Plot
Fu Manchu has kidnapped teenage genius Cameron Seaver to build five "spirit bombs" which, when combined with Fu's magics, will open portals to the Nether Realm. The hell-like dimension where Fu had been imprisoned until recently. The Faces of Fear remain allied with him, and Maggia opposes them. The Gang War rages on.
A bomb, in a Maggia-frequented restaurant, kills one of their leaders. Seaver worked at Roxxon Oil. When investigating, the heroes discover an oil spill that will affect Long Island and that has positioned general opinion against Roxxon. They do not know that Seaver's boss, Hiram Jones, is being blackmailed by Fu Manchu to provide technology and, when the heroes start meddling, mercenary supervillains are sent against them.
The heroes may discover that Rulers of the Nether Realm oppose Fu Manchu's plan, want him stopped, and returned. Meanwhile, Maggia reacts with violence in Chinatown, but the Faces of Fear play dirty and plant a bomb in Maggia's warehouse. There's also a UFO in Central Park (which is explicitly a red herring), and the Kingpin insists on meeting with the heroes.
Kingpin wants to manipulate the heroes for his own ends. The heroes go to the Si-Fan secret HQ, either because the Kingpin revealed where it was, or because they convinced Hiram Jones to help them. They rescue Seaver, who reveals that Fu Manchu has five bombs, four of which are in known locations, albeit protected.
Seaver gives the heroes a device that will close one single portal, should one of the bombs explode. Fu Manchu has the fifth bomb on himself. He, Fixer, and Mentallo ride a giant Deathlok robot to attack Hammerhead's mansion, but the robot is confronted by Hammerhead's minion Goliath while Hammerhead himself escapes.
When the robot is destroyed by Goliath and the heroes, Fu Manchu detonates the last bomb, only to discover that the monsters from the Nether Realm want him back. Fu is captured. Fixer and Mentallo attempt an escape and probably the book is recovered.
The heroes can either return the book to the Museum or destroy it, like the Rulers of the Nether Realm wanted. Roxxon purportedly stops Seaver's project, understanding it is too dangerous. There are a number of loose ends, including the oil spill, which has enraged a number of Atlantean barbarians.
Notes
- The previous installment of the trilogy suggested Cloak and Dagger as player characters. In both the previous installments, Iron Fist and Power Man were suggested. Here those characters are not suggested (but may be available if requested), having been replaced by Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Shang-Chi. The latter has an in-plot sense as he was a non-player character in the previous game. This reduces the strength of the team. There's a situation in Chapter 9 that can be solved with an Amazing Strength roll and the only characters who could get that are Power Man and Spider-Man.
- The "Golden Empire" is described on page 7 as the day that Fu Manchu resurrects, which has already happened. On page 57, Golden Empire is Fu Manchu's plan to turn the Earth into a hellish dimension.
- On page 7, the Fixer and Mentallo are confident that their anonymity is safe because not even the Faces of Fear members know who's their Boss. However, in the previous installment, the Fixer and Mentallo revealed themselves to the heroes during Fu Manchu's resurrection, and indeed, in Chapter 3 of this book, the heroes can recognize the Fixer and Mentallo as the Bosses of Faces of Fear.
- On page 15, the narrator state the Fixer stole a book and gave it to Fu Manchu. In the previous installment, we discover he gave it to the Si-Fan so that they could use it to resurrect Fu.
- On pages 19 and 30, Hiram Jones is explicitly unaware of the identity of the Celestial One; Jones only knows that the Celestial One is blackmailing him. However, on page 37, which happens just after page 30, when Jones smuggles the characters in boxes, he talks about Fu Manchu's men.
- NYCPD Lt. Angus Lamont is alternatively called Lament on pages 11, 13, 16, and 21, but Lamont on pages 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 23, and 48.
- The Guardsmen entry on page 53 has stats and known powers, but no Talents or Background. Even if a character has no Talents, such as Goliath, this is specified as "Talents: None". This is not because they are in armor. The Mandroids include the talents of their user, Rocko.
- Kingpin's character description on page 55 calls him Wilson Risk (The story calls him Fisk consistently. It only fails in the character description). Other typos include Alars instead of A'Lars in Starfox's description and Ronald Bushman instead of Raul Bushman in the Moon Knight description.
- Page 59 says that "Doc Sampson" defeated Rhino when the latter was in the Emissaries of Evil. There is no proof of Rhino ever meeting a Sampson. In Defenders #42, he was defeated by Doctor Strange, who is also a Doctor and whose name also begins with an S.
