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storiesof2018 · 4 years

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-A ghoulish eeriness sailed over the darkened environs of the Bavarian forest, as discarded hulls of shelled-out HYDRA Uber tanks became obstructive sentinels over the ridgelines as whiteish sconces of moonlight haloed over the SSR division encampment, pitched up tents adorned with the Red Cross insignia flappingly beckoned medic evac ranks to haul the wounded, bloodied faced GI's that were screamingly pulled out of razed fox-holes.

Everything was rehearsed on urgent cue, transport gurneys blindingly moved in traumatic procession as cotton gauzes were sheathed over marred, bullet-riddled flesh, young men that resonated heartbeats of full-measured valor gurglingly choked out in throat-draining cadences as they became on the stuporous fringe of cacophonic panic-an immobilizing dread that grappled them into catatonic lucidity. The second wave of HYDRA ranks mobilized on the front-lines as deafened volleys of anti-tank artillery mistily rained a blood-storms over westward ridge.

Around the stationed point, Ford GP convoy jeeps road out with mud-rutted traction, advancing into the murkiness of the forested grounds that were rigged as the sniper domain, combative-honed Iron Cross Wehrmacht marksmen lethally decked with Mauser Karabiner 98k rifles for long-range precision-shadow reapers.

As the radio wavelength of Agent Peggy Carter's dulcet British-timbre commandingly broadcasted the fixed location of dugout extraction, impassively braced in a sniper- crouch on parked Jeep's hood, with his Springfield 1903 rifle strapped over the bulkier cords of his blue tactical-padded shoulder. Feigning his nonchalant poise, as rakish chestnut tresses unkemptly strayed over his temples, with a distractive play of charming tack, Sergent Bucky Barnes sucked out a drag of vaporous breath as the bendable length of a freshly lit cigarette saggily drooped over the pouty swell of his jutted underlip, his grayish-aquamarine irises unwaveringly razored in the direction of the SSR operations tent, where Captain Steven Rogers was coordinating their next recon mission with Gabe Jones.

'Hell, M' not gonna enjoy this...' he snorted against a murmurous gravelly pitch, snarkily, knowing he was next 'up-to-bat' for a nightly Commando scouting report. "Beats watchin' Duggan snore..." He couldn't ward off being a defiance-starved hostage in the butcherous POW barracks of the Azzano stronghold where the Red Skull's diabolical-sadistic toady -Armin Zola- had surgically anesthetized him before wiring him to needle-point machinery, torturously jabbing mutative infusions of serum cocktails into his veins. After the vomitous, sweaty onslaughts of night-chills that feverishly raided through him, Bucky had staunched out bone-plaguing implosions-the contractive tautness of deadened-heavier muscle, he knew something was-different.

Against his steeled passiveness, jacked-up tension became exceedingly detonative through his veins, every implosive second on the forested battlefront was rigged, as white-bluish salvos of incendiary blasts that surged out of HYDRA weaponry horrifyingly scythed a calamitous wake as young GI's were vaporized into heaped remnants ash-obliterated in a trajectory of energized firebolts. Despite all push-forward efforts of the SSR, HYDRA's butcherous reign of infestive carnage had escalated-armored war machines divisions harvested out Allied units into vapours of white-noise. They needed to destroy Armin Zola's energy cube before echoes of salvaged valour flatlined.

Dabbing out his cigarette, scathingly against roils of feigned tension that rapted over his fisting hand, sniffily Bucky downcasted a crestfallen glance of teary aquamarine at wooden cross markers being stored in convoy truck- an elemental reverence to honor the fallen soldiers of his 107th infantry. "Damnit..." he breathed out, chokingly, as feverish bleariness dampened his lashes. They were young courageous men who devotedly followed tenacious-hellbent- Sergent James Barnes had geared up unerring measures of soldiery faith in him-when the Uber tanks blasted cannonades of voltaic energy over trigger-mine warrens of Azzano, he was pulled into a dugout trench by Dugan- a sitting duck who had devastatingly watched his unit-brotherhood dissolve in sifts of ash. "I gotta be there for em'..." he gritted under a sourish breath, ruefully, grazing his teeth over his pouty underlip. "They deserve that..."

His mournful thoughts were interrupted by the brush of approaching footsteps. Months of experience had made him familiar with discerning friends from foes. Though he kept his guard up, he knew that he was about to receive some friendly company. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Bucky. You're a good soldier. You do what you can for the men. They know that." Despite the encouraging words that came from the baritone voice, they weren't the softly spoken words that belonged to Steve Rogers, but from Captain America. True to form, Bucky watched as the American symbol of Liberty and Freedom approached him, still decked out in his uniform consisting of a carbon polymer flame-resistant jacket, blue paratrooper trousers, leather boots, and combat gloves.

If it weren't for the cool blues of his soft eyes, it would've been hard to recognize the kid from Brooklyn whose greatest strength was his compassion as well as his courage. Steve having long been accustomed to having Bucky uplift him from his sorrow in his darkest moments felt the need to do the same as he watched his friend unravel into the depths of remorse. It was encouraging of course. A soldier without compassion was no better than a machine following orders. But a soldier fully consumed by his guilt in the field was a time-bomb ready to go off. "Losses in war...are inevitable." Steve felt the pang of that reality hit him hard. "You gotta stow it, Bucky." He said to his friend as he stood beside him.

A derisive clench heavily rapted over the knife-edged planes of Bucky's jaw, as he glaringly fixed his sniper-vision of glacial aquamarine on the darkened vistas of the Bavarian forest, boomingly a thunderous cacophony of nightly RAF bomber raids became symphonic in destructive volume-firebombs blindingly careened with salvos of defensive artillery over the German ridgeline; another insomnious-damnable rush had barraged their encampment. With tactful ease of his impassive stance, involuntarily Bucky dragged his tactical boot over the mulchy ground; he was on the vacuous fringe of heart-wrenching collapse, livid spectres of his 107th unit being sifted into ash ravaged him soul-deep.

A chagrined gleam betrayed his battle-lagged wariness as Bucky flashed a knifing glance heatedly onto the white star insignia that heroically contrasted over the patriotic mantle of the Allied Force's new valorous poster boy- Captain America. The runtish gaunt-faced asthmatic that determinedly traded blows with Flatbush hoggish bullies was now a hunkish-enhanced Adonis-a soldiery paragon that vivaciously gorgeous USO dames swooned over. Hell, Steve even had a radio theme that inspiringly broadcasted over Europe. He wasn't the 'big brother' anymore, his best friend had daringly trudged into the tenebrous labyrinth of HYDRA stronghold-liberating Zola's torture-starved POW's, with just a theatrical prop shield on his back. "Yeah..." Bucky drawled throatily, his suave-boyish features nakedly rapt with phantom anguish as he bluntly gave Steve an offish smirk. "M' guessin' you pals gave you orders to push me out there again, huh?"

At that Steve gave him a lopsided smirk. "Well, I know how much you like to sight-see. And I think we both know that Duggan wouldn't go five minutes out there without his flask to keep him company." In truth, Steve didn't envy the duty of patrolling the perimeter at night when there were so many unknowns to be found in this part of the world. In this instance, the Commandos were more than likely to run into wildlife in these forests than a Hydra patrol moving through the area. They were about 5 clicks out from the nearest settlement and for all they knew, these parts of the forest could be frequented by the local civilians, some innocent and some just as eager to report their location to a Hydra spy in exchange for some money. They could only trust a sharp mind with sharp eyes to navigate this area at night before they carried on with their march in the morning. Bucky was the only logical choice while the others healed and rested.

"What do you say? You up to it?" Steve asked as Bucky took a moment to ponder things. The sun was getting lower while activity surged in the background as the troops scrambled to erect their tents for the evening.

"Ready as I'll ever be, punk..." Bucky quipped in grating pitch starchily, against bone-racking tension flexing over his knuckles, readily he buttoned up the collar of his navy blue jacket as frigidness of the October evening gustily whooshed over the encampment, firelight beacons hauntingly deflected off the Red Cross station-point as the odorous reek of morphine and diesel fumes grippingly breached his scrunching nose. "Grah...Don't wait up for me..." he urged with smug cockiness in his gravel-roughen-timbre, while unerringly adjusting the buckled strap of his Springfield rifle over his padded shoulder; having stealthily executed HYDRA penetration soldiers with dead-eye precision in desolated farmhouses of bomb-out Normandy, Bucky became predatorily attuned with the mechanical cadence of a kill-zone.

Quirkily, Bucky felt a half-smirk tug at his shapely-wide lips as he unwaveringly steered his grayish-aqueous gaze at the blackened towering pines that spookily enwreathed over the drive-out clearing, with adamant reserve Steve tellingly recognized his steeled-hellbent bravado, giving him a subtle nod, warringly evident to the hawkish gleam of his azure irises-the brotherly cadence felt weightily heart-driven; Bucky needed to break distance from the SRR ranks, the nightmarish apparitions of his grievous failure. "I guess it's gonna a rough night .." he murmured in snarkier pitch, easing down in mid-crouch to knot the laces of his paratrooper boots. "Don't worry, punk, this Brooklyn kid knows how to put em' on the ropes..."

At that Steve gave his old friend an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "They won't see you comin'. We're lucky to have ya, j***. I'll make sure Falsworth saves you some soup." Steve could hear a commotion inside the camp as the troops continued to unload their supplies. This far from the nearest SSR base meant they had to conserve their munitions and supplies accordingly or they'd be at risk of being unequipped in a dangerous territory where they couldn't afford to compromise their presence.

As he turned to leave his friend to his duty, Steve hesitated for the briefest moment. Ever since they were boys, he had developed a sense of caution-an intuition-that warned him of potential danger. He hated to leave Bucky alone out here. If it were up to him, he'd be out here with him into the long hours of the morning as they scouted the perimeter. But as the Captain of their company, he had to formalize their strategies based on the new intelligence they were receiving about alleged Hydra experiments being conducted in a fortress hidden in the mountains. Steve let his feet continue to dutifully carry him into the camp just as the sun continued to descend further into the horizon, blanketing the region in twilight and darkness.

Somewhere in the distance, a foreboding howl sang up into the moon.

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Unbeknownst to his laser-edged vision, with his Springfield rifle poised in the clutch of his roughened fingers, Bucky swaggeringly advanced with the measured precision of his tactical prowess, gnarled branches whip-lashed over the garbed padding of his shoulder as implosive pulses of the carious miasma of decaying flesh odiously wafted off gutted-out skeletal maggoty deformities that were once HYDRA scouts, black material of their Iron-Cross uniforms tatteredly sheathed over jutted-out torso bones.

Quashing down a gut-lurching reaction against a nauseous onrush, defensively the young baby-faced sergeant bolstered up his sniper-honed readiness, as errant brunette tresses disheveledly whisked over the graven edge of his razored cheekbones, tensely Bucky crouched on his muscled hunches with athletic grace, he knew with a grip of doubt that he wasn't alone.

"Shoulda figured Barnes..." he quipped under breath, croakily, feeling a bone-shunting-ghostlier chill rake numbingly through his veins in paralytic fruition at the stunted moment Bucky shudderingly registered full-throated fierceness of wolfish snarl menacingly resonating in amplified volume. Piercingly the mesmeric smokiness of his grayish-aquamarine irises became unwaveringly fixed on unmistakable-murderous visages of bestial claw-marks stamped on mudded clumps of dirt. "W-What the hell...?"

The highlands were blanketed by darkness stretching for miles. The luminous rays of moonlight could not breach the canopy of trees extending the vast landscape. But deep in the recesses of the mountains could be heard a faint crackle. Too soft and distant to anyone from afar. But if anyone were in closer range, they'd recognize the alarming dissonance of gunfire going off and the accompanying screams of ravaged men. Feral eyes glared at the pulping bodies of two men choking on their last breaths while clutching their throats. Their blood-their lifeforce spilled uncontrollably through the bites that ripped open their flesh, and tasted their fear. Hunger festered in the creature's stomach-hunger and an insatiable desire to exact pain upon his former captors who tortured him for so many moons.

Humans. They were like a plague upon the Earth causing only pain and suffering. The creature vowed to return them the favor. As he watched two of his captors die, his body was filled with a burning fire. A strength to escape and chase his mistress the pale moon. The creature leapt through the open window of the fortress and into the night. As more humans became aware of his escape, they chased him into the forests, unaware they were hunting their own doom. Hours into the night, he fed and listened to them cry out in misery as he drained their life-blood.

His senses were heightened and the world look so different. Even in darkness, everything was crisp and red like the blood he spilled. The pounding in his ears told him how many human heartbeats were near. So many dim-racing with fear. The hunger continued to burn inside of him despite how many he had slain. He needed to get away-far away. Into the night his feet carried him, across the field of trees as the world blurred past him. He couldn't escape the grip-the anger, the pain. What did the humans do to him? Not far away, he could hear the beating of another heart. This one was calm-soothing. It angered him. He wanted it silenced.

Luminous eyes glared at the offending human through bushes, watching as he looked over other dead humans. He had a weapon. But his back was turned-he was vulnerable. The creature growled, and before the human could react, he charged towards him and pounced with his wolfish maw opened, prepared to bite.

A brackish stench of frothing drool assailed over the underbrush, grappling him into an entrancing thrall of prevalent menace, a homicidal entity breached his isolated position, blurringly against feverish sweat that grungily drenched his chestnut tresses. With mechanized traction, in peripheral vigilance, Bucky levelled his long-barrel rifle against a point-blank deadlock, as the monstrous-beastlier phantom growlingly emitted volumes of rabid aggression.

