Rampage Vol 2 41

The Amazing Spider-Man is swinging through New York's Greenwich Village when he recognizes Colleen Wing and Scott Summers and briefly stops in to say hello. Scott and Colleen are unaware that they are being watched by one of Arcade's minions, Mr. Chambers, who uses a specially rigged garbage truck to capture them. Overhearing this, Spider-Man recognizes the noise[3] and realizes Arcade must be after his friends and arrives too late to stop the kidnapping. Considering the fact that the Arcade might be after the X-Men, Spider-Man decides to try to get in touch with them.

Nightcrawler, Colossus, and their dates Amanda Sefton and Betsy Wilford are all gassed and taken prisoner by Miss Locke. When Wolverine ends a date with Mariko, he too is captured by Mr. Chambers. Arcade personally takes care of Banshee and Storm by breaking into the X-Mansion and taking them out with tranquilizer darts. When Spider-Man calls into the school, Arcade answers the phone and tells him that he's too late to warn his friends.

When the X-Men come around, they find themselves in uniform and placed in giant glass pinballs. Arcade introduces himself and sends them off through his gigantic pinball machine. After bouncing off a number of electrified bumpers, each ball goes down a separate slot, sending each X-Man into a different room.

Cyclops lands in a room where he has to make a choice between three doors, with only one leading to safety. In order to force him to make a decision, a moving wall threatens to crush him. Colossus ends up in a room where he is confronted by an android disguised as a KGB agent named Alexi Vazhin who begins interrogating him over his loyalty to Russia while powerful hypnotic lights confuse him. Wolverine ends up in a hall of mirrors that create distorted robotic duplicates of him to battle.

Somewhere else in the Murderworld, Nightcrawler is trapped in a room where remote control cars chase after him with cutting buzz saws. Banshee (who is still unable to use his mutant powers) has to make it through a holographic simulation of a World War II battle, where some of the model jets are real. And lastly, Storm finds herself trapped in a dark room that is filling with water. As her claustrophobia sets in, she tries to blast her way through the roof with a lightning bolt onto to have it reflected back at her.

Cyclops decides not to choose any of the doors and instead blasts through one of the walls with his optic blast. This clears a passage into the hall of mirrors and damages the replicating mirrors. After helping Wolverine dispatch of the last of them, the two X-Men head for the exit door only to be attacked by Colossus who has been brainwashed into thinking that he is a Russian loyalist called the Proletarian.

In Arcade's control room, Colleen, Amanda, and Betsy are being restrained in present-shaped harnesses and can only watch helplessly from the control monitor. Arcade howls with laughter, exclaiming that with Colossus under his control, the X-Men are finished.

This story is continued next issue.

Appearing in ""The Pegasus Project Part 2: Blood and Bionics!""

Reprint of the 1st story from
Marvel Two-In-One #54

Featured Characters:

Thing
Quasar

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Deathlok (Destroyed)
Grapplers (First appearance)
- Letha (First appearance)
- Poundcakes (First appearance)
- Screaming Mimi (First appearance)
- Titania (First appearance)
Nuklo
Nth Command
- Dr Lightner

Other Characters:

Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. staff
Bill Foster
Atom-Smasher (Corpse, skeleton or other remains)

Locations:

New York State
- Adirondack Mountains
  - Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Facility
- New York City
  - Manhattan
    - Kowalski's Gym (First appearance)

Items:

Quantum Bands
Nth Projector (First appearance)

Vehicles:

Synopsis for ""The Pegasus Project Part 2: Blood and Bionics!""

Reprint of the 1st story from
Marvel Two-In-One #54

Continued from last issue.... The Thing is wandering the Project Pegasus complex when he is attacked by the Nth Command's agent, the cyborg known as Deathlok. The cyborg attacks Ben with lethal force and manages to injure his arm. When Ben tries to appeal to Luther Manning, the cyborg informs Ben that it has been culled of all its organic components and is run completely by an artificial intelligence before resuming its brutal assault on the Thing. When Quasar arrives with Pegasus security, Deathlok flees the scene. With Ben given the care of Pegasus medical staff, Quasar goes after Deathlok to figure out what the cyborg is up to.

The damaged cyborg meanwhile has traveled deep into the complex and has begun setting up a Nth Projector in the Radioactive Disposal Section of the facility. Quasar manages to track Deathlok there and resumes his attack (unaware of what Deathlok was doing in this area.) During the fight, the cyborg suffers severe damage to its body, even more so when Pegasus security arrives along with a medically treated Ben Grimm. When Quasar hears that Deathlok has activated a self-destruct device he uses his Quantum Bands to destroy it's body, leaving its head intact for questioning. However, the cyborg has foreseen this possibility and causes it's head to self-destruct leaving nothing behind to determine the cause of Deathlok's attack on the facility.

While back in New York City, Thundra has begun practicing for her new career as a female wrestler for Oglethorpe, and is pitted against a group of female wrestlers known as the Grapplers (Titania, Poundcakes, Letha and Screaming Mimi) all of whom Titania manages to defeat easily.

Back at Pegasus, Thomas Lightener has ventured down into the Radioactive Disposal section to check and see if the Nth Projector had been discovered. Finding it unmolested, he calls his leader at Nth Command who demands that Lightner finish constructing the device himself and to initiate their contingency plan that they had organized in the event that Deathlok had failed in it's mission.

As Ben and Quasar greet Bill Foster (who has come to bring the villain Atom Smasher into the Project's custody for study) Lightner sneaks into the cell of another radioactive menace: Nuklo, the mutant son of the Whizzer and Miss America. He awakens the child like creature and opens up his cell in the hopes that the mutant will cause enough destruction around the compound for him to finish his plan.

This story is continued next issue....

Appearing in "The Crusader"

Featured Characters:

The Crusader

Supporting Characters:

Perseus's parents (Only in flashback)

Antagonists:

Two unnamed criminals

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

Synopsis for "The Crusader"

A young man orphaned by criminals spends years training himself to the peak of physical and mental fitness in order to pursue his calling as a crime fighter. Unfortunately, he is shot dead on his first night out in costume.

Notes

There is an interview with Paul Neary concerning the 'Timesmasher' strip (which is itself absent and replaced by 'The Crusader' in this issue) discussing his future plans for the strip and how it would tie-in with the Captain Britain series in Marvel Super-Heroes. Sadly, Timesmasher ended prematurely in Rampage #44 and never returned.

Links and References

References