AVENGERS BATTLE THE EARTH WRECKER "Chapter Three: Karrz, the Conqueror"

Read the Previous Chapter HERE

Chapter Three: Karzz, the Conqueror

Captain America could hardly guess how unusual was the “something” that Iron Man had run into and how deadly. He was plummeting like a stone toward the mammoth electromagnet on the peak of Mount Everest, pulled downward. by superpowerful forces.

But he had not given up all hope. Through his swirling mind a desperate plan had formed. Rapidly, his gloved hand grasped a dial on his chest and rheostated the total power of his suit to its highest output. Ten megawatts of energy sizzled through his circuits and fed into his antimagnetic unit.

Clashing forces flung him back a bit, as his antimagnetic radiation fought the supermagnetic pull below. But inexorably, he was drawn down again, his antimagnetic unit whining uselessly. It was like trying to paddle a canoe up Niagara Falls!

Still, his antimagnetic “brake” had slowed his fall considerably. Was it enough to save his steel suit from cracking open like an eggshell against the force-field cushion?

Fifty feet...25...10...5...WHAM!

A shriek tore from Anthony Stark’s lips, inside, as his outer iron hulk slammed into the force-field like a car smashing into a brick Wall at two hundred fifty miles an hour.

But his steel suit held up without cracking, and his built-in molecular-foam padding protected his fragile human body from absorbing too much of the bruising impact against the armored linings. With no more than his wind knocked out, Iron Man bounced a hundred feet high from the force-field barrier, then fell off to the side toward bare hard rock.

Shaking off reeling dizziness, Iron Man managed to shoot out a retro-braking burst of jets in time, so that he landed on his feet with no more of a jar than that of a than jumping down ten feet.

He swayed on his feet a moment, almost collapsing, but then his spirit-level adjusters and gyros automatically straightened him up. His blurred eyes cleared up and focused—on a man in a strange costume.

iron Man stared in wonder. The man was dressed in clothing that resembled no style ever seen on Earth before. His height and figure were average, but his face had a saturnine cast. Strangest of all was the malevolent expression in his frosty blue eyes, infinitely cold and hostile.

“An intruder,” came his harsh voice, as if he owned Mount Everest. “But you are different from the other Earth-people in my world monitor screen. You are encased in protective armor. Who are you?”

“My real name is unimportant,” answered Stark. “They call me Iron Man, the Avenger.” He waved at the humming machine, still awed. “And just who are you? Did you build this supermagnet‘? And Why?”

The stranger drew himself up regally, and spoke in lofty tones. “I am Karzz, the Conqueror!”

“I imagine I’m supposed to tremble at the name,” said Iron Man sarcastically, “but you might as well have said Joe Smirch, for all the name means to me. Where do you do your so-called conquering?”

“All over the universe, my mocking friend. World after World among the stars has fallen before my invincible legion of space warcraft. I am not a native of earth. l am from a far-off World of superscience beyond your imagination.”

Iron Man would have put him down for a harmless crackpot, except for one thing—the supermagnet. You couldn't laugh that off. And after all, it was a well-accepted theory that the universe was full of other habitable worlds, many of which might be further advanced than earth, to the point; of having achieved interstellar spaceflight.

“All right, you’re a denizen of another distant solar system,” agreed Iron Man. “I see that evolution on your world produced the same human species as earth did.”

“You are mistaken,” denied Karzz. A "faint smile played about his lips. “Prepare for a shock, earthling. We control metabolic transformation of our body tissues at will. Watch...this is how I really look.”

Before Iron Man’s eyes, the human form began to subtly and steadily alter, like a man melting down and changing into something else. The face and other human attributes faded into an amorphous mass, over which a new face and form began to superimpose themselves.

Iron Man’s eyes kept widening at what he saw materializing, portion by portion, until there stood before him a shocking monstrosity. He was in general still semi-man-like, and not changed in general size. But all else was utter madness....

A face with blotched purple skin...ghastly green lips...hair of a poisonous blue...and eyes that were fiery red like hot coals. The arms had changed into boneless tentacles with ten slender “fingers” that writhed. The two gnarled legs ended in hooves instead of feet.

It was a surrealistic creature beyond the imagination of a Dali...a nightmare beyond the wildest phantasmagorias of the human mind. Iron Man recoiled as if from a loathsome monster—yet there was intelligence in the creature’s face. Superintelligence, in. fact; and clammy fear clutched at Stark’s ailing heart. Earthmen could expect no mercy or pity from such coldly inhuman intellects.

“Appalled, Earthling?” mocked the alien. “But let me hasten to inform you that nausea strikes me when I gaze upon your horridly repulsive human form.” Letting that sink in," the alien began reversing the process, his monstrous form slowly metamorphosizing back to the human “disguise” he had worn before.

“It is not to spare your eyes that I adopt human form on Earth,” Karzz commented, “but because in my own form I am dangerously unadapted to the earthly environment. On our native planet, we breathe chlorine gas. And only in human guise can I breathe this horrible oxygen in your atmosphere, poisonous to us.”

Karzz shrugged and went on.

“To satisfy your curiosity as to why I can speak your language fluently, I have been on your world a week now. During that time I tuned in radio broadcasts and learned all languages.”

“All of them on Earth?” gasped Iron Man.

“Including all local idioms,” nodded Karzz. “In Americanese, for instance, I dig how the cats talk. Crazy, man.”

With a wry face, he turned haughty. “I know everything else about Earth. from my long-range sensors, scanners and monitors—the continents and oceans, mountains, rivers; also cities, subways, cars, trains, planes. And people, pets, and politics.”

“You absorbed all this in one short week!” marveled Iron Man, aware of the superintelligence facing him.

Then, bracing himself, he asked the next logical. but rhetorical question:

“You have come, I suppose, to conquer Earth now?”

“No, Earthman.”

Prepared for the affirmative, Iron Man was staggered, his head whirling.

“But you boasted of how many other planets you had conquered. Then what else could you be here for?”

“To destroy Earth!” hissed the alien, his eyes seething in ferocious hatred.

In America, the Avengers’ colorful Memorial Meet played on to a rapt TV audience.

“We have honored past members of the Avengers,” announced Captain America. “We will now review the current Avengers, giving a broad resume of their origin and special. abilities. First, a man. who sits nine feet tall in the saddle, and I’m not exaggerating. Here he is, the man mountain...the modern Gulliver...the walking skyscraper...Goliath!”

The spotlight limned the huge ten-foot form and a gasp sounded in every home in America that had television. The Wasp had flitted off his shoulder. '”This is your show, Big Boy. I’ll go press the button for the elephant to come on stage.”

Flying to the podium, the Wasp darted down and jammed the button with her descending feet, just before Captain America’s finger got there. She, grinned impishly at him.

