Hartsdale was a Navajo reservation and a CDP in San Juan County, New Mexico, situated in the high-desert plain some fifteen miles southwest of Shiprock Peak. Rising almost eighteen hundred feet above ground level, the rock formation was named Tsé Bit'a'í in Navajo tongue; this literally translated as ‘rock with wings’, referring to the great bird of the same name that, in legend, had carried their people from the north to their present land. The Anglicised name of Shiprock was established in the mid-to-late nineteenth century and was intended to describe the way the indigo-grey peak rose like the sail and body of a gigantic clipper ship upon the horizon, adrift upon a vast ocean of dust, dry scrub and sagebrush, and burnished red volcanic breccia.

The community of Hartsdale looked upon Shiprock with reverence, but not dependence. Unlike a number of other reservations in the region, particularly those to the north of the peak, they had not come to rely upon the through-trade of tourism concentrated upon the Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon. They were poorer for it financially, but richer for their continued resistance to commercialism and the corrosion of their own cultural heritage. Outsiders happened the reservation infrequently, and their presence was welcomed with little more than the most perfunctory civility.

It was an event worth documenting, therefore, when the boy and his mother arrived one day in early spring, bowed and weary, their pale skins baked copper by sun and dust. High overhead the blue glass of the endless New Mexico sky was stained only with a scattering of clouds and the black scratches of vultures and hawks. A warm breeze toyed with the scrub. In the distance, Shiprock was abroad, black and silver in the morning sun. The woman observed the landscape with detached eyes, the beauty of this foreign world lost to her.

But her son smiled.

“<This is it,>” he said, softly, in his native Russian. “<This is the place I dreamed of. This… is home.>”

[Now…]

The Hessler-Strucker Building on New York’s 5th Avenue was named after its anchor tenant for the past quarter of a century, a German-instigated but now international consumer finance group more commonly known as HSF. The building was a low-rise complex by city standards, ascending merely one hundred metres over twenty storeys, and was a slender tower constructed of concrete, steel and glass and of unassuming design. Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, and a more recent surge in technologically advanced criminal activity, there had been an upscale in security measures to counter all potential threats, although in truth HSF and other companies resident in the office tower were considered unlikely targets for any such hostility. Concrete curbing on the lower floors, laminated plate glazing, state-of-the-art fireproofing, a standard guard presence at ground reception and on key floors and sophisticated CCTV surveillance throughout were all deemed to be more than sufficient prevention.

And so it had been. Until today.

Today, at just after 10am on a hitherto pleasant morning, a bizarre vessel - semi-spherical, polished silver, utterly unmarked upon its convex crown while carried aloft on a cluster of anti-gravity modules that ringed its flat undercarriage, and the size of six armoured cars - rose silently and without warning from the street, bypassed the concrete barricades of the lower floors and then beyond, and attached itself to the outer wall of the fourteenth storey via a cluster of pneumatic pinions. A laser beam then seared through an entire section of glass and frame with scalpel precision and minimum fuss, allowing access to the area beyond.

The fourteenth floor had been chosen for two reasons. Firstly, it was presently unoccupied, meaning that there was no immediate panic from workers when their typical existence was compromised and their familiar environment invaded. Secondly, it was the storey directly beneath that of the principal HSF administrative level - and this was the destination for the shocktroop of armoured soldiers who now emerged from the silver semi-sphere and flooded the unused office. Twelve strong, each member of the brigade was clad in a matching silver, gold and white battlesuit with white helmet, their features obscured by black, mirrored visor-shields. They each carried weapons as peculiar as they were menacing: silver and black rifles that were attached to either left or right hand with wrist-lock and a spool of hydraulic coil, and with a barrel that culminated in a flared, tripod nozzle.

Anyone able to witness the incursion would likely have been stunned by the sight. But no one was, because the semi-sphere had released an electromagnetic pulse on a specific frequency before docking, disrupting the building’s internal surveillance as well as its external alarms without affecting other mechanical apparatus, such as elevators or computer terminals. Even the single security officer manning the monitor station on a lower floor was presently engaged with a crossword puzzle and a coffee; so, as yet, not a single individual in the tower was aware that anything out of the ordinary was occurring. This would have remained the case for at least another five minutes… if not for a sequence of highly inopportune coincidences.

