Imagine if you can, the concept of eternal life.

Imagine this existence, birthed not long after the dawn of time itself, although the exact details of how it all came to be are shrouded in the secrecy of the past; a life that continues to endure, countless eons later, and will persist until time and space and memory are finally extinguished, far in the future, at the end of days. Imagine the infinite. Imagine the always.

And imagine, therefore, the sheer banality of the everlasting. Does it not stand to reason that one might resort to what could be considered frivolous, just to keep oneself… entertained?

There is a planet, Rem, on the outer reaches of the Shi’ar Empire, some twenty thousand light years from Earth. It is an unremarkable world in itself; a bleak, uninhabited rock assailed by relentless electrical storms, with an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and phosphorus yet starved of light and warmth; a world that is ultimately of no consequence to our tale. But Se’dai, the smallest of Rem’s three moons, is another matter entirely – for Se’dai, previously no more interesting or hospitable than its parent world, has recently been transformed into something… other.

See, now: an elliptical plateau of synthetic landscape, the equivalent of five Earth kilometres in diameter, created upon a whim. Where once there was merely featureless stone and dust there is now the uncanny echo of a reality that never was, a fusion of components gleaned from human minds. This locale is a theatrical stage, divided roughly into four quadrants. To the north there is a region of gothic ruins, reminiscent of a monastic abbey, with arches and turrets and galleries and cloisters, but these remnants were never whole to begin with. To the east there is a sprawl of narrow, labyrinthine streets, paved with flagstones that appear worn and weathered but which have felt no physical tread, and walled with the husks of buildings that have never been occupied. To the west there is a shallow valley carved from glaciers of glittering crystal, populated with columns and stalagmites of colourful minerals that are, bizarrely, threaded with wire and melded with steel, and which pulse with a steady tremble of latent energy, although in truth there is no secret haven of technological advancement buried here. And, finally, to the south there is a swathe of verdant forestland, home to gigantic sequoia and redwood trees and a profusion of plants and wildflowers, although nature did not bloom here but was conjured fully formed, with no birdsong of burr of insects to emulate the fundamental spirit of life.

All of this, familiar and yet simultaneously alien, existing beneath a dark, storm-wracked sky dominated by the blood red eye of Rem and Se’dai’s two sister moons, one pale gold and the other a misty silver-blue.

There have been other considerations, of course; this artificial realm now boasts an atmosphere rich with oxygen, where all toxins and deadly gasses have been purged and where gravity and density have been modified to levels akin to that of Earth. The climate has also been tamed, so that even though the heavens continue to broil with thunder and the sporadic flare of white lightning, the tempest is no longer lethal, as it once was. Everything has been purified, sanitised, simply to provide a fitting environment for what is to come.

For now, Se’dai is silent and still, tensed in anticipation.

But not for much longer.

All that has been done is the work of one being – a god, if you will, although he has been more commonly referred to in certain annals of Earth’s history as an Elder of the Universe; a grandiose title but one that is undoubtedly appropriate, for he is the eternal one of which we have spoken. His name, in approximate human tongue, is En Dwi Gast, although he is better known as The Grandmaster. Among his many powers, few of which Earthlings could ever comprehend, is the ability to create and nurture life from death, which helps to explain how effortlessly he has been able to renovate this once featureless moon. Regrettable, then, that The Grandmaster does not give life for the sake of life – instead, he bestows is so that it may be taken away once more. His motivation is not cruelty, as man would understand it, but simply that he craves entertainment.

And here, then, is the essence of the piece. For, to The Grandmaster, there is no greater spectator sport throughout the myriad galaxies than conflict – the desperate fight for survival.

And that is why he will bring them here. To wage war…

…and to die.

Once upon a time, when children were asked what they aspired to be when they grew up, their answers would be varied; a pop star, perhaps, or an astronaut, or Tom Cruise, or a dozen other career choices. But that was before everything changed. That was before the powers and the costumes, before the pitched battles in the city skies, before the alien invasions and the ancient races emerging from the oceans to lay claim to the Earth, and the unforeseen evolution of mankind.

Before them.

These days there was only one thing any child wanted to be: a superhero. Most, of course, would never realise their ambition – after all, comic book and tabloid speculation aside, the mysteries of how one actually became a superhero had never been fully documented. For Harry Salt, however, a certain measure of childhood dreams had been achieved. He may not have possessed a flashy, spandex all-in-one and a funky codename – after all, what would he have called himself, The Sensational Salt-Man? – but, surely, his chosen vocation was the next best thing.

Harry Salt was an officer at the maximum-security stockade known as The Raft, an island penitentiary located off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States where criminals of a super-powered persuasion were incarcerated. Although supervillains were generally a demanding bunch, notoriously prone to absconding from even the strictest confinement, The Raft – unlike its predecessor, The Vault – was a prison that could boast never having suffered a single escape, let alone any form of mass breakout. Harry was proud of this track record, and never tired of returning home after his shift and regaling his family with the news that another day had passed without incident. In fact, he rather hoped that his two young children, when asked what they wanted to become when they were older, wouldn’t wish to be superheroes but rather would actually prefer to be prison guards. Fat chance. But, a man could dream.

Then, at five minutes before ten on one chill morning in early November, everything changed.

In the midst of the first patrol of his shift, Harry Salt was strolling down the corridor labelled C-Wing, whistling a merry tune – blissfully unaware, of course, that the majority of inmates didn’t appreciate being subjected to Harry’s relentless cheerfulness. It was a far worse punishment than, say, having their cigarettes confiscated, or receiving regular beatings in their cells from other, less benevolent officers. Supervillains were, it must be said, a miserable lot at the best of times, let alone when they were locked up and having some bugger whistling at them.