Out on the stage of the auditorium, a big door flew open and a moving platform. came into view, on which stood a huge bull elephant with one end of a heavy rope wrapped in its trunk. Goliath picked up the other end. The rope tightened as he braced himself and the trained elephant began to pull.

“A tug of war between Goliath and a five-ton elephant,” sang out Captain America. “Don’t bet too soon on the wrong one!”

At first, the powerful beast began to back up, dragging Goliath forward. But then the towering Titan planted his feet, rippled his muscles, and began a slow, steady pull that first halted the elephant, then—incredibly—dragged him forward foot by foot, and finally brought him across the dividing line.

Panting, Goliath took a bow in the spotlight as the other Avengers‘ applauded. “You know it’s not muscle but sheer weight that wins a tug of war,” said Hawkeye maliciously, eyeing the Wasp. “It’s a good thing that cloudscraper has plenty of fat—between his ears.”

“Fat or not,” said the Wasp sweetly, “it can outthink whatever stuffing they put in your skull...probably

rocks "

Captain America cleared his throat as Goliath sat down.

“Now listen to the strange story -of Goliath, alias Giant Man, alias Ant-Man. He is a famous biologist in private life and one day, some years ago, he devised an astounding bio-serum which could shrink the human body down to insect size. He then became the Ant-Man for a while, cleverly using his tininess to outwit certain evil-doers.”

The spotlight now swung to the Wasp, again perched on Goliath’s shoulder.

“Dr. Henry Pym,” said Captain America, giving Goliath’s real name, for his “secret” identity had been revealed to the world at large, “eventually let his girl friend, share the bio-serum, a variation of which shrank her down to small size and gave her some of the characteristics that account for her name—the Wasp.”

The audience was listening raptly to Cap’s commentary as he continued. “The Wasp has shared in many Avenger adventures, doing her part in confounding our foes. Originally, like Ant-Man, she had to take the reducing serum each time, then an enlarging serum—a sort of antidote—to regain normal human size. But eventually with enough bio-serum in her body to last a long time, she developed a mental way to shoot down to small size, and back to human size. By will power alone.”

The spotlight under Cap’s control. swung back to Goliath.

“Let’s return to Ant-Man. Dr. Pym one day took an overdose of the enlarging serum, and instead of stopping at human size, he kept growing and growing to the tremendous height of twenty-five feet. He then joined the Avengers as Giant-Man. But in time, he found his Cyclopean stature too much of a handicap.”

“Probably,” Hawkeye murmured to the Wasp, “because too many people kept asking him, ‘Hey, how's the weather up there?’”

The star-spangled MC went on before the cameras. “Dr. Pym finally revised his formula so the bio-serum kept him below fifteen-feet tall...for a while. Even this was an unwieldy bulk to maneuver—especially into buildings made for people not much over a third his size-so he settled on a more modest ten feet, as he is today. Having been on a leave of absence from the Avengers for these experiments, he returned to us in a new uniform and with his new name of Goliath.”

Cap went on in a deadly serious tone. “Needless to say, this giant Avenger has helped us out of many a tight spot—tighter than if he himself tried to squeeze into a telephone booth.”

“He got himself into tight spots worse than that,” drawled Hawkeye for -the Wasp’s benefit, “like that time he got stuck in a narrow cave and the rest of us had to figure out some way of working him loose...before a load of nuclear bang-bang stuff went off and blew the place to bits. You weren’t there that time, Wasp.”

“Were you all blown to bits?” she asked innocently.

“Into a million bits,” growled Hawkeye. “But the same guy who put Humpty Dumpty together again came along and serviced us, see?”

“They never did put Mr. H. D. together again,” the Wasp reminded him. “So that explains why you’re scatter-brained at times.”

Hawkeye was about to make a sarcastic retort when the spotlight fell on him. He bounced to his feet and bowed in the grand manner, with the TV-camera lens aimed at him.

“Robin Hood, they say, could split arrows,” came Cap’s buildup. “But now you’re going to see a demonstration by Hawkeye, our third Avenger member, that would make envious Robin Hood put away his bow and retire.”

Hawkeye strode to the middle of the floor, where an attendant stood with a pistol, facing a target fifty. feet away. Hawkeye stood beside him, pulled an arrow from his quiver, and notched it to his bowstring.

Hawkeye pulled back the bowstring with deceptive ease; It would have taken two other strong men to do the same, one holding the bow, one pulling the string. His firing hand poised, Hawkeye snapped: “Fire!”

At the same instant that the attendant fired his pistol, Hawkeye’s bowstring twanged. A bullet and a sleek light-weight Wooden. arrow sped to the target in motion too fast for the TV eye to follow. '

But the TV camera could record what happened in the next milli-second, as described by Captain America. “See, folks? The arrow arrived first and the bullet split it!”

The thunderous applause all over America could not be heard, as Hawkeye, acting nonchalant, returned to his seat. 

Cap’s voice resumed. “This super-archer's repertory of arrows includes unique kinds of his own devising to perform ingenious feats. To name but a few—the blast-arrow that can blow open a locked door, the stun arrow for putting enemies out of action, the rocket harpoon to spear flying criminal craft, the bolo arrow to twine around a running man’s ankles before he can escape, and the sneeze smog arrow which both throws a smoke screen for an Avenger's escape and causes pursuers to sneeze violently and ruin their aim with weapons. There are many more.”

“Especially the bombast arrow,” whispered the Wasp, “which carries a recording of Hawkeye bragging about himself and bores the enemy to death.”

Hawkeye had to keep smiling. He was on camera.

“Hawkeye’s history is somewhat like that of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch,” Cap informed the audience. “He had been a bitter and resourceful foe of Iron Man for a while. But not by his own choosing. In reality, he had been wrongly suspected of crime by the police, which led him to join forces with a notorious girl-spy, the Black Widow. This enmeshed him in intrigue that further got him in bad with the authorities. Hunted like .a criminal, he was forced. to battle for his own life and freedom.”

“A poor, misunderstood, downtrodden slob,” murmured the Wasp, wiping away a false tear. Then she brightened. “But there’s justice after all, and today you’re a heroic, honored, and respected . . . slob.”

Hawkeye kept smiling into the TV camera, but his hand, which was off-camera, moved around to where he could reach toward the tiny tormentor on Goliath’s shoulder.

But when Hawkeye flicked his finger to give her what would amount to a good slap, he met nothing. Then a larger form grew rapidly nearby until the Wasp was her normal girl size.

“Did you forget,” she smiled, walking away from the frustrated Hawkeye, “that I was to take over and tell about Captain America himself?”