Such as, at that exact moment, there was someone riding one of the elevators unaffected by the pulse. Such as, this person had lately been prone to dwelling on the minutiae of their own eventful life and could thus often be accused of lapses of concentration, including pressing the button for the unoccupied fourteenth floor instead of the thirteenth, which was where he really wanted to be. Such as, this person had other things that he could be doing - more important things, more exciting things, more wondrous things - but, just like the majority of New Yorkers, he had rent and bills to pay and a job to do.

Coincidences are strange things. A lot of people don’t believe in them. But, when all’s said and done, they contribute so intrinsically to the workings of the world…

Bing.

The elevator light lit. The door opened. Twelve soldiers in silver, gold and white battlesuits turned their heads and instinctively aimed their weapons.

Inside the elevator there stood a rather goofy-looking young man, half-Jamaican, half-Caucasian, with dark cornrows and chestnut eyes. A courier, apparently, in his black motorcycle leathers and with a bulky parcel under one arm and a clipboard under the other. He was sucking on a lollipop. His name was Ash Kennedy, otherwise known as the sensational Spider-Man… but, obviously, not right now. Now he was just a regular prince of misfortune, in the wrong place at very much the wrong time.

The faceless soldiers stared at Ash. Ash stared back.

“Uh,” he said. “Uh-huh. So, Stormtrooper dudes… is this the Star Wars convention? Because, I swear, I was totally expecting Fotheran and Mallory…”

[Ten years ago…]

If the boy’s perception of Native Americans had been formed by the Indians of John Wayne movies he showed no sign of it upon meeting Hartsdale’s tribal elder Joseph Fireheart. The fact that Joseph, a man of some eighty years or more, wore faded Levi’s, a baseball cap and a burgundy Go! Navajo Braves! sweatshirt rather than tan horsehide and a feather headdress seemed to make no impression on the youth. Perhaps he knew nothing of old films and anachronistic stereotypes after all. Or perhaps, instead, the boy simply looked into Joseph’s pale, aquamarine eyes and saw something there, something in his weathered face as rust-baked and corrugated as the desert rock, and instinctively understood the elder’s nature.

This innate appreciation was evidently reciprocated. The boy and his mother knew no English and had worried there would be no way to communicate with these people, who in turn would likely not be versed in Russian. But Joseph required no words to recognise the reason for their travelling half the world to seek out this modest reservation. As the day gradually cooled into dusk, the skies hazing with sandstorms upon the horizon beneath a bloodstain sunset and then darkening quickly into indigo, black and starlight, so Joseph took the boy to his home - his hogan - and made the necessary preparations for what was to come, sweeping the earthen floor and laying out lacquered bowls filled with herbs and quartz, lighting the fires, settling the pots with water, blanketing the windows.

He worked meticulously, careful not to allow the excitement building within him to cause him to make mistakes, or to agitate his wizened heart. He had been waiting the best part of a century for this day. His people had been waiting far longer.

When the time arrived and the air inside the hogan was hot and wet with steam and incense, and tasted bitter with juniper and woodsmoke, so Joseph Fireheart finally sat cross-legged before the flames and nodded. Across from him, the boy - nine years old, sallow of skin, with rook black hair and eyes - nodded in turn, his manner serene. Joseph took a folded blanket from a stool and unwrapped it to reveal a buckskin pouch. Inside the pouch were four polished stones.

“White shell, abalone, jet, turquoise,” the elder murmured, naming each as he passed them gently from one palm to the other, and then on to the boy. “Speak now.”

The boy’s eyes glittered in the firelight, so very black.