Catching heaves of breath that racked in his chest, scowlingly, Bucky poised his finger over the trigger-lock as the cadence of unpalpable ferocity gutturally deafened in vicious tenor. Lucent orbs of whitish lazurite blazingly flashed with a soul-knifing intensity as canine muzzle berserkly thrust out with lightning-quick precision of a cobra-strike; the mania of blood lust exceedingly increased in rabid cadence as the hulking-monstrous wolf hungrily detected a thermic pulse of Bucky's rampant heartbeat. Barring the jutted length of his incisor fangs against an unhinged torrent of murderous ecstasy, jarringly the mutative denizen panted out a ferocious snarl over Bucky's muscled shoulder.

The wolf missed his target. An act which served to only infuriate its temper even further as he gracefully landed on his paws stared down the human, snarling with malicious saliva dripping from his maw. The stains of blood on his muzzle attracted the Bucky's attention and made him realize just how lethal his attacker was as he prepared to aim his rifle at him. The wolf barked and roared, once again charging at him, determined to attack and sink his incisors into his flesh. The wolf lunged just at the same time Bucky rolled out of the way. The predator's reflexes however were sharper than the average wolf and reacted-almost as if sniffing out Bucky's move before he even acted. The wolf jumped ontop of Bucky, tackling him to the ground.

Bucky yelled and raised his rifle as the attack dog barked and roared like a possessed animal. The young man held his rifle up at the creature's throat, trying to keep that vicious maw away from him as it chomped and fought desperately to reach him. The stench of death and gore was heavy and repugnant, causing Bucky's eyes to water and for him to gag.

The bone-crushing massiveness of the demonic canine enforcer suffocatingly thrashed with explosive-bludgeoning- momentum of concussive aggression. Before the cocky sergeant could mouth-off a snarky quip about a classic Sherlock Holmes novel that he borrowed from Falseworth's hidden stash of English fiction -the Hound of the Baskervilles; Bucky gnashed his teeth against floored shunts of adrenalized panic, wrenching his arm back in a defensive reaction, in that blinded instant he breathlessly drove a kidney-strike of his bruised fist into the hellbound wolf's furred girth with immobilizing precision. The draconic strength bodily pinning him was unrelenting as he bridged the athletic bulkiness of his thighs in rampant succession, only to grimacingly swallow as viscid bloodied drool gloppily hiked over his shapely-wide lips.

"G-Get off!" He yelled shoving back against the oppressive beast. He could feel his arms straining under the pressure of the immense force and for a moment was tempted to call out for help. Before he could, that was when the wolf finally managed to wrap its maw around the rifle and yanked it from his hands-an act which shocked the young sergeant. Having no other option, he raised his forearm just as the wolf latched onto it, sinking its razor-sharp teeth deep into his flesh.

"AAAAACCCHH!" Bucky's wail pierced the night skies as pain and burning fire flooding his nerves. His blue eyes were wide with fear and anger as the wolf applied bruising pressure on his right arm. Filled with conviction, Bucky used his left hand to reach for his side-arm pistol. He pressed the barrel into the wolf's throat and fired. Not once, not twice, but three times, watching as the bullets exploded out the top of its head. The creature yelped and immediately went limp, its maw releasing Bucky's blooded limb as it crashes lifelessly to the ground beside him. "Aaaugghh..." Bucky whimpered, clutching his arm and rolling over onto his side, face pressed into the dirt as tears escape him.

Choking out vomitous breaths, rackingly against a throated rasp of hitching agony, Bucky dragged his knuckles with blinded urgency over the ground, jackknifing his bulkier abdomen into a planking stance as ribbons of blood gruellingly drenched his Commando tactical jacket, corded thews of his mangled forearm were evidently gouged by a knifepoint assault of wolven fangs that had bleedingly gored through his flesh bone-deep.

The agonized slash heralded a mutative-freakish convergence of incarnate unity-deviance, as the genetic manifestation-fusion luridly bred out a HYDRA laboratory pulsed with infective contractions of morphic-insurmountable strain. "C'mon Barnes..." he murmurously drawled in a hitching breath, doing his utmost to staunch out the injurious puncture as blood wetly hemorrhaged against his palm's tremorous grip over the shredded material that revealed a bloodied gouge over his bicep."Y'gotta fight..."

Uncontrollably, losing the conscious grasp of his exhausted pistol, Bucky thrashed against bone-cleaving inducements of untamped havoc that he couldn't ride out, tauter resiliency of hunkier muscles cuttingly threaded with protrusive veins as he railed out a cadence of his throat-shredding anguish. "S-Steve..." The roughened gravelliness of his timbered drawl sobbingly forced him to become voiceless as he retched up intestinal acid that had soul-crippingly deadened his vertiginous mobility against stoking dregs of warred resilence, as his feverish vision bleared against onrushes of paralytic-blackout- numbness. "B-Bitten..."

There were thundering vibrations shaking the Earth beneath Bucky's prone form. The static in his ears made it difficult to discern anything other than the high-pitched ringing in the dead of night. But the sporadic noises of choking agony had traveled far-numerous kilometers-towards the edge of the Howling Commandos camp where the solitary figure of Steve Rogers stood in deep thought. Steve had finished debriefing his men and dismissed them back to their tents. Before he could retire to his own, he had taken a moment to silently reflect on the war-effort, only for his sharp hearing to pick-up the bloodchilling howls of a wolfish predator locked in combat with a human-with Bucky.

"Bucky!" Steve had bolted without a moment's thought and stormed into the forests in the direction of the struggling sounds. It was a dark night where the only source of light came from the pale moonlight streaking from above, but he was able to navigate his way through the maze of trees and bushes until he reached a clearing. "Bucky! Oh god." Steve slid across the ground on his knees like a batter running for home-base, and came to Bucky's side. "Oh no…" The blonde felt his blood run cold when he saw the sight of Bucky's weeping wound. Beside him was the dead carcass of the largest wolf Steve had ever seen before. "I got you, man. Lay still," Steve urged his best friend who shivered and convulsed against his lap.

As the bone-racking crescendo ratcheted through his blood-gutted flesh, against fevered exhaustion, tremblingly, emitting out whispery-pukish rasps Bucky pillowed his cheek into corded solidity of Steve's tauter shoulder, as he felt a kneading grace of Steve's brotherly caress splayed a desperate rapt under the boyish chubbiness of his slackened-dimpled jaw. Implosive--damnable contractions were sickeningly forcing him to choke on surges of vomitous bile as his lashes flitted against the knifing heat that burningly encompassed his mauled arm had excruciatingly intensified like a clamping vise.

"P-Punk..." The blurred depth of his owlish pupils chillingly razored with voltaic intensity predatorily melding with silvery-aquamarine while his unkempt chestnut tresses damply askew over his temples. "Hr...grah..." Gurgling out quivery breaths, mumblingly, Bucky was careening on the stuporous fringe of being half-awake, the brackish rancidity of drenched canine fur odiously wafted off the lifeless wolf, he felt deadened against the gravitic pulse-a deadlier-ferine aura that viscerally channelled through him. "M-My arm... I can't feel it..."

"Keep it together, Buck." Steve grunted as he helped Bucky up to a squatting position. "Can you walk?" He asked worriedly as he saw his friend's inability to remain balanced and focused. His sweat drenched skin and the temperature of his skin sent alarm coursing through Steve. What was happening to him? The wound on Bucky's shoulder was dark, nearly black in the moonlight and unless Steve was imagining things, the clavicle bone was nearly visible. The trapezius muscles twitched and made a sickening crackle which caused the blood in Steve's body to go cold. "Damn it." Steve cursed, realizing the risk of his friend getting infected by the animal that bit him. "All right, hold on tight, Buck. I'm gonna get you to the medic back at camp." Left with no other option, Steve used his immense strength to easily lift his friend up onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Bucky didn't struggle. Steve was both glad and worried by that as he set a quick jog through the forests, following the path he had came from.

The camp was still wide away by the time he came racing through the tree-line. His arrival was announced by Morita was immediately called for the medical tent to be cleared.

"What the hell happened?" Duggan yelled once he saw a bleeding Bucky on Captain America's shoulders, barely conscious. The other Commandos picked up their weapons at the ready in case of an attack.

"He was attacked by some wild animal." Steve said as he carried Bucky into the tent. The medic of the group, Gabe Jones was already inside and clearing off a make-shift cot for Bucky to lay on. "Bucky, hey!" Steve cried out in fear as he watched Bucky's eyes drift and daze in and out of focus. "You with me? Look at me, pal."

The cushioned mattress against his sweat-dampened back anchored him to immovable reality, against the slumberous grogginess, tearily Bucky pinched his eyelids with tensing strain as he registered the bracing pressure of Steve's leather-sheathed hand urgingly against the bracketed muscle planes of his thickened chest; the invincible vitality of Brooklyn brotherhood grew into a pacifying contrast of beckoned hope.

Thrusting his lacerated arm, in a lightning-quick rush of bestial-enhanced momentum, screechingly, he was reaching for Steve as a uniformed combat medic with a Red Cross insignia stitched on his fatigue parka irrevocably jabbed the shunting dosage of morphine into his forearm, numbing out the convulsive upheavals of rampant drags of heaving breath that quakingly ignited a cimmerian-wolvish unity. Against backlit contrasts of the forested encampment, Steve's angular-graven features hawkishly edged tauter, conveying infinite urgency. "P-Punk..." he slurred in froggish timbre, croakily, drifting into sedative-induced throes, while a smirky quirk breathlessly tugged over his shapely-wide lips. "D-Don't do anythin' stupid..."

That was all Bucky could manage before his exhaustion won out and he fell into shock. "Bucky!" Steve cried as he held his head with his hands. In the entryway of the tent the other Commandos stood somberly gazing inside. "Is he gonna be all right?" Steve asked the medic who held Bucky's wrist to check his pulse. A perpetual fear took hold of him that he hadn't felt in such a long time. Not since the day he lost his mother. Guilt festered within him, telling him that he should've never let Bucky patrol the perimeter by himself. If he had backup-if he had been with him-he wouldn't be in this position right now.

"If I can clean the wound and stop the bloodloss, time will tell," the medic responded as he stripped away the remains of Bucky's shirt. "Captain, sir. I need you to stay outside so I can work on him," the medic insisted as he began to sort through the numerous bottles of alcohol and iodine.

"C'mon, Cap. He's in good hands," Duggan urged Steve as he placed a sympathetic hand on the blonde's shoulder. Steve stared at Bucky's bloodied and bruised body with a torn look that emphasized the innate struggle within him. He wouldn't lose his best friend. He had to hope and pray he survived this. Steve let himself be guided out of the tent to allow the medic to treat Bucky. Steve could only linger outside, haunted by the memory of finding Bucky in his wounded state, and by the luminous sapphire of his eyes that were like frosted diamonds before he had passed out.

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'M' with ya until the end of the line...'

The unbreakable mantra of a prevalent Brooklyn cadence warringly echoed against Bucky's tremorous heartbeat; onrushes of infused morphine had overpoweringly arrowed through his veins —unbidden feverish chills draggingly racked him bone-raw into a phantom succession as the muskiness of blood-drenched layers medical gauze that sheathed over his forearm smellily entrenched his rivalrous senses. The draping cascades of the Red Cross tent flappingly chased hurricanic gusts of the frigid October headwinds, as the vaporous fumes of diesel entrenched the medic stations, jeep convoys immediately hauled out with M5 anti-tank guns, answering the distress-call for the grounded infantry units on the ridgelines.

Harnessing up dormant visages of his amplified resilence, against catatonic grogginess, aggressively, Bucky clutched onto the mattress with a viscerous flex of a bestial grip as he consciously listened to a short-range frequency of paranoic artillery-fire that distressingly broadcasted on Gabe Jone's SCR-300 pack radio as cacophonic POW trauma incessantly resonated within the station tent. 'We're getting massacred out there...'

The tension felt as dire as being in a warzone helplessly waiting for the enemy to come into your tent and litter you with bullets as you laid on your cot. Apprehension took hold of him and there was nothing more he wanted than to have a weapon in his hand aimed at the tent-flaps. As his listless gaze searched the tent area, he nearly recoiled off his cot when the flaps opened and someone entered. Bucky felt his heart leap up into his throat, gripping him with fearful anticipation until he realized who it was that came in.

"Bucky, you're awake." Steve said both relieved but mildly focused in a way that said he was still in captain-mode. In fact, the blonde stood fully garbed in his uniform with his shield slung onto his back. Outside could be heard the commotion of increasing chaos as the Howling Commandos scrambled to form a line of defence against some unseen attackers. "How do you feel?" Steve asked worriedly, drawing Bucky back to the present.

An unnameable maelstrom of bone-gripping pain had anesthetized him, feverish clamminess profusely glazed over his youthful skin, chestnut tresses rakishly clung to his furrowing brow against the strenuous wake, despite that his collapsible dregs of strength felt dissected in tenfold. With a painstaking variance of his telltale stubbornness, Bucky arched his back off the mattress, gnashing his teeth against the infectious scourge. A pinching drag starkly grazed over the pouty swell of his underlip, as he became shockingly aware that his canine incisors were gnawingly jutting out in lengthened-mutative traction.

Groaningly, as Steve's deep-sonorous timbre placidly reached him, Bucky eased his bandaged hand up to his jaw as his grayish-aquamarine irises flashed at the medical instruments and remnants bloodied gauze lividly placed on a wooden table. A panic-razed breath caught up his scoured throat as a mounting revelation of the hellish attack arrestingly deadened him into a soporific vigil of concussive traumatic onslaughts. Unfalteringly, Steve downcasted the stormier intensity of his oceanic azureous irises at the medical clipboard report authorized by General Chester Philps: 'Sergrent James Barnes: Not Fit For Duty'.

"W-What's happenin' out there..." Bucky rasped under gravelly breaths, against throaty scratchiness, quashing down another inexorable bout of irrepressible, gut-sloshing nausea, while Steve immediately reacted to evident choked-off gurgling and propelled a metal bucket with driven momentum of his booted foot at the headlong second, Bucky had retched up breathless-pukey- heaves. "S'thank's punk..."