On the podium, the Wasp whispered to Cap: “Actually, Iron Man was supposed to get the build-up bit before you, Cap. What do you suppose is holding him tip?”

“Oh, maybe he met the Man from Mars,” said Cap, trying to sound blithe, and not knowing how close his quip had come to the grim truth….

A "Grim Truth" We'll Learn About on Monday at Hero Histories in...
Chapter Four: Earth Death!
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AVENGERS BATTLE THE EARTH WRECKER "Chapter Two: Mount Everest Mystery"

Read the Previous Chapter HERE!

 Chapter Two: Mount Everest Mystery

But Captain America was wrong.

Far across the world in the Himalayas, a golden-armored figure glinting in the sun was soaring through the azure sky, circling, darting, swooping among the tallest mountain peaks on earth.

“Treacherous downdrafts and updrafts here are the best test for the new transistorized jet-propulsors in my boot-heels,” he thought, zooming at 500 miles per hour toward a mountain cliff, then veering sharply upward to sail safely over its jagged edge. “It’s all working fine.”

To any watcher, it would have been an unbelievable sight—a heavy metallic form gliding through the air with buoyant ease. The steel suit was gilded over the arms, legs, and face-plate, while the torso, gloves, and boots were tinted crimson. In general appearance, it was nothing like a knight of old, but more like a modern manlike robot.

Yet this was no mechanical being. Within the iron “uniform”—unknown to the world at large, and even to his fellow Avengers—was Anthony Stark, millionaire playboy and weapons inventor. His armored costume was not only an outer protection against harm, but an inner protection against death. Without his steel suit, except for brief periods of time, Anthony Stark would die…of heart failure!

It was a strange story…

During a visit to the Vietnam war theater, to demonstrate a transistorized super-weapon, Stark had fallen prey to a Vietcong booby trap—a buried land mine. The blast mangled his body, but skilled surgery by the enemy saved his life and restored him to normal activity—except for his heart. Pieces of shrapnel had lodged so close to his heart that the surgeons could not remove them. And they had warned that any strenuous move on Stark’s part might dislodge the bits of metal to pierce his heart and bring death.

Bitterly, Anthony Stark had resigned himself to face a lifetime as a near-invalid…if he lived any kind of lifetime.

All this while Stark was an enemy prisoner. They had saved his life in order to wrest from him his scientific secrets and gain newly invented weapons. By a stroke of fate, a famous oriental biologist was also a prisoner at that time, in the same stockade. In secret collusion with him, Stark devised a daring plan—to build a magnetized iron suit that would continually pull outward at the pieces of shrapnel within his body and keep them from working inward toward his heart. Also, the knight-like armor was planned as an aid toward their escape from imprisonment.

Pretending that they were collaborating and building a fantastic new weapon for the Vietcong to use, the two prisoners were given free rein in a laboratory to carry out their ruse. Finally, one day, Stark had stepped forth in an iron suit, suitably magnetized to save his heart from puncture, and ingeniously powered by transistorized technology to allow Stark to walk, manipulate his arms and carry on all other normal human activities—plus one other that was unique. By means of miniaturized power-packs in his boots, he could jet-propel himself into the air and fly at supersonic speeds, faster in fact than any jetcraft known. Through this, he had escaped from imprisonment and returned to America.

In order to join the Avengers and battle science renegades and their insidious weapons, Iron Man had later incorporated a wide variety of rays, forces, and devices as his own built-in weaponry.

Now he was proving out the latest advanced design in his flying system: “Mount Everest is the final test,” he thought to himself. “Braving the chilly blasts and roaring winds around its peak, piercing six miles high into the air, will prove whether I really have the all-weather flying ability I want. So, here goes….”

Iron Man jetted upward as the majestic peak reared before him…higher…higher…higher. A fierce canyon gale knocked him 500 feet sideways, but he recovered. A sudden downdraft, like a smashing blow, made him gasp as he plummeted a thousand feet down toward jagged ice blocks. But with a surge of his drumming boot-blasts he jetted back upward into the teeth of the howling downwind.

Next an updraft flung him like a cork, straight up for a mile, way beyond the tip of Everest. He fought his way down from the numbingly cold heights, agilely aiming for the summit. When a vicious whirlwind of air mixed with snow spun him around in a relentless grip, Iron Man turned himself broadside and maneuvered into the quiet “eye,” then safely sped out of one side of the whirlpool.

The next instant, something yanked him downward again, with staggering force. How many tricks did the mighty mountain have to try against puny man?

“Wait, there’s something different about this,” he said to himself. “It’s not a downdraft at all. It feels more like…Magnetism?” The last questioning thought brought a gasp of startled surprise from his lips.

Since when did Everest display magnetic force? It had never been reported by the various expeditions who had reached the top and conducted scientific experiments there. Iron Man poured more jet power into his boot propulsors, but the powerful force kept pulling him downward.

“I can’t break out of it,” he thought, and panic crept into his mind. “If my downward speed keeps increasing at this rate, I’ll smash into the peak at a thousand miles an hour!” He didn’t dare finish the thought that even his intricate, super-reinforced steel suit could never survive that frightful impact.

As his golden form hurtled downward, in the grip of an incredible magnetic force, he suddenly spied something at the tip of Mount Everest. There, in a flat stretch of bare wind-swept rock, was something unbelievable.

“Am I having hallucinations from oxygen starvation?” he thought wildly. “I see a gigantic machine! It must be a powerful electromagnet!”

More details came out as he spun lower and closer. Banks of huge horseshoe magnets ran side by side, on top of a framework support, below which lay a bulging sphere of riveted steel, obviously the power plant. A violet purling glow surrounded the sphere, the telltale sign of a nuclear dynamo. But it must be of enormous power to feed the electromagnets and create enough magnetism to pull Iron Man down from a mile high.

Iron Man read his multiple-data wrist gauge and his eyes grew wide.

“One billion gauss?” Even his thoughts babbled now. “Why, that’s thousands of times stronger than any magnet ever produced in a research lab! That’s enough magnetic pull to tow all the cars on earth after it, or to pull apart a skyscraper beam by beam. It could lift twenty-five ocean liners like the Queen Mary a hundred miles high into orbit. It could, if aimed at the moon, even begin to pull it steadily out of orbit.”

Anthony Stark was not imagining wild things. He was a scientist. He knew exactly what this unprecedented magnetic force could do—the unthinkable.

Now Iron Man’s amazed thoughts turned to other burning questions. How had this supermagnet come here? Who was behind it? What was its purpose?

All this lanced through his mind in lightning rapidity as he fell like a stone, straight down toward that inescapable giant magnet. He noticed several meteorites whizzing past him, also attracted to the huge horseshoe device. They were meteors that had been sailing past earth and were simply yanked out of their age-old space trajectory!