“Turned out nice again,” said Harry, by way of greeting to his captive audience, as he peered through the reinforced glass hatch set into each cell door and marked off each name on a hand-held electronic device. He was unfailingly polite on patrol, even though he was often met with hostility. This was partly because he had been raised to always mind his manners, but also because he truly pitied these men and women under his supervision; to Harry, to have been blessed with amazing powers only to squander them on a life of larceny and misadventure was nothing short of tragedy, and he could only hope these individuals learned from their time behind bars. He was mulling over such thoughts when he arrived at the final door at the end of the hall, his finger poised over a button on his keypad as he glanced inside…

…only to realise that the room beyond was empty.

Harry froze. His jaw sagged, then began to move stiffly, up and down, like a cow chewing cud, but no words came out. Until, quietly, he said: “Oh. Oh… dear.”

Jolting suddenly from his momentary stupor, he flicked a switch on his hand unit and raised it to his mouth, preparing to submit a panicked report – but, in that instant, something occurred to him. His route along C-Wing that morning had been conducted to a customary backdrop of snarling abuse, but, abruptly, the noise from within the cells had lessened. Dread knotting in his stomach, Harry turned and began to move back along the hall, slowly at first, but gathering in pace with every door he passed; he gazed into each hatch, and his fears were confirmed in no less than five more instances. Oh dear indeed.

Six out of fifteen cells were empty, even though Harry had previously accounted for the presence of those other five prisoners with his own eyes. It was impossible, but undeniable. Six inmates had all simply vanished into thin air: Mark Raxton, alias The Molten Man; Paul Pierre Duval, alias The Grey Gargoyle; Fred Myers, alias Boomerang; Mark Scarlotti, alias Blacklash; Aleksei Sytsevich, alias The Rhino; and Antonio Rodriguez, alias Armadillo. Each man a highly dangerous felon, detained at The Raft in the interests of public safety. Each man now inexplicably liberated. At the end of the corridor, poor, pale Harry slumped against the wall and raised his hand unit to his mouth once more.

“Control?” he said weakly. “This is Salt, guard C-14. We… I…”

He faltered then, wondering exactly how to phrase his predicament. In truth, he needn’t have worried – he wasn’t the only guard who was now reporting that his patrol had just been disrupted so remarkably. The impossible disappearances had occurred throughout The Raft, nineteen in total, each new confirmation of absence causing the authorities’ panic to escalate. Harvey Broxtel, alias Firebrand. Maguire Beck, alias Jack O’Lantern. Leonard Lester, alias Bullseye. Jonathan Powers, alias The Jester. MacDonald Gargan, alias The Scorpion. Alannah Velasquez, alias Coldheart. Calvin Zabo, alias Mister Hyde. Jonathon Cohn, alias The Spot. Dagny Forrester, alias Corona. Jacob Eishorn, alias Styx. Vernon Finch, alias The Needle. Todd Arliss, alias Tiger Shark. And finally, Milos Masaryk, alias Unicorn.

The noise emanating from those prisoners who remained quickly rose to a din throughout the complex as it became apparent that something momentous had occurred. And, for Harry Salt, when his shift eventually ended that chaotic day and he returned home, he was unable to proudly declare to his wife and children that he worked for the one and only penitentiary for super-powered criminals that had never witnessed a breakout.

Because, even though no one was able to explain how it had occurred, that was exactly what had happened on this bleak, autumnal day…

In the lightning-bright skies above the moon of Se’dai, The Grandmaster smiled. Nineteen; hand-picked, snatched from their established reality and disassembled into base particles… and now, in the blink of an eye, reconstituted at his whim, twenty thousand light years across the universe.

It was incredible. It was inconceivable.

And it was only the beginning.

One hour after the mass disappearance from The Raft on the other side of the country, Donald ‘Donnie’ Gill was navigating the Pacific Northwest coastline of Puget, Washington State, in what amounted to his own personal fighter plane – a suit of gleaming, golden body-armour, one of the most sophisticated designs of its kind, propelled by rocket jets in the soles of his boots. Unfortunately, the armour didn’t belong to him, but rather to a gentleman named Tony Stark, perhaps the foremost inventor-industrialist in the world – and Donnie had recently been given cause to wonder just how much longer he would be allowed to continue in his current role; that of one of Stark’s Iron Men.

It hadn’t always been this way, of course. Once, Donnie had been his own man; once, he had been known – and feared! – as the villain Blizzard. Once…

Ah, who was he kidding? Feared? Donnie grimaced inside his iron mask. Derided, more like. The technology utilized in his Blizzard bodysuit, whilst nowhere near on a par with Stark’s innovations, wasn’t to be sniffed at, but Donnie – the second person to have adopted the Blizzard identity – was never cut out to be a criminal, unlike his predecessor. He had thought his current venture would be the perfect way to move on from the past, but now he was starting to –

Fzzzt.

Donnie blinked at the startling hiss of static in his head. “What…?”

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Blizzard. Requisition commencing.

The mechanical voice wasn’t emanating from the armour’s communications system. It was literally in his mind. But how…? Donnie felt panic overwhelm him.

Suddenly he was feeling very light-headed, and his vision was blurring. He was some eighty metres above the ocean and travelling at a rate of knots, but now he began to dip and weave in mid-air. Instinctively, he activated a cybernetic satellite comm.-link in his helmet, linking him back to the mobile base known as The Docket.

“Mr Wilson!” he cried, as the voice of Clay Wilson, his mentor, responded. “Something’s wrong!”

Donnie was experiencing a bizarre sensation – a ‘shifting’, as if his entire body was inexplicably attempting to phase through the armoured shell that encased it, but not in a physical sense, more… spiritually?