“<My name is Sergei Alyosha Kravinoff,>” he said. “<And every night since I can remember I have dreamed a dream of an animal that walks like a man - or a man who runs like an animal. A hunter…>”

[Now…]

Ash Kennedy didn’t know how his spider-sense worked. Actually, he didn’t know how any of his special spider-powers worked. Actually, come to think of it, he didn’t know how much of anything worked, including but not limited to wireless internet, coffee machines and the eternal enigma of the feminine mind. And ice cream scoops. He’d never been able to get his head around ice cream scoops. So, yeah, okay, maybe he wasn’t the best-qualified person to be thinking about such things anyway. His far more capable friend Peter Parker, however, did have a theory. About spider-sense, not ice cream scoops. Obviously. Although -

Twelve oddly flared tripod nozzles aimed at Ash’s chest. Ash’s reflection stared back at him, aghast, in twelve gleaming black visors. He sucked furiously on his lollipop.

Right, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Stop thinking. Start…

…jumping!

The soldiers, whoever they were, were clearly well trained. As soon as Ash flexed his muscles and tensed to leap so at least three fingers clamped down on the button-triggers of their weapons; within a second, six more followed suit. Remarkably, however, such expertly honed reflexes on their part just weren’t good enough. In fact, they were nowhere near. The rifles didn’t discharge a hail of bullets or laser bolts, but instead a throb of concussive force that caused the air to tremble. That these force-waves were modulated to simply hammer the body of a human target rather than pulverise it remained mere conjecture: the elevator where Ash had been standing a half-moment previously was now empty, and the waves peppered the wall behind him with a rapid series of whump-whump-whump sounds, leaving small dents in the metal as if someone had gone to work with a mallet.

“Stormtroopers! With ray guns! I’m being blasted by stormtroopers with ray guns! Is this right? Is this constitutional? Where’s Han Solo when you need him? Luke? Leia? Hell, right about now, I’ll even take Jar-Jar Binks! Well… okay, actually, maybe not him…”

Ash was currently airborne, back arched, arms spread, twisting at the midriff and throwing all his weight into his right hip to channel his velocity in a specific direction. The soldiers below might have marvelled at the man’s uncanny grace had they not already been rendered awestruck by his reflexive speed. And the speed of his flapping mouth, come to that. As it was, by the time the first of them had begun to spin on his heels and aim his weapon anew so Ash had already performed a somersault, skipped sideways off a wall, and was kicking out with both feet at once. The heel of one boot clubbed that first soldier square in his visor-shield, snapping his head backwards, whilst the other boot slammed into the throat of a second target, shunting him into one of his fellows. A rifle locked on and another burst of concussive pulse erupted from the flared nozzle, but again too late. With a flick, Ash altered his trajectory in mid-whirl and whipped out a fist, popping the shooter in the face. He then stamped a foot down on that soldier’s head for balance and shoved off once more, leaping and twisting in one movement.

It was amazing. Sensational. Spectacular.

And, despite Ash’s enhanced reflexes, speed and dexterity, and the increased elasticity of his ligaments and musculature that allowed him to perform such physical feats without instantly rupturing something important, none of it would have been possible without spider-sense.

What Peter Parker had postulated was that Ash’s sphere of instinct had been augmented to a phenomenal degree, allowing him to experience his environment in the way a spider at the heart of its web might be attuned to the most miniscule vibrations. Relying utterly on a nigh-precognitive intuition engendered by hypersensitive senses Ash was able to unconsciously gauge the intentions of those around him simply by observing the merest inflections of their body language. Riding the elevator he hadn’t been aware of impending danger - his spider-sense didn’t act as an early warning alarm in that way - but as soon as he had been faced with a legion of masked, gun-toting maniacs his perception had become powerfully concentrated. Even while moving at such incredible speed he was aware of every threat, every motion: body shifts, fingers on triggers, the panning of rifle barrels, all of it. As such, he knew instinctively that despite being outnumbered he had the upper hand in this situation.

Unfortunately, there was one problem. If he wanted to retain any semblance of a secret identity he needed to snatch a few seconds’ respite to grab his mask from his jacket pocket and pull it on. It shouldn’t be Ash Kennedy spinning like a dervish at the heart of this melee.

This was a job for Spider-Man.