Iron Man saw that arriving meteors did not wreck the supermagnet. Ten feet above the device, they met an invisible cushion and bounced away harmlessly. What sort of superscientific “force field” protected the magnet?

Iron Man rolled up his eyes, breathing a last prayer, as he plummeted down the final hundred feet at meteoric velocity.

Across the world at Avenger headquarters, Captain America glanced at the clock with a slight frown. “What’s with Iron Man?” he thought worriedly. “Why isn’t he here yet?”

He then turned to look into the TV camera, and spoke for the benefit of their vast unseen audience. “This is a special event in the Avengers’ annals. We decided to hold this Memorial Meet in honor of former members of the group in past years, those who are now engaged elsewhere in their own solo activities. But they will never be forgotten for the great services they performed as Avengers in past years.”

The star-spangled Avenger paused to stab his finger at a stud on the podium’s control board. The lights dimmed in the great hall. Then an automatic spotlight swung down to limelight a huge statue standing in an arched niche in the wall.

Neon letters blazed forth—

Thor, God of Thunder

No doubt a vast cheer went up from millions of homes. But the Avengers sat silently, honoring a former Avenger with an unvoiced accolade. Captain America then spoke their official eulogistic tribute:

“Mighty Thor, the immortal god who journeyed from Asgard to Earth to join the Avengers when we needed him most. Who will forget his mighty hammer, with which he could shatter steel or stone? Or the thunder-and-lightning storms he created to confound our enemies? Or his magnificent courage battling villainous foes who wielded awesome dark powers that even nullified Thor’s magic? Or….”

“Or,” muttered Hawkeye, fidgeting in his seat, “Thor’s pompous attitude and the lingo he used, half flowery and all square?”

“A philologist,” observed the Wasp in defense of Thor, from Goliath’s shoulder, “you are not, Archerman. Look it up in the dictionary….”

“I know,” growled Hawkeye. “Under Ph, not F. You mean Thor has word-skill, eh? That’s funny—under F, not Ph.”

“Does his ability make you Thor?” whispered the Wasp. “Under S, not Th.”

Hawkeye silently threw up his hands in surrender. Captain America was saying, “In conclusion, we can all cry Well done, Thor! At present, he has returned to his abode in Asgard.”

Cap pressed another stud and the searchlight shifted to a statue titled

Quicksilver

a man in a two-tone green uniform. His silvery hair stuck out at the sides as winglike tufts.

“Like his name,” said Captain America, “Quicksilver moved with fantastic speed, which came from his being a mutant variety of human being. Back in his Balkan homeland, Quicksilver’s everyday name was Pietro. He guarded his secret abilities well, but often used them as an Avenger.”

Cap’s eyes misted a bit as if looking into the past. “Quicksilver was a blur of motion, able to outspeed cars, trains, or planes as if they were stuck in mud. He could run circles around any Olympic track star. He won every grim race of life and death against Father Time himself.”

“Is Cap for real?” snorted Hawkeye in a low tone. “Methuselah there is giving us cornball jazz that went out with Ben Hur’s chariot. When will he catch up with the jet age? Can’t he dig plain English?”

“Shush!” spat out the Wasp. “Cap came from an earlier generation than ours. You can’t blame him if his speech is behind the times. But when it comes to a fight, he speaks absolutely modern clobberese with his fists, right? So we can forgive him being a bit of a square.”

“Square?” choked Hawkeye. “He’s a cube…cubed. Why, I…Ulk!”

Hawkeye’s whisper choked off, for the simple reason that Goliath’s huge forefinger and thumb around his throat had given a tiny squeeze…enough to make Hawkeye turn purple, unable to catch his breath, let alone talk for the next few moments.

Cap swung the spotlight to a third statue. Another girl like the Wasp was portrayed, but in a witch-like scarlet costume as befitted her emblazoned name that lighted up—

The Scarlet Witch

“Pietro’s sister, Wanda,” explained Captain America for the benefit of the TV audience, “was also a mutant, but her special ability lay in witch-like supernatural powers. For a while, both Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were pawns in the hands of Magneto, an unscrupulous mastermind. And originally, they were thus the enemies of the law and fought against a famed band called the X-Men, while carrying out Magneto’s sinister schemes. They voluntarily joined the Avengers later, to make up for their former misdeeds under duress.”

“So?” muttered Hawkeye. “I was also an anti-Avenger at one time, or at least I battled Iron Man time and again. Then, on my own, I reformed and became a good guy. So who pats me on the back? If you ask me….”

“We aren’t asking you a thing, William Tell-it-all,” came from the Wasp icily. “Besides, we current members of the Avengers all get a run-down later, addressed to the TV viewers. Wait your turn, Bow Twanger.” Hawkeye glared at the Wasp. Goliath glared at Hawkeye. Hawkeye decided to glare elsewhere.

The lights came on again and Captain America snapped erect. “In conclusion, let us salute the former Avengers for their deeds, always to be remembered as long as Avengers keep assembling.”

As they started to rise to their feet, a tiny voice buzzed in Goliath’s ear. “Careful, High Pockets…the ceiling, you know.”

Barely in time, Goliath bent his neck and stood half bowed as they all saluted the three statues and said in chorus, “Hail to Thor, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch!”

Captain America now smiled for the cameras, relaxing. But inside he was wondering, “When is Iron Man going to show up? What’s keeping him? Did he run into something unusual?”

The Answer to Those Questions Will be Found Right Here on Thursday in...
Chapter Three: Karrz the Conquerer

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The RetroBlogs Summer Blogathon Continues...with AVENGERS BATTLE THE EARTH WRECKER!

It's the over-half century old, never-reprinted novel...

...that introduced the Marvel Universe into prose!
Note: neither Quicksilver or the Scarlet Witch appear in the book, though they're referenced, along with Thor, as past members.

The Wasp and Iron Man are the other featured members of the team in this story!

The cover art is by James Bond movie poster artist Robert McGinnis!

Written by long-time pulp/comic book writer Otto Binder (whose comic book credits include Superman and the original Captain Marvel, this never-reprinted tale is a rolicking, fast-paced adventure that would have made a kool flick back in the Swinging 60s!

Trivia: Binder co-created both Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes!

Though there had been numerous paperback reprints of Marvel comics by Lancer Books, this was the first prose novel...and an original story, not an adaptation of any of the comics tales!
There were three previous comic book prose novels before this...all based on DC characters!
George Lowther's Adventures of Superman, which, technically, was based on the radio show (not surprising since Lowther was the show's story editor and occasional scripter), and Winston Lyon's (William Woolfolk's) duo of books about the Dynamic Duo; Batman vs the Three Villains of Doom (based as much on the tv show as the comic) and Batman vs the Fearsome Foursome (a novelization of the 1966 theatrical movie).

