through to the Calientísima, praying that things had gone much better there than they’d gone in the Juice Box…

The Calientísima

“Primo!” shouted Karolina, her dampener bracelet clamped firmly across her wrist. “Molly!” What had happened while she’d left?

The four remaining Runaways wandered through the remnants of the strip club out toward the front. There, they were greeted by a familiar voice.

“Looks like you guys left the younger kids on their lonesome,” Chase said, beckoning toward where Molly lay on the ground, sound asleep. Beside her lay Primo, his torso covered in blood. “Kinda sad, isn’t it? Bullying the little kids into doing the legwork while you guys hide away inside?”

“That’s not what happened,” Nico said coldly, but she knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Not when she saw the men who accompanied Chase.

To Chase’s right stood a dinosaur that stretched a good foot above Chase’s head. Its eyes were red and its skin was patterned between a grayish purple and brown. There was a ring in its nose, but that didn’t stop it from being able to track down the Runaways telepathically because of its link to Gert. “Like it?” Chase asked. “Your parents are calling her Old Lace because they always saw you as a bit of Arsenic…”

Further to Chase’s right stood a young Skrull-in-training. From his craggy chin to his green, pointed ears, the Skrull represented his race as its epitome. His fists were rocky and oversized, mimicking the Thing’s powers. The Skrull was called Xavin, and he could call upon the powers of the Fantastic Four, just like the Super-Skrull, but only one power at a time. His alien physiology gave him a greater resistance to Karolina’s light blasts, which was why he’d been chosen for the team.

On the left was a man who wore a large, silken robe. He had no arms or legs; instead, he possessed demons that sprouted from those sockets. There was a star-shaped hole in the center of the man’s chest, representing the five missing pieces of his soul. The man’s name was Martin Preston, but to the rest of the world he was called Master Pandemonium. Nico’s parents had called upon him due to his level of immunity to magic.

Crouched in front of Chase was a man in a full white body-suit. The suit gleamed with a frictionless solvent that allowed him to slide upon the ground at an amazing rate of speed. Jalome Beacher had seen better days as a foe of Spider-Man compared to a villain-for-hire, but he’d sworn to himself that this would be his last job. With the money he would make from this, Slyde would be able to retire.

The last member of the bounty-hunting squad circled above the kids, hovering like a vulture awaiting meat. His identity was borrowed, and that was the reason he had joined the team. The Pride had offered Rhett Carson, the latest person to take up the moniker of Hobgoblin, protection from the original Hobgoblin, as long as he would help them bring their children in. Rhett looked down nervously from the height, from beneath the rubbery mask and orange hood. His inexperience could cost him dearly from so high in the air, and that was yet another reason Rhett couldn’t afford to fail.

“So we have a choice,” Chase continued. “We can make it easy or we can make it hard. The easy way is, you guys come with me, all these nice people I brought with me go home, and you start listening to our parents about their jobs. The hard way is that you guys fight me and my friends here, and we bring you home and you start listening to our parents. So, what do you say?”

Chase was knocked backward by a surge of lighting from Alex’s headset. As hell broke loose around him, Alex looked Chase in the eye.

“We choose hard.”

The Vivarium, Residence of the Gibborim

Geoff Wilder descended through the ocean’s depths in the Stein’s amphibious vehicle that they called the Leapfrog. He knew his location all too well, and, yet again, dreaded what would happen when he got out. Sweat poured profusely from his skin and Geoff’s worry lines creased across his face. It was now or never.

Geoff stepped out of the Leapfrog into the Vivarium, the awesome open space that the Gibborim called home. Its ceiling featured views into the past, present, and future. Geoff found himself being distracted from his goal and preceded forward. “Oh, Masters! Show yourselves! I have need of your counsel!” shouted Geoffrey, kneeling before the platform on which the Gibborim usually appeared.

There was silence, but in less than a minute, the stone wall began to rise, revealing the three Biblical creatures called the Gibborim. The lead Gibborim, a white-skinned, hook-nosed man, leaned forward, his humanoid body. “What brings you here, Wilder?” he asked, his spiked cap tilting as he spoke.

“We have encountered problems,” Geoff explained looking at the three creatures. The oddest one, a black-skinned creature that somewhat resembled a hog resting on its hind legs, gave no acknowledgement of his presence. “Our children have learned the truth. They wish to undermine us. We of the Pride feel that this is best brought to your attention.”

The lead Gibborim looked on in stony silence before cracking a smile. “Why do you feel the need to lie, Geoffrey Wilder?” it asked in a condescending tone. “You knew about your children a week ago. Why was this not brought to our attention then? And, while the Pride knows that you visit, they do not share your feelings that this is our problem. They are wrong.”

“Forgive me,” Geoff said, sweeping into another bow.

“Oh, you shall be forgiven,” said the Gibborim, glancing at his brothers. “And you shall also pay for insolence. Your children will be captured by some method on this very evening, and, when that occurs, you will bring them here. You will perform the Rite of Thunder tonight, for we grow hungry—and you will do so with your children present. It is time to bring your offspring into the fold, Geoffrey Wilder.”

“Yes, my lords. It shall be done,” Geoff said, bowing and turning to go.

“Wait!” commanded the lead Gibborim. “There is one thing that we have not settled. There is the matter of your children and their disobedience. They must be punished. One must serve as the example for all of them. They will not die, but be transformed to our will. You must choose which child is that example, Wilder.”

Geoff thought, but only for a few seconds. “I have come to my decision,” he said quickly, before he could change his mind. “This is my fault. Because of that, it has to be my blood that becomes the example.

“You have to use my son,” Geoff said, trying not to get emotional. “You must make an example of Alex Wilder…”

NEXT: Hunters of Bounty!

Author’s Notes

A lot of Marvel characters make appearances in this issue, and, well most of them are really, really obscure, so let me give a bit of a rundown on the who’s who, and where you can find out more.

Ariel and Chance are from the long-forgotten Fallen Angels limited series from the ‘80s. If you remember it, then you really are a hardcore Marvel fan.

Blunderbuss, to my knowledge, first appeared as the bouncer in Angel Salvatore’s club during the Exiles House of M tie-in during the “World Tour.” If he appeared anywhere else before that, it was probably in District X, but I honestly don’t know for sure.

This new Hobgoblin is the man I envision occupied the armor during Marvel’s Secret War limited series. You’ll get more of this OC’s history as the story moves on.

Master Pandemonium first appeared in early issues of the West Coast Avengers. He later believed that the Scarlet Witch’s kids were pieces of his soul and absorbed them, only for Mephisto to tell M.P. that he was actually collecting the pieces of Mephisto’s soul! Since then, he was supposed to be dead, but reappeared in some kind of Deadpool comic, if I recall correctly. Plus, he has demons for hands—how cool is that!

Slyde is a character from an ‘80s Spider-Man run who I just always thought was cool. Now he gets to kick the butts of some of my favorite current-day comic book characters. Man, I love fanfiction.

As far as Xavin, Old Lace, and the Pusher Man go, they’re pretty much the same people they were in the original Runaways series, and thus, they’re getting rebooted origins like the rest of the Runaways. So what you read here goes for them—which means if you want more, you have to wait longer.

So thanks for listening to me prattle on, and stay tuned for “Hunters of Bounty!”

-Hunter Lambright