It is a quiet night in New York City, which some have dubbed the Big Apple, one of two entertainment capitals of the world, barring Hollywood. There is a slight wind breezing through the city, picking up the leaves off the ground and blowing them further down the street and into the sidewalk. It is a perfect night for a romantic stroll, namely the Thing and his love, Alicia Masters, the blind sculptress who has recently lost her powers as the Undying Force. For her, she hopes that they will never return for she felt, while in possession of the powers, she would succumb to the dark side. She came to Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four to rid her of that. But at the end of last issue, Franklin Richards used the powers that were hidden within him to do that very thing.

Since she first became acquainted with the FF she fell in love with Ben Grimm, the muscle-bound powerhouse known as the Thing. She found within him the heart of a poet and a very kind man. For a time, a member of the Skrull empire kidnapped her and impersonated her and fell in love with the Human Torch, Johnny Storm. Now, free of that, she spurned Johnny's love and went back to the Thing.

Right now, the Thing leads the blind Alicia through the streets of NYC, as they end a very special date. This is their first date since their original falling out. It seems to Ben that she harbors deep feelings for him and he wants nothing more than to marry her. He wishes to propose but he knows that one as beautiful as she would never marry him for fear of being married to an ugly man like Ben. Alicia has told Ben on several occasions that she can think of being with no one else but him but he can't believe it.

"I hope yer enjoying yerself, 'Licia," the Thing said, with his arm around the blind sculptress's lithe body. "I can't believe that after all these years of us not being an item that ya want t'be with me agin. But I kin unnerstand if ya don' wanna be wit' me."

Alicia looked in the general direction of his face and touched for what passed for as his cheeks, massaging them. "Ben, you poor, poor, silly dear. How could I be with anyone else? You must know that I love you, even when that-'woman'-impersonated me. I love you and always will."

"Oh, 'Licia, baby, ya don' know how much that means t'me."

"Oh, Ben, hold me close."

"What ever ya want, baby."

With that, Ben holds his ladylove close to him and they embrace for a kiss, Ben guiding her motions with his very powerful hands. The kiss lasts for several minutes and moments because they have been apart for a long time. He is glad that she is free of the Undying Force (he thanked Franklin after the end of last issue); she was never suited for being a member of the cosmic and super powered sect.

Then, there is a huge explosion from one of the neighboring buildings, rocking Ben's world. He looks up in the direction that the explosion took place and rushed into action. "Wait here, 'Licia," he says, as he sheds his overcoat and hat that hid his identity. "I'll handle this."

"Be careful, Ben," she says, "I love you," she whispers.

Ben saw that the explosion took place in one of the Acme Warehouses that littered one of the streets in this urban section of he city. He heard the news of Spider-man helping the victims of the terrorists that bombed New York several months ago. * If this was indeed a terrorist attack then he wanted to do his part to help out the victims and the families.

* (See M2K's Marvel Fanfare #15 - Gregg.)

And then, he saw it. A costumed figure landed on the rooftop of the warehouse. He was dressed in a costume that was a variation of white and black. At first, Ben thought that he was the villain of Spider-man, the Looter. He didn't use webbing, like Spidey did, so he didn't the proportionate strength and abilities of a spider. He flew on the rooftop. This merited investigation.

He then saw this costumed figure punch a hole through the roof and jump inside.

"Just what we need, another nut inna costume," the Thing says. Just then, the Thing punches the wall and bursts into the destroyed warehouse and sees various members of Code Blue and two costumed super heroes fighting a trio of super villains. Besides Code Blue and himself he didn't recognize the members of the super powered sect. "Who are you people and what the hell is going on?"

"We have no time to explain, Thing," the super hero that he saw previously says. "Just fight them," he points at the newcomers.

"I guess I'll have to trust you now but besides that-it's clobberin' time!!!!"

The Thing decides to try to a stunt that was originated by the Hulk in his Hulk Smash days. He throws his fist forward, knocking the villains on their heads and grabs onto the floor of the warehouse and flips it on them, propelling them out the window onto the streets below.

"So, ya mind tellin' me what that was all about," the Thing says. "Those creeps won't bother us for a long time."

"No, that's where you're wrong, Mr. Grimm," the leader of the two super heroes says. "They'll be back but we might need your help to apprehend them. But let me introduce yourselves to you; you already know Code Blue. The short gentleman is my partner, Sonik and I'm Crisis."

"And you are what?"

"We are a new breed of urban super heroes, like Spider-man and Daredevil. We are a product of Code Blue."