“I… I seem to be… fading in and out…” Donnie reported, his voice breaking.

And then…

…inside the next beat of his heart…

…he was gone.

The golden Iron Man armour plummeted, still propelled by boot jets, towards the ocean. It made a tremendous sound upon impact, one that was heard by Clay Wilson back at The Docket through the still-active comm.-link, and then quickly sank beneath the waves. But, whereas the suit had been occupied by Donnie Gill mere moments before… now it was empty.

And so, nineteen became twenty.

“Looking good, Jalome, looking good. Now you just have to do something about the sweaty palms, the stutter, and the fact your heart’s beating so damn loud your date’s going to have to shout to make herself heard…”

The African-American man studying his reflection in the washroom mirror breathed deeply then pinched at the knot of his tie and smoothed the creases from his dinner jacket for the umpteenth time that evening. He was tall, broad-shouldered, handsome… not bad for someone approaching forty-two years of age. If this were just any old date, he’d be his normal charming, confident self, ready with the wit and the flashing smile. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just any old date.

It was Sofia. His ex-wife. A woman so inordinately fine that, three years on, he still couldn’t get her out of his tiny mind.

It was incredible she’d even agreed to meet with him here, at the same Manhattan restaurant where he’d proposed all those years ago. Jalome patted the pocket of his jacket, and smiled as he felt the outline of the ring box tucked inside, just as he had back then. Funny, how some things turned full circle. As romantic gestures went, this was a beauty.

He should have been in jail, of course. Recently he’d been apprehended for his part in an altercation in Seattle – not as Jalome Beacher, but as his alter-ego, the super-powered criminal known as Slyde – but, as always, there were enough loopholes in the United States legal system for his attorney to exploit and have him back on the streets before anyone could blink. This time, however, was different; this time, Jalome had made a promise to himself – and to Sofia – that he was going to go straight. No more heists, no more secret missions for the nationwide criminal network known as The Masters of Evil… no more Slyde.

Jalome took another deep breath, then smiled. Showtime. He turned to exit the washroom…

…but, even as he reached out a hand, he felt his entire body suddenly begin to tingle, and tremble. To shift. And then, he heard a strange crackling in his head.

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Slyde. Requisition commencing.

“The hell…?” Jalome gasped. “Oh, hold on a damn minute here…! No! This isn’t fair! Not now! This isn’t - ”

But it was too late. In the blink of an eye, Jalome Beacher vanished.

And so, twenty became twenty-one.

No one would ever believe her, of course, but Nekra Sinclair hadn’t intended to pull a bank heist that day. If she had, then she would have chosen somewhere like Atlanta or Tampa, or maybe even Burlington – anywhere except New York. Because, whereas in any of those other cities she could easily have skipped with a cool half million, in New York there was no chance whatsoever that she would be able to take three steps away from the cashier’s counter before having some idiot costumed vigilante leap on her and start cracking wise as he set about teaching her the error of her criminal ways.

Of course, in Atlanta or Tampa or maybe even Burlington, the bank staff probably wouldn’t have recognised her whilst she was standing in line to withdraw money after the bastard ATM had eaten her card, even though she was trying her best to disguise herself in a hat, wig and overcoat. No doubt it was the chalk-white skin and the fangs that had given her away to the eagle-eyed teller who had immediately assumed she wanted to rob him and had hit the panic alarm, thus inadvertently setting the heist in motion. After all, drop-dead-gorgeous mutant women of vampiric appearance who were also staples of the FBI and Avengers Most Wanted lists weren’t exactly commonplace, even in lower Manhattan.

And so, in the popular vernacular, everything had then gone rapidly pear-shaped. Ending, predictably, in the arrival of one of those aforementioned costumed morons – in this instance, the ever-annoying Spider-Man – and a battle than had wrought far more structural damage and potential therapy bills for traumatised workers and customers than Nekra could ever have managed on her own. Then, finally, the ceiling had caved in with a sound akin to a hundred revolvers being fired simultaneously, burying her in masonry and clouds of dust.

It was, in all, a thoroughly wretched sequence of events. But it was about to get worse.

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Nekra. Requisition commencing.

Nekra scowled as she lay there in the rubble, tangled in Spider-Man’s webbing like a common thug, the disconcerting voice echoing in her head. Then, when she felt herself begin to shimmer and shift, she bared her fangs in a snarl of frustration.

One second later, feeling mightily sorry for herself, she vanished.

And so, twenty-one became twenty-two.

Curtis Carr grimaced as he leaned forward against the bar counter, rubbing his knuckles into the muscle of his right thigh. The man with the scarred face standing alongside him looked on curiously.

“Problems?” he asked, with a deep English accent. “You look too young for arthritis.”

Curtis snorted. “Yeah, I wish,” he muttered. “It’s a prosthetic leg.”

The scarred man, Lancaster Sneed, nodded as if in approval. “Now, that’s interesting,” he said. “I’ve got a few metal plates myself. Back in my MI-6 days, I - ”

“No offence, gentlemen, but there’ll be plenty of opportunity to compare war stories later, okay? The deal goes down in five minutes. Get in position.”

Curtis and Sneed both turned to see the third member of their group, Pete Petruski, approach the bar, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Thin and dour, with a hangdog expression that brought to mind old Droopy cartoons, Petruski had something of the Humphrey Bogart about him, although he wasn’t as old as he looked. He was actually only in his early thirties, but he had known a lot of hardship in his time, much of it self-inflicted. That was in the past, however; these days, Pete was making a real name for himself. And that was what tonight was about.