[Ten years ago…]

Joseph Fireheart emptied a pouch of special herbs over the flames and immediately the interior of the log hogan was suffused with a heavy, reddish glow, and the strange odours that were already prevalent intensified still further. Across from the elder, the boy - Sergei Kravinoff - was now stripped to the waist, his naked upper torso gleaming with sweat and some rust-coloured residue like volcanic ash.

“<In my dream,>” Sergei murmured, “<the animal man waits in the dense woodlands around my home, a village in the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Siberia. I cannot see him, at first, but I feel his presence. A hunter. Every night he dwells there, watching me, and my mother. And then, at midnight - every midnight - the spiders come. Small, gigantic, thin, fat, black, brown, silver… they flood from the drains, the sink, the windows, from holes in the walls. They fill our home. My mother screams. Screams for me, for her. I cannot scream. I am struck dumb. The spiders keep coming, eyes and legs and teeth. Pulsing, wriggling. Hungry. I can hear them laughing. And that’s when the animal man - the huntsman - finally comes for me. Strong, powerful, so very fast, wrapped in a hide of red and gold, he attacks the spiders just as they attack my mother and I. He crushes them, claws them, eats them. They cannot stand against him. He drives them back, and saves me. And then, when I look around, I am no longer at home in Siberia… I am a world away. Trees replaced by desert and rock, darkness washed away by the clearest light. Warm, now, no longer cold. I know where I am.>

“<I am here,>” the boy whispered. “<I am home. And the animal man has brought me here to keep me safe.>”

Joseph bowed his head, his pale eyes solemn. For a while he said nothing, content to merely stare into the flames. The boy spoke Russian, Joseph did not, but something about the woodsmoke and the eerie glow of the campfire aided their communication. When the elder spoke so Sergei understood him, just as he himself had been understood.

“There is a legend among the Navajo,” Joseph breathed, “passed down through the generations from the Anasazi - The Ancient Ones - regarding the Yeenaaldlooshii, or Skinwalkers. These creatures are part-human, part-animal; shapeshifters, able to adopt the form of animals when they wear their pelts as a second flesh. Most commonly they are known for manifesting as bears, coyotes and cougars, although sometimes they have even been known to travel as owls or mice. Opinions as to whether the Skinwalkers are benign or innately evil are varied, although most call the practitioners of the base magic witches, and sensibly refuse to trust them.

“I believe… that it is the human side of the equation that one should beware. I reserve reverence for all animals in the kingdom. The cougar, for example - which you may know as the mountain lion, or the puma - is a noble and instinctively shy beast, savage when cornered and provoked but otherwise possessed of little hostility. For a man to steal the identity of such a proud animal is not to unleash aggression, but to instead encourage his own capacity for violence. When you dream of this particular Skinwalker - as I believe you do - you envision a heroic individual, acting selflessly when confronted with a darker aspect of his kind, a witch adorning himself with the hide of the spider. A Spider-Man. Again, Anasazi legend speaks of the Spider-Man as the consort of the Spider-Woman, weaver of dreams and worlds, dangling from his web in the loom of the heavens. If your dream is of a wicked Skinwalker who has appropriated the power of the spider - as I have reason to believe is true - then it is a grave portent indeed: a warning that we are all threatened by this dark and terrible menace. And yet, there is another who may save us. Your animal man. Your huntsman.

“Long have we of the tribe anticipated the coming of the battle between light and darkness. The Huntsman has been destined to arrive among us, to become our guardian and the totem of our people, since the days of my grandfather, long before I was born. And now, the time is here. You, boy, a stranger from a distant land, have been marked out as the mystic vassal to deliver this message of hope…”

Joseph looked on, eyes gleaming, subjecting the boy to intense scrutiny. Sergei Kravinoff returned the old man’s gaze quite clearly, sweat beading upon his brow only from the headiness within the room, not from any inner turmoil.