Let's have a look at what the book is about!

Here's the inside cover hero lineup..
Monday, read the intro and first chapter of this lost classic at
Hero Histories!

Coming Monday to Hero Histories...

Riddle Me This, Caped Crusader Aficionados...

...how many of the legendary 1960s TV series' episodes were based on actual comic book stories?
The answer is...more than you think!

There's even a book reprinting a number of those graphic tales...but not all of them!

But, did you know a 1960s TV series tie-in novel with an original story (not a novelization of series episodes or the feature film) also adapted several comic stories into its' narrative?

We re-presented (starting HERE) this never-reprinted, original 1966 novel by "Winston Lyon" (actually noted Golden Age/Silver Age comics writer William Woolfolk) which combined elements of both the comic book and TV series versions of the Caped Crusader!

What we didn't realize at the time, was how much of the comic book version was actually taken directly from the comics!

Three different comics stories, each one featuring a different villain/villainess, were utilized to present multi-chapter crimes to baffle the Dynamic Duo!
We're presenting these tales in the order the foul fiends perpetuate their perfidy in the novel, along with links to the actual chapters for each one...

Monday!

Wednesday!

Friday!
The Four-Color Fun Starts Tomorrow at Hero Histories !
Same Bat-Time!
Same Bat Blog!
One hint...The campiest is yet to come !

Reading Room FANTASTIC FOUR: DOOMSDAY Part 25

Twenty-Five

You Can Read the Previous Chapter HERE!

Victor Von Doom stood silent and pensive beside the massive thirty-five-ton Heelstone, his grim gaze riveted on the great trilithon seventy-five meters away. Night still blanketed the great plains of Salisbury, and the moon, low on the far horizon, made the awesome monoliths of Stonehenge a black silhouette painted on a dark gray canvas.

To the East, Doom could see the sun begin to rise; golden glimmers of light made hesitant intrusions into the blackness everywhere. It was now time. Before the sun was high, when it could still be seen stretching across the long, endless plains, Doom had to position himself before the double trilithon, the four massive stone pillars topped with three stone slabs.

Then, as the sun rose from behind the Heelstone, and light pierced the spaces between the trilithons, he would utter the words he had read so many years before in his mother’s diary. The spaces between the columns would then shimmer with an alien glow, and Doom would unleash the energy he had tapped from the dark recesses of the Negative Zone. Then, at long last, he would have what he had long prayed for. He would pierce the veil between life and death itself. He would enter the forbidden regions of the netherverse; he would cross into the shadow zone where those long dead still walked.

Through this region he would seek out the one he wanted. He would find Cynthia, his long-departed mother. He would speak to this woman he was so much like, yet had never truly known. And he would learn from her the darkest secrets that had always eluded his grasp.

Around him were the remains of Stonehenge, the last vestiges of a people who lived more than four thousand years before; not the Druids, as man had long suspected, but of three separate tribes, each changing, each adding to make Stonehenge the mystic monument it was.

Doom kneeled by the great trilithon and the three windows into the netherworld. From his cloak he removed the old book of spells he had found as a child in his father’s trunk. And though he had long ago memorized the words, he opened to the proper page and read the prayer written so many years before in the hand of his mother.

The stones were black against a golden light as he raised his hands toward the heavens. “Astoreth and Mogoleth, Shintath and Beelzebub, demons of darkness and light, shadows and substance, reality and fantasy, truth and lies, I, who am worthless, call upon your powers great and terrible. I humble myself before your greatness. I sacrifice myself before your wonderment. I am nothing and you are all.”

The chasms of light between the stones grew dark and scarlet. Doom raised his head and saw the sunlight filtering in everywhere but between these four great stones. The spell was working. Soon he would find his mother. Soon she would tell him the spells that would give him the power over every living being on Earth.

Doom stood between the center stones, his hands outstretched, touching the portal walls. He could see into the scarlet, see the dark shimmering shapes trudge slowly here and about, as if weighted down by anchors.

He could see the outlines of ten million figures, then ten million more. All who had ever died were here before him now. He could reach out and touch a Caesar, or a Napoleon, or an Einstein, should he choose to do so. But he wished to speak to only one soul. He wanted his mother.

His fingers glowed as the negative energy he had tapped poured from his armor. It would cut a path through the shadow region. He could use it to open the dimension as he had never been able to open it before. He could enter the land of the dead, walk beside the souls and find his mother’s essence. At last he could penetrate the lands beyond.

The scarlet haze seemed to part, and for the first time Doom could see the region beyond as clearly as if it were real and shared his substance. No longer was it a misty unknown. No longer was it impenetrable. Now it belonged to him.

Dr. Doom had mastered the land of the dead.

And then he stepped within.

Time flowed backward here. Those most recently deceased stepped in slow motion before him. He would have to penetrate the veil even deeper. He would have to go back those many years to the time when he was still an infant.

Negative energy crackled around him with every step forward he took. He passed bodies he had known, others that he recognized; most he could care less about. They were simply dead ones not to be bothered with.

His step was slow and precise; he had to stay on his path or he could never leave this land of the shadows.

Then, like something muffled by cotton, he heard a distant voice. It called his name. “Doom . . . Doom!” He looked about, but there was no one before him he recognized. The voice became louder, more penetrating.

He realized it wasn’t coming from within this veiled dimension. It came from outside, back in Stonehenge. Suddenly everything vanished and he was standing before the trilithon. Behind him, the sun to their backs, stood the Fantastic Four.

Reed ran toward him. “Don’t do it, Doom. You’ll unleash forces you can’t control.”

Doom’s eyes were wide in shock. “How did you find me? How did you know?”

“You absorbed radiation and energy from the Negative Zone. Long ago, when I first learned of the Zone’s existence, I created a detector for that energy. It was a simple matter to adjust it to follow you. With that power coursing through you, you were like a radar beacon.”

“Then you followed me here only to die. I shall not fail, Richards. Not now. I swear that.”

Doom shimmered with wild, crackling energy. “I’ve enough power to reopen the gateway, and still enough to keep you away from me while I do.”

“Stand back, everyone!” Reed shouted as he ducked behind a column.

Sue spread her energy field around her, and Johnny flamed on and flew high over the stone monoliths. Only Ben Grimm stood in place, his fists waving at Doom.

“Ya crummy little tin can, I’m fed up ta here with ya. Ya try ’n’ kill us, ya do everythin’ ya want ta destroy us. But ya didn’t succeed, Doomsie, ya didn’t win, an’ ya won’t win—’cause we’re the ever-lovin’ Fantastic Four. An’ mister, we got the power ta lay you low!”