The private bar of Manhattan’s Cat Lick Club was closed for the evening, these three men the sole occupants of a large, circular room dominated by a central bar and with walls decorated with framed pictures of voluptuous women dressed up in cat collars and whiskers and very little else. It was that kind of club. It had cost Petruski dearly to hire the room for the night – not in terms of cash, but in reluctantly calling in a long-standing favour from the owner – but it was important that the exchange that was about to happen occurred on familiar turf. At the boss’s command, Curtis and Sneed retired to their pre-planned locations at either end of the room without another word, stripping off their overcoats as they went to reveal two distinctive bodysuits – red and silver for Curtis, and bronze armour for Sneed – and then slipping on their masks. Petruski did likewise, discarding the butt of his cigarette then shucking his coat to uncover a bulky cream and tan boiler suit lined with a number of clip-belts with various items attached. The mask he affixed in place was akin to a welder’s visor with a heavy faceplate. He then removed a customized weapon that was something between a scope rifle and a flamethrower from behind the bar, hefting it against his shoulder. Suddenly he didn’t look much like Bogart any more.

“Remember,” Petruski murmured, “This broad comes with a damn fine rep. I’ve got something she wants, and if she decides she doesn’t want to pay for it as we agreed than she’s lethal enough – and ballsy enough – to try and take it by force. So, if she so much as tries to delay, we - ”

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: The Trapster. Requisition commencing.

Petruski blinked behind his visor. “What? Who said that?”

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Chemistro. Requisition commencing.

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Shockwave. Requisition commencing.

Curtis and Sneed glanced at one another, then at Petruski.

Then, simultaneously, each of them began to shiver – and, seconds later, they disappeared.

After a moment of silence, the door to the private bar opened and a tall Japanese woman sauntered through, the spike heels of her leather ankle boots ringing out on the wooden floor underfoot. She was strikingly handsome, with long, black hair and arrogant oriental features beneath the angled brim of a grey fedora; she was dressed in bohemian fashion, in a flared, ivory blouse and grey slacks, with a crimson sash slung about her waist and a bandana of similar colour about her throat. Her perfume was the scent of orchids and spices. Her name was Yuriko Oyama, and if Pete Petruski was Bogart than she was Lauren Bacall, Mary Astor and Ingrid Bergman rolled into one.

Yuriko was alone – she needed no bodyguards – and was carrying a slim black briefcase in one hand, a hand that was rendered highly distinctive due to the fact that each finger was ten inches in length and crafted from viciously barbed metal. Bodyguards were inessential when one could kill with the lightest touch. She glanced around, her eyes dark and sharp and her scarlet lips pursed.

“Well?” she inquired, with a voice like honey. “Mister Petruski, I am not here to play games. So - ”

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Lady Deathstrike. Requisition commencing.

Yuriko dropped the case and immediately affected an aggressive posture, both hands – each adorned with those deadly fingers – raised before her and her teeth bared. She was indeed lethal, far more than even Pete Petruski could have imagined… but there was nothing she could do against the threat she now faced.

She felt a crackle and a tremble pass through her body, and her breath caught in her throat.

One second later, just like the three individuals she had arranged to meet, she vanished.

And so, twenty-two became twenty-six.

The man in the wheelchair was staring out of the window again, but he wasn’t admiring the immaculately kept lawns bordered with chrysanthemums and hollyhocks and elms, and adorned with statues of marble and bronze. Nor was he was watching the gulls wheeling in from the Atlantic as clouds darkened the New York skies to slate overhead. In his mind’s eye, he was remembering. He was recalling how it had felt to snap one man’s neck with his bare hands, and then turn another’s brain inside out and back again. One more minute, and there would have been a second death to add to the first.

One more minute.

Sometimes the thought of how close he had come left him elated. But, mostly, it caused him a despair so deep it was as if his heart echoed like the tolling of a bell in his chest, counting down the hours of the rest of his life… until, that was, he could liberate himself from his current predicament and start all over again. And he would.

The wheelchair was furnished not only with three-inch-thick steel manacles that were fastened about the man’s wrists, ankles and neck, but also a metal cap, not unlike that associated with an electric chair, secured firmly to his scalp with a series of miniature nodes that regularly pumped a special chemical into his bloodstream that doused his powers. Such precautions were necessary. Newhope Memorial hospital, although protected by state-of-the-art defence systems designed by Tony Stark, was nowhere near as secure a facility as The Raft, to where this man was due to be shipped in just a few days’ time. He had all but healed from the devastating injuries he had sustained in a battle with The Avengers some three months previously, and now there were just a handful of tests left to run before the transfer could take place. That was when the prisoner would make his bid for freedom.

The man’s name was David Cannon. He was a mutant supervillain who was better known by the alias Whirlwind. He was also a murderer, the notorious killer of an Avenger named The Living Lightning. He had already formulated four different potential plans of escape in his head, and was now just waiting for an opportunity to put one of them into action. He would never get that chance.

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Whirlwind. Requisition commencing.

Cannon frowned at the voice in his head, then smiled, hesitantly. “Flumm?” he said, out loud, even though he knew that the communication was of a telepathic nature. “Hey, man. I thought we agreed, no more contact until - ”

But the voice inside Cannon’s mind was not that of his old colleague Marvin Flumm, the high-level psychic known as Mentallo with whom he had been in sporadic contact throughout his convalescence…

…as became apparent a few seconds later, when Cannon’s body shivered, flickered and then vanished from its steel restraints, leaving behind an empty chair.

And so, twenty-six became twenty-seven.

“Alice? I’d like to pick up where we left off at the end of our last session – the significance of the pocket watch. You were telling me it belonged to your father…?”

