The Razor’s Edge

Pat Mulligan returns to his apartment to find his father in a life-or-death battle with Razor-Fist, the Raft escapee he has been hunting as Toxin.[1] Jim Mulligan tells his son that he tried his best. This scene angers Pat to the point he instantly transforms into Toxin and lunges at Razor-Fist, sending both men crashing out the apartment window and crashing atop a car parked on the street. Razor-Fist manages to slip away and flees the scene, leaving Toxin to go back and check on his father. Unfortunately, by the time that Pat has gotten back up to his apartment, his father is dead.

Not long after this, Jim Mulligan is given a police officer’s funeral. Pat in unable to keep away even though his abandoned wife Gina, and their newborn son Edward would be there.[2] His attempts to avoid being seen by Gina fail when he turns to leave the funeral. When she catches up to him and tells him to stop, all he can do is ask how she is doing. Gina takes offense to this and spits in her husband’s face for abandoning them and then breaks into tears. Unable to deal with this situation, Patrick flees the scene calling himself a coward along the way. The Toxin symbiote doesn’t understand the meaning of Gina spitting in his face, but Pat explains that he deserves it. His temper soaring, Mulligan decides they should focus it on someone who is truly deserving of his anger.

That evening, Razor-Fist has his followers record a new video warning the city that his Slasherday massacre is fast approaching. After they finish taping, Razor-Fist asks how much money they have earned from the public to stave off Slasherday and learns that they have only made about $35. By this point, Toxin has learned that his former partner, Paul Meadows, was found carved up in a dumpster and visits him in the hospital. Paul is in rough shape but he can tell Pat that he was captured by Razor-Fist and tortured by the children under his control after revealing Pat’s identity and where he lived. Paul apologizes, and says at least nobody got hurt since Pat is with him no worse for wear. Pat decides not to tell Paul how his father was murdered as a result. Paul explains that he was probably left alive because he pleaded for death. Luckily, Paul is able to give him a location where he can find Razor-Fist.

Back at his apartment, Pat struggles with keeping Toxin under control. The symbiote is acting on Pat’s emotions and wants to kill Razor-Fist. However, this time, Pat wants to do things the right way and bring Razor-Fist into custody to pay for his crimes. Once he has the symbiote under control, Pat calls Spider-Man and updates him on what happened. After hearing how Pat let Razor-Fist go to check on his father, the web-slinger tells him that he would have done the same thing. Pat then asks Spider-Man to be there with him when he takes down Razor-Fist in case he loses control. He tells Spider-Man that if he crosses that line and attempts to kill Razor-Fist that he is to be thrown in a cell at Ryker’s Island along with him.

At that moment, one of Razor-Fist’s female followers, Samantha, shows him the latest cut of their newest video. It uses elements of horror films to show viewers what will happen on Slasherday by showing a woman entering a dark room filled with children brandishing sharp knives. Razor-Fist isn’t very entertained but Samantha says that by acting out what Slasherday will look like will make it more real for the general public than actually carrying out the attack would. She makes a point of saying that this way nobody will get hurt. When Razor-Fist asks her why she joined his cause, she explains that she was came from an abusive home where her father hurt her and her mother was absent. However, she doesn’t feel right indiscriminantly killing adults because they could be killing some of the good adults out there. However, Razor-Fist has dropped all pretenses that he is part of a good cause and attacks Samantha.

However, before he can kill Samantha, Toxin arrives to stop him. Yanking Razor-Fist away from the girl, Toxin battles Razor-Fist, calling him a coward for fleeing each time they fought in the past. As they fight, Toxin mocks Razor-Fist for giving up the nearly life-like prosthetic hands for his razors after he lost his real hands.[3] To demonstrate how much of a coward Razor-Fist is, Toxin shatters his weapons and gives him the chance to fight back without them. However, Razor-Fist quickly loses his urge to fight and asks Toxin to kill him because he wasn’t built for prison. When Toxin refuses to do so, Razor-Fist mocks him by saying his father pleaded for his life before he was killed. For a brief moment, it looks as though Toxin is going to kill Razor-First for this, and Spider-Man is about to stop him when Toxin stops himself. Toxin tells Razor-Fist that it was a nice try, but his father was not the begging type.

The following morning, Razor-Fist is locked up at Ryker’s Island where he is forced to wear prosthetic hands instead of his trademark razors. In the aftermath of the battle, Pat Mulligan meets with Spider-Man. By this time, Razor-Fist’s followers have fled back to their families leaving them to wonder if these children are ticking time-bombs or if time, love, and therapy will make them normal again. Spider-Man commends Pat for keeping Toxin under control. Mulligan thanks the web-slinger, but he admits he’s not sure if he finally has Toxin under control or if the symbiote is biding its time. When Spider-Man tells Pat that he has some real guts, he decides to finally come clean with his wife. He later meets with Gina at a diner to tell her why he abandoned her and his son, Edward. He finds it hard to explain in words and decides to show her, asking Gina not to scream or freak out. Gina promises, however when she watches him transform into Toxin, Gina Mulligan screams.

Recurring Characters

Toxin, Razor-Fist, Spider-Man, Jim Mulligan, Gina Mulligan, Edward Mulligan, Paul Meadows

Continuity Notes

1. Razor-FIst escaped from the Raft in New Avengers #1.

2. Patrick abandoned his wife and son after bonding with the Toxin symbiote over fears of their safery as seen in Venom vs. Carnage #1-4.

3. Razor-Fist lost his hands in a car accident. He was transformed into Razor-Fist by (no joke) a guy named Carlton Velcro. See Master of Kung Fu #105-106 for details.