Puppets

The Puppet Master (Phillip Masters) has used his special clay to take control of a unit of soldiers to storm Ryker’s Prison. There, they fight their way down to the super-villain holding chambers where they attempt to bust a prisoner out.[1] Unfortunately, they are interrupted by SHIELD operatives while setting the bomb to explode and are killed in the blast.

Meanwhile, Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) is paying a visit to the Beast (Hank McCoy) at Xavier’s School for Gifted youngsters. She wants to talk to him about an anomaly he detected when he scanned her last.[2] She has been alarmed ever since strange things have been happening to her, such as her skin turning blue, her eyes glowing red, throwing up blood, and strange alien voices in her head.[3] Seeing how upset Carol is, Beast does another scan and it comes up clean. However, he promises that he’ll look into this deeper. The two then make up, since they parted on bad terms the last time they were together.

In Brooklyn, Araña (Añya Corazon) is blowing off some steam fighting some crooks trying to rob a liquor store. She is frustrated because being a government registered superhero in training has meant endless hours of boring theory classes.[4] After she is done she heads home and is caught by her father. He lied about when he was coming back from a trip to see what she was up to while he was gone. Seeing that she went out as Araña, Gilberto demands to know if his daughter was out with Carol Danvers. This is because he blames Ms. Marvel for Añya getting injured during a mission. Being treated like a child angers the girl and she tells her father that it was Doomsday Man’s fault she got hurt, not Carols.[5] She then accuses her father for not allowing her to grow up and storms off into the night.

The next day, Ms. Marvel has gotten tired of William Wagner ghosting on her that she decides to go down to his restaurant to see what’s up. The place is closed up and she is then attacked by the supervillain known as Battleaxe.[6] In the middle of the fight, an SUV pulls up and soldiers emerge. They fire an electrified net at Battleaxe, incapacitating her. When tries to figure out who these guys are, they hit her with a grenade launcher, stunning but not long enough for them to get away. When she graves one the soldiers she notices that he seems to be in some kind of trance. As she incapacitates them, she gets contacted by Agent Sum, one of the SHIELD agents assigned to her Operation: Lightning Storm. He tells her that the new recruits arrived and she says she will return to the mini-carrier as soon as she has delivered Battleaxe to the Raft.

Later, when Carol returns to her ship, she finds that the two recruits are Machine Man and Rick Sheridan. Machine Man (Aaron Stack) is aggressive and surly, only interested in drinking when there isn’t a fight to be had.[7] Rick Sheridan on the other hand is a mild mannered guy who is actually the host for a dream entity called the Sleepwalker. Their assignments are the work of Maria Hill, and Carol asks Agent Sum to remind her to have a talk with SHIELD’s Deputy Director over this.[8]

Meanwhile, Sarah Day — Carol’s publicist — is at the Daily Bugle because she is upset that they ran a photo of her client kissing Wonder Man in the middle of a battle.[9] She is upset that J. Jonah Jameson framed the story as though they were making out while police officers were dying and the damage that will do to her client’s image. Jameson tries to wave it off, saying that people care more about the potential romance between Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man. He also denies that this is revenge against a former employee, insisting that he hates all superheroes equally.[10] When legal threats are hinted at, Jonah says that he’s going to need some lawyers to assist him on how to word his next article about how Carol helped a wanted felon kidnap a child in the middle of the night. When Sarah plays dumb, Jameson says two words: Julia Carpenter.[11]

At the same time, Araña hasn’t returned home after she stormed off last night. Concerned for his daughter’s well being, Gilberto calls SHIELD to try and get answers. The agent on the line tries to assure Corazon that his daughter is probably fine. However, he is marking Araña down as missing along with other female superheroes including Tigra, Dusk, and Stature.

Later, Ms. Marvel is trying to interrogate the soldiers that she captured along with Battleaxe. Machine Man happens to enter the room and instantly recognizes the soldiers as from the Chilean army.[12] In fact, an analysis of the sand on the boots indicate that they originated from somewhere north of Puerto Natales. Learning that they attempted to free the Terminatrix from the Raft before trying to capture Battleaxe, the only link is that whoever sent the soldiers is after female superhumans. Carol decides that she is going to find out what’s going on by going to South America to investigate. As Agent Sum heads off to set their course he bumps into Rick Sheridan who is having troubles finding his quarters in the mini-carrier. Sum tells him to rest up because they’re heading out on a mission and this usually means trouble.

