When the Controller and Mister Fear — two members of Crossfire’s Crew — attempted to ambush their enemies, the U-Foes, it attracts the attention of Spider-Man who has been on patrol looking for villains who recently escaped the Raft.[1] Ambushing the pair, Spider-Man uses the Controller as a human shield to protect him from Mister Fear’s fear gas.[2] Exposed to the gas, the Controller has a hallucination that his spinal injuries left him trapped in an iron lung while being poked and prodded by doctors and nurses.[3] That’s when Spider-Man notices that the U-Foes on the street below fending off an army of armed civilians under the thrall of the Controller. Luckily, the Controller — recoiling from the effects of the fear gas — falls off the nearby rooftop, knocking himself out cutting off all commands to his mind-controlled slaves. Vector deduces what is going on and uses his telekinetic powers to raise himself up to the rooftops where he spots Spider-Man fighting Mister Fear. He also spots SHIELD helicopters approaching and tells the other U-Foes that they need to get out of the area, and fast. Spotting a passing bus, Ironclad uses his great strength to force it to stop so they can use it as an escape vehicle. Meanwhile, Spider-Man has managed to remove Mister Fear’s mask and then sets up a web-net that slingshots the pellets of fear gas fired from his gun back at him. Without his mask to filter out the effects of his own fear gas, Mister Fear collapses to the ground.

On the ground, officers arrive on the scene just as the Controller is pulling himself up off the ground. Recalling the control discs he then takes control of the two police officers and orders them to use their police radios to say that federal agents have ordered local cops to withdraw from the scenes as the SHIELD helicopters arrive on the scene.

Back on the rooftop, Mister Fear’s hallucinates that the other members of Crossfire’s Crew are mocking him for being the weakest member of their group.[4] Listening to Mister Fear muttering to himself, Spider-Man tries to get him to focus enough to tell him where Crossfire and his crew are hiding out. That’s when he notices SHIELD helicopters have arrived along with Iron Man. He is soon joined by Captain America, who is unhappy when he learns that Spider-Man didn’t call it in when the U-Foes and Crossfire’s Crew started brawling in the street. A few minutes later, Iron Man reports that SHIELD agents have cordoned off the area but there is no sign of the U-Foes. Spider-Man tells them how Mister Fear was babbling about a feud between the U-Foes and Crossfire’s Crew that apparently dated back to when both groups were locked up in the Vault. When Spider-Man asks if he can access the records, Captain America says he can and also says that he and Iron Man will help him out, reminding the web-slinger that he has to stop thinking he can’t ask for help. Spider-Man apologizes, saying that it is hard asking for help after working outside the system for so long.

By this time, the Controller has returned to Crossfire’s hideout at the amusement park on Coney Island. He tells his teammates how the scattergun they used on X-Ray worked but they were interrupted by Spider-Man and Mister Fear likely got captured. Crossfire doesn’t consider Mister Fear’s arrest a big lost but tells the others that they need to change hideouts in case he talks. He also reminds them that they need to keep ahead of U-Foes and find the Guardsman that ratted them out on the Raft and find her before their enemies do.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man and Captain America are back at the Raft where they have SHIELD agents pull up information about the U-Foes and Crossfire’s Crew during their time at the Vault. There are records of altercations between the two groups, but no information on why. Spider-Man asks him to pull up the file on Crossfire to learn what he might have to do with any of this. They discover that Crossfire filed a complaint against the Vault’s program administrator, Rozalyn Backus whom he accused to making the other prisoners think he was a snitch. Unfortunately, when they pull up the file of Rozalyn Backus, they learn that she apparently died in a car accident about a month before the Vault was shut down.[5]

Having hit a dead end, Peter Parker returns home two hours later and puts in a call to the Black Cat to see if her some time employer, the Owl, can help fill in the blanks. Since the Black Cat owes Spider-Man a favor she agrees to do it.[6] After he gets off the phone, Mary Jane expresses that she doesn’t like the idea of Peter calling the Black Cat for help since every time he does it brings trouble into their lives. When she asks if he’s trying to get himself blackballed from the Avengers, he doesn’t have an answer for her. The following evening, Spider-Man pays a visit to the Owl in Hell’s Kitchen. When the Owl asks the web-slinger why he should help, Spider-Man reminds the Owl that he owes him a favor and that he’d be doing him a favor by getting the U-Foes and Crossfire’s Crew off the streets. As it turns out, the Owl’s resources were able to learn that Backus faked her death and set up a false identity and that she can be found at her home on Park Avenue. When Spider-Man follows the address, he learns that Rozalyn Backus has reinvented herself as the landlord of an apartment building that provides homes specifically for single mothers.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, U-Foes (Vector, Vapor, X-Ray, Ironclad), Crossfire’s Crew (Crossfire, Controller, Mandrill, Corruptor, Mister Fear), Captain America, Iron Man, Owl, Rozalyn Backus, SHIELD, Mary Jane Watson, Black Cat

Continuity Notes

1. This story takes place after the breakout at the Raft prison in New Avengers #1-5.

2. Spider-Man isn’t sure if he ever met the Controller before (at this point he hadn’t, btw) but remembers fighting Mister Fear before. That Mister Fear is Alan Fagan, whom Spider-Man first encountered in Marvel Team-Up #92.

3. Per Iron Man #12-13, Basil Sandhurst was crippled in a lab explosion. In order to overcome his disability, he built an exoskeleton that was powered by the wills of those whose minds he sapped using control discs, hence the whole Controller motif.

4. In the hallucination, the Controller states that the “real” Mister Fear would be embarrassed to learn that Alan Fagan took over his identity. He is referring to Zoltan Drago, the original Mister Fear, who was active from Daredevil #6 until he was murdered by Starr Saxon in Daredevil #55.

5. The file on Rozalyn Backus states that her date of birth was May 19, 1968. This should be considered a topical reference relative to the date of publication. Modern readers should ignore the date and instead presume that Rozalyn was 37 years old at the time of this story but not apply a specific birthdate to the character.

6. The Black Cat has occasionally worked with the Owl since Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #1-12.