X-Men #12: The Long Goodbye pt.1

 

There was a light mist sitting on the cemetery grounds, the day of Havok’s funeral.

A quiet, somber affair. Old friends and new friends were in attendance. The self-proclaimed Master of Black Magick, Doctor Strange leaned against the fence and kept his distance. Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw of the Massachusetts Academy stood off to the side in support of their student, Henry McCoy, while young Henry was talking to his father, Norman. Norman appeared stern and heavy hearted. He resigned his position at Xavier’s School because he disagreed with the way the young men and women were being taught. Teenagers shouldn’t be made into soldiers of one man’s mutant army. A seventeen year old boy was sent into outer space to fight terrorists and it cost him his life.

Wolverine looked up from the grave’s mound of fresh dirt and spotted the FBI agents, McNulty and Farber near the East path. He held off approaching them out of respect for the dead, knowing that what he had to say to those guys wasn’t going to be friendly.

When the service was over, the light mist rolled out. The crowd dispersed as quietly as they arrived and a young woman with blonde hair walked over and introduced herself to the X-Men.

“Hi.” she said. “I’m Gwen and I just wanted to say sorry for the loss of your friend. I lost someone recently, too. I was just visiting his grave so I came over.”

A small crowd gathered around her. She was, of course referring to the death of the Amazing Spider-Man, during a rescue attempt at Arcade’s Murder World. Gwen was just getting ready to explain that she had met the X-Men as Silk Spider, when a blinding sphere of light encompassed them all.

The dust settled. The familiar scents and sensations of the city were all around. The dark alleys and busy streets shouted out the obvious. They weren’t in New York anymore, at least not the New York they knew.

It looked to be the late 1920s or early 30s and the models of cars on the road agreed. Jazz music played from a club in the distance. It was night in the city; the kind of night that made a man forget that there was good in the world during the day.

The X-Men, still in their funerary attire, started to walk out of the alley they were in and investigate their surroundings. But the young woman stopped them.

“Silk Spider!?”

“X-Men! Look,” she said, “I know this is weird but I’ve been here before. I don’t know how we got here but I do know who got us here and we need to help her. And by the way, I’m Gwen from the funeral.”

Introductions were brief. The team began their search for a little girl known only as Gem. According to Silk Spider, she was likely a mutant who could teleport people from their dimension to hers whenever she needed their help. Silk Spider explained that this dimension resembled the noir film genre from old movies, a dangerous place filled with nightmare alleys teeming with criminals. Just being seen on the streets was enough to get a guy or gal killed. And so the X-Men split up and searched stealthily.

Mystique found herself in the back yard of an abandoned casino called the Klink. There were cardboard boxes used as tents, torn sleeping bags, and empty tin cans littering the area. A man in a black costume somewhat resembling Spider-Man’s, perched on a fence while another man wearing a metal mask practiced stage magic for a young child.

Just a block away, the robot called Danger was approaching a construct very similar to himself. It was a patrol robot scanning the streets. One peculiar feature though, was it’s head. A vintage television or computer monitor one might see in old science fiction movies sat atop the robot’s shoulders, and on the screen was the face of a very angry teenage boy. The patrol robot attacked and as soon as it did, another entered the scene. Luckily Madison Jeffries was nearby to help Danger with the fight. The two newest members of the hero team made quick time of the deadly robots.

Silk Spider caught a glimpse of these robots from a distance and recognized the teenager’s face as none other than her old friend and mortal enemy, Harry Osborn. But she and Wolverine had a more important task at hand.

“C’mon kid,” Wolverine said. “Show me how to get to this nightclub you saw the little girl at. I’ll follow your lead on this.”

The two made their way through the dark damp streets until they got to the Black Cat. It was the local club and speakeasy and though it used to belong to Felicia Hardy, it was now run by organized crime boss, Norman Osborn. To his face, people called him Mr. Osborn. Behind his back, those that knew his hideous secret called him the Goblin.

Wolverine and Silk Spider entered the smoky club. Jazz music played, people lounged around laughing drinking, and two shady characters eyed them suspiciously.

Hammerhead and Electro knew Silk Spider. they’d dealt with her before. In fact, they thought they’d dealt with her for good and left her in the “burial grounds” to rot, but here she was with this short stalky man in a suit. The thugs in the building readied themselves for a fight.

Wolverine and Silk Spider headed directly for the VIP booth behind the curtain, but before they had the chance to barge in, a large hand reached out and grabbed Wolverine by the head, pulling him inside.

What fate has befallen our fair heroes, in this bizarrely twisted time-line? That’s for you to discover next time, True Believers, in the pages of Marvel FASERIP 1964: The X-Men!