The young lady reclining on the psychiatrist’s couch exhaled a sigh as she stared up at the ceiling, twirling a lock of golden hair about her finger. “Must we, Doctor Kafka?” she pleaded, her voice crisp with a cultured English accent. “That was all such a frightfully dull period of my life. An endless cycle of boarding school and skiing holidays… wouldn’t you rather me tell you about the time I held all of Brooklyn to ransom, only for Spider-Man - ”

“No, Alice.”

“Oh. Then how about we ask some of those questions that really need asking? Such as: is it possible to be paranoid and have low self-esteem? How can one believe people are out to get them if they don’t think they’re worth getting? And, if a mute blasphemes, is he required to wash his hands out with soap? Or, perhaps, if - ”

“No, Alice.”

Doctor Ashley Kafka, diminutive and dark-haired, stilled her patient with an authoritative tap of her pen upon her desk. The woman on the couch, elegant and lissom and quite remarkably beautiful, not unlike a Hollywood starlet, arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Is something the matter, Doctor?” she asked, summer blue eyes wide with genuine innocence.

Doctor Kafka huffed, then carefully lay her pen flat and steepled her fingers. “I’m fine, Alice,” she said, evenly. “Regrettably, there are a number of unscrupulous therapists out there who would be all too willing to listen to you narrate your wild adventures over and over again, or to engage with your admirable intellect, and then collect their fee at the end of the hour. However, I am not one of them. I truly want to help you, to understand why you do what you do, and hopefully find a way to progress. Do you see?”

Alice Caffrey, twenty-six years old and recently widowed for the third time in circumstances every bit as suspicious as the first two, nodded meekly.

“Good,” Doctor Kafka said. “Now, please. Your father?”

Alice shifted uncomfortably. “Well,” she began. “It was an atrociously sunny day, and I was sitting on the bank of the river, thinking about making a daisy-chain, when – out of nowhere! – he appeared. It only occurred to me later that I ought to have wondered about it all, but at the time it seemed so natural - ”

Fzzzt.

Alice pursed her lips. “Fzzzt?”

Doctor Kafka peeped over the top of her spectacles. “Fzzzt?”

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: The White Rabbit. Requisition commencing.

“Oh!” murmured Alice. “Oh, my fur and whiskers!”

Doctor Kafka’s brow furrowed as the woman on the couch suddenly began to twitch… and flicker…

…and then, right before her eyes, Alice Caffrey vanished.

“Oh,” said Doctor Kafka. And, again, “Oh.”

For really, there wasn’t much else to say.

And so, twenty-seven became twenty-eight.

“Beer,” growled the beast of a man slouched against the bar counter. “Now.”

It wasn’t the first time Victor Creed had asked for a new bottle to be placed in front of him, but the quivering barkeep was in no doubt that, for him, it would be the last. Foolishly, he had tried to suggest to his customer – a hulking brute somewhere between Neanderthal and escaped zoo exhibit – that, perhaps, seventeen beers and a handle of vodka was a respectable limit. Creed had found that amusing. So far, the barkeep wasn’t dead. That situation wasn’t likely to continue much longer unless he did as he was told.

Trembling hands popped a cap and handed Creed the bottle he’d requested. Creed grinned, revealing rows of glinting teeth sharpened to jagged points. His eyes glowed a liquid yellow – not unlike the beer, as a matter of interest – beneath a heavy brow and a veritable shag of dirty blond hair that also fell down about his massive shoulders in a cluster of dreadlocks. He downed the beer in one slug, belched, and then, predictably, asked for another. The barkeep sighed and turned away meekly, no longer possessing the spirit to argue.

It was then that Creed cursed, followed by a clunk of an empty bottle hitting the bar. The barkeep glanced back and gasped as he saw that Creed’s enormous frame had suddenly become what could only be described as… transparent?

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Sabretooth. Requisition commencing.

“Aw, come on! I didn’t do anything…!” Creed said, with something like a whimper, staring down at himself with as much surprise as the barkeep. Then he slumped, as if in resignation.

“Beer!” he snarled, obviously intending to enjoy one last hit before whatever was happening to him finished the job. “N - ”

But that was when, with the barkeep looking on, he shimmered one final time… and vanished.

And so, twenty-eight became twenty-nine.

The news networks had already moved on from the recent incident in Manhattan, where eight square blocks had been engulfed in a suffocating blanket of otherworldly shadow known as Darkforce. New York had recovered from worse than this, of course, and the emergency protocols that had been in place for years to deal with the fallout of such episodes had proved as effective as always; but, even so, the toll of dead and missing had reached forty-three before the agencies had grown bored and progressed to report fresh stories. Tanya Sealy was disturbed and saddened that human life was so cheap in this day and age. And, obviously, as a Darkforce wielder herself, and one who had been present at ground zero during this particular experience, she knew just how close this minor tragedy had been to becoming a major one.

Still, Tanya thought to herself, c’est la vie. If people knew even half of what went on in this crazy world, then chances were they’d never even get out of bed…

She switched off the television and belted her blue, silk kimono about her waist as she padded barefoot from her apartment lounge to the kitchen, her shoulder length black hair still damp from her recent shower. Fifteen minutes later, Darkforce was the last thing on her mind as she busied herself making kapunata, the Maltese equivalent of ratatouille, chopping and preparing aubergines to add to the tomatoes and green peppers already in her pan. Every now and then she would take a sip of Cabernet Sauvignon, and would sing along and shake her shapely hips to whatever was playing on the radio. It was just another ordinary evening, after another ordinary day, with the extraordinary – a time when she had regularly worn a costume and proved herself a royal pain in the neck to the heroes of this world, rather than helping them drive back other-dimensional invaders – comfortably far away.

Regrettable, then, that everything was about to change.

Hungry. Feed me.