Harlem, ten years ago…

Two high school students, by the name of Gregory Miller and Brian Johnsten, are walking down the streets of Harlem. They pass a basketball court where some other students that they know from Harlem High are playing a game of hoops. They are not playing it for the fun of it but actually, they are gambling for cash and drugs. Miller, the leader of the two friends, hates gambling and drugs like Johnsten. They pass the court and think about interfering.

But Miller and Johnsten are not ordinary high school students; they are outcasts, cast away from their fellow peers because they are a little bit different. While other students dream about playing professional football and baseball and basketball, they spend their time reading comic books, science fiction novels, and following the careers of people that they refer to as super heroes. Their favorite heroes are the police crisis team, Code Blue. Miller likes the Fantastic Four and the Amazing Spider-man. Miller even promises to himself that once he develops the powers that are his to command, he will be such an urban hero as Spidey. That is his dream.

Y'see, about a week ago, Miller and Johnsten discovers that they are mutants; Miller has the power to redirect kinetic energy thrust at him, while Johnsten can fire sonic waves out of his fingertips. Johnsten says that he wishes he could be the next Banshee or Siryn. They have been following their careers for some time now.

"Hey, look who we have here? If it ain't Nerd and his best friend, Geek," a voice says to them from out of the summer heat. "Hey, where's your other friend, Dork!"

Miller turns around, followed by Johnsten and they see that the school bully is there with a pack of his best football playing friends.

"When I give the signal, run," Miller says to Johnsten.

"Okay," Johnsten says in return. "I don't want to get b eat up today again."

"One, two, three, now!!" Miller yells and the two scared out of their wits teens make a run for it.

At first, the bully, whose name is Buff for his streaking habit, doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary at first. For he expects that these losers should run from him and his friends. Then, a friend reminds him what is going on…

"Hey, they're getting' away," a lowbrow bully-to-be says, warning Buff of their escape attempt. "Let's get after them!"

"Hey, you're right," Buff says, now totally pissed off. "Hey, come back here, freaks!"

The gang of bullies runs after them, with Buff in the lead. It just looks good for the lead bully to be well in the lead. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be much of a lead bully. But anyway, they run after them, gaining in speed and velocity. Then, Buff grabs onto a tuft of Miller's long hair and pulls him backwards until he crashes against a brick wall.

"It's payback time, freak!" Buff says as he punches Miller squarely in the chest and face repeatedly until he swears and sees that Greg is bleeding. "Get up, you freak! Hit me with your best shot. I can take it, not that a sissy like you can really hurt me. C'mon!!!"

Miller looks up from his position on the cement ground, with blood trickling down his fat lip. "You shouldn't have done that."

"Why??"

"This is why." With that, Miller punches Buff with the hardest hit that he had muster, storing all the kinetic energy in his body and one fist.

The other bullies examine the body of Buff.
"Hey, he's dead. What did you do to him?" they ask in unison.

"Uh-oh, this looks like trouble," Miller says to Johnsten who could do nothing but watch this whole procession. The bullies converge on the two would-be super heroes, clenching their fists and ready to come up fighting.

"Let's get out of here now!!!" Johnsten cracks his knuckles and outstretches his arms in front of him. Out of his fingertips come twin bolts of pure sonic energy taken from the bullies' yelling and cursing. The bullies scatter like ten pins. Miller and Johnsten, scared for their newfound, dangerous powers, run from the court and go home to their respective apartments.

Now. A Harlem crack house.

Channelling all of his strength into his leg muscles, Code Blue operative Greg Miller kicked the door to the crack house open with one powerful blow, his partner Brian Johnsten at his side. "Freeze! This is the Police! All of you are under arrest!" shouted Miller at the assemblage of drug dealers and drug users in the small compact crack house in Harlem. The two police officers pointed their twin guns at the kids and dope dealers encircling the one lone brown oaken table that was covered with crack and cocaine doses. Everyone in the room froze immediately and Greg guessed that they were as scared of the narcs as they were of them.

Miller took complete stock of the situation. From the outset, it looked like Miller and Johnsten could take control and overpower them but drug dealers were infamous for their resourcefulness and power. Miller felt that he was this much closer to defeating the undercover organization that headed this town's drug operations but this looked like just another run-of-the-mill crack house.

Upon seeing the two senior police officers, the boys and girls that had been housed within this particular crack house placed their hands behind the heads in perfect formation, following Miller's orders specifically. Greg was impressed. He didn't imagine the drug dealers and drug users to be that susceptible to two cops barking out orders like they were born to do that very little thing.