"Its nothing we can't handle, and nothing you should be concerned about," Steve only replied to his friend's initial question. A group of ragtag militia who belonged to neither Hydra nor the Allies had stumbled onto their camp and thought they could raid the supplies.

Their numbers were too few to mount an effective attack despite their daringness. Steve fixed his friend with an assessing look, half-tempted to push him back into bed where he should be. Instead the Captain sighed, running a hand back through his hair. "You gave us a big scare last night, Buck. You lost a lot of blood. You know if it was me in your shoes, you wouldn't let me go out there. You're ordered at least a full day of bed-rest before we can talk about you going back out there." Just as he finished it looked like Bucky was prepared to argue with him. That was until his best friend's eyes widened and he rushed for the bucket. Steve grimaced as he listened to the chilling sounds of Bucky emptying his stomach in loud heaves. "Easy," Steve gently placed a cool rag against Bucky's temple and eased him to sit back down onto his cot. "You shouldn't be out of bed."

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen..." Bucky grumbled back, dismissively against a snorty pitch, vexatiously shrugging off the dampness of the rag that chilled against his tensing brow as Steve deftly applied the spongy cloth over his feverish temples with a tentative flex, onrushes of contractive throbs bloatedly intensified within in his stomach-nothing ebbed. Scathingly, he braced his muscled forearm over the bracketed ridges of his mid-drift as sludginess of bile chased indrawn breaths. Convincing himself to refuel his battle-tested defiance readily Bucky gripped onto the wooden edge of a table with a steeled flex, pressing his lips into a harsh grimace. "You're not leavin' without me..."

"I didn't come here for a debate, Buck. I came to see how you were doin'," Steve sighed as he leaned back against a medical table. His arms cross and a look of remorse comes over him as he takes the time to look over his friend's appearance. Bucky looked like he had just climbed out of a wood-chipper with his body barely intact. The numerous scratches, bruises and the heavily bandaged part of his shoulder were clear indicators of what he'd been through, and Steve felt remorse hit him once again that he had sent Bucky out there by himself.

"What happened out there?" Steve asked, recalling the dead anima-wolf he'd found with Bucky. Marita and Jones had gone back out there in the morning to search for the carcass only to instead find it gone. What they had found instead was the raiding militia that were nipping at their heels.

Feigning his indifferent toughness against an imploding surge of predatory fierceness, the chemical potency of antiseptic sailed nauseatingly within the medical station, a rapt scrunch of his nose conveyed instinctive sniffing as he unmistakably caught a saltish wafting of panicked dread-human sweat that penetrated through sheets-the cindery mortar of a HYDRA-ravaged town. Furrowing his brow confusingly into an incredulous pinch, reddish skeins of thermic heat pulsingly veined towards Steve in arrowing sync, as he became clashingly attuned to a blood-thumping resonance of his best friend's steadier heartbeat.

Fostering on a conscious measure of phantom restraint against blood rushes of white-heat, Bucky panted out heavily in ragged breaths as throbbing in his swelled gums bleedingly coupled in bone-splintering fruition. "T-There was something big that jumped me..." he drawled under tight hitches, scratchily, as feverish wetness grungily dampened his unkempt brunette tresses. A dumbstruck blankness stamped over the hard-edged planes the ruggedly delineated with the boyishness of his graven features "S'it's gotta be still out there, Steve..."

Crestfallenly, Bucky winced against pained breaths, as he shakily caught his underlip between his sharpened teeth-fangs. Making a tactful advance to the cot, determinedly Steve's turquoise-azure irises gleamed niveous light-a fiercer rawness that echoed soldier-driven intensity, preparing to gear up for another battle-run into the slaughterous pandemonium of HYDRA's damnable-ironhanded warpath. "I guess it was kinda stupid not lookin' over my shoulder, huh...?" he quipped, snarkily.

"I don't think anyone else could've been prepared for something like that," Steve reassured his friend. He himself wasn't so sure what it was that had attacked Bucky. It looked like a wolf, but its size was too huge and its face too twisted to be considered an ordinary specimen. There was also the fact Bucky had blown so many shots into the creature's abdomen and skull in the effort to save his life. It was deader than roadkill. But it didn't change the very strange fact that its dead carcass was no longer where it should be. Realizing that Bucky must've noticed his disquiet, Steve exhaled roughly and tightened his jaw. "The thing that attacked you, we couldn't find its body. Duggan and Jones went out there this mornin' to look for it. Jones said something about your bite wasn't ordinary. You got bit, Buck, by a jaw with too many teeth to be considered and ordinary wolf." Steve explained, hoping to make him understand the gravity of his injury. "Jones wanted to study it, make sure we knew what we were dealing with in case there are more of those things out there. Instead, all we found was a ditch with blood-stains on it."

An unhampered succession of gut-wrenching momentum of a contractive heartbeat forced Bucky to revealingly stiffened against the pillowed cushion, demonically ghoulish visages zombiesque skeletal remnants of deformed canine apparitions screechingly amplified into a macabre rhapsody of banshee-like frequency against his feverish headrush. Every pulse veined a possessive divergence as he felt knifing traction under the cotton gauze sheathing over his left bicep."You're tellin' me that I was bitten..." he rasped in breathless cadence, dizzily jerking his head back, as he pinched his eyelids against grimacing tension."I-It's gotta be from HYDRA...There's no other way to explain it, Steve..."

"We're not discounting anything at the moment, but it would explain a lot of the rumors we've been hearing about them up in these mountains," Steve said feeling increased worry. He knew what kind of monsters Hydra scientists could be, having seen the grisly aftermath of their experiments in the several labs they'd raided over the past several months. Man, woman or child, even animals. Zola was determined to give the Skull a fighting edge against the Allies and to do that, he needed specimens to experiment on. The things they'd found even gave Howard nightmares about setting foot in a lab. "People have gone missing, and there's a lot of unrest about wildlife in the area running into town. It's probably connected to whatever attacked you last night." Steve watched as Bucky stubbornly tried to throw on his jacket with one arm still in his sling. "Whoa, what are you doing?!" Steve yelled, alarmed as he stood in front of Bucky who tried to make his way out of the tent.

"M' going out there..." A snarlier pitch emitted up his throat, growly attempting to half-spun on his combat boots in mechanized variance, Bucky gnashed his teeth against seething breaths, the hard-edged virility of his features rapted with bestial tension as he jutted out his stubbled jaw with aggressive traction, intimidatingly giving Steve a menacing flash of his canine fangs as he became attuned to penetrative fierceness that outrode his warred restraint. Blazingly his slitted irises gleamed whitish heat of voltaic sapphire; abandoning his combative reserve, against headlong-wolven- rabidness Bucky delivered a banking stoke of his full-measured viciousness, telltale fisting of his bruised hand warningly surged up, propelling explosive momentum of a straight-arm uppercut a hairbreadth from Steve's broaden jaw."T-This is my damn hunt...!"

"You're not going anywhere today, Sergeant Barnes," Steve spoke with a firm tone. The intensity of his blue eyes and the tightness of his jaw made it clear that it wasn't Bucky's friend talking, but his commanding officer, Captain America. "You're not fit for duty, and you're not putting yourself at risk out there." The duo maintain a tense eye contact that threatened to boil over into something dangerous.

Until now, he had never had to pull rank on Bucky since they had begun serving in the same unit. Bucky was his best friend and they trusted each other more than a lot of blood-brothers did. But it was inevitable it seemed that they would arrive to a moment such as this. Having seen the wild and ferocious look in Bucky's eyes, Steve began to worry about his frame of mind. But as the seconds passed and Bucky made no move to get passed him, Steve believed his message had been made clear. He'd wrestle Bucky onto the mattress if he had to.

"Now stand down, and get some rest." He ordered. "We'll handle this."

Dragging out throaty heaves, scowlingly against the crescendoing tempo of a heart-racking stupor, Bucky reeled back in stilted—mortified alarm as if he was blindingly dodging concussive blowback from a flash grenade. The visceral echoes of his Brooklyn spirit ragingly deafened against the floored revelation that he bullishly attacked little Stevie, his scrawny-asthmatic best friend was a punching-bag of mortal courage, never breaking into a gutless run like a chicken-hearted sap when his back was pushed against the wall of Flatbush alleyway. Those cornered backdrops were Steve's battleground-of fighting the jock-faced bullies. He always used a trash lid as his shield against thuggish ambushes of knuckled bruises on his bonier-gaunt features-never backing down, he was helluva of scrapper. 'I had em' on the ropes...'

Quashing down rampageous siege of untamed aggression that unwarrantably fueled revamping stokes of his beastlier ferocity, Bucky gazed down at the flexing tension of his hand, stark panic blankly melded in the aqueous depth of his owlish-wide irises as convulsive dregs of breakneck awareness throbbingly whipsawed through him in paralytic succession. "Steve...Wait...Damnit, I didn't mean to..." he choked up a raspier gasp, stammeringly as his lips poutily stretched gapingly against breathless -stupefied distress."Punk...M' sorry."

"Its all right." Steve said. Hearing his friend's apology, he let his temper cool and was both parts thankful and remorseful over their heated exchange. Despite his greater inclination towards keeping his friend safe after sustaining a life-threatening injury, Steve was also concerned over his how that encounter might have changed Bucky. He was short-tempered and aggressive which was a far cry from his normally cool demeanor. He couldn't have him in the field like this. Not till he was back to his normal-self. "Look, um, why don't you just get some rest, and I'll have Jones bring you some food and-" He was interrupted when the tent-flap opened and in came Duggan immediately seemed to immediately notice the tense atmosphere between the two friends.

"Sorry, Cap. We need you on the edge of the perimeter, we think got eyes on a Hydra scouting party." The bowler cap soldier said which not only served to distill the tension but also break the ice. Steve fell back into solider mode immediately as he patted Duggan on the shoulder.

"I'll be right out." Duggan exited the tent, leaving Bucky and Steve to make one last exchange. "Will you be all right?" Steve asked worriedly.

A derisive nose scrunch tautly became evident, as Bucky grimacingly feigned a half-smirk; he couldn't remain fastened own a medical cot, straining against mutative tension, he stuntedly eased onto the mattress as foggier haziness bleared out his vision with no avail; he couldn't redouble his tactless efforts. What he agonizingly endured in the Azzano hellhole-being injected with blood-crippling serums that Doctor Armin Zola serpentinely conceived to slake his pestiferous tantamount of surgically razing out soldiery echoes of defiance into babbling—vermined POW captives of disposable flesh. He was HYDRA's inventive-depraved maestro of amputating out heartbeats of Brooklyn resistance with torturous-maniacal devices of psychological deprivation—chasmic thralls of starvation that felt grippingly deathless.

Allowing his tactical jacket to slip out of his tremorous clutch, dizzily Bucky roved a steely glare of feverish aquamarine down at blood-smeared gauze discarded in a bucket. "Yeah-That might not be so bad..." he drawled in threadier pitch, scathingly, as he felt Steve's leather-gloved palm brace over his shoulder, keeping him steadily bolstered against a wedged pillow.

Measuringly with passive vigilance alight in his cool azure depths, Steve evicted bone-deep tension as he dishearteningly gazed at chestnut tresses slickly clung over the dark fringe of Bucky's lashes, while an unquenchable onrush of repressive hunger insatiably floored the 'pretty-boy' Commando on grudging accord —salvaged C-rations of canned soups and salty biscuits—crackers wouldn't curb down his untrammelled barrages of steepened appetite. He needed meat. "Kinda cravin' a steak right now..." A growlier timbre emitted out of him, demandingly. "Gotta be somethin' good around here..."

It was perhaps the most random thing Bucky might've said, but to Steve it was oddly reassuring and he couldn't help but release a dry chuckle. "I'll send Jones in with some chow we made this morning. Don't worry, I made sure Duggan didn't eat your serving." Steve smirked good-naturedly as he heard Duggan groan outside, 'Its not like there ain't enough for seconds, Cap.' Steve gives Bucky a nod and hesitantly leaves the tent. He couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding as though he hadn't heard the last of this predicament. He just hoped Bucky took it easy, and that there weren't anymore of those animals out there.

--------

As the spookish waxiness of the moonlight gothically haloed over iron spires of a Bravian castle of Baron Von Strucker; the castellated massiveness of Romanesque travertine stone reddishly contrasted against torchlight sconces, as cranking gears of the drawbridge whirred to allow HYDRA convoys to drove into the archway courtyard. Every mobilized advance of ground reapers installations was dynastically orchestrated for the Iron Cross's sanguineous-fanatical legacy to reign with galactic-innovative devices of infective conquest. The Nordic energy cube that was unearthed in a Tønsberg chapel had become the Red Skull's humanity-scything weapon to consumingly harvest out Allied defences of the frontlines-to evolve into victorious Titians over the genocidal remnants of the hope-suffocated world.

Black leather-grabbed troopers were impassively poised on the bastion edifices, their faces mechanically concealed by futuristic owl-like goggles as leather vizards fringed their unexpressive lips. Each HYDRA sentry was outfitted with Arnimhilation 99L Assault rifles that were infused with voltaic energy-a white-noise frequency of disintegrating Allied divisions into cindery ash heaps. With a gestural signal of a HYDRA carrier truck, white Kraken sigil was demonically emblazoned on the doors."Lass sie durch(Let them through)..." A commanding Germanic resonance of a battlement sentry blared out, immediately signalling at the drawbridge patrol below him in urgent tenor. "Letzter, der durchkommt (Last one to come through)..."