Appearances
Featured Characters:
- Daredevil
- Hawkeye
- Mockingbird
- Moon Knight
- Shang-Chi
- Spider-Man
Supporting Characters:
- Avengers
- Captain America
- Iron Man
- Sersi
- Starfox
- Thor
- Vision
- Guardsmen
- New York City Police Department
- Officer Hanlon (Seavers' bodyguard)
- Lt Angus Lamont
- Maximilian Pride
- Roxxon Oil
- Hiram Jones
- Cameron Seaver
- Sammy Sung
- Hiram Jones' Security Robots
- Roxxon Plaza security chief
- A security guard (bribed by Si Fan)
- Roxxon's Mutagenic Department (Mentioned)
- Roxxon's Experimental Division (Mentioned)
Antagonists:
- Atlanteans
- Attuma
- Bertha the gorilla
- Faces of Fear
- The Batboys
- Colossal Deathlok
- Fixer
- Hammerhead Robot
- Mentallo
- three Faces of Fear in a Sedan
- female Face of Fear captured by Maggia
- five punks in Coney Island
- Bartholomew Jacobs, ghost
- Kingpin
- Kingpin's delivery boy
- Typhoid Mary
- Persuader
- Spymaster
- Wildboys
- Ammo
- Maggia
- Luigi Cappuccini (First and only known appearance; dies)
- Goliath
- Hammerhead
- Rocko in a Mandroid Armor
- Unnamed Maggia leader in Orbinson warehouse
- Nefaria family (Mentioned)
- Whitney Frost (Referenced)
- Silvermane family (Mentioned)
- Silvio Manfredi (Referenced)
- unnamed members
- Mongoose
- Rulers of the Nether Realm
- Si Fan
- Creature From the Void (in Liberty Statue)
- The Fly
- Fu Manchu / The Celestial One
- Gator
- Gator's six alligators
- Mad-Dog
- Phantom Tong (Si-Fan's elite warriors)
- Rhino
- Vortex
Other Characters:
- Absorbing Man (Referenced)
- Marlene Alraune (Referenced)
- Dr. Peter Alraune (Referenced)
- android Human Torch
- Apocalypse (Referenced)
- the Arranger (Referenced)
- Asgardians (Referenced)
- Enchantress (Referenced)
- Odin (Referenced)
- Avengers West Coast (Referenced)
- Baron Heinrich Zemo (Referenced)
- Baron Helmut Zemo (Referenced)
- Barney Barton (Referenced)
- Edith Barton (Referenced)
- Harold Barton (Referenced)
- Beast / Henry Mccoy (Referenced)
- Uncle Ben (Referenced)
- Blackout (Referenced)
- Donald Blake (Referenced)
- Bombshell (Referenced)
- John Wilkes Booth (First appearance), tormented soul
- Brand Corporation (Referenced)
- Bronx Zoo staff
- Bronx Zoo night watchman
- John
- three zoo staff men and one woman.
- Bucky (Referenced)
- Ronald Bushman (Referenced)
- Luke Cage (Referenced)
- Captain Mar-Vell (Referenced)
- Celestials (Referenced)
- Coney Island security guard
- Crossfire (Referenced)
- Cross Technological Enterprises (Referenced) / CTE
- Kathy Dare (Referenced)
- Deathlok Simulacrum
- "Doc Sampson" (?)