“<My mother has always claimed I was intended for great things,>” he said, softly. “<Tell me what you would require of me… for to serve the needs of your people would be my honour.>”

[Now…]

Pulling on his mask, Ash was momentarily nonplussed as to why the black material was poking out from his face like Pinocchio’s nose until he realised that he was still sucking on his lollipop. Groaning, he rolled the bottom of the mask up and spat out his sweet. He wasn’t stupid. Really, he wasn’t. It was just that he was capable of some really stupid things, things that made him look like a complete and utter dork. Thankfully, on this occasion, there was no one watching, so -

Whump-whump-whump-whump!

Four quick blasts of concussive force hammered into the side of the desk behind which Ash was hiding as he attempted to shrug out of his biker leathers, revealing a slick red and black costume beneath. Lollipop aside, the quick-change routine was actually going quite well - or, rather, it had been until one of his boots had got stuck. Now the armed soldiers had worked out where he had secreted himself and were launching a full-scale assault. One more strafe of energy pulses - whump-whump-whump! - and the desk was finally rocked sideways, revealing his position. Spider-Man sprang to his feet, almost toppling over as his leather pants got snared around his ankles. Honestly, it was so embarrassing…

“How do the guys in the comic books do this?” the hero wailed, somersaulting backwards as a volley of force bolts caused every flat surface in his general vicinity to erupt. “I mean, seriously. They use phone booths, right? Why? Why? Because, like, phone booths have this magical property whereby you can get your clothes off really quickly and with minimum fuss inside, is that it? What, are they bigger on the inside than the outside?”

Whump-whump-whump-whu-

“I know, I know, I totally know. Star Wars, Star Trek, now Doctor Who. So I’m a sci-fi geek! So when I razz Pete about being the great geek king I’m really being ironic! What can I say?”

Spider-Man skipped to his right on one leg, then back to his left on the other leg, then did a pirouette. The gunmen couldn’t draw a bead, even when their target paused for a split second to finally wrestle his trousers and remaining boot off his foot. The oddly-clad hero then flipped backwards, sprang away at an angle off one hand, and came to rest attached to the wall above the heads of the assembled soldiers. They looked up, and their quarry looked down. Spider-Man snatched the weapon out of the nearest soldier’s hand and hefted it like a club.

“Okay, faceless visor dudes,” the wall-crawler growled. “You’ve all played Whack-A-Mole, right…?”

And with that he began to smash the butt of the futuristic weapon against the crowns of the dozen milling helmets, showering them with furious blows delivered at a rate impossible for the human eye to follow. Whack-whack-whack! It was the new whump-whump-whump! These kids needed to get with the trend…

There was no danger of him inflicting permanent damage, of course - the helmets appeared too well reinforced for that - and there were likely more effective ways of trouncing his opponents, but Ash Kennedy was a childish fellow at heart, as indicated by his nigh-constant stream of babble during a fight. If there was a fancy - and fun - way of dishing out punishment, then that would always be his preferred method. Unfortunately for him, in this instance such mischievousness was to prove his downfall.

Concentrating on distributing extensive cranial pounding to his immediate foes, Spider-Man’s hyper-senses only alerted him to another presence, on the far side of the room, at the last moment. His head snapped up, his eyes narrowing behind the faceted lenses of his mask, as a lithe figure clad entirely in silver armour sprinted forward from the direction of the shattered window through which the armed soldiers had originally entered the Hessler-Strucker Building. This individual was female - obviously so, her bodysuit clinging to a quite disarming set of slinky curves as if she’d been dipped in mercury, and her platinum blonde hair flowing freely behind a half-helmet shielded with a mirrored fascia visor. The woman wasn’t carrying a gun, but instead two handfuls of glittering silver. Metal, fashioned in a distinctive half-moon shape.

With a little more warning Spider-Man may have gauged the situation differently. But, as it was, his original adversaries - those that remained, and who weren’t crawling about on the floor clutching their heads - were all training their weapons on him once more. Spider-Man leapt, commencing another series of body-popping twists and somersaults. Across from him, the woman hurdled up onto a desk without breaking stride and let loose with both handfuls of silver missiles, then snapped out a hip and jumped again, kicking out with one long leg, all in one movement. Her aggression, and skill, was unexpected - and, even for a man with Ash’s gifts, was impossible to counter.