The thought allowed Arnim Zola sag with relief. Days on end there had been nothing but a constant flow of misfortunes that would have seen him meet the chopping block if the Skull did not value his expertise. It began with several missing shipments from their munitions facility several kilometers away, rumored to have been captured by the Allies who were mercilessly carving a path their way. A few missing caravans, however withstanding, did not compare to the calamity of having one of his specimens escape. An unruly wolf that proved far more resilient to his serum-based infusions than the other animals he experimented on. While the scientist prided himself on his keen intellect and cunning, he was not brawn. As he told Schmidt time and again, he designed the weapons, it was not up to him to manage them.

The guards in charge of the creature's transport back to his cell failed spectacularly and allowed it to escape the castle. Since then, Zola went into planning mode to attempt to rectify this mess before word reached the Skull's ears. But fortune seemed to once again favor him when his men had brought in the remains of the creature early this morning after their scouting mission. The carcass of said creature now laid strawn upon the table he wandered over to where a few of his assistants were examining its body. "Miserable creature. For all its grace and cunning, it lacks the will that only humans could demonstrate. Wouldn't you agree, Fraulein Selina?" He called over towards a shape in a dark corner.

Against the despotic shadows of the HYDRA infested Bavarian castle, armoured installations of convoy trucks drove into sub-levels in a militaristic unison-a reactive extension of the Iron Cross legion maliciously helmed by the barbarous warmonger- Baron Von Strucker; possessive snideness that callously fringed in the portly doctor'stoadyish command, his jowled features stubbily rapted with agitated impatience as he glared beckoningly at his lethal- kitten-operative."Sei nicht schüchtern, mein Haustier (Do not be shy my pet)..." he taunted, churlishly.

Hinging down her brazen fieriness with impassive vehemence, naughtily Selina brandished collective poise in her indifference stance, as the black sleekness of her leather bomber jacket—a token of her executed loyalty- stylishly contrasted against flickering sconces of the marble hearth of the spacious throne room. Her practical grab of seductive infiltration was honed with imperial—untouchable elegance, a tailored collar overlappingly arrowed length over the svelter contours of her graceful neck as lustrous mahogany tresses were knotted in an exquisite chignon. Scones of firelight burnished over the cool fineness of her elfish visage as she infuriatingly braced her lithe back against a stone column.

The carious reek of dissected flesh stinkily wafted off the bullet-gored canine as surgical implements of diabolical gadgetry hellishly adorned a medical trolley. Clutching her unholstered Walther P38 pistol with deceptive readiness flexing her lithe-gloved fingers, in a sauntering advance of her phantom-mechanized -coolness, involuntarily Selina neared the autopsy table, and gave her swine-faced handler a rueful smirk that foxily played over the crimson lushness of her voluminous full-bow lips, she answered, in a raspier undertone, snarkily." Well, I guess you're in a disappointing mood that no spoils came back..."

"Quite," Was Zola's terse response as he took in the state of the creature. A preliminary exam was enough to indicate that someone had killed it with an estimated eight shots. While an ordinary wolf could be killed a single well placed shot, it apparently took nearly a full chamber to bring down his augmented creation. He would be beaming with pride now were it not for the failure to record combat data other than the mauled corpses the creature had left in its wake last night. What were its endurance limits? How far could its senses stretch? Could it be contagious? Questions that were left unanswered and that the scientist was frustrated over. "What more can you tell us?" He asked one of his skilled hands that opened the canine's bloodied maw.

"The creature has fresh blood on his teeth, but too soon to tell if it is human or his own. But...look here!" Reaching into the wolf's mouth with latex gloves, the assistant pulls out what at first looked to be nothing more than a patch of fur. Zola cleans his spectacles and leans forward as they place the bloodied patch beneath an examination light.

"It appears my little patient introduced himself to an Allied soldier," Zola smirked sadistically at that as he came to identify the patch as a piece of torn clothing with the hauberk eagle symbol. "Not just any soldier apparently-a Commando. Curious..."

Narrowing a thievish flit of her tigerish-coffee irises, evident to a deviant smirk, unblinkingly Selina gazed at the unmistakable dark blue scrap of clothing that grisly clung to the mutative -disposable canine's bloodied incisors-an infective divergence of the rogue-lycan- instincts had inexorably conceived morphic infancy within one of the Howling Commandos; using expandable Allied soldiers for merciless sterilization of humanity, Zola was dementedly ushering a freakish reality of cimmerian genetics.

Scrunching up her pert nose, with an incredulous breathy whiff, Selina nakedly caught arrestive traces of a virile scent-a woodsy smokiness of aftershave and diesel that was addictively intoxicating."Well, I guess I'll be having fun playing with the army boys tonight," Selina deadpanned under breath, challengingly, and with an underhand swipe, fluidly, holstered her pistol, as she teasingly smirked at the pudgy bespectacled doctor. "After a girl does get bored around HYDRA stiffs..."

Zola had the patience to silently ponder her course of action. Wolfgang Von Strucker's daughter was as much an asset as she was an unpredictable element. That her father chose to surrender his estate and offer his services to Hydra meant his daughter was at their beck and call to command. Despite his displeasure towards seeing a woman on the field of battle, Zola knew they were lethal as poison, and had talents that ordinary men could not equip such as the ability to charm and finesse their way into power. Selina was both a charmer and a feline who would not hesitate to extend her claws against anyone in her way.

Including himself…

Better to utilize her talents than to allow her to linger over his shoulder. "Very well. But be discreet. Observe and follow. If things are as I suspect, the poor fool who was bitten will be in for quite the aftershock of his experience. Bring him to me-alive, if that proves true."

Every surgical deviation of Armin Zola's obsessive tantamount of amputating pathetic excuses of humanity into vermined throes fueled his egotistical -crazed- desire of relishing in the industrious ranks of HYDRA supremacy; for the last month, he was relentlessly searching for a dynamical strain that prevailingly veined within the incarnate matrix of the alpha serum of traitorous Doctor Abraham Erskine infused within a puny Brooklyn runt, all his synthetic POW failures were inadequate furred deformities; nothing was effective against the genetic transcendence of demonically birthing new legion of monstrous-wolven- chimeras.

With the trade-off alliance of Baron Wolfgang Strucker, he conditioned tractable-sirenic perfection in a kittenish Füchsin (vixen)--a highbred-feisty daughter who virtuosically harnessed a furtive-thieving- calibre against the parasitical throes of her leashed existence. "Do not fail me, little Fraulein..." he warned, sneeringly, as he lifted his pudgier hand with malicious ease to inspect the blue material, watching her slink vanishingly into the shadows -into the phantom drift. "Indeed you won't..."

----------

Against the earshot reckoning of soldier's dawn, within the darkened ambiance of the medical tent, feverous sweat wetly drenched cotton-wool sheets, as contractive pressure of morphic tenor shifted athletic, well-defined bulkiness of heavier muscles thrashingly flexed with spasmatic onrushes-crescendoing in an infective abandon of bestial ferocity. Everything was sensory heightened within the mutative drift like kinetic -elemental frequency-assonance that he galvanically registered miles outward as the mechanical traction of Panzer tanks launching diesel-fueled momentum over the Bavarian ridgeline.

Silvery paleness of morning light spookily contrasted over murkier environs, deafening staccatos of anti-tank guns cuttingly ratcheted as bloodied sprays from bullet-gouged flesh mistily sailed in the brisk air; Bucky felt every straining thump of penetrated heartbeats anguishedly contracted into a flatline pulse as heated saltiness of grievous tears wetly drenched mud rutted trenches before depth charges of pitched grenades cacophonously exploded in volleys of firestorms as gruesome remnants of Allied soldiers hailed over the battlezone.

Clutching into the drenched sheet, the hunkier tautness of his athletic-honed mass rushingly burgeoned in a tempoed-mutative- succession underneath his wool military garb as pukey grogginess raggedly threaded his whispery drawl, scratchily. "What's happenin'..." Against that neasous rush, Bucky propped his forearms bracingly over the mattress steel frame, arching his back with a desperate thrust of his warring resilience against careening momentum, only to crashingly nosedive onto the ground; his muscled forearms strenuously bolstered him into planking stance, as he growly heaved out throated pants against chest-vicing spasms. "Argh..."

Sick. Fever. Chills. Sweat. Blood. Hunger. Hunger…

A rampant flow of sensations poured through him with the unrelenting force of a raging river. Bucky couldn't discern the source of his calamity, only that the world suddenly appeared to be phasing in and out of coherence like a flickering lightbulb. His hearing was smothered by the pounding of his pulse-so loud, so all-consuming he wondered if his ears might burst. He wasn't aware he was screaming until he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror propped up on the food-tray. Blue eyes impossibly wide, he thought he caught a glimpse of something monstrous sneering back at him with gleaming teeth and predatory eyes.

Unconsciously he smashed the mirror with his fist with such reckless abandon he could only stare with dim horror at the shards of glass stuck to his knuckles. Blood streamed down his hand in such a brilliant spectacle, he could neither feel nor stop its flow. Before he could panic he watched as slowly but surely, the cuts began to heal themselves and the shards plopped out from his hand. Feeling sick, Bucky reached for the slop-bucket and emptied the contents of his stomach. Sweat dripped down into his eyes, obscuring his vision which served to only agitate him further. "Weak…" He growled, falling back onto the mattress, eyes swimmingly caught between a blurred reality and obscure images shifting through his psyche.

"Sergent Barnes..." With surgical tack, stubbier fingers manically clutched a syringe a viscous liquid spurted out, as haloing blurriness of greenish sconces reflected off chrome implements tellingly smeared with bloodied remnants-it was a pernicious revelation that captured POWs of the 107th infantry were torturously butchered into a horror-shop. Whirring drones of an electrical pulse of the examination gurney stuporously deadened his straining mobility as the ominous glare of oval eyeglasses maliciously became evident to a vulturous sneer. "You owe my pleasure of not making me disappointed in this ceremonious audience, not like your ineffective unit, such pathetic issues of American soldiers..." He snickered, churlishly, wobbling towards a medical trolley, as Zola lifted up a nightmarish helmet -an invention of cerebral gadgety to erratically induce zapage of psychological agony as dangling wires spidered over the pudginess of his white-sleeved wrists. "They did not last the night when I played with their defeated minds..."

"Monster…" The word spewed from Bucky's lips like toxic venom. There was no better fitted word to describe the Hydra scientist that had strapped him to a table and proceeded to inject him with his poison. The neverending chorus of screams had told him the scientist had done the exact same to the men of his infantry-his brothers. "Kill you…I'll..." He suddenly lurched off of his cot and collapsed onto the ground, laying on his side. He tried to banish the image of Zola, but being far from his captor didn't help him to escape the feeling of being confined-being caged. The walls of his tent were now suffocating him with their oppressive confinement, he longed for the feeling of fresh air embracing him.

"Grraauggh!" He cried through clenched teeth and squinted eyes while hugging his stomach. He needed to ease the ache of hunger that screamed at him to feed. He wanted to deafen the pounding of his pulse in his ears, howl at it to the top of his lungs until he could hear nothing but dead silence. Sweating profusely, he crawls forward, smacking the palm of his free hand against the ground, ignorant to the veins bulging on his skin, and the hair follicles rising off his body. His teeth gnashed with the strain of effort, pulling him onto all fours until he was crawling towards the tent flaps with deep growling breaths.

"On your feet, Sergent..." Commandingly a lyrical steeliness of a British-accented undertone silkily resonated behind the flapping drape as laced combat boots fringed an unwelcome breach of undeterred approach; impassively with elegant fierceness cemented in her unfaltering composure, exquisitely garbed in her SSR bronze service uniform, Agent Peggy Carter entered the medical tent with an observant gleam in her chocolate irises. Nothing detracted her genuine concern, as she eased on her curvaceous haunches with a measure of immovable resolve, nauseous dampness sweatily trekked down the corded thickness of Bucky's arching back as he breathlessly convulsed against the possessive rush as infective heat. "This not you, James Barnes..." she murmured in urgent pitch, fractionally kneaded her the lithe pressure of her gloved fingers over the protrusive veins bulging over Bucky's tauten forearm that was sickly ashen as he snarly panted out a breathless warning. "I will be damned if you give up this fight, not when Captain Rogers needs you..."

"Steve...Cap…" Bucky rasped out with a deep voice. His droopy eyes were glazed as if he were half-awake while allowing Peggy to help him to feet. Her presence contracted a swarm of sensations that hit him with the force of a truck. Ambergris cream, floral jasmine scented locks-a blood-rushing combination of scents that caused him to unconsciously growl, his grip on Peggy's arms growing tighter. He could feel her struggle against him, Bucky unable to comprehend anything but the emotions storming inside of him as the grip of hunger increased in ferocity as he stared at her exposed neck. "No…NO!" He roared, releasing Peggy with a not so gentle push. His heavy breaths were pronounced by his bared teeth, his bent posture was predatory, ready to pounce on the nearest prey he could find.

Bruisingly against the rampageous momentum of his defensive reaction that bull-rushed into her bodily with unstoppable-breakneck- aggression, trepidatiously Peggy breathed out a choked-off gasp as she was alarmingly tackled into a dresser with bone-slamming force-a denotative surge of monstrous ferocity that wouldn't be roped down against warred motions of restraint. He was uncaged. In blinding succession, with floored awareness, effectively Peggy braced her palm on the ground as bloodied glops of drool trekked slickly over the delectable-vibrant suppleness of her curvier alabaster features. Gazing unflinchingly at the intimating length of his poised fingers that flexed in clawing sync, Peggy urged out, staidly in beseeching pitch, fluidly dodging a slashing arc of his fisted hand. "S-Sergent Barnes don't be stubborn..." she implored, easing her bruised palm with deft traction-reaching for him. "Wait..."

So he ran. He could hear Peggy calling out to him, but Bucky ignored her as he rushed through the tent-flaps and into the dead of nightfall.