Training his gun upon the center drug dealer, all dressed in gold and furs, Miller continued with his monologue, "Good. It looks like all of you can follow orders. Now, we can make this easy or hard. Your choice. I want all of you to back up against the wall, hands still behind your heads and we'll cart you over to One Police Plaza as easy as pie. Comprendez-vous?" A nod of all of their heads confirmed Miller's suspicions that they understood him.

Before any of the men and women could comply with their orders, Miller heard the distinct sound of more than a dozen gun chambers being locked into place. Turning to his partner, he said, "Johnsten, you hear something?"

"This could be my mistake but I do believe the cavalry has arrived," Johnsten said, with no surprise in his voice. Miller had known Johnsten for many years on the force and out, which included braving his life time and again on the battlefield against criminals such as these, but he had never heard such concern in his voice. And now above all other times, Miller knew that he and his partner-in-arms were in deep trouble.

Turning around on a perfect pivot, Miller saw the threat that now faced them. He was not pleased in even the slightest degree. The door had opened sharply by strength of a man who could have easily torn the contraption off of its hinges. He was a big thin black man, wearing a tan trench coat, and black boots. Over his shoulder, he carried a shot gun, which, Miller knew, he wanted to use to blow the two cops away to kingdom come.

"Who are you?" Now it looks like we may have the biggest fight of our lives on our hands, Miller thought cautiously, counting his blessings that the two police officers would be able to hold them off long enough for reinforcements to come to their rescue.

"Go to hell!"

Miller punched him in the mouth, as blood and spittle escaped it. "Now, tell me again who exactly you are?"

"Ramiriz, Alfonso Ramirez."

"Good. That's a nice start and who's your boss."

"I'm not telling you that. He'd kill me."

Greg Miller slugged him in the stomach. Ramirez hunched over, clutching his pain centers. "tell me or I'll kill you."

"Snake. The King Snake."

In the interim of time that both of their eyes had been focused on Ramirez and his men, Miller noticed that the group of men and women who had been dabbling in the fine arts of drug use had dispersed from the line-up and surrounded them in a circle. Now, both cops knew that they were drastically outnumbered and this could very well be the day they die. But Miller would not go out without so much as a single fight.

Miller and Johnsten backed up against one another in the center of the circle, with their pistols blazing. Miller didn't want to kill anyone today. Hell, he abhorred violence obsessively, but he knew that he and his partner would have no other choice than to waste these druggies to their death. Live and learn, I guess, he thought further.

"Ready to waste these waste-oids, Johnsten?" Miller asked inquisitively, wetting his appetite for more destruction within one of the more lucrative crack houses within the Harlem district. I know I am, he thought clearly to himself.

"Ready as I'll ever be, partner o' mine."

Ramirez stepped forward into the center of the circle, a smile painted across his fat lips. When he opened his mouth, Miller was shown decaying teeth and a reddish tongue that had done its fair share of lashing in its time.

"Obviously, I don't know what the training capabilities of the inner workings of the NYPD are but I'm sure that you are no match for us!"

With those words spoken and him stepping aside from the center of the circle, Miller and Johsnten were confronted by the full force of expertly trained drug dealers and cut-throat killers, all ready to waste these police heroes, as sure as they were ready to waste them. Before he had a chance to react to the movements that they made, they were engulfed by a series of bodies, as if they were the center of a football tackle.

I always thought of going public before but not like this, Miller thought, as he clenched both fists.

"Johnsten, give 'em somethin' to write home about," he barked out orders, like he was born to.

"I'll try my best, partner!"

With powers that defy description, Brian Johnsten released a sonically enhanced sound through his fingertips that surrounded the room that they were both in. In his super hero guise, he was not known as Sonik for nothing. It was almost like a banshee's wail that pervaded and invaded the senses and caused almost deafness or something quite akin to it.

It was with this quick expulsion of his powers that caused the druggies to be repulsed to opposite corners of the room. Each men and women clutched at their painful ears. Screams along with Johnsten's could be heard throughout the whole crack house, alerting more police reinforcements to bring the cavalry in. For despite their powers and special abilities, Miller and Johnsten could sure use it.

In seconds, the group of drug users and the African-American fighting force were cast aside by superhuman means. It seemed quite odd to Miller, and he suspected Johnsten, that the immediate use of their powers could have defeated them so easily and that the their makeshift leader would have such inadequate help against the cops that strove to put them away in life imprisonment.

As he looked further at the array of unconscious bodies, he realized that not all of them were as dead or incapicated as they lately appeared. Even though he used violence as a last resort, the fight was not taken out of him. Miller's power lay in the application that he could redirect whatever force is directed toward him in any violent way.