At the sound of the voice in her head – cold and distant – Tanya froze in the midst of scooping her diced aubergines into her pain. Then, something else.

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Black Mamba. Requisition commencing.

Tanya’s hands began to tremble. She dropped the pan and aubergines scattered across the kitchen floor. She opened her mouth to speak, although she had no idea what to say…

…but, ultimately, it didn’t matter. In the next moment, she began to blink and shimmer – and then, she disappeared.

And so, twenty-nine became thirty.

Muscle-bound, shaven-headed and ugly as a dog that chased parked cars, Carl ‘Crusher’ Creel had never possessed the kind of face that was given to crying, nor a voice comfortable with tenderness… and yet, these past few months, he had become painfully familiar with both. Once a week, without fail, he was escorted from his holding cell at The Raft to the Newhope Memorial medical facility, a procedure that would have been so fraught with danger in times past that it likely would never have been attempted; Creel, after all, was also known as The Absorbing Man, one of the most powerful supervillains ever to have menaced the planet. However, that was before Earth had been invaded by the alien race known as The Stark. Since that time Creel had been a model prisoner, and for good reason.

His wife, Mary MacPherran – otherwise known as Titania – had sustained a serious head injury in the war against The Stark and had been comatose here at Newhope ever since. In his time Creel had been a mass murderer and a terrorist – once, in a cruel twist of karma, he and Titania had even attacked this very hospital with the intent of killing Hercules of The Avengers, who himself had been in a coma – but none of the armoured soldiers known as Guardsmen who accompanied Creel on his weekly pilgrimage were able to feel anything but sympathy for him. Karma was all well and good, but no man should have to look upon the woman he loved knowing that there was nothing he could do to bring her back from the brink.

Unfortunately for Creel there was more retribution due on this day, as he sat forlorn at Mary’s bedside.

“I’m no fancy talker,” Creel murmured, his eyes bright with tears. “Never did understand why you stuck with me. I’m just some mug who got lucky, but who never knew what to do with it. I love you, babe. I need you back. I… I need…”

He ducked his head then, clearing his throat and rubbing his eyes against his shoulder with a sigh. He didn’t notice Mary begin to shimmer and fade, nor hear the discordant buzz in the air that would have been for his wife’s ears only, if she had been in any position to listen.

Fzzzt. Identity confirmed. Designation: Titania. Requisition commencing.

Mary MacPherran was a bruiser and the way she had lived her life suggested she deserved no more pity than her husband, but lying here helpless like this – pale and beautiful, with hair the flame red of late autumn leaves – she looked almost like an angel. By the time Creel glanced up again she more resembled a ghost, slowly vanishing before his eyes.

“Hey!” Creel roared. “What’s this? What’s goin’ on?”

But it was far too late. Leaving behind an enraged brute with the power to lay waste to entire cities, let alone a hospital – a problem reserved for those Guardsmen who were about to respond to the situation – a second villain disappeared from Newhope in the space of an afternoon.

And so, thirty became thirty-one.

And still it continued, at fluctuating times throughout a twenty-four hour window, all across the world – for, to The Grandmaster, time and space on such an infinitesimal level were far beneath his register.

In Marrakech, Morocco, a heavily cloaked woman was prowling through a street bazaar, her face cast in shadow within a dark cowl. In the past six days, this woman had visited her own particular brand of death upon seventeen individuals who had been actively involved, or who had been directly benefiting from, an underage sex slave ring that stretched from Eastern Europe to Africa. The world was full of sick human scum who fed upon the misery of the weak and innocent like maggots upon a corpse; they were poison, pure and simple. In her own way, the woman was poison too, the deadliest poison there was. It was the kind that cleansed as it killed. Unfortunately, her present crusade was about to be rudely interrupted.

Her name was Brigid O’Rielly, otherwise known as Mayhem. She was absently perusing a stall laden with hand-woven rugs, her eyes glowing a virulent green within her cowl, when she vanished.

In the Brazilian rainforest, some two hundred miles along the Amazon River from Manaus, a creature that had once been a man was feeding. His nest was littered with bones and infested with flies and grubs, the remnants of a week of hunting among a local indigenous tribe, but soon he would be able to move on; his hunger was almost sated, which would allow him to sleep for up to a month before the unsavoury process would have to begin again in another region of the jungle. He wept as he feasted, for beyond his appetite and his misery and his rage he could still remember what he had been, and never lost sight of what he now was.

The creature’s name was Stegron. He was using his six-inch teeth to strip bloodied flesh from a dead child’s thigh when he vanished.

In New York City, a woman dressed in a red, ankle-length raincoat was kneeling before the altar of The Holy Ghost Church on 42nd Street, her head bowed so that her tumble of russet hair obscured her face. At this time of day the church was deserted, which suited her purposes. She murmured something beneath her breath – a prayer, perhaps, or a confession – then slipped her red leather bag from her shoulder and removed the revolver that lay inside. It was time. Finally, after all these years, it was time. She placed the barrel of the gun in her mouth, the metal dark against her red lipstick.

The woman’s name was Scarlet Fasinera, otherwise known as Stained Glass Scarlet, and today was the fifth anniversary of her son’s death. Her finger was just beginning to tighten on the trigger when she vanished.

In New Jersey, five men were sitting around in a bar, embroiled in a heated discussion about movies, specifically all-time-great acting performances. One of the men, with a cruel face not unlike a weasel, was extolling the virtues of James Cagney in White Heat, whilst another, with a pugilist’s jaw, was championing Sylvester Stallone in Rocky. A third, wearing a Stetson and spurred boots, made a claim for Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, which earned a few nods of appreciation. Another, so thin he appeared ill, had an affection for Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, which the others studiously ignored. The last of the group, a hulking brute the size of his four companions squeezed together, liked Dory from Finding Nemo, and that killed the conversation stone dead.