------

Against the vaporous smokiness that enwreathed the backlit tavern, aromatically scents of brewed whiskey funkily sailed from congested booths as Dum Dum Duggan's hearty chuckle jovially deafened as mug pints of German stout clanged in unison, impassively keeping himself distant near the bar as amber sconces from glass-adorned lamps burnished his unkempt chestnut tresses, Bucky dragged a fork with hungered precision over a plate of gravy-drenched beef Rouladen that was cravingly layered with juicy pork belly-his fissionable-rapine appetite for meat had calamitously escalated in tenfold.

Refusing to join the boozy shing-dig of the Howling Commando's achieved mission against HYDRA installations of the battlemented ridgeline, noncommittally without suave reserve, Bucky emitted a huffish breath, as he vexatiously strapped the glazed beef with aggressive flexion of his clutched fingers and sloppily chewed a mouthful in wolfish bites.

"S'good..." he murmured in a growlier pitch, belchingly, as his jutted canine incisors devouringly shredded the beef in one aggressive gulp, drizzles of gravy trekked over his dimpled chin- succulent flavours meatily quashed his gluttonous barrage. For the umpteenth time, Bucky couldn't stave down the onrushing mania of wolfish-induced hunger- a stuporous ecstasy that made him bloatedly unhinged like a debauched slob-not a hunkish Brooklyn kid. "Gotta have more..."

"How ya doin', Buck...?" A heavier-timbered Brooklyn drawl sonorously breached his ears, fringed with infinite concern as Steve with tactful ease dragged out a bar stool, in a placid variance that didn't belie his adamant resolve while behind them Dugan hoisted up another overflowed pint of a foamy beer to drunkenly clink with Flasworth as their boisterous-intoxicated revelry amplified slurringly in clamorous unison. The Howling Commando's had cleared the field, but the names of valiant-hearted men were still branded on nameless markers, hell-storms conducted by HYDRA's engines of butchered-unslakeable mayhem devastatingly razed out nearby townships as weaponized Uber tanks were idle in sentry mode.

Gesturing the bar-keep with the determined smirk tugging at his plushier sculpted lips, Steve hailed a shot glass of whiskey. "Y'know, I can't really feel the effects..." he admitted, sheepishly, as Bucky played off his smirky cockiness, arching up an eyebrow. "Remember when you sweet-talked me to empty out a bottle of jack-daniels..." His azure irises unabashedly downcasted on the amber liquid in the glass. "Couldn't even stand on my feet..."

"And I had to carry you the whole way home, you puked on my shoes," Bucky burst into a fit of laughter at the memory. It was a peaceful time in their lives despite the unending struggles, they mostly remembered the good that came of it. Back then they were just two punk kids looking out for each other against a whole borough of uncaring and sadistic bullies who loved to pick on the little guy. Most of their mischievous nights out consisted of mornin' lunchins at Jack's Diner, pranking the cruel jerks so they'd think twice about preying on others, and tap-dancing with the gorgeous dames at the club later that night. Seeing Steve's dimpled cheeks redden with embarrassment was also too much fun to see. "Suppose I had that comin' for daring you to drink that much. Don't tell me you miss that?" Bucky said with a bemused look as he wiped the gravy from his chin with his thumb then proceeded to lick it. His stomach groaned almost as if it wanted more.

But that was impossible. He had just finished a full plate of beef enough for two people. Why was he feeling so hungry? His mind rationalized that he needed to catch up on his strength after being bedridden for nearly two nights. Memories of his flight from the tent this morning came back to prickle his mood and how Steve found him collapsed from exhaustion hours later beside a mauled animal-a stag.

An eruptive resonance of unbridled hunger portentously thrummed-a bestial thirst ushering Bucky into gluttonous-possessive dregs of an insurmountable thrall; hawkishly shifting attentive intensity of his stormier azureous irises at the gravy-smeared plate, Steve despondently watched his best friend consume the gravy-smeared plate as Bucky's canine incisors predatorily jutted into razor-edged fangs. Hunching over the bar-top, the young sergeant growlingly emitted panty breaths; every graven-ridge of heavier muscles became athletically honed against a breakneck rush of -wolfish- agility as Bucky propelled off the stool at the reactive moment, Steve urgently gripped onto corded flesh of his tauter bicep, forcibly jarring him out of the hoggish stupor. "Buck, what's gotten into you...?"

He would have replied if he were in his normal frame of mind, but Bucky felt as if he had entered a maze of overwhelming hunger. Every direction revealed a new temptation, it was so consuming he had difficulty amassing his thoughts and forming a coherent sentence. His blue eyes were glazed and unblinking as the room span on its axis and his senses were being bombarded by a myriad of intoxicating allures. Roasted duck, seasoned potatoes, freshly cut carrots, juicy ham. His mouth watered and his stomach howled for nourishment. "Gotta eat...gotta..." His breathing had become heavy and deep, his dishevelled appearance prompted many curious eyes to gaze in his direction, some were amused others were alarmed by the wolfish gleam in his blue iris'.

"Cap, everything all right with Bucket-Head? I ain't seen eyes that crazy since we ran into that scruffy drifter doubling for Carter. What was his name? Howler? Howlett?" Duggan said, whistling with mild incredulity as Bucky picked up an unfinished plate of food on another table before the waiter could get to it. Bucky proceeded to shovel the remaining pieces of ham into his mouth, licking the plate clean with his tongue. "Okay, that's just disgusting," Duggan said dryly before he proceeded to belch very loudly, earning him numerous groans from the nearby patrons.

Bucky wasn't paying attention to any of this as his eyes locked on another waiter who exited the back with a tray full of barbequed wings. Something in Bucky's eyes must've alarmed the waiter who suddenly turned pale as death the moment he made eye contact with him. "Mine!" Bucky roared as he moved forward. The waiter yelped and dropped the plate on the floor as he tripped. Not missing a beat, Bucky fell onto all fours, prowling towards the pieces of food like a predator ready to consume its prey.

"Bucky! Stop!" Steve yelled and used his immense strength to haul Bucky up off the floor by his arms. He felt his friend struggle against him, instinctively trying to throw him off and resist. The amount of strength it took not release his hold surprised Steve who hadn't expected Bucky to be this strong. The super-soldier serum in his veins made him stronger than an ordinary man, but even he was having trouble getting a handle on his best friend who seemed hell-bent on consuming those chicken-wings like a man-an animal-possessed. Bucky growled and was near to breaking free, prompting Steve to bring them both towards an unoccupied booth where they fall into the seats. "Enough!" Steve yelled again. He could see a few of his men coming forward as if to assist him but Steve promptly shook his head at them. "No. We're fine here!" Falsworth and Jones appeared hesitant until they see Bucky slowly begin to simmer down in Steve's grip. Steve reaffirms his order with a nod and his men return to their seats.

"This isn't you, Buck. Get it together," Steve urges his friend as he slowly releases him. Steve wanted to haul him out of the tavern and send him on the convoy back to base. Despite what he wanted to believe, this wasn't just a random incident, it was a third in the past few days since Bucky was attacked. Physically it appeared his friend had recovered, but what did it to him mentally? Steve wasn't a doctor, nor was he a scientist, but he knew something was happening to his best friend that meant he needed to be checked out by more than a field medic. "Come on, man," Steve says in a comforting tone as he sees rational and understanding return to Bucky's focused eyes. His friend suddenly appeared mildly confused and worried. "Bucky... Are you all right?"

"Captain Rogers..." Lavishly garbed in scarlet velvetiness of her exquisite crepe dress, Agent Peggy Carter distractingly with curvaceous graces, sauntered passed the occupied booths, knowing her ignited a powder-keg of intractable-drunken rowdiness of gung-ho soldiers, nakedly she brandished her steel-maiden poise, as her lustrous chocolatey-brunette whorls sleekly reminded half-pinned that queenly emphasized the delectable suppleness of her reserved features. Involuntarily Peggy stood in front of a wooden door adorned with rose-etched glass, as the plunging- sweetheart décolletage of her ample breasts voluptuously beckoned a jazzier-vibrant allure that made her forbiddenly desirable.

"Captain," she addressed in blunter pitch, sultrily, fixing her dark irises on the repulsive heap of discarded plates. Grounding heeled resistance away from Steve's proximity; he braced his muscled forearm over Bucky's heaving chest, readily against the defensive rush on the combative accord, he feigned stark alarm, stoppingly clutching onto Bucky's fisted, greasy hand in warred succession that was viciously arced to deliver a throat-strike. His tawny-blonde tresses wetly clung over his tensing brow, every angular plane of his boyish features rapt waging desperation to immobilize his best friend; sneerily, Bucky gnashed his canine fangs against vicious seethes, jutting his broader jaw with aggressive strain as he forcibly sunk into the cushioned booth with Steve reining him down. "If you're not busy, Captain, Howard requires you back at the camp..." Peggy urged out, promptly."Something urgent has steered his curiosity that greatly concerns what might be happening to Sergent Barnes..."

"What are you talking about? What does that mean?!" Bucky felt a surge of unbridled anger coursing through him as Peggy spoke to Steve as if he weren't even here. Glancing between the troubled SSR agent and his friend who looked equally concerned. Did they know something was happening to him this whole time, and none of them said anything? A sting of betrayal hit Bucky and something dark and primal inside of him wanted to lash out. His eye twitched and his fists clenched against the edge of the table, the wood began to groan beneath his strength. "What are you guys keeping secrets from me now?!" Bucky made a telling attempt to stand up before Steve steps in front of him.

"We didn't want to worry you, Bucky. Trust us, if we knew anything definite, we'd tell you," Steve assures his friend with a genuine look that soothes his ire if only slightly. Steve places a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Just sit tight. I'll be back in a few minutes." With one last look at his friend, Steve hesitantly turned and followed Peggy out of the tavern.

"Not in the mood for a dance, handsome..." A melodious undertone rasped, smokily near the booth, warding off his riotous aggression, Bucky dazedly caught a fleeting glimpse of a lithe hand naughtily tilting a whiskey glass with devious variance-imploding a stilted moment as lamp sconces burnished alluringly over sleekier cascades of dishevelled mahogany whorls that breathtakingly constated with pillowy full-bow lips that were vixenishly lacquered cherry-red-a sirenic-thievish decadence that stealingly held any wanton glower in a point-black deadlock. Playing off an indifferent charade, she purred, breathily, allowing a slow burn of whiskey to scour down her throat. "Let me guess you need something more than a cheap drink, Army boy...?"

At first, Bucky wasn't sure where that voice was coming from and if the dame in question was talking to him. He wasn't the only army boy in the tavern, after all. But no one else seemed to respond and it wasn't long until he pin-pointed its source at the booth in the corner across from his. He could make out the unmistakable shape of a young lady putting out a cigarette. She was sitting in shadows, the only sight visible was her pale hands and her smooth neck. For a moment he felt as if his mind had come to a screeching halt.

As a young man who'd been around many dames, he'd grown used to them being at the center of the public eye-bathed in light where many eyes followed their movements. He couldn't remember the last one who seemed more comfortable in the dark. It made him curious, but he still felt mostly peeved over his tussle with Steve and Carter. Right now he wanted to just be left alone. "You could say that, Miss. But if you're looking for me to share mine, you're timing is all wrong." To demonstrate this, Bucky lifted the glass of whiskey that had been left on the table and took a swig of it. He might as well have been drinking water for how little it affected him.

Through it all, he kept a focused look on the dame across from him, wondering how she might reply to his rebuff.

"Not really a smooth player, huh?" Selina purred in snarkier pitch, brusquely, as the virile smokiness of his naked scent headily contrasted sensuous—addictive tracery of a fevered beckon of his leashed arousal; she registered an incarnate tenor of wolven heat bankingly teeming with his pulse as beer-drenched GI uniforms frowsily sailed over the crowded booths as poker decks were chintzily shuffled on tables, braggingly Duggan sliced the cards with a fast-hand, while the high-player royal flush was on the rigged fringe of sealing a full-house gambit.

Tersely, evading the drunken pandemonium of the Howling Commandos, with brazen-practical graces, felinely, Selina eased down onto the booth's cushioned seat aware of his subtle invitation-cool pearlescence of her ivory-white flesh ethereally gleamed against the black chiffon Italianesque dress underneath her long coat, the vixenish flare of a ribboned bodice slinkily fringed over her voluptuous decolletage, while svelter tautness of her lithesome form braced nonchalantly against the booth's polished wood.

Against the shadowy-roisterous ambiance of the bar-house; the sanity fineness of her elfish features entrancingly contrasted with the doe-eyed intensity of her coffee-brandy irises, despite the kittenish exquisiteness of her ravishing visage, the luscious fullness of her pillowy burgundy lips were voluminously bowed, with a devious play of an impish quirk.

"Usually you soldier boys like to chase my heels on the dancefloor," Selina purred, breathily, tracing a daintier finger around the rim of his emptied glass with unfeigned-seductive deviousness. "You're making this night..." she paused, sliding her glass across that was bewitchingly smeared with a vivid imprint of her crimson lips—a challenging beckon—dare. As she mirrored the whitish heat that fused menacingly within his sweltry grayish-aquamarine irises, Selina wickedly flashed an incredulous gaze at his shapely-wide lips, the curved incisors roguishly edged with knife-point sharpness that grazed over his poutier underlip-this hunky 'soldier-boy' was morphically spliced with the predatory—genetic fusion of the HYDRA sleaze-Zola's lycan serum—the weaponized hell-hound attacked him. "Interesting..."

Every deceptive measure of her furtive stint became inexplicably compromised against the wolven-tameless- dynamic. A chimerical unity of monstrous possession was irrevocably converging through him—he being verminously chastened into a soul-consuming regeneration of amputated humanity-no switchbacks of redemption against the warranted penance that tragically spawned out nefarious apparitions-wolven reapers conducted out of the ranks HYDRA.

