•Reality ripples like a heat effect as the Meta-Buddha closes his eyes and concentrates. •He woke up with what seemed like an upset stomach. He knew his day wasn't starting well when he looked into the toilet bowl and saw his spine. Now, he'd have to spend money he didn't have on a new one. •Rohypnol in her blood and was Progesterex, which is essentially a small sterilization pill. The drug is now being used by rapists at parties to rape AND sterilize their victims. Progesterex is available to vets to sterilize large animals. Rumor has it that Progesterex is being used together with Rohypnol, the date rape drug. As with Rohypnol, all they have to do is drop into the girl's drink. The girl can't remember a thing the next morning, of all that had taken place the night before. Progesterex, which dissolves in drinks just as easily, is such that the victim doesn't conceive from the rape and the rapist needn't worry about having a paternity test identifying him months later •The Point Man is a bit of a bastard that just wants his past to stay behind him. While generally dodging inconvenience, The Organization sends the Back-Up (powered special ops soldiers which previously employed the Point Man) after him to tie up loose ends. Afterwards, Point Man wages a war against the shadowy Chairmen, vampire executives that run The Organization (that use bacteria men that explode their nervous systems to create EMP's). Yet again, Point Man must stop penguins (pissed off with humanity for global warming) who defrost arctic dinosaurs to destroy all humans. Then, the story with ninjas in it •I'd get drunk quicker if I wasn't a God damn super-human. Fucking cellular regeneration keeps the kidneys and the liver working just fine. Makes getting wasted damn near impossible. The whiskey stokes a warm fire in my belly and the beer puts it out cold. Seven rounds of shots and I can still drive. My buddies are propping up the bar or under it. Later on I'll head home, in a straight line, and watch late night TV. It'll be flipping between old cartoons and new infomercials. This is my life. Everyone dreams of being a superhero. No one counts on the inability to thwart a bank robbery or the utter lack of costumed "super villains." My costume, oh so carefully hand sewn, is tattered and moth-eaten in the closet. I was supposed to be "Pinnacle." I was supposed to be a hero. Now I just try to get drunk. It was the next night that I saw it on TV. I was at the highly reputable gentlemen's club Oral Office, watching the L.A. /New England game. I had fifty bucks on L.A. A newscast interrupted and said some nut calling himself "The Phage" was holding City Hall ransom. •As a battered Spider-Man (in a black and red costume) swings through the skeletal remains of a large metropolitan city, his spider sense goes off wildly. He hides in the remains of a building as a broken down Sentinel marches by using a beaten Carnage (Toxin?) as an eye patch. Carnage calls to him to help. As Spidey carefully dodges the robot's range of sight and weakened sensors, Carnage tries to bond to Spidey for a healthy body. As the symbiote weakly crawls over Spidey's arm, it seems that the costumes merge (another symbiote?), he quietly whispers "to take all of it." Unbeknownst to Carnage, Spider-Man is unloading the guilt and pain this world has dealt him. He breaks contact, and Carnage realizes what happened. Carnage reveals what happened verbally and tries to attack Spider-Man. As Carnage breaks free, Spidey slaps him down and says "thanks." Spider-Man swings away. We cut to a low-tech SHIELD installation. A cracked video screen shows the Carnage/Spidey thing. A shadowed leader says "we'll send him." We cut to hours later as Spider-Man wanders down his destroyed childhood street. Spidey is wildly screaming about taking "them" down. An unconscious Carnage gets thrown at his feet. "You?" We pan up to an aged Wolverine. Wolverine explains that no man can escape his past, or should. Spidey relents and gets his memories back from Carnage. As the transfer completes itself again, Spidey's senses go off. He ducks and Wolverine gets hit by a large robotic hand, far too neat and cruel to be the Sentinel from before. Wolverine pulls himself out of a brick wall. "You knew I'd be okay. Can't say the same for him..." We see Carnage, or the puddle that used to be, from under some fresh rubble. Both heroes look up at a moonlit silhouette on the robot's head. "Doom?" one of them utters. "You should be so lucky," utters the figure. The Wizard, in amazing battle armor floats down, but still over, the street. Several metal orbs no bigger than a baseball orbit him.