Meanwhile, in a mansion in Puerto Maravilla, Phillip Masters welcomes a guest into his home. He tells them that he has retired from villainy to become an art dealer. He is dealing in “interactive art” in the way of women that he has under control with his special puppets clay. He shows off a room full of beautiful women of all nationalities and backgrounds. However, if a buyer has the revenue they could purchase from his exclusive collection. He then bring them to another room where he has the superheroines Dusk, Silverclaw, Stature, and Tigra as his slaves as well. This tour is punctuated when a soldier arrives with his latest acquisition. Opening the shipping crate Masters finds his new get: Araña!

Recurring Characters

Ms. Marvel, Operation: Lightning Storm (Dave Sum, Machine Man, Sleepwalker/Rick Sheridan), Araña, Puppet Master, Beast, Sarah Day, J. Jonah Jameson, Gilberto Corazon, Battleaxe, Dusk, Silverclaw, Tigra, Stature, SHIELD, Sentinel Squad ONE

Continuity Notes

1. The name on the cell door is O. Midas. Since Masters is abducting female superhumans this could only be Oubliette Midas, aka the Terminatrix. She has been incarcerated following the events of Marvel Boy (vol. 2) #1-6.

2. This would have been when Carol and Rogue teamed up to fight a variant of Ms. Marvel from another reality. See Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #9-10.

3. Carol has heard these voices in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #6 and 12. The blue skin, red eyes, and blood happened last issue. This is because she was linked to the alien warrior known as Cru, whom she fought back in issues #1-3. This will all be revealed in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #21.

4. This story takes place after the passage of the Super Human Registration Act (SHRA) in Civil War #3. It requires all superhumans to register with the government. Araña was forced to register in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #7. This law will remain on the books until Siege #4.

5. Añya had her spider carapace ripped off by Doomsday Man in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #12. Gilberto blamed Carol for this to the point where he filed a restraining order against her going near Araña.

6. After meeting in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #9, Carol had gone on two dates with William in issues #11 and 15. What Carol doesn’t know is that her agent, Sarah Day, confronted Wagner about his past and used it to blackmail him into ghosting on Carol. We’ll discover in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #25 that he is secretly a Kree sleeper agent.

7. While everyone believes this to be the Machine Man, this hard drinking lunatic is apparently an impostor according to Marvel Comics #1001. As of this writing (May, 2024), why this impostor was put in the place of the real Aaron Stack is as yet unexplained. The swap happened before the impostor’s first appearance in Nextwave #1. This happened during a period when the real X-51 went into space with the Celestials in X-51 #12. Here, the impostor states that he fought against the SHRA previously. See Civil War #5-6.

8. The appointments of Machine Man and Sleepwalker to Carol’s unit is likely as retaliation for Carol going over her head to Tony Stark to form Operation: Lightning Storm. Maria Hill was not pleased with this. See Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #15.

9. This was during a fight with MODOK and AIM, Wonder Man had been mind controlled at the time and kissing him broke him free from MODOK’s control. See Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #16.

10. Carol once worked at for Jameson for Woman Magazine starting in Ms. Marvel #1. She regularly clashed with Jameson over subjects that were covered in the magazine and ultimately she was fired from the job in issue #22 of that series.

11. Julia Carpenter (aka Arachne, aka Spider-Woman) became a fugitive under the SHRA after she was caught helping non-registered heroes evade arrest. This led to her own capture in front of her daughter, Rachel. After she broke out of prison, Julia tried to find her daughter to no avail. Feeling bad for her, Carol helped track Rachel down and discovered that Julia’s parents took custody and tried to hide from her. See Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #6-8 and 13-14.

12. Here we see Stack carrying a brown skinned artificial hand, which he quickly hides behind his back when he runs into Carol and the others. This is part of a Life Model Decoy based on his former Nextwave associate, Monica Rambeau. This was part of his agreement to work for Lightning Storm. See Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #21.

Topical References

• The date on the Daily Bugle is listed as August 12, 2007. This date should be considered topical as it is relative to the date of publication.

• Jameson claims that people are Googling Wonder Man to find out if his name means anything to do with his sexual endowment. Google is a popular real world search engine, but unless you found this in the ruins of a dead world then you probably know that already. Typically a real world brand would be considered topical but this wouldn’t necessarily be the case here since “Googling” has become a proprietary eponym.