The five men – Fancy Dan, Hammer Harrison, Montana Bale, Snake Marston and Ox, collectively known as The Enforcers – were ordering more beers from an almost-pretty waitress when they vanished.

In Budapest, Hungary, a young woman with a sweet face but deeply sad eyes was quietly poring over the contents of a shabby wooden box that an elderly shopkeeper had just placed upon the counter before her. The shop was small and dark, made all the smaller and darker by dozens of shelves lined with eclectic merchandise, from candles and lacquered skulls to gris-gris amulets and masks and ancient, leather-bound tomes. The woman was thin, with dark brown hair and a nervous manner, her fingers twitching and trembling as she went about her business beneath the shopkeeper’s watchful eye. Then, suddenly, she seemed to find what she was looking for; her face lit up with a heart-wrenchingly grateful smile as she withdrew one of what must have been two hundred cards of various design, this particular specimen depicting a naked man wrestling with a lion beneath the printed word Strength.

The woman was named Marie-Ange Colbert, otherwise known as Tarot, and she was about to make her purchase when she vanished.

In Edinburgh, Scotland, a man in flowing robes of many shades of brown and red and gold was standing at the heart of a large room that could be best described as a boudoir, its walls swathed with colourful velvets and silks and its floor, polished marble, marked with hundreds of tiny sigils daubed in what looked like blood, reflected in its entirety in a mirrored ceiling overhead. Candles on plinths illuminated the sanctum, and the air was warm with the heady char of molten wax. The man was weeping. In one hand he held a mask of intricate design, seemingly constructed of inter-connected blocks and fragments. In the other hand he clasped a fresh human heart.

The man’s name was Rajnish Kaur, otherwise known as Conundrum. He was still crying over his latest victim, whose fresh remains were located in a secret room beyond one wall of curtains, when he vanished.

And finally, in New York City, an individual whose entire physical mass had been transmuted from flesh and blood and bone to concentrated vibration frequencies – literally, solid sound – had inadvertently brought Manhattan’s Second Avenue to a complete standstill, first through threatening a terrified female hostage and then by becoming embroiled in conflict with Spider-Man. This individual – his energy form outwardly human, save for glowing head-to-toe with a reddish-pink hue and for a nightmarish face with black slits for mouth and eyes – was powerful almost beyond measure, but his enemy was nothing if not resilient, and their battle had thus far seen the gaudily-clad wall-crawler gain the upper hand. Then, for the second time that day, Spider-Man could do nothing but look on in mute astonishment as the impossible happened before his eyes.

The red man was known as Klaw, Master of Sound, and at the moment he vanished he had transformed into a wave of pure, crackling energy.

And so, thirty-one became forty-two…

…and with that, The Grandmaster was done. Or so he thought.

“Each night before you go to bed, my baby…”

The music echoed throughout the nondescript corridors of the tech-pod, emanating from a hexagonal central chamber filled with lights and wires and crystals and a thousand other contrivances, many of them of bewildering extraterrestrial design and function. The individual at the heart of the chamber, currently hunkering down over a workbench and concentrating on a complex hardboard of circuits and energy clusters, knew how to operate each and every piece of apparatus, of course, even the ones that looked like they needed six hands to control. But then, she was highly exceptional – not to mention dextrous – woman.

“Whisper a little prayer for me, my baby…”

The woman paused in the middle of a particularly delicate procedure and glanced up from her work. Beneath the music there was a distinct, electronic bleep. She sat back in her chair and removed the domed helmet that she was wearing, revealing a shock of silver hair that veritably shimmered with reflected light, and a pair of alarming golden eyes with elliptic pupils. Still holding the helmet in two of her hands she pushed her work aside with two more and reached for a row of switches on a nearby wall with yet another. In her sixth and final hand there was a cigarette dangling from her fingers, slowly burning to ash.

“And tell all the stars above…”

The woman flicked the switch, and a greenish-blue plasma display blinked into existence in mid-air. “Report,” she said, her voice soft. Immediately, a stream of data began to flow across the intangible screen. The woman’s eyes narrowed, curiously, and she took a drag of her cigarette.

“This is dedicated to the one I love…”

The tech-pod was in orbit around Tethys, one of Saturn’s ice moons some seven hundred and fifty million miles from Earth, but the radar sensors were more than sophisticated enough to monitor inter-dimensional fluctuations even from such a distance. The bleeping indicated that such activity had just occurred; the data verified that this activity consisted of numerous recent incidents, one of which was of particular interest.

“This is dedicated to the one I love…”

The woman’s eyes widened and the cigarette fell from her grasp. “Oh no,” she breathed.

“This is dedicated to the one I love…”

Six hands immediately went to work with furious speed, fingers twisting and twirling in an intricate dance of flesh and metal, and as they did so the very fabric of reality both within the tech-pod and without began to warp with incredible energy – energy that distorted in a whorl of beautiful colours. In a spiral.

“This… is dedicated…”

The woman flicked one final switch, and the tech-pod locked on to the dimensional signal radiating out into the depths of space from the Earth. Then, it shimmered… and faded…

“…to the one I love.”

…and vanished.

And so, without The Grandmaster’s knowledge, forty-two became forty-three.