After Selina was -remade- with blood shunts of mutative injections, Armin Zola desired her to usher his maniacal-berko-legacy of elite operatives on the conquered battlefront. Her power-mongering father 'Baron Wolfgang Strucker' had traded her off to become a 'shifter' executioner, lethally dispatching traitorous scum that betrayed the Iron Cross legion as a furred-canine- vixen. "So, I'm guessing you like to pack in all the spoils, handsome..." she inferred, pointedly, gesturing a lithe hand at the evident landside heap of meat- greased plates that sloppily adorned on the bartop. "Obviously, your taste for the good stuff runs deep..."

If Bucky were being honest with himself, his favorite past-time back home was to go out for a night of fun on the town with a lively cute girl on his arm. But he wasn't in the mood to be chasing a pretty dame to share a dance with. Not tonight. In fact, he had only seconds ago thought about taking the bottle of whiskey with him back to the camp and drinking himself to sleep to escape the misery he was now feeling. But out of nowhere, this mysterious woman seemed to have come and tickled his curiosity until she had finally stepped out of her dark corner. Bucky was grateful his expression was hidden behind the glass in his hand because he was sure he would've looked like a fish out of the water, gasping for oxygen the minute he caught a glimpse of her face.

"Oh wow…" He thought inwardly, his eyes wide as they took in what could only be described as the face of an angelic beauty bathed in long mahogany tresses that shimmered in the dim light of the tavern. Pale alabaster skin doused with a modest amount of make-up to give her a flawless complexion, eyelashes lined with dark mascara and sinfully red painted lips. 'A dark angel,' he mentally corrected himself. Her radiance was unquestionable but something about her gave off a dark aura that stirred something inside of Bucky. Something wild and ravenous that begged to be unleashed. Swallowing slightly, Bucky felt his misery evaporate and he was on full-alert mode in the face of a breathtaking curiosity that he now wanted to indulge.

'Okay Bucky, time to turn on that Barnes Charm.' He straightened in his seat and flashed her a dimpled smile with glowing blue eyes. "Well, I do work out a lot in the field. Sometimes you gotta take in as much as you give." He reasoned. Despite the awe he felt, he regained a bit of his focus and took in the woman's appearance from the dark trenchcoat she wore an exquisite dress with high-heeled boots. She looked like she came from money and he wondered briefly what she was doing in a place like this. "How about you? I mean no disrespect, but you like you're used to being in nicer places than this. You local?" He wondered.

The gravelly huskiness of his suave-timbered drawl arced in her veins bone-deep like heated molasses, Selina guardedly stiffened against the cushioned seat as his shapely-wide lips quirked flirty, evident to the alighted gleam of boyish naughtiness melding in his grayish-aquamarine irises, the underlying -virile- scent of aphrodisiacal sandalwood and earthen pine headily wafted out his pores.

Tamping down a rivalrous implosion of unhinged abandon, Selina offishly played against his unevaded question with a dismissive pop of her voluminous lips-she couldn't become attached to a heart-starved reality, not against the carnal deviation of wolven bloodlust. "Let's just say I don't stray too far to get what I want if the offer sticks, handsome..." she gritted under breath, trenchantly, as the contractive pulse in her gums throbbingly heralded a morphic strain. "Obviously none of your Army friends over there claimed my interest..."

"I suppose I should count myself lucky then if you found me interesting enough," Bucky replied easily to her banter. Something about her cryptic approach made him curious to discern what she was looking for here tonight. A friendly conversation? A shared drink? Or something else entirely that involved a warm bed. He steered his thoughts away from the distracting thought. He didn't move that fast with strange women, even if they were interested. But something told him that dark beauty in front of him wasn't here looking for pleasure. But he was a gentleman like his father had raised him to be, and he wouldn't discard his manners as he gestured for the brunette to join him as he poured them both a glass. "Would you like a drink, miss…" He hadn't gotten her name yet, he realized. And for some reason, he wasn't so sure if she'd be inclined to give it to him.

"Playing off the nice card are we?" Selina purred, banteringly, tracing deft pressure of her lithe finger over the intricate whiskey glass, with a convincing pout, she quirked up her brow as she caught a naked glimpse of his deforming ears, curved flesh widely sharpening into a mutative point under his askew chestnut tresses." How about we swipe a bottle for keeps..." she coaxed in a foxier undertone, collectively shifting her dark gaze at the whitish opalescence of the waxen moonlight haloing ghostily against the glass planes of begrimed windows; an evocative impulse branded her with a subtle thrill of anticipation. Kittenishly her glossier cherry-red lips pursed into a jaunty smirk, as Bucky gripped the whiskey bottle in tenser flex, broodily leashing down a tenor of bestial predatoriness as he smugly conveyed Brooklyn-boy charm. "Unless you already had your fill?" she quipped, coyly.

Bucky downed the last few shots left in the whiskey bottle to demonstrate his reply. He felt a mild tingling that was gone almost instantly which served to only resume his bitter state. Through it all his blue eyes never wavered from eye-contact with the mysterious dame seated across from him, almost as if they had entered a staring contest to see who would shy away first. It might've been a childish thing to some, but Bucky unintendedly took it as a test of will to see who might reveal something first that their lips wouldn't speak. His dour mood caused a burst of heat to flush through him, sparking the return of an insatiable appetite that was little to do with food. He was dimly aware of a prickling pain in his jaws and found he could no longer hold his mouth closed as he had.

As his lips parted he revealed a set of sharp canines that gleamed in the light, catching the mysterious woman's eyes. Unaware of the change to his mouth, Bucky only realized she was staring at his lips and it caused the heat in his body to increase ten-fold. It suddenly began to feel very hot inside this bar. Releasing the empty glass, Bucky licked the alcohol from his lip and exhaled roughly. "Sounds good to me, darlin'. Lead the way," he coaxed her with a dangerous smirk.

--------

Evicting the mechanical-vexatious tenor of her bestial conditioning that exceedingly outrode her unwarrantable resilience; nothing became a deterrent against the vampirish malice that demonically reaped over Bravainian ground-her tyrannical-militaristic grandfather had stamped his iron-fisted reign in blood as the machine of war irrevocably fueled a symphonious reckoning of that hailed butcherous tempests of mayhem. The HYDRA king-pins-vipers conceived their smokescreen alliances-irrelevant extensions that would be terminally disposed of when their industrial usefulness was expired. 'Hail HYDRA...'

Against the October chilliness that penetratively sailed over the forested labyrinth of evergreens, with the tigerish heat melding in her coffee irises Selina darkly gazed at the desolated-grievous vistas of the battleground, brickwork remnants of shell-out foundations-no stone was left unturned. Her kittenish nose scrunched raptly against miasmatic potency of corpse-laden decay wafted from stacked-up trenches, as uniformed silhouettes of young men became lifeless-phantom denizens within the chasmal graves as the amberish luminance of moonlight spookily graced them with reverence.

"Like the view?" she questioned in a huskier pitch, ruefully, glancing down at the blood-smeared GI dog tags underneath her booted heel, while Bucky tensely clutched a bottle of German whiskey against the taut solidity of his garbed thigh; echoes of the razor-edge menace nakedly set over the graven planes of his boyish features as he steeled tight-lipped response. "Do you think freedom is just a damn luxury now...After all, nothing ever sticks out here..."

Bucky didn't immediately respond. His young optimistic mind would have once leapt at the irrefutable notion that life and liberty were the right of every living person on the planet-that it should be fought for no matter the cost. But after witnessing such unimaginable horrors over the past few years, from bloodied trenches to abominable camps, he couldn't help but wonder how things would ever be the same again if the Allies won, and Hydra and the Axis were beaten. How long until the next conflict came and innocents were dying all over again? He didn't know. The depressing thought caused him to take another swig of the whiskey. He enjoyed the burning flavor that tingled his nerves for a few seconds before it was gone.

"I wouldn't still be here if I still didn't believe in what we're fighting for," he responded after what felt like a while. "Those Hydra monsters need to be stopped. But I can't say I believe the fighting is done once they're gone. Freedom comes at a cost. People are free to be saviors or destroyers." He mused, kicking a clump of dirt that he thought was a rock. He and the mysterious brunette were walking at a leisurely pace across the parking lot of the tavern, their direction aimless as they took the time to enjoy the cool night air. In the distance, they can hear the chirping of crickets in the woods and the faint hooting of an owl.

The skies were cloudy but the brilliant ethereal moonlight shone done upon them. The sight somehow made Bucky feel a twinge of discomfort within his body. His jaw ached, and so did his fingers and ears.

An infinite converge of morphic tension unrestrainedly fringed between them as the whitish sconces of moonlight cosmically pulsed gravitic auras of celestial energy, a hypnotic command that kept Bucky in a stuporous deadlock. Reddish veins of thermal heat electrifyingly striated over the forested darkness like forked lightning, every heartbeat of craven prey became fierily entwined within a predatory matrix as he aggressively scrunched his nose against a blood rush, catching a full-bodied scent of a nocturnal varmint-a rabbit.

As his barred incisor-fangs menacingly jutted over his swelled underlip, knowingly Selina watched banded-cords of bulkier muscle flex heavily underneath his jacket, as she registered the wolven cadence venting out of him in guttural rabidness. "Something wrong, handsome," she played in breathy pitch, deviously, her coffee irises tigerishly roved over virile contours of his fingers bruisingly arced in monstrous protrusion as he vertiginously bolstered his fever-racking mass against a parked jeep. "I might enjoy this..."

"No...Not again…" Bucky groaned as he fell against the side of a parked vehicle, his body suddenly drenched with a cold sweat. The pouring rivulets trickled down his neck, soaking the front of his shirt while his muscles groaned against the clothing. He vaguely realized that the woman had someone not only understood what was happening to him, but was also encouraging him to embrace it. The hunger. The pain. The call of the wind beckoning him to howl with release. The pressure in his body continued to build as he struggled desperately to control his breathing and not fall into a ravenous decline. His blue eyes glared fiercely as his vision swam, everything felt detached and beyond his comprehension. The world was red like an inferno, but in the darkness he could see flickers of light in the shape of all living things; men, women-humans and animals.

His stare landed on the woman next to him and he felt a flicker of disquiet as her eyes glowed like burning candles into the dark. A predator lurked beneath, calmly watching his struggle with fascination. Bucky's blood burned, his muscles throbbed with pain, and yet he still found himself rife with hunger and desire. "Who are you…" He growled, his voice no longer the smooth soft baritone of a Brooklyn kid but something deeper and scary. "What are you…" He finally collapsed onto his knees, crying out as he the buildup of pressure increased on his lower back as if his bones were threatening to extrude from his pelvis. It tore through his clothes and a furry appendage suddenly expanded from his back. A wolf's tail.

Against the horrifying-unriddled onslaught that paralyzingly atrophied him in contractive fruition, raggedly keeping his forearms braced on the ground in strenuous traction, erratically, gnashing his fangs, Bucky choked-off throaty gnarls in voiceless-mortified tenor as the furred skeins of chestnut bushily lengthened into a canine tail; dragging his fingers into the dirt with clawing sync, gapingly his lips stretched in whimpery heaves against bone-splitting pressure as his tactical pants tatteredly ripped apart on divesting accord, the corded-heaviness of his muscular thighs uncontrollably bridged up with the anguished momentum of a jackknifing thrust. "Argh..."

Straying wetness errantly glided over his feverish cheek as white-heat pulsing throbbed in his veins, as tauten contours of his exposed backside arched in morphic realignment as his wolfish tail lashingly swayed over his thighs with defensive flex-crouching down a breadth at his tremulous side, intriguingly, Selina caught the metallic glint of his G1 service dog tags fastened over the broad width of his neck-trade-off validation of his condemned identity that she could thievishly swipe off his neck:

James B Barnes

32557038 T4 3092

3092 STOCKTON RD

SHELBYVILLE, Indiana

Investing whisper-soft pressure of her lithe palm over the drenched material of his shirt, brushingly Selina kneaded a sensuous caress of her feminine ministrations over the corded-flesh of his bicep, against the disarming-headlong need, ephemerally she gloried at the virile contrast of heavier-athletic resilience of his muscles. Answering the echoes of naked-forbidden demand that starvedly made her no longer untouchable in the sirenic thralls.

On her own volition, breathtakingly mirrored his tactile heat, Selina angled her delicate jaw against the headier cadence their faces shadowily touched - surging-ardent drift as the glacial steeliness of his heavy-lidded gaze mesmerically beckoned the lush cushiness of full-bow lips beautifully edge their wet heat deeper into kiss-bruised abandon with him-just staged play. "From the looks of things you'll be howling at the moon soon..." she deadpanned in a raspier breath, snarkily, delivering a feathery glide of her lithe fingers distractingly over the heated slickness of his thickened nape."I guess you'll have to trust me now, huh, Wolf boy..."

"W-What are you doing…" Bucky groaned out with a weak voice. Exhaustion was creeping upon him and he couldn't prevent the unknown woman from swiping his dogtags out from his neck. He struggled to reach out and reclaim them from her, but the aching pressure on his back made standing vertically feel almost impossible. His shins and calves felt like glass that would shatter at any moment beneath the pressure of his mass. His gritted teeth pierce into his inner lips, causing trickles of blood to drip from his mouth. His blue eyes were unblinking and glazed over. His sense of smell was intense and he found himself drawn to the alluring floral fragrance wafting from the brunette. He couldn't help but growl with desire as her dainty fingers caress his jaw and brush through his sweat-drenched locks.

It felt good, he wanted more. Through his hazy distraction, he doesn't see her begin to pull a tranquillizer needle from her pocket. Zola's order to capture him still stood, but before she could contemplate her next move, a voice cuts through the area with a commanding tone.

"Bucky?! Where are you?!" Steve called out as he exited the tavern searching for his friend.

