Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do #5
Trickle Down
At Ryker’s Island, Spider-Man and Daredevil attempted a break-out for the Black Cat, who is standing trial for the murder of Garrison Klum, a wealthy philanthropist that — unknown to the general public — was also the notorious drug dealer known as Mister Brownstone. However, they were stopped by Frances Klum, Garrison’s brother, who got Felicia first and after making her two rescuers beat each other to a pulp, teleported away with the Black Cat. As the alarm goes off, Daredevil wakes up first and tries to revive Spider-Man as guards start rushing into the cell block.[1] By the time they arrive, Spider-Man and Daredevil have retreated into the ventilation system where they watch as the guards they thought were killed are helped up by the new arrivals.
Elsewhere, Frances Klum tells Felicia Hardy about his childhood, relating to how they used to put ice in the urinals at school. At the time he was a freshman and he was caught by two bullies urinating in a washroom claimed by the sophomores. Hurling anti-Semitic and homophobic insults at Klum. Frances was so scared that he wet his pants. That’s when his older brother Garrison entered the washroom and told the bullies to leave his brother alone. When they asked what a “jew-boy” like Garrison is going to do about it, he showed them that only the Jewish can touch their nose with their tongue. One of the bullies tries to prove him wrong, falling for what was clearly a distraction, leaving him open to talking to a beating. Frances beat the bully bloody and saying he needed ice, shoved the bully’s face into the urinal. Frances recalls that nobody bothered him after that and it was moments like that he truly loved his brother. However, other times, like that evening when he pressured Frances into performing sexual favors for him, Frances didn’t like his brother much. At the time he didn’t see this sexual abuse for what it was because he thought it couldn’t be considered victimization if you loved the person who abused you.
Felicia tells him that there was no love involved with what happened and asks if this is a good idea being out in the open. Frances explains that he never tried teleporting with someone else before and it took a lot out of him, and is afraid to risk another one so soon for fear he might teleport partially in an object. When Felicia says she feels a little exposed, Frances uses his powers to summon her costume, telling her that he recovered it from her room at the Four Seasons before the police came to search it for evidence after her arrest. He tells her that he did it so she could retain some kind of privacy. As she gets changed, Frances looks away. She thanks him for doing this for her and then asks him to tell her what his brother did to him. Meanwhile, Spider-Man and Daredevil have regrouped and waiting on a resident expert on teleportation. Talking about how the Black Cat has the ability to twist people around, Daredevil admits that he has known a few himself in his time, but would trade them all for the one that got away.[2] That’s when Daredevil feels a shift in the immediate atmosphere, signaling the arrival of Nightcrawler who appears in his trademark flash of brimstone.
At that same moment, Frances is telling Felicia about how he is afraid of his ability to teleport. He tells her how he first discovered his powers on the day of his mother’s funeral. Garrison forced Frances to look in the coffin, even though he didn’t want to. Unable to bear looking at his mother, Frances thought about how much he wanted to get away from there and suddenly, he teleported away for the very first time. He ended up at a shopping mall in Dallas that he once saw on TV and it took him two days to get back home. When he got home, Garrison forced Frances not to use his powers unless he told him to. When discussing his ability to force people to do what he wants them to do, he says that this was something that happened because of his brother, again. At the time, Garrison was starting to build his drug empire and took Frances to Atlantic City. Since Frances hadn’t been with a woman before, Garrison decided it was time for his brother to “become a man” and paid for an escort. However, when in bed with the call-girl Frances discovered he couldn’t perform unless he was giving anal sex, something the escort refused to allow him to do. Furious that she would leave before he could do the things that Garrison forced on him he suddenly discovered that he was able to control her body with his mind. At the time, Frances didn’t think he was forcing her to do anything because he didn’t threaten her or pull a gun. Justifying that she did everything willingly in the body if not in mind.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Nightcrawler is telling Spider-Man and Daredevil that they aren’t dealing with mutants, at least not really. He tells them that there are actually very few mutants who have the ability to teleport. He then tells them about the Lebengebrochennacht or “the night of the broken lives”, an important part of mutant history. He tells them that, during World War II, the Nazis hunted down and captured mutants for experimentation. Josef Mengele himself had a theory that mutant organs could be transplanted into the body of humans and that could hold the key to creating the Nazi’s so-called master race. The test of this theory was called Project: Griffin to see if this could work. There were many failures and those who didn’t survive were incinerated. Most of the test subjects were Jewish children taken out of the concentration camps because they could be easily manipulated into participating under the false promise they would be reunited with their parents. However, Hitler saw these Wenig Taktreisenders (“little time travelers”) as a threat and ordered them all destroyed. Mengele would have succeeded had the camp where these experiments took place weren’t liberated by the Allied Forces. Since then, this group of human-mutant hybrids lived and passed on the genetic traits over generations. Most generations didn’t manifest any abilities and those that did could only teleport small objects or inorganic matter. From the sounds of it, Frances Klum is one of the few of the highest order who can teleport themselves and other biologic matter. When Spider-Man asks if any of them developed telepathic powers as well, Nightcrawler admits that he isn’t sure, but doesn’t think the idea is impossible.