It was hard at first but then, he realized that everything that went down this day was easy. Too easy. As clichéd as it sounded, he was starting to believe it.
Johnsten stepped forward, regaining control of his .44 magnum pistol, pointing it at the defenseless underling. Miller suspected that he wouldn't be left defenseless like this. He was too valuable to his drug empire.

"You know the drill, Mr. Whoever-You-Are. Hands up over your head and spread them." Johnsten was more confident than he should have been. Miller liked to use more caution in these matters.

"I don't think so. I don't get arrested."

"News to us."

With the sound of metal crashing on wood, the door that led to this very specific crack house broke open, heralding another member of his retalliatory force. A man, composed of mostly bionic parts, walked into the room, surveying the damage that the two police officers had laid waste to the underling's normal human cadre. Talk about the Six Million Dollar Man, Miller thought, as he was greeted with another surprise.

"And who are you, the Bionic Man?" Miller asked.

Even though the question was directed at the new arrival, the African-american answered for him, for Miller suspected that the new arrival was not of a talking capacity. "No, simply he is called the Psi-bot. He can destroy you with but an exertion of his powers. Prepare to die."

You know, I'm beginning to think that this guy is not the real leader of this drug operations, Miller thought carefully as he recovered from the Psi-bot's drastic entrance. He tapped Johnsten on the shoulder. "Hey, buddy, this guy is just an underling. I say we take him to One Police Plaza and deal with the rest of these jokers later. Capeesh?"

Johnsten nodded.

"Cover me while I make the acquisition."

Before they were able to place their plan into action, the fake drug leader ordered his bionic robot to charge at them to prevent any thing from happening to him. No matter how soft they whispered their plans of attack, the leader heard their every word. Now, all that stood between the two super-cops and their goal was a seven foot tall robot of immense power, whose abilities they were not able to ascertain yet.

As the battle of super beings began in earnest, Johnsten proceeded to deal with the armed drug dealers in his imitable way. Propelling his power to super sonic levels, he laid waste to the dealers in seconds, rendering them unconscious, most of them dropping their firearms. Only a select few remained, fully armed.

Approaching the drug king, Johnsten had no time to prepare for the clicking of chambers and the releasing of deadly bullets. He easily ducked the barrage of gunfire, evading to the side, as the back wall was destroyed in seconds. Windows shattered and pure sunlight streamed in unceremoniously to the mostly darkened crack house.
He walked towards the last gunman and the underling.

At another part of the house, Miller was squaring off between the gigantic robot. For the last several minutes, they were trading blows, neither of them gaining an inch of victory. For the first time, within the use of his incredible powers, he was beginning to tire and wear himself down. But that was impossible, he thought, because I have the ability to take the physical brunt of any attack directed at me. It was empirically impossible for him to be so tired so soon.

Psi-bot looked human, or he should phrase it more accurately, he looked to be once human. Being partly human, he wasn't an infallible computer and could therefore be beaten. He just had to hit its weak point. While Miller was a mere mortal, relying mostly on his superhuman strength, Psi-bot had a vast array of weaponry at his disposal.

Then, a sonic burst of power hit the robot-man in the back, downing him. Miller looked up in relief at his partner, holding the false Snake at gunpoint, ready to deliver another scream at the fallen robot.

"Man , am I glad to see you."

"You looked like you could use some help."

While they were getting reacquainted, Psi-bot used his jet thrusters to escape their clutches, flying out of the hole in the wall. He would live to fight another day, with the help of the rest of the Drug Mutants team and with the guidance of the King Snake. Then, the robot picked up the false drug kingpin, carrying him away to safety.

"Oh, no, ya don't," the Thing says, as he busts open the crack house down, scattering the lost children of the drug culture. "I wanted to see them in action. But now I know what they're like. You're finished."

Psi-bot turns to face the thing. The Thing approaches him, grabs his wrists and crushes them. "You're going to jail, or at least the Vault," the Thing says again.

"Freeze, you are all under arrest," says a voice, as several Code Blue enter the crack house with guns and armor blazing. "By order of Code Blue. You did a great job, Thing."

"Don't thank me," the Thing responds. "The real credit goes to Crisis and Sonik. And in their civilian identities, too. So, guys, how would you like to join the Fantastic Four for a couple adventures?"

Miller holds his mask in hand. Then, he put it on, followed by Johnsten who dons his mask also. "We would be glad to."

Thus, a legend is borne.