Doom was frothing at the mouth, his voice raised to a fevered pitch. His eyes crackled with unbridled energy. “You insignificant little cretin, you fail to understand the power I now control. You cannot possibly comprehend the magnificence of my discovery. I possess powers undreamed of. I have seen the other side; I have crossed the vale into the land of the dead. And you actually have the tenacity to say you are going to stop me from completing that which I’ve only begun?

“Dolt! Ludicrous, moronic dolt—not even you possess that power. No one but Doom possesses the power.” His hands raised, his feet spread apart, the field of energy surrounding Doom began to spread wide and out.

It pushed through the other monoliths, and like the ripples in a pond continued to radiate outward from the center. Ben stepped toward the sparkling black cloud that swirled before him. He reached out to touch it. Instantly, he felt himself on fire. His hand grew numb; he froze as the cloud swept over him. His body was burning up. At any moment he would ignite and instantly crumble to ash.

“Ben! Get out of there!” Johnny swooped downward but saw Reed Richards wave him away.

“Don’t, Johnny—if you touch him you’ll be affected, as well. Sue, throw a skintight force field around me. It’s Ben’s only chance.”

Sue nodded and complied. A moment later Reed stretched toward Ben. He wrapped his elongated body around the orange-hided Thing from head to foot, then stretched toward a distant monolith. With all his strength he snapped his body forward, and Ben was whisked back, away from the field.

Reed shouted toward Johnny, who landed at his side. “Quickly, use your powers—siphon away the heat. If we can lower his body temperature before it causes any permanent damage, Ben has a chance of surviving.”

Johnny grabbed Ben’s arms and closed his eyes. “Ya gotta live, big buddy. Man, ya gotta live.”

Sue held onto Reed’s arm as they both watched the red glow that surrounded Ben begin to fade. Johnny was doing it. He was siphoning off the searing heat which was killing Ben.

As Ben collapsed to the ground, the others clustering about him, Dr. Doom turned once more to the trilithon. For a second time the sacred words were spoken, and again the scarlet haze filtered through the three portals.

He stepped inside, no longer content to gaze in wonderment. About him on all sides were the walking dead. He continued on through, passing the wretched and the worthless, pushing aside the useless and those who served not his purpose.

“Victor?” He heard the voice call him. Was it a trick? Was it that infernal Reed Richards again? He continued on and the voice grew louder. “Victor.” The voice was dark, ethereal, strange beyond recognition. Yet it came from within the land of the shadow. He pushed forward.

He stood before the man who smiled at him. “Victor, I knew one day you would come here, my son.”

“Father?” Doom stared at him, unsure what to say. “Father? I do not believe it. It can’t be you.”

“Why not?” the man answered calmly. “You came to the land of the dead. I am dead. You seek your mother, but I died more recently. It is only correct that you must pass me before you can reach your goal.”

“You know why I am here, Father?”

“You seek power, Victor. I know that. I have always known that, and I have always prayed you would not find it.”

“What? You want me to be a weak-kneed fool like the others? No, Father. You have changed. Or perhaps you forget how the Baron’s men killed my mother. Perhaps you forget that we fled from their tyranny, and you died because of them. But I have not forgotten that, Father. And I seek my absolute power to destroy all those who have both hunted and feared Von Doom.”

Werner Von Doom grew angry, his face contorted in the eerie glow. “No, Victor, it is you who have forgotten the truth. I always sought to help people. I would never raise a finger to cause any man harm. Your mother was the same, Victor. She used her powers for good, not evil. No, my son, we have not changed. You have. You have become evil, twisted. You are no longer my son.”

“You lie, old man!” Doom was shouting now, his face livid with hatred. He wanted to throttle the old one but found he could not. “All my life I sought vengeance on those who killed my parents. Now you dare to call me mad. Never! Never!”

Arrogantly, Doom pushed his father, but the older man would not move. “Do not stop me, Father. I want to see my mother. I want to hear the dark prayers from her lips.”

“She will not teach them to you, Victor. She, too, abhors what you have become. Accept the truth, Victor—return to your world and change your ways. There is time. There is always time while you still live.”

Doom raised his hands high; bolts of negative energy formed in a circle around them. “You are telling me that everything I have ever dreamed of is a lie, everything I have ever strived for is false. No! That cannot be. That must never be. No man, not even you, can tell me that!”

The negative force expanded. It enveloped Doom and spread to his father and cut through the scarlet haze that was everywhere. Doom’s voice, strong and powerful, became distant and muffled. “Everything cannot be a lie. I sought power for vengeance . . . now vengeance cannot be mine . . . no . . . no . . . I cannot accept that . . . I—”

“You are wrong, Victor; you sought your vengeance not for us, but for yourself. You wanted powers that should belong to no man. You make me ashamed that you were born of our flesh. Renounce your evil ways, Victor. Renounce them, or we shall renounce you.”

“Never, you weak-kneed old fool. If I was wrong about anything, it was my love for you. You were always a fool. A strong man would have fought back when the Baron killed his wife. But you, oh, you permitted him his fun. You said nothing as my mother died. Now, out of my way, Father, or, so help me, I’ll blast you where you stand.”

“Then do so, Victor. I will not move.” His father lowered his hands to his side and Doom raised his armored hand and unleashed a terrible destructive ray at the man he had worshipped for so many years.

The man crumpled to the ground, and Doom stepped past the spot where his father had stood a moment before. The contemptible fool. He was wrong about everything. But I still seek my mother. She will show me the way. She will tell me how Dr. Doom can rule this world.

The path before him was long and winding and it threatened to go on forever into the distance. But that mattered none to Dr. Doom. Nothing mattered to him now except the finding of his mother. She will help him. She will guide him to his ultimate triumph.

After all, she had named him Victor. How could victory elude him?

He continued along the path, disgusted at the peasants who walked somnambulistically beside him. What foul creatures these are, he felt. They were not fit to walk the same path his mother walked.

He saw her in the distance; her long white gown shimmered against the pale red mist. He called out to her. “Mother?” She turned, and he saw she was as beautiful as he had been told.

“Mother? Is that you?” Silently, she nodded.

“I am Cynthia Von Doom, Victor. You are my son, and the killer of my husband. Why have you invaded the serenity of my death? Why have you sought me out? Why do you not leave us alone? Have you not already disgraced the name Von Doom? Have you not made a mockery of all we had taught you? Leave me alone, Victor. Your father has already banished you. I do not wish to see you now, or ever. Go!”

“No! You cannot mean that. I, who have always called your name. I love you. I want to sit by your side and learn from you. You were a witch and I inherited your awesome power. Surely you cannot renounce my destiny—a destiny that you, yourself, created.”