En Dwi Gast’s ancient vessel circled silently above the restructured terrain of Se’dai. It was a craft of gargantuan proportions yet elegant design, fabricated of liquid metals bound with whorls and threads of pure energy; like a bead of mercury its shape was ever-changing, moulding itself to the configurations of any environment, with a fluid outer shell that absorbed and refracted the light of a thousand stars, however distant, so that it appeared to glow and throb in the sky like a miniature sun. This echo of starglow bathed the landscape below in a gentle radiance of silver-white, bright enough to illuminate the scattered edifices of stone and crystal The Grandmaster had fashioned so meticulously, but still allowing shadows to cluster where shadows might. This dramatic beauty was wholly intentional; The Grandmaster, like so many of his fellow Elders, was a thespian himself at heart, and he would not dare expect his players to perform on anything less than the most impressive stage.

At the core of the luminous ship there was a vast chamber, again of ever-shifting form and colour and pulsating like a behemoth’s heart – the Court of En Dwi Gast. The Grandmaster sat at the head of the hall, in a gigantic throne of some concentration of matter not dissimilar to polished ivory, adorned with grafts of glittering bronze. He himself was clad in golden robes that rippled and drifted on the air like smoke more than cloth, each wisp glinting with thousands of tiny stars. His flesh, such as it was, was a delicate blue; his hair was the softest white; his eyes were large and scarlet and faceted like gemstones. He did not breathe. Those red eyes did not move, and yet he saw everything there was to see.

He was attended by a swarm of drones – hovering orbs of black and silver metal, each a half-metre in diameter and trailing energy tendrils like jellyfish – but he paid them no heed. For now, he was only interested in the collection of individuals he had assembled here, those forty-two beings he had plucked from Earth and conjured to the other side of the universe. They were suspended before him in cocoons of invisible force some fifty metres above the floor of the Court, a chequered blanket of black and white squares that appeared to drift and exchange places in some random dance. At this height the prisoners were held at eye-level with The Grandmaster, who had chosen to address them all in the form of a giant not just because his ego was rampant but because he wished to stamp his authority on proceedings, ensuring that no one’s attention wavered at such a crucial juncture.

“Hear me!” he declared, his thunderous voice resonating throughout the chamber. “I am The Grandmaster… and I am now your God.”

Those held captive in their energy cocoons could only look on in silent awe. The Grandmaster smiled, and in that moment there was something in his countenance that was unmistakably cruel… and also insane.

“Even a god might dream,” the Elder explained. “And it was a dream that recently guided me to this point. In my reverie I envisioned you all, each embroiled in his or her petty squabbles and quests for power, a disgraceful display of such wasted potential. Thus, I have taken it upon myself to channel you upon a new path, one infinitely more worthwhile. I have gathered you here for a single purpose: to fight, to make war, in a battle to the death.

“Your planet is a rarity in this universe, for your humankind spawns warriors like few others – so many gladiators blessed with unique gifts, and an indomitable spirit that sees you strive for victory even when the body and mind scream defeat. I have sampled champions of your world in the past, but on these occasions I have committed errors of judgement in selecting beings who value integrity and fellowship above all else; there is scant entertainment in those who would choose to lay down their arms and sacrifice themselves rather than fight at my bequest. So now – here – I rectify my mistake by selecting individuals for whom hate and immorality has more currency than love and integrity; terrorists, sadists, opportunists, murderers and thieves, colloquially known on your world as supervillains, you will all participate in my game to the fullest extent, I am sure. Because, if you do not…”

The Grandmaster’s eyes darkened, abruptly, and shadows gathered throughout the chamber in response. “There can only be one winner of my game,” he hissed. “One survivor. For the rest of you, there will be no reprieve – for you, your physical bodies will lay where they have fallen until they crumble to dust, whilst Death shall take your souls. I believe myself correct in saying that mankind will scarce mourn your passing.”

The Elder chuckled to himself. “In due course,” he breathed, “I will despatch you to a battlefield I have created for the sole purpose of conflict, whereupon you shall commence to whittle away at one another. Some may choose to pursue victory in solitary fashion, others may wish to form allegiances, but be mindful of that single, non-negotiable truth: one survivor. Regardless of pacts and pledges, you will fight until just one participant remains. And, for this individual – the winner of my game of life – there shall be a prize. That winner will be entitled to a boon – a wish that, if it is in my power, and in my own interests, I shall grant. Riches beyond your wildest dreams… untold power… the resurrection of dead loved ones… the destruction of your enemies back on Earth. I can give all of this to you. One of you.”

The Grandmaster grinned then, utterly mad, and leaned forward in his throne, his eyes gleaming. “But which one?” he murmured. “Oh, the game, the timeless beauty of the game…”

And with that, he weaved his fingers – and, one by one, the forty-two figures suspended before him twitched and shimmered and then vanished. In a few moments, they would all rematerialize somewhere on the battlefield below, their placement not entirely random but rather carefully orchestrated in the interests of sport. Thereafter, there would be no interference from on high; the war would continue until all but one of the combatants had perished.

The Grandmaster turned to his drones, positively salivating at the prospect. “Go!” he commanded. “Record everything for posterity – document every blow, every drop of blood spilled, every dying scream and plea for mercy – for I would miss not a second of this conflict.”

The drones obeyed immediately, vanishing only to reappear on Se’dai below, along with the contest’s unwitting players. In their wake, The Grandmaster sat back in his throne, his eyes alive with delight.

It had been too long since the last game. Far too long. But it had been worth the wait.

For this new game – this supervillain war – would prove to be the greatest spectacle of them all…

To Be Continued...

Significant Issues

Check out these other great these other great Avengers 2000 titles

to read the full story of some of our villainous vanishings!

Blizzard in Iron Man # 37

Nekra and Klaw in Amazing Spider-Man # 3

Sabretooth in Uncanny X-Men # 10

Titania in Avengers # 30

Also, cast a beady eye in the direction of:

Black Mamba's Darkforce adventure in Warriors # 3 & 4

Whirlwind's moment of glory in Supervillain Team-Up # 1 - 10