With reactive poise of her acrobatic graces, in a fervent rush, keeping herself in a mid-crouch, balletically Selina clutched his dog tags as she detected unstoppable encroach of propelling momentum that fringed maddeningly closer; a telltale gleam of the alloy-fused vibranium that belonged to chivalrous 'Perseus' that votively carried mantled liberty; Captain America the handsomely boyish Adonis that she identified from Zola's dossier files, a runtish Brooklyn kid whom the Jewish doctor-Erksine had genetically enhanced with vita-ray infusions with the alpha serum.

Now the prophetic reckoning to usher the infectious-plaguing tentacles of the HYDRA legion, to conceive a new Olympus by stationing Titian installations over the Axis battlegrounds was irrevocably on the fringe of being unleashed. "Hang on, Buck..." Adamantly, Steve braced his patriotic shield over his right forearm as he imposingly paced closer—his cool azureous rises stormily flashed over Bucky who convulsively slumped against the Army Jeep's rear wheel. "M'comin'..."

Against whipcrack readiness, her palm lithely ghosted over a holstered Walther P38 pistol-a fatal accessory- for practical convincing if her masquerading theatrics were compromised-she couldn't get a fix of point-blank satisfaction. Hissingly, Selina gritted her teeth, with lightning-fast agility, unerringly she utilized the backlit shadows, and sashayed vanishingly behind the tavern with a variance of feline swiftness -never looking over her shoulder. "Next time, I won't play so nice, handsome..."

She was gone as quickly as she had stepped into his life, and Bucky could do nothing but watch it happen. His furry dishevelled form collapsed into a seated position back against the wheel of a car, unable to move nor do anything but stare at his hands. His hands had horrifically changed into something gaunt and predatory with sharpened nails and throbbing veins. Patches of hair had sprouted from his chest despite the fact he always kept himself shaved. 'What is happening to me? ...Who was that woman?' The questions would plague him long into the night, even as Steve arrived at his side and took in the changes his body had undergone.

"Oh, no…" Steve whispered, convinced now more than ever that Howard's theory wasn't ridiculous but a horrifying reality. His best friend was turning into a wolf.

-------

"Scout reports will put us here, Cap..." The soft- timbered voice of Private Gabe Jones confirmed as he eased on his SCR-300 two-way radio transceiver pack over the jeep's metallic hood, keeping his wired headset strapped firmly over his ears-he was 'backpack Commando of their ragtag unit. Despite his instinctive -vigilant calibre of being a proficient marksman of the 107th infantry, Gabe had decoded white-noise encryption HYDRA frequencies that steered them to underground locations of HYDRA viper nests. Narrowing his dark-umber irises fixedly at Steve's brass navigating compass, that cherishingly adorned wth a grainy newspaper clipping of vivacious Agent Peggy Carter.

As Gabe hastily jotted down the coordinates on a fanned out Central Europe map as the battle-tested Howling Commandos assembled for their recon mission, Steve gripped onto his bullet-resistant helmet by the chin-strap as he braced at the driver side door, tawny-blonde tresses clung unkemptly over the angular planes of his chiselled-hawkish features that virilely belied his stern-face demeanour. Navy-blue, grayish padded material of his 'field' uniform delineated grittily over the bulkier sculpt of his muscled chest as white-star insignia contrasted with red buckled straps fastened over his armoured mid-drift: he was tactically geared up for battle."Dead zones are under a railroad bridge, where freight of HYDRA artillery is being dispatched at 08:00..."

They'll have the convoy guarded top to bottom." Steve mused as his acute eyes gazed over the map laid sprawled out over the hood. There was a stretch of forests for several miles out which meant there was only one road for the convoy to travel through; the railroad bridge. "But they have only one out to take."

"So will we," Duggan added with a constipated look that was a rarity for the normally bold soldier. "They'll cut us down to ribbons if they see us coming."

Steve nodded in agreement. Inwardly the young captain filtered through a number of possible plans of attack that would not only increase the odds of success but also keep his men safe. The safety of his men was always a top priority for him whenever the odds were weighed. Especially now that one of them was...compromised. Steve's blue eyes flick upwards and sees Bucky crouched on his haunches with his M1903A1 Springfield resting in his hands. An idea took shape in his mind that could work out in favor of everyone.

"We'll setup a blockade on the road about 2 miles out of the choke-point. It should slow them down long enough for us to needle them out. Bucky will provide overwatch and take out any surprises they have lurking back. Duggan, you and Gabe setup the blockade and rig it to blow in case they try to push through it. ...I'll storm the convoy and keep them busy long enough for us to secure the artillery. We can't take the chance of leaving anything behind for them to salvage. Any questions?" No one responded and a satisfied Steve dismissed them as he made his way over to Bucky.

"How you feelin', Buck?" He asked worriedly. He had his concerns about letting Bucky back into the field after he spent the last two nights in Howard's lab. His friend behaved like a caged animal trying desperately to escape, even it meant attacking those where trying to help him. Howard was still nursing a black eye after injecting Bucky with a compound to distill his aggression and animalistic appetite. Bucky seemed under his own control, but it didn't change the more physical changes that he'd undergone, suck as his growing thick stubble and sharpened fingernails.

After being isolated in a Red Cross tent after the syringe infusions, Bucky felt like was cinematically propelled in an unfathomable reality where silver--screened players scarily morphed into repulsive chimeras of tragical monstrosities. 'You're gonna be howlin' soon, Barnes...'

Tamping down a guttural resonance, Bucky felt pulse was jackhammering in riotous tenor, scowlingly Bucky remained crouched his fatigue-garbed haunches into sniper-hone poise, under lengthy unkempt brunette tresses, his ears were furrily deformed canine-like as he gripped onto the hammer-lock of his rifle. Against the spookish paleness of twilight hours, graven-edged contours of his stubbled features steelily razored as the heaviness of his jaw clenched. "M' fine, Steve..." he answered in a growlier drawl, throatily. "I dunno how long I can keep this on the ropes..."

"If anyone can, its you Bucky." Steve said hoping to keep his friend level-headed. "Even Lon Cheney Jr couldn't walk this off." He quipped which caused Bucky to softly chuckle. In truth he believed that anyone else would've succumbed to the symptoms his friend was experiencing. It took immense effort on his own part of convincing Peggy and Howard of that. They were prepared to hand Bucky over to General Phillips so he could be shipped off to some lab where he might never see the light of day again. Howard had stressed the implication that was was done to Bucky was irreversible. The creature that bit him left a permanent mark on him that had both incredible but also horrifying effects. Steve believed in Bucky, but he also knew how dangerous he could become.

Keeping an eye on him was a priority but Steve had to believe his friend could "rein in the beast" if things got ugly. "I can't pretend to know what you're going through, but if there's anything life has taught us, it's knowing how to adapt when the going gets tough." Steve reminded him. Life had been hard on them growing up, changing them, but they learned to push through and get stronger from it. "I'm looking out for ya, don't forget it." Steve held his hand down to his friend. It was a symbolic gesture than just offering to help him to his feet, but also through these trials.

Easing up tremorous shakiness of his clawed-hand, quakingly, Bucky accepted the visage of brotherly reverence that his 'little Stevie' conveyed, aware of the knife-edge sharpness of his fingernails as his palm mirrored against the underside of Steve's leather-gloved hand. An expressive quirk on his shapely-bow lips toothily exposed his canine incisors, as his grayish-aquamarine irises piercingly silvered with latent menace. "I gotta have that look of the Wolfman now, huh, punk?" he snorted with derisive snarkiness, humorlessly. "S'just waitin' for Duggan to chuck a can of dog chow at me..."

"Let's not give him any ideas." Steve chuckled as he released Bucky's hand. Inwardly he was stunned by how strong his friend's grip was. The supersoldier serum gave him peak speed and endurance, but even Steve wasn't so sure if he was at the top of the pecking order in their group. Bucky was getting stronger and more deadly, and Steve could only hope that the animal inside of him didn't take full control.

---

It was mid-afternoon as the Commandos laid in just beyond a railroad bridge crossing. The cluster of trees kept them sheltered and obscured from any wandering eyes as they camouflaged themselves to better blend into their surroundings. Even Steve had decided to forgo his helmet and instead wore his brown bomber jacket over his uniform. The spangled red, white and blue weren't exactly the best features when it came to stealth. Further, up ahead over a hillside, he could see the sunlight reflect off the stainless glass of a sniper-scope. Bucky laid in waiting, watching the bridge through his lens.

Keeping himself rigidly planked on his braced forearms, with impassive variance, Bucky levelled his Springfield rifle over his gloved palm, flashingly the periphery of his steel-aquamarine depths caught the encroaching glimpse of black-tarped military trucks embellished with demonic Kracken-skull insignia of HYDRA-mobilizing a 'pick-up' convoy near the railroad bridge as dissonance of a carillon horn eerily blared with chugging succession of train wheels screeched over eroded tracks-the expected artillery freight was three miles outward. "Damnit.." he seethed out, bitingly, and unholstered a two-way radio transmitter from his pouched-belt. "Cap..." he drawled in huskier pitch, murmuringly, pressing the device's button. "Delivery...Inbound...Three clicks...Comin' in hot..."

"Copy that. Hang tight," Steve responded through his radio. Duggan, Jones and Falsworth were crouched along the bushes beside him as they watched the bridge. "You ready?" Steve asked his men who looked equal parts determined and eager. A brush of wind swept through the tree-line causing the leaves to billow out around them. Autumn was near and Halloween was a couple of weeks away. If he were back home around this time, Steve would have found himself being dragged by Bucky to a Halloween dance-party surrounded by Dorothy's, Scarecrows and Tinmen. The night would end with him and Bucky stealing away into the night laughing after pranking Jake Cooper and his band of bullies.

If anything, he'd at least miss the candy and treats. He shrugged from his thoughts as his sharp hearing listened to the sound of approaching vehicles. Raised voices followed cursing out in German. The Hydra convoy came to an abrupt pause several feet shy of colliding with a barricade of toppled trees standing seven feet high. "Was zur Hölle ist das?! (What the hell is this?!)" The passenger side-door of the lead convoy opened and out stepped a well-dressed officer with a Hydra crest emblazoned onto his coat-pocket. "Mach diese Straße jetzt frei! Wir können nicht verzögert werden! (Clear this road now! We cannot be delayed!)"

Ensuing yells followed and they watched as several armed men jumped out of their vehicles to approach the blockade. "Bucky, how many are there?" Steve whispered into his radio.

With tactical readiness stemming in his veins, stealthily undetected by the HYDRA parade cavalcade, as black Mercedes 770K Grosser low-top convertible was at the helm-a high-ranking SS lieutenant of Third Reich was polishedly garbed in his Kriegsmarine leather trench-coat while BMW R75 motorcycles revved up in flanked position; within measured seconds, HYDRA stormtroopers 'death-walkers' fleetingly assembled in mechanized-wraithlike sync around the forested barricade. Enraged by the obstructive deterrent, ballistically the HYDRA official stood up from the back seat, gesturing his tight-fisted wrath.

'Yeah someone's not happy..." Bucky quipped under breath, throatily, as his paratrooper boots dragged over the clumpy-mossier dirt in planking traction as the rifle's barrel frontally levelled with sharpshooter poise. Angling the heaviness of his knife-jaw, chestnut tresses unkempt fringed over the bestial deformity of his pointer ears, as he unblinkingly gazed through the scope of his grounded rifle, marking down the proximal 'dead-eye' range. "M' countin' five..." he drawled in a growlier cadence, unerringly as he locked the rifle's ammo chamber, keeping his index finger readily ghosted over the trigger-lock. Underneath his navy-blue parka, the heavier bulkiness of his tauter muscles flexed on a contractive-morphic accord, as his nose raptly scrunched when sulphuric rancidity of carious decay-blood- that noxiously wafted off the HYDRA official's tailored garments."Grah...I've got a clear shot."

"Hold your fire until I give the signal," Steve alerted Bucky as he began jogging towards the bridge. "Duggan, Jones, go green." Steve watched as not a few seconds later shots were being rained down on the stunned Hydra troops who were pelted with bullets. A spike of adrenaline rushed through Steve who leapt over the rail and raised his shield high. It wasn't long before the Hydra officer saw him coming and a deathly pale look formed on his face once he realized who was coming for them.

"Es ist er! Der Kapitän! Das amerikanische Schwein. Töte ihn! (It's him! The Captain! The America pig! Kill him!") The officer cried as he jumped back into his black Mercedes 770k Grosser. A luxury vehicle meant for high-ranking officials. Immediately the troopers aimed their rifles and began unloading in Captain America's direction. The First Avenger held his shield firm, its indestructible properties repelling the lead bullets as if they were paper-balls. Seeing an opening for an offensive, Steve ducked low and twirled, propelling his shield with pin-point accuracy towards a support beam on the bridge. His geometric mind knew exactly how to make use of his armament as it reflects off the beam towards a trio of troopers hidden behind cover.

Triple clanks are heard and the troopers collapse dead or unconscious. "Now, Duggan!" Steve yelled. Duggan tossed a grenade clear of the artillery convoy causing one of the trucks to burst into flames, scouring debris across the luxury car. Troopers began to climb to the hoods of their vehicles to get a higher ground advantage. "Bucky take your shots!" Steve alerted. Not a second later all the troopers were shot dead with surgically hit rounds to the skulls. "Bring uns hier raus! (Get us out of here!") The officer yelled at his driver who immediately slammed on the accelerator, determined to break through the barricade.

"Bucky, take out their tires!" Steve yelled as he narrowly leap to the side to avoid being run-over. The officer wouldn't escape through the barricade but he would be worth more to them alive.

With downshift jerk, screechingly the Mercedes gunned up full-throttle, the red HYDRA pennants whippingly tore off the hood, the twined motorcycles explosively flipped into a waterline ditch as Bucky's dead-shot precision blurringly aimed for the wheel-spokes. With a half-smirk tugged at his shapely lips, he emptied up the calibre-barrel in rapid succession of a blinding earshot, as the hailstorm of bullets flurringly shredded the rubber of the frontal tire-a deafening pop ensued as the swerving vehicle destructively careened a nosedive into a station-house." All yours, Cap..." he rasped out gravelly, feigning a tight-jaw grimace as feverish torrents of nauseous heat blearily stole his vision. "N-Not again..."