Her eyes flared with fire as she spoke. “To be a witch is not to be evil. It is to possess power, and power can be used for good. You choose to use your power for evil, Victor. You made your decision yourself. Do not pretend that I gave you that legacy. Do not believe I wish you to be as you are.

“Look at yourself, Victor. Look at your face.”

Doom saw a silver mirror appear before him and his mask mystically opened. He saw the scarred battleground his face had become: a twisted, disgusting mockery of humanity. His hands flew to his face, he covered his ravaged features with his palms, but still the haunting visage appeared in the mirror. Still he could see his evil persona stare back at him in horror.

“You are as twisted and evil as your face, Victor. You have permitted yourself to die long before death had ever claimed you. Now, Victor, renounce your past. Now, Victor, change your ways. There may yet be time for salvation. Speak, my son. Tell the gods you wish to be a new man. Shout to all who can hear that Victor Von Doom is dead, and a phoenix shall rise from his ashes. Speak now, or forever face damnation.”

Doom’s bloodshot eyes were wide in horror as he stared at the woman he knew to be his mother. “You ask me things I cannot do. You should know that I am Victor Von Doom. I cannot surrender myself to such beliefs. No, mother, if you are truly her, and if this shadow land has not changed you, as it has my father, then you would honor me as I am. You would acknowledge that I have fought to be worthy of the name Von Doom.

“Our name was once spat upon by the Barons of Latveria. Now it is a name to be feared and respected. You cannot tell me I am evil, for I have read your diary. I know how you once thought. I spoke your dark spells as you once had. I am your son; you cannot deny me that.”

“Victor, I spoke those spells as a child. But long before I met your father, I renounced the ways of the black witches and dark sabbats. That diary was mine, kept to remind me of my awesome power and the evil it could cause. I relinquished that power. You embraced it. I am sorry, Victor, truly I am sorry. But there is no further use for us to talk.

“I cannot permit you to return to your land of the living and to wield your terrible power. I cannot allow you to wreck havoc on an unsuspecting mankind. You must remain here, where our forces will change you. You will see the truth, Victor. You will accept the truth as all men come to do.”

Doom stepped back, his hands outstretched, waving away the woman who approached him. He pushed through two walking corpses, and ran terrified along the narrow path. His mother followed behind him, walking slowly, yet never falling far behind.

Doom ran, his hopes, his dreams, all shattered. He damned his mother and father, and cursed this land of shadows, and knew he could stay here not a moment more. “I have mastered death!” he cried. “You will not master me!”

He turned as he ran. His mother was still behind him, arms beckoning him toward her. “Stay here, Victor. It is your only chance. If you return to your world, you will face horrors unknown to man. Remain here with us.”

He whirled and fired a terrifying blast at the beckoning figure. His mother smiled as the golden glow surrounded her. “I am already dead, Victor. I cannot die again.”

“No more than I could die, Victor.” Once more Doom spun, and he saw Werner Von Doom standing before him. “There was no way for me to hold you, my son. You had to see the truth. Your mother had to be the one to show it to you.”

“No! You lie! You all lie!” Doom slammed his hand into his father, but the man did not move. Sweat beaded down Doom’s face, stinging his still sore wounds.

“Allow your mother to hold you, Victor. You will learn.”

Doom struggled, but his father held him still. He saw his mother approach him. She lifted her hand and she smiled. He screamed as her warm hand descended on his iron-clad shoulder.

Beyond the wall of seething energy, the Fantastic Four could only stand and watch. Ben Grimm stirred and rose to his feet. Doom could be seen standing in the scarlet mist. Another figure stood behind him, a smaller, slender figure before him. They could hear Doom scream and struggle, and fight.

Ben tried to reach out, but Reed called him back. “Don’t—whatever is happening to Doom, we can’t affect its outcome. It’s not happening here. We can only observe it.”

“But what is it, Reed? I don’t understand?” Johnny shook his head in bewilderment.

“I don’t understand it either, Johnny. I don’t think any of us could hope to comprehend what’s happening to him now.”

Sue cried out. “Look—everything’s fading . . . it’s all disappearing. It’s as if it’s all over.

“And Doom’s being taken away—the mist’s covering him—he’s looking back at us, Reed. Look at him—look at his face. He’s calling to us. Reed! He wants our help. He wants us to grab him. Can’t we do anything, Reed?”

Reed shook his head. “No, Sue. This is beyond even our power. Doom unleashed forces that cannot be controlled. And now he’s paying the ultimate penalty.”

The scarlet mist covered Doom in a shroud of darkness. Suddenly the glow from the trilithon seemed to expand beyond the gateway. Crimson bolts shot out in all directions as the wind whipped through the Stonehenge monuments.

Reed cried out. “Grab onto a boulder—this is all coming to a head!”

Suddenly Stonehenge was caught in the throes of a hurricane. Johnny felt his body being torn from the stone he grabbed onto. Reed tied his legs about his massive monolith and stretched toward his young teammate. “Sue! We need you now—try to encircle us with a force bubble.”

The scarlet shroud seemed to blanket all of Stonehenge. Then, suddenly, there was nothing. The winds fell silent, and they saw the crimson color fade and sunlight stream through the trilithon. The dimension of shadows was gone, and it had taken Dr. Doom with it.

Reed fell to the ground weak, panting for breath. In the distance he could hear a tour bus turning into the parking lot across the highway. In a few minutes the first tourists of the day would come streaming over the Salisbury Plain, snapping photographs, gaping at the ages-old monument, wondering who had built it and what purpose it had served.

A few would see four tired, haggard figures stagger from the ruins and enter a private car which would soon take them to a distant airport. But none would ever know what had transpired here just moments before.

And another mystery of Stonehenge would be swallowed up by time.

To Be Concluded...Tomorrow at

Seduction of the Innocent!

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Reading Room FANTASTIC FOUR: DOOMSDAY Part 23

 
Twenty-Three

You Can Read the Previous Chapter HERE!

A green glow filled the massive wall-screen, leaving Dr. Doom speechless as he peered deeper and deeper into the strange, undescribable universe revealed before him. Alien shapes stretched into infinity, weird, crag-like formations jutted out in all directions, and then there was the vast emptiness, the long stretches of green melting into blue, fading into red and into black.

Crimson clouds floated freely through the void, wisping past multicolored dots of light: planets man had never before seen, worlds no living life forms had ever set foot upon.

This was the Negative Zone, the cosmic field of reverse polarity that Reed Richards had discovered months before and had only lately begun to explore. Doom was overwhelmed by the incredible sights he witnessed: the vast panorama of a totally alien dimension. This mind-numbing discovery had always eluded him; the piercing of another dimension had been his dream, and he had failed miserably at making that dream a reality.