Back with Felicia, she continues to listen to Frances tell his story. After the incident with the escort, Garrison altered his business plan. Frances would use his abilities to prompt the rich and famous to want to try the heroin that Garrison was selling and Garrison would use his ability to teleport liquids to administer the drug to his clients without the need them to inject the drug, eliminating all the visible signs they were abusing drugs. When news spread among the idle rich, they made a fortune. They soon bought the first nightclub where they operated. By the end of their first year, they owned five buildings. They made powerful friends on both sides of the law.[3] Within five years, they had risen to prominence becoming one of the wealthiest people in New York City. Even though he had more than enough money, Garrison still wanted to have more power even at the risk of wanting unwanted attention from the authorities. It was also about this time that Garrison began raping Frances again. This was the only time that the Black Cat interrupts the story, asking why he couldn’t use his power to stop his brother. Frances explains that Garrison was immune to his telepathic powers. He then explains that on the right when Garrison was going to rape Felicia he decided that nobody should endure the type of abuse he did and decided to kill his brother.
At that same moment, Daredevil and Spider-Man are showing Nightcrawler the crime scene photos at the scene of Garrison Klum’s murder. The teleporting mutant confirms that the injuries are conducive of someone teleporting inside a human body. When they tell him how Frances used his powers to free Felicia from Ryker’s Island, this connects with Nightcrawler. He tells them how the X-Men regularly use their Cerebra — their mutant tracking computer — to also monitor online data for mutant related activities to find new and emerging mutants as well as keep tabs on anti-mutant bigots looking for like-minded individuals. Emma Frost was monitoring things and picked up a search engine hit from Ryker’s Island of someone who was looking into the limitations of a teleporter of Klum’s ability. Daredevil realizes that Felicia knew that Frances was coming to get her and wanted to know how far he could take her. The only problem is that they don’t know where in the city they could have gone. At that same moment, back at the Queensboro Bridge, Frances is once again trying to come to terms with the fact that he murdered his brother and fears the punishment he will face for what he has done. She tries to get Frances to calm down, saying that he might not be punished if he tells them all the years of abuse he endured and that he was acting in self-defense. When he asks Felicia how she could know this, she admits to him that she’s been raped before.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Black Cat, Frances Clum, Daredevil, Nightcrawler, (flashback) Garrison Klum, Nazis, Kingpin, Emma Frost
Continuity Notes
Daredevil refers to Spider-Man by his real name here. That’s because the pair have known each other’s secret identities since Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #107-110.
Daredevil is thinking about Karen Page who was fridged by Bullseye in Daredevil (vol. 2) #5
One of these powerful criminals is the Kingpin who is depicted here wearing sunglasses and using a blind person’s walking stick. That’s because, at the time of this story, the Kingpin was struck blind following Daredevil (vol. 2) #15. His vision will later be fully restored in Daredevil (vol. 2) #46.
Topical References
Frances is worried that he’ll be given the death penalty for killing his brother. This should be considered topical because the State of New York abolished the death penalty in 2004.