Spider-Man squeaked, ducking beneath some of the metal crescents and sailing between others, then winced as a pair of missiles glanced off his right shoulder and arm. Jolted out of trusted instincts just for that moment the hero was unable to dodge the silver boot with the stack heel that then connected squarely with his jaw, cracking his head back in mid-flight and sending him spinning off-balance. Before he could regain his composure and attempt anything approaching a good landing he was struck again, an elbow whipping into his gut, and then again, a straight hand chop to the back of his neck. Spider-Man crashed into a wall with a grunt, then slid to the floor. He rolled, his head whirling and his senses clogged, only to slide straight into a vicious kick to his ribs.

This, Ash realised through a cloud of pain, was the downside of his powers. It was just as Pete had theorized. The enhanced reflexes, speed and dexterity were formidable, but without the spider-sense they were nothing - he was reduced to his typical, awkward self, a youth with no real fighting skills. And he was getting the crap kicked out of him by a woman with the body of an angel who seemed to delight in the fact that she was causing him pain. Now, there was a time and a place for that kind of thing, and this wasn’t -

“Gack!”

Spider-Man suddenly froze as the sole of a boot came down hard upon his windpipe, pinning him to the floor by his throat. His hands flailed. He should have had the strength to deal with this, but he couldn’t get the right leverage, and he was panicking, and -

“Whoever you are,” stated a honey-sweet voice, edged with an eastern European cadence, “you were obviously never taught any manners as a child. Stay out of business that doesn’t concern you and you won’t get hurt. Poke your little black nose in… and you will.”

The woman held out a gloved palm and one of her soldiers handed her his weapon. She pointed the flared tripod nozzle at the centre of Spider-Man’s head, right between his inverted teardrop eyes. “You led my Wild Pack a merry dance,” the woman purred. “As you’ll have noticed, I’m a far more redoubtable prospect. My name… is Silver. The Silver Scourge. And I’m on a mission that really cannot be delayed any longer…”

The masked woman pulled the trigger, and a bolt of concussive force detonated against the centre of Spider-Man’s forehead.

This time the sound of impact was a lot louder, and lot more disturbing, than whump.

“Justice is served,” declared The Silver Scourge as she turned to address her shock troop of soldiers. “Now,” she hissed, “in the name of Symkaria… bring me the head of Wolfgang von Strucker!”

[Still now…]

Her name was Rose Red. Not her birth name, of course - that had always been kept a closely guarded secret - but it was the name she was known by throughout the New York City underworld, a name that was feared. She was tall and slender, her body sheathed in a cream linen suit, cerise silk gloves and suede boots with a dagger heel, and a cerise silk facemask that was featureless save for two eye-slits behind a pair of burgundy rimmed spectacles. There was a single, ruby-red Danse de Feu in the buttonhole of her lapel.

The woman was an elegant curiosity. The man beside her was, in contrast, a gargoyle. A hunched body, shrouded in a dark green cloak, with a copper faceplate fashioned in the manner of a Hallowe’en pumpkin beneath the cowl. Jagged eyes and mouth lit from within by an eerie, flickering flame. He was the woman’s enforcer. Beauty and the beast. Rose Red and The Jack O’Lantern.

Typically the macabre pair did not entertain any outside presence in the penthouse rosarium that served as their sanctuary, but today was different. Today they were expecting a very special guest.

An elevator light glowed. A bell rang, announcing an arrival. The elevator doors opened. A man stepped out into an environment of artificially regulated warm air and intoxicating scents. The expression on his face - narrowed eyes, nose wrinkled, upper lip furled - suggested he wasn’t impressed.

“Sergei,” Red Rose murmured, absently stroking the stem of a Gypsy Carnival between thumb and forefinger as she nodded slightly in greeting from across the room. “Always a pleasure.”