But Reed Richards had pierced the cosmic plane; he alone had uncovered the secret of negative force. And though Doom cursed his foe, despised his own failure, still what he had always sought was now here within his grasp. The Negative Zone was his to harness.

He reached for the coupling units. He had to enter this Negative Zone. He had to witness firsthand its awesome power. And more, he had to siphon its negative energy, to draw it into his armor, which had been especially prepared for this very moment; the unbridled energy he needed to complete his vast cosmic scheme.

His years of planning, hoping, having his hopes dashed, re-scheming, and re-plotting were finally on the threshold of realization. Very soon the one truth that had always eluded him would be his.

The coupling unit to the Negative Zone door was melted over. Beneath his armored mask, Doom sneered. His hand grasped the adamantium steel door, electrical energy crackled from his gauntlet, and the coupling began to melt anew.

His heart beat faster; his perspiration increased. Doom felt elated, light-headed, giddy. Success was within his grasp. The steel dripped down the door like rain on a windowpane. He could hear himself breathing heavily in anticipation. Any moment now, any moment and he would fling open the door and an entirely new universe would be his.

“Hold it, Doom. You’ve gone far enough.”

Doom knew the voice and he cursed his foe even before he turned around.

Reed Richards stood grim-faced behind him. Behind Richards was the lumbering Thing, Susan Richards, the Invisible Girl, and Johnny Storm, the Human Torch.

“You bumbling, insignificant dolts!” Doom shouted, displaying an almost insane hatred of this foursome. “I cannot be stopped now, not while I stand here ready to realize all my dreams!”

Even as he spoke, his hands danced with electrical fire. Within moments the small lab room was filled with a fearsome static charge. But Richards only shook his head sadly. “It won’t help you, Doom. Our costumes are constructed from unstable molecules. Your tricks won’t stop us now.”

Doom’s iron face-mask seemed to take on a demonic bent. Bolts of raw energy poured from his fingertips. “You contemptible fools! Don’t you understand that I will not be defeated? This is the day I have awaited all my life. Nothing will go wrong. Nothing can go wrong.”

The Fantastic Four moved apart from each other. Sue, Ben, and Johnny waited for Reed’s command. They were a well-oiled fighting team; they knew how each of them fought, and they learned through the years how to work together like no other four people had ever done before.

At the same moment Reed Richards stretched toward Doom, his arms snaking around the master villain, Ben Grimm leaped forward and grabbed Doom’s green tunic with his massive orange hand. Johnny Storm flamed on and circled over Doom, ready for any action, as Sue Richards stood back, her force field prepared to encircle Doom in an instant should Reed need her help.

Doom’s hands lashed out, and they grabbed the Thing’s face even as Ben’s hands began to crush Doom’s armor. “How dare you touch me, you misanthropic monster? For that you will perish.”

Instantly, Ben’s face began to freeze, and ice formed around his eyes and nose, then spread across his mouth. “What in Sam Hill are ya doin’ ta me, tin-head?” Ben shivered. He released Doom from his powerful grip and clawed at the ice covering his face. “I can’t breathe! Ya blasted rust-spot—yer killin’ me!”

Doom laughed. “You had better believe that, you lumbering lummox. I will destroy you as I will all your friends.”

Reed’s hands pulled Doom away from Ben, forcing the iron Monarch to the floor of the Baxter Building. “Johnny, help Ben—now, before it’s too late. Sue, use your force field—surround Doom, isolate him.”

Johnny dived toward the fallen figure of Ben Grimm. He could hear Ben choking through the thick coat of ice that surrounded his face. “Hold on, you big ox. I’ll melt this gunk off you.”

He doused his flame; only his hands glowed red with heat. His burning fingers touched the ice and it melted instantly. Ben shook his head weakly, gulping for breath.

“Thanks, junior. I owe ya one, but don’t expect me ta pay.”

Johnny grinned. “Just remember me in your will, blue-eyes.”

Ben snorted. “Don’t hold yer breath, hot-shot.”

With a powerful backhand, Doom slammed Reed away from him. He saw Sue Richards poised, her temple throbbing. He only had a moment to act before her force field would surround him, entrap him.

He fired a shock wave at Sue’s feet. She tumbled and fell backward into the small computer bank that lined the far wall. Sparks shot out in every direction as Sue crumpled to the floor.

Doom whirled and fired another blast at Reed, but the master scientist leaped backward toward another wall and reshaped his elastic body into a ball which richocheted off the wall and back into Doom. Then Reed flattened himself, and like a sheet he covered Doom completely, while his fingers probed the incredible iron armor for any weak spots. But there were none to be found anywhere.

Once more Doom electrified his armor, but this time he centered a concentrated blast at Reed’s exposed face. Richards yelped with sudden pain, then fell back.

Doom lunged forward toward the Negative Zone couplings, but he was suddenly caught within a wall of fire which sprang up from nowhere. Above him he could see the Human Torch, poised and angry. “All right, Doom, you can’t escape. Why not just give up and make this easy on all of us?”

Doom thrust his hands forward and fired a blast of cold air at the flaming Human Torch. “Never, you doltish clod! Doom will never surrender—not when he is so very close to final victory!”

The cold air stunned Johnny Storm. His flame ebbed, then faded, and then he fell.

Ben Grimm ran under him, his hands outstretched. “Don’t worry it, junior. I got ya—though I don’t know what I’m gonna do with ya.”

Doom’s hands grabbed the Negative Zone door and he pulled with all his power. The door creaked, whined, protested, but it opened a fraction, and that was more than enough.

The room was suddenly bathed in green as the door flashed open. Doom’s eyes grew wide with wonderment; then his scientific curiosity turned to horror.

He found himself lifted off the floor like a leaf in the wind. The pressure grew all about him. He was unable to find a handhold as he was sucked through the door into the green vastness beyond. Behind him he saw his foes also fall victim to the incredible suction.

They were helpless, buffeted about in the stormy seas of a totally alien dimension. Doom could see the Negative Zone door move farther and farther away from him as he fell and twirled and was drawn to the center of the Zone.

Reed Richards opened his eyes and instantly he knew they were all doomed. Helpless, they were being drawn to the core of the Negative Zone, the magnetic center composed of pure negative energy.

But what frightened Reed the most was the knowledge that the moment any of these five out-of-control humans reached that central core, as their positive energy joined with the negative force, the entire Negative Zone would be completely destroyed in an explosion that could quite possibly annihilate every living being on the Earth itself.

Reed saw the Zone door still opened in the far distance. There would be no way to prevent the dimension-searing blast from escaping and taking the Earth along with it.

Helpless, tumbling head over heels, these five knew they just might soon witness the end of all life everywhere. The thought did not sit well.

To Be Continued...Tomorrow at

Seduction of the Innocent!

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