Spider-Man: Breakout #4
Knowing that Courtland Whitehead sent the U-Foes on a wild goose chase, Crossfire has forced the investment banker to get back at his computer and use his hacking skills to learn where to really find Rozalyn Backus. Whitehead has already learned that Rozalyn has been operating under the alias of Angela Mercy and been using money stolen from Vector to fund programs for single mothers. With this in mind, Crossfire and Whitehead deduce that she must be living at Haven Home, the Brooklyn apartment complex she bought to house single mothers and their children. Whitehead gives this information in exchange for Crossfire sparing his life and that of his employees. Crossfire promises that he won’t harm anyone, but instead, he will do the dirty deed for him. Calling the Corruptor into Whitehead’s office, Crossfire has his teammate touch Courtland in order to unleash his dark side.[1]
At that same moment, Spider-Man has already found Rozalyn Backus and just learned how she managed to steal money from Vector and use it to fund Heaven Home. She asks if he is going to arrest her considering she still committed a massive amount of fraud even though she stole from villains. That’s when Spider-Man gets a call on his cell phone. He quickly updates the caller on what’s going on but doesn’t mention anything about Roz. When she asks who that was, he tells her it was Captain America, explaining that he is working with the Avengers these days.[2] Backus is relieved Spider-Man didn’t tell Captain America about her, but he tells her he isn’t sure if he’s going to let her go. She tells him that she had good reason to manipulate Crossfire’s Crew and the U-Foes because she had known Crossfire years before he became a criminal. She picks up a broken picture frame off the floor which holds a picture of her with a man with the words “never forget” written across it in red pen. As she looks at the old picture, she tells Spider-Man that she knew Crossfire when he was only known as William Cross, an interrogator for the CIA. At the time she worked for the Federal Prison Bureau and she provided test subjects for William’s experiments. Her hope was they would develop a means of turning dangerous criminals into model citizens. She hoped it would advance her career but she got more than she bargained for. After a week on loan to the CIA, Cross invited her to join him and some of his colleagues at his favorite bar. By the end of the night, William had convinced Roz to let him come home with her after tricking everyone into buying him drinks all night. The following day nobody noticed they showed up at work in the same clothes they wore the night before and they began the latest in William’s sonic brainwashing tests. Roz was impressed when William was able to compel the criminal into changing his opinion about Roz to the exact opposite and then punish himself.
Three months later, their work continued as did their romance. When William proposed to her she said yes and the got eloped immediately. On their honeymoon, while she thought William was in the shower, a team ambushed her in their motel room and arrested her for stealing government property and for the murder of William Cross. As it turned out, William had made her take the fall when he decided to steal the sonic brainwashing technology for himself and then faked his own death, making it look like she murdered him. She says she was held and interrogated for six years until William resurfaced as Crossfire. To make it up for her, the corrections department gave her the job of her choice and she chose the Vault because she knew that Crossfire was being held there. However, that wasn’t enough for her.
As she Rozalyn is explaining this to Spider-Man they are unaware that Crossfire is closing the net around her. After commandeering a school bus, Crossfire and enthrall a bunch of Haven Home mothers and their children into boarding the vehicle. While inside, Mandrill has enslaved all the women inside Haven Home’s laundromat. At the same time, the Controller has enslaved an electrical company crew and compels them to set up a perimeter around the apartment building. Meanwhile, the Corruptor has been left behind at Trimark Investments in case the U-Foes come back. In order to pass the time he watches as Courtland Whitehead is forced to execute his employees one-by-one. When the U-Foes come crashing in after learning that Rozalynd Backus does not live at the Park Avenue address they were given. The Corruptor orders Whitehead to shoot them, but Vector uses his telekinetic powers to deflect the bullets. After Vapor uses her gaseous form to knock out Corruptor, Vector learns the actual location of Backus from Whitehead.
Back at Haven Home, Rozalyn continues telling her story to Spider-Man. She says that with her records purged nobody knew her real motivations for wanting to be the head of the Vault. When Crossfire was finally busted and sent to the Vault, she knew that the equipment that was seized from him was a misdirection and the real equipment was hidden somewhere else, so she continued to watch him.[3] She also noticed that Crossfire was betting pretty friendly with Vector and decided to play them off each other. Since the prison had a policy that the prisoners didn’t know the identities of the staff, Rozalyn disguised herself as one of the Guardsmen and made a deal to help Vector, the U-Foes, and Crossfire’s Crew break out of the Vault together for a large sum of money.[4] She only dealt with Vector and only while wearing a Guardsman uniform, and figured she had Crossfire fooled, noting he enjoyed thinking he was controlling one of their guards through a proxy like Vector. As Rozalyn is telling all this to Spider-Man, Crossfire and his gang are in the lobby of Haven Home interrogating the tenants in order to learn which apartment she lives in. By this point, Spider-Man can figure out what happened next. With her connections, Rozalyn pitted Vector against Crossfire, then stole the money and used to fund Haven Home. As Crossfire arrives outside her apartment, Spider-Man asks the one question he still has: If nobody knew that Rozalyn worked at the Vault, how did Crossfire file a complaint about her when she worked there. Before she can answer, Spider-Man’s spider-sense begins going off just moments before the Controller knocks down the front door. Crossfire answers the question: He says that she mailed him a copy of her death certificate because she couldn’t resist putting her signature on the whole deception.
Quickly, Crossfire uses his sonic hypnosis to immobilize both Roz and Spider-Man, the Controller then beats on the web-slinger before putting a control disc on Spider-Man to steal his strength. With the situation now under his control, Crossfire tells Roz that it has been a very long time and they have a lot to catch up on.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, U-Foes (Vector, Vapor, X-Ray, Ironclad), Crossfire’s Crew (Crossfire, Mandrill, Controller, Corruptor), Rozalyn Backus
Continuity Notes
It’s stated here that the Corruptor gained his powers after being knocked into a vat of pharmaceutical chemicals. This happened in Nova #4.
This story takes place shortly after Spider-Man joined the Avengers in New Avengers #1-5.
Rozalyn mentions that Crossfire was scheming to make costumed vigilantes kill themselves with his brainwashing abilities. This has been Crossfire’s MO since he first appeared in Marvel Two-In-One #52. For the purposes of this story, Crossfire’s time in the Vault would have been between Avengers Spotlight #25 and Agent X #5.
Rozalyn states that the no-name policy was put in place after the last warden of the Vault was murdered. This would have been Truman Marsh who was murdered during an attempted breakout in Avengers: Death Trap, The Vault #1.