The man was tall and lean, yet with an air of unmistakable strength about him, not least in the thick ridge of muscle across his shoulders. His skin was tanned, his hair rook black. His eyes were also dark, yet gleamed with flecks of gold. Two scars cut into his flesh, parallel, one on either cheek, stretching from his temples to the corners of his mouth. His lip, still furled, revealed a flash of pointed teeth. There was much about the man that was wolfish, but more so the feral feline qualities to his features and especially his eyes was unmistakable. He stood, seemingly motionless, yet at the same time his body was a riot of tense, rippling muscle. His chest appeared not to rise and fall with regular breathing but to vibrate with a deep, barely audible purr.

Sergei Alyosha Kravinoff-Fireheart, adopted son of Joseph Fireheart of the Navajo tribe of the Hartsdale reservation in New Mexico, regarded Rose Red with cold disdain. He didn’t even bother to spare a glance for the lurking Jack O’Lantern.

When he finally spoke it was with a deep, harsh, claw-scratch of a voice, still resonating with a rich Russian accent even after ten years away from his homeland.

“The Huntsman has answered your call,” he snarled, the gold in those black wildcat eyes burning bright. “Now… tell me all you know about The Spider, and leave the rest to me…”

The Huntsman! The Silver Scourge and her Wild Pack! Rose Red! The Jack O’Lantern! And… Gwen Stacy! What’s a Spider-Man to do? (Uh… because he is still alive, right? Right? Hello…?)

When I started this series I made a conscious decision that I wanted all issues to be self-contained where possible. The fact that I managed to last four issues before breaking that rule is actually pretty good for me. I thought I would have lapsed into long-windedness long before now. The reason for this is, of course, because of the debut of two spliced villains in this story, which is one more than intended. I was planning this to be the tale of The Huntsman in all his glory (you know which two villains have gone into his genetic merging, right?), but the deadly viper that is The Silver Scourge was just far too insistent that she be introduced too. Poor Ash.

So, apologies. But I guess that means you’ll just have to come back next issue to find out what happens, won’t you?

A deserved shout-out must go to Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, writer and penciller respectively during a superb run on Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man in the 80s. During a run of brilliant stories, not least the original saga of the black costume symbiote, they introduced three of my favourite comics characters of all time: Slyde, Silver Sable and Puma. Slyde hasn’t appeared yet in an Ultimate incarnation (operative word being yet) but this issue sees my skewed interpretation of the other two. DeFalco and Frenz based mercenary Silver on the template of the original platinum blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe, whereas I’ve always seen her more as Heart Of Glass-era Debbie Harry who would operate sensationally in Lara Croft, Tomb Raider territory; Puma, as a Wolverine-a-like wildling infused with Native American mythology, should always have been far more popular than he actually proved to be, possibly because he should have been called Cougar. (It would have had more gravitas, I think; hell, even Spider-Man compared the guy’s name to the running shoe in his first appearance, which didn’t bode well). Still, I’ve always adored Silver and Puma both, and it’s a blast to begin to use them here.

Kraven The Hunter, of course, is another of masterful Steve Ditko’s 60s creations, although his crowning glory came in the J.M. DeMatteis and Mick Zeck classic story Kraven’s Last Hunt, again in the 80s. He died in that tale, quite possibly one of the most memorable villain deaths of all time. The fact that Marvel basically reincarnated him when they introduced a never-before-mentioned son a few years later is heartbreakingly depressing. Why couldn’t they just leave well enough alone?

And then there’s The Scourge.

Hear me on this: I have never, never loathed a comics protagonist quite as much as Scourge, the Mark Gruenwald-created supervillain serial killer, and the source of some of the most pointless wastes of potentially great characters Marvel has ever perpetrated. So why I am torturing myself by invoking that cursed name here? Well, let me just say I couldn’t resist the allure of this particular splice - and that The Silver Scourge is an entirely different animal to her two key ingredients…

If you’d like to give feedback on this series, positive or critical, please don’t hesitate to drop a line to ameriades@hotmail.com

For those interested, a list of my fanfiction can be found at http://meriadesfiction.livejournal.com

Thanks for reading!

- Meriades Rai