- Vlad Dracula, tormented soul
- Dragonlords (Referenced)
- Electro (Referenced)
- Elektra (Referenced)
- Emissaries of Evil (Referenced)
- Egghead (Referenced)
- Dr. Abraham Erskine (Referenced)
- Eternals (Referenced)
- Titanian Eternals (Titanians) (Referenced)
- Alars (sic.) (Referenced)
- Sui-San (Referenced)
- Thanos (Referenced)
- Fantastic Four (Referenced)
- Vanessa Fisk (Referenced)
- From another timeline (Referenced):
- Luther Manning (original Deathlok) (Referenced)
- Major Simon Ryker (Referenced)
- Project Alpha-Mech (Referenced)
- Harlan Ryker (Referenced)
- Godwulf (Referenced)
- Frost Giants (Referenced)
- Justin Hammer (Referenced)
- Dr. Jonas Harrow (Referenced)
- Harry the Metropolitan Museum watchman
- Adolf Hitler, tormented soul
- Jord / Gaea (Referenced)
- Khonshu
- Lethal Legion (Referenced)
- Grim Reaper (Referenced)
- Liberty Statue security guards
- Herb
- Three others
- President Abraham Lincoln (Referenced)
- Magneto (Referenced)
- Dr. Karl Malus (Referenced)
- Masters of Evil (Referenced)
- Eric Masterson (Referenced)
- The Mayor of New York City
- MI-6 (Referenced)
- Sir Denis Nayland Smith (Referenced)
- Miracle Man (Referenced)
- Moonstone (Referenced)
- Jack Murdock (Referenced)
- Franklin "Foggy" Nelson (Referenced)
- New York City Fire Department
- Oddball (Referenced)
- Dr. Henry Pym (Referenced), the original Giant-Man
- Sacred Trinity Cathedral priest
- Cameron Seaver's father (unnamed)
- Helen Seaver (Cameron Seaver's mother)
- Seavers' butler
- Scarlet Witch (Referenced)
- SHIELD (Referenced)
- SHIELD's ESP Division (Referenced)
- Niles Nordstrom (Referenced)
- Sinister Syndicate (Referenced)
- Beetle (Referenced)
- Obadiah Stane (alias the Iron Monger) (Referenced)
- Stane International (Referenced)
- Howard Stark (Referenced)
- Stark Industries (Referenced)
- Stick (Referenced)
- Swordsman (Referenced)
- Titania (Referenced)
- unnamed newscaster
- United States Coast Guard
- U.S. Air Force (Referenced)
- US Army (Referenced)
- Grl. Chester Phillips (Referenced)
- U.S. government (Mentioned)
- Patsy Walker (Referenced)
Locations:
- Earth
- Arctic Circle (Referenced)
- Baron Zemo's South American Stronghold (Referenced)
- China (Referenced)
- Fu's Honan retreat
- Egypt (Referenced)
- Europe (Referenced)
- Nazi Germany (Referenced)
- London (Referenced)
- Norway (Referenced)
- United States of America
- Georgia Institute of Technology (Referenced)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Referenced)
- New York City
- Antonio's House of Pasta
- Avengers Mansion (Referenced)
- Coney Island Amusement Park
- Bowery district (Referenced)
- Bronx
- Bronx Zoo
- South Bronx
- South Bronx landfill
- Liberty Island
- Statue of Liberty
- Long Islandcoast
- Manhattan
- Central Park
- Chinatown
- Orbison Warehouse
- Lifelike Manikin Factory.
- Trapdoor to secret laboratory
- Columbia University (Referenced)
- Greenwich Village
- Kingpin Tower
- Lower Manahttan
- Lower East Side
- Midtown Manhattan
- Rockefeller Center
- Roxxon Plaza
- SHIELD's Manhattan headquarters (Referenced)
- United Nations buillding
- Sewer near corner 1st and 42nd
- Upper East Side
- Yancy Street
- Queens
- Richmond Park
- Hammerhead's Mansion
- Sacred Trinity Cathedral
- Stark Industries (Referenced)
- North Carolina (Referenced)
- Project: Pegasus (Referenced)
- The Vault
- Vietnam (Referenced)
- Nether Realm
Items:
- A Madman's Mutterings
- Belt of Strenght
- Cameron Seaver's aspirator (aka inhaler)
- Cameron Seaver's device to close one portal
- Captain America's Shield
- Captain America's Uniform
- Daily Bugle (Referenced)
- Daredevil's Billy Club
- Deathlok's blueprints
- Elixir Vitae (Referenced)
- Fixer's Body Suit; Battle-Vest; Sonic Blaster; etc.
- Fu Manchu's Spirit Bomb detonator
- Guardsman Armor
- Hawkeye's Bow
- Inhibitor band
- Ionic Rays
- Iron Man Mk VIII Armor
- Iron Gloves
- Kingpin's gas mask
- Kingpin's Walking Stick
- Kree-Skrull War (Referenced)
- Mandroid Armor
- Mandroid Armor blueprint
- Mentallo's Anti-Psionic Helmet
- Mjolnir
- Mockingbird's Battle Staves
- Mongoose's Stun Gas-releasing Gauntlets
- Moon Knight's Nunchakus
- Moon Knight's Scarab Darts
- Operation: Rebirth (Referenced)
- Phantom Tong's implants
- Project: TODE
- Project: TODE machine - aka Cameron's Machine
- Rhino Armor
- Spider-Man's Web-Shooters
- Spider-Tracers
- Spirit Bombs
- Super-Soldier Formula (Referenced)
- Trick Arrows
- Typhoid Mary's machetes
Vehicles:
- Limousine
- taxi
- UFO
- Wildboys beat-up van
Source:
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