"Good shot," Steve commended his friend. He watched as the Mercedes swerved and crashed into the rail of the bridge, nearly close toppling over the edge. He had to get the officer out of there before he either fell over, or jumped just to prevent himself from being captured. As he barreled through a couple of troopers who thought they'd fare better fighting him hand-to-hand, Steve looked on as he saw the rest of his men make their way to the bridge to block off the rear in case the convoy tried to retreat. "Seal them off. Don't let any of em' off the bridge." Steve kicked the bumper to one of the trucks, an act which stunned Jones as the truck crashed into one of the convoys attempting to pull out.

Duggan guns down one of the troopers attempting to pull a pin on a grenade. Jones nearly takes a shot to the stomach before Steve intercepts with his shield. Just when it seemed the commandos were close to taking control of the convey, the unexpected happened and Steve was shot in the back of his shoulder.

"CAP!" Duggan yelled in horror. "He's***. Damn it, Barnes! There's a sniper. Cover us!"

"Steve...!" Blood misted into the frigid vapours, against throated gasp, Steve achingly crashed onto his knees in deadened traction, splaying his leather palm over the bullet-gored flesh of his shoulder, against heart-gripping distress, Bucky reared his head up, as his lips went throbbingly agape, revealing the jutted points of his barred incisor fangs as he emitted out a deep-throated scream. "Punk..." A railing pitch growlingly coupled with choked-off heaves as he blankly gazed at his 'little punk' being frantically encompassed by the Commandos while his vision strobed into reddish--murderous haze. “No...”

In an urgent tempo of unbidden alarm, his depths predatorily razored into aqueous crescents of livid sapphire, as thermic-connective pulses of heartbeats fierily veined into reddish skeins as he piercingly shifted a murderous glower of vengeful bloodthirst in direction of the HYDRA sniper's nest, thrusting his stubbled jaw in a fiercer clench. He knew the damning extent of his breakneck choice to vengefully engage the infinite hunt: there was no going back. "T-This is for you, punk..."

He had never given in to the darker impulse of vengeance in veins, not even since the war began and he'd witnessed the atrocities committed by Hydra and the Nazi parties. But seeing his best friend, his courageous and genuine little Steve, get shot by a target he should have kept his eyes opened for, caused Bucky to fall into that dark allure. Unintendedly, the wolf within growled and had fallen in sync with his instincts, sensing the injury of one he cared for. Bucky gritted his teeth and threw his rifle aside. Before he knew what was happening, the wind was whipping at his face, his hair billowing behind him as he raced through the forests at an intense speed. His only thought, his only instinct was to find the sniper that injured his friend and hurt him back.

The world had turned into a blood-red portrait with tiny specs of light humming in the distance. There was one crouched in a nest of shrubs and vines, scrambling to retreat as if sensing his approach. With agility he didn't realize he possessed, Bucky lunged high up into the trees and caught the bark twenty feet off the ground. His heightened sense of smell detected the wafting odor of cheap aftershave and gunpowder. A Hydra soldier wearing a full-face mask is now racing wildly through the trees with his rifle held tight. "Stoller na bazu. Konvoy atakoval Kapitan Amerika. Nikto ne vyzhil. YA ranil yego, no mne nuzhna pomoshch'! (Stoller to base. The convoy was attacked by Captain America. None survived. I wounded him but I need assistance!)

If he were in his own state of mind, Bucky would have paused to consider his options; the alternative such as taking the trooper captive to be interrogated for answers. But logic and strategic planning had escaped him. There was only the irrepressible desire to take his pound of flesh. And so he lunged from the trees, descended upon the stricken trooper who only had time to scream out in horror before he was trampled and lashingly stabbed by sharpened claws.

Bucky's conscience had vanished and there was only the ravenous hunger of the beast eager to sate its bloodlust. Blood splattered across his stubbled face as the trooper choked on his last breath. Gleaming silver eyes gazed unblinkingly at the life-form as its light flickered away before raising his head upward and releasing a railing howl towards the skies.

-----

'Hell, what have you done, Barnes...' An unwarranted mantra condemningly resonated with onrushes starved-out adrenaline; blindingly into forested environs, Bucky propelled a thrust of his beastlier momentum at rampageous paces, a grimace stretched over this lips as the whipsawed sting of pine branches gouging over the padded material that sheathed over his muscled flesh. The brackish reek of viscid fluid of his gruesome-horrific assault smudgily trekked over his dimpled chin; nothing was leashed down when he monstrously arced his clawed-fingers with throat-slashing viciousness into the HYDRA sniper's exposed thorax, without no availing mercy just carnal-deadlier octane of predatory rabidness.

Guttuarlly heaving out breathless pants, against a vomitous raid of feverish exhaustion, Bucky collapsed onto his bracing knees, cottony bleariness dizzily swarmed his vision as he sobbingly hammered a fisted hand with bone-splitting force grimily into the muckier ground; contractive apparitions of the soul-wrenching onslaught. Each pulsating throb of misaligned spinal bones exorcised warring visages of his Brooklyn resistance; tearingly the bushier length of his canine tail shaggily protruded over his backside—pressing his forehead bruisingly into the ground, a throated puppyish whimper noncommittally hitched out him as the mutative-wolven- unity of infectious divergence had stuporously careened him into a catatonic fringe, irrevocably grappling him into morphic-deadened throes. "I can't...Fight it..."

The quaking sensation made him feel as if he was ready to implode on himself. But in reality, it was the burning hunger of a primordial beast clawing to escape. Bucky searched his pockets for the inhibitor serum Howard had created for him only to realize he had left his extra doses back at camp. There was nothing to stop the barrage of consuming agony spreading throughout his body as he let loose another vicious roar. His canines had extended beyond their subtle capacity and the veins on his flesh bulged with his expanding muscles. He felt power, he felt rage in an all-encompassing fire that couldn't be quelled.

He was dimly aware of the sensation of his skin prickling with heat. His intense eyes watched as animal-like fur sprouted from his bolstering flesh, spreading like wildfire across his body. His calloused digits had extended to gargantuan size with knife-edge claws protruding from his nails. "NO!" He roared, quivering with both fear and anguish at how foreign his own voice sounded. There was no trace of himself. Not in his voice, and not in body. His mind clung to the memories of his humanity as if they were being swept away by a howling wind.

Slowly his clothes began groan and shred from his expanding mass. His body fell forward and his boot collided with the earth before it tore open. A wolfish paw implanted into the soil, and then a second followed. Razor-sharp claws grasp the bark of a tree and snap it as if it were made of plastic. Teeth clenched into an unbreakable sneer, they dug into his gums as a strangled groan escaped him, feeling his jaw expand beyond human proportions into a grisly maw. His blue eyes that were once soft as cool waters, sharpened into vampire slits that glowed like the moon.

Bucky Barnes was gone. The wolf had emerged to prowl the night, hunting anything and anyone one in his way.

------

A vaporous putridness of stagnant blood miasmically breached her senses, as skeletal remnants of a gutted-out Black Forest stag were odiously discarded over the rocky smoothness that fused into an isolated den. Thunderous cascades of onrushing water dampishly became an elemental valance; after observing the grislier bloodbath of the HYDRA sniper with recon vigilance, Selina had advanced within the sanctuary-domain with tempered-practicable cautiousness, impassively brandishing her vehement poise on sashaying accord; the reeky stink of bloodied decay pungently sailed over the fang-gored deer husk. 'A fella's gotta eat...'

Crouching on her sleekier haunches, scones of moonlight ethereally arced over the wolfish fur-sheathed tautness of bulkier mass-graven-edged ridges that heavily bracketed protrusive flesh as frayed traces of navy blue tellingly clung over the hulkish massiveness of his slacken canine form-the genetical fusion of Doctor Zola's wolven strain had devastatingly manifested through the hunky 'pretty boy' sergeant; he was irrevocably captive into dregs of morphic oblivion.

Being the damned heiress of the monarchic Strucker bloodline had shackled her into knifepoint reality; she had deceptively masqueraded a Robin Hood gambit, infiltrating the estates of the Bavarian aristocracy, thievingly collecting spoils to profit necessary hardware for the underground stations of 'black-out' resistance-networks of desolated orphans-strays. After her warmongering father discovered her treasonous escapades-hijinks, she was punishingly leashed down with vein-shunting infusions of mutative- wolven serum- an occultic-unforgiving divergence that warranted her expandable heartbeat if grips of sentiment compromised her leashed resolve.

"Sleeping it off, Wolf Boy...?" she breathily scoffed, gazing down at the furred length of his canine muzzle, the ivory gleam of his curved incisor-fangs sickeningly daubed with viscid crimson. Narrowing an incredulous flit of her brandy-coffee irises deviously at his torn jacket, with attentive-thievish swiftness, cunningly, Selina ripped a threadbare sleeve off and swiped it over the beasty- soldier's jutted fangs; silvery incandescence of the moon limned over his wolfish bulk-a gravitic pulse headily beckoned with sensuous-virile- heat. Fully aware of her consequent impulse, Selina didn't reel back, as her lithe fingers disarmingly caressed whisper-soft pressure of abandoned reverence over his canine muzzle. "I'm guessing it was a fun night for you...?" she razzed, sassily, as the glossiness of her mahogany whorls half-draped sleekly over her leather-garbed shoulder. "If you even remember..."

He felt as if he were submerged in a dark ocean of oblivion with nothing and no one to guide him out. His dreams were listless and empty-a void that couldn't be sensed. Was he dead? Was he asleep? He couldn't say, but he imagined both to be a very cold experience that racked his entire being from head to toe. He felt restless and desperate to breach the surface. Light trickled into his world and with it, a cacophony of sounds and smells that bombarded his senses, causing him to release a whine of discomfort. His entire body rumbled and the smell of wet dog assaulted him. He wrinkled his nose through shut eyelids. He was groggy, but alive.

But where was he? What happened? He thought he heard someone talking to him.

"Who's there?" The voice that spoke was that of an unearthly monster breaching through the fog of his disillusion and pushing him towards total equilibrium. The voice had come from him! His eyes snapped open and he let loose a startled yell that sent waves of distress throughout his body. The sound of rushing waterfall deafened the ringing in his ears, but his focus was solely on the hideous face gazing back at him from the water beneath his rock.

"GRAAH!" The beast, the monster screamed at the exact moment he did himself. It was a spell-binding sight of such horror, it couldn't be unseen he believed it to be a nightmare. But inside he knew the truth as his memories began to resurface. But the tiniest part of his mind that begged for confirmation made him raise his hand to his nose, only to see beast-the wolf-also reach up to touch his snout. "No...NOOOO!" He let loose an agonizing howl.

The deep throatiness of his clamorous agony excruciatingly deafened into a panic-razed tenor; not wavering her cool gaze from the anthro-beasty-wolf; tactilely Selina reached out her gloved hand, kneading his damp chestnut fur with ghosting-arrestive pressure invested with her splaying caresses. With every lithe glide of her fingers, naked awareness of fevered decadence was starvedly edging in the coaxing flexion of her phantom-soft touch."Yeah, this won't be an easy slide for you, handsome," she deadpanned out tersely. "Lucky for you, I know how to play this game well..."

The barrage of emotions roaring through him had made him oblivious to the alarming fact that he wasn't alone out here. Everything felt alarming to him, from the faintest brush of wind whipping through the canopy of trees, to the cold water splashing onto his furry body draped over the rock. But what he hadn't anticipated was seeing the woman he had met at the tavern only a few nights ago standing on the neighbouring rock. Her long legs were hugged tight by brown leather boots and black trousers. A utility belt encompassed her waist where she carried numerous pockets along with a sheathe hunting knife, and a holstered pistol. Alarm set in and Bucky released an instinctive growl at her presence. "You...I remember you. What are you doing here?!" He growled as he stood in a hunched posture, clawed hands resting against the rock with his paws digging into the wet earth. Something about this woman unsettled him, but also felt oddly familiar.

She didn't look the least bit intimidated by his appearance. If anything, it probably intrigued her. It raised many questions, such as how she knew where to find him, and why she to understand what he was going through.

As the whitish scones of moonlight pierced through watery cascades, as her brandy irises gleamed deviously alight, with an amused quirk of her eyebrow, unflinchingly Selina watched the wolfy-soldier clunkily brace his arched hind-paws on the rocky surface, reining up controlled traction in his monstrous poise. Frustratedly emitted a growlier seethe, Bucky fostered onto a visage of restraint as his bushy tail reactively swayed against his muscled thighs on defensive accord, evident to the razored slash of his claws. "Let's just say I have experience with this..." she murmured in cryptic pitch, brusquely. "Things will get more complicated once you fully commit...No switchbacks."

"NO!" Bucky growled with a mounting impatience borne out of confusion. Who did this woman think she was? How could she possibly understand what he was going through? "This-This isn't who I am! I don't want this!" He growled with a biting taste of copper at the back of his throat. Blood, he realized. Horror tinged with disgust crept up on him once he realized he'd killed something or someone amidst the wolfish transformation. What if he had hurt one of his men? What if… What if he hurt Steve? "Steve...Cap. I gotta find him." Steve had been shot, he remembered. Its what set him off and made him mercilessly hunt down the sniper and rip his throat out.

He began to stalk forward with a single-minded purpose of finding his friend until he felt a hand latch onto his massive forearm. Shockingly enough, the strength behind the grip was enough to stop him in his tracks. He turned and stared incredulously at the mysterious woman's gloved hand that looked ridiculously small on his expanded limb, and yet was strong enough to hold him in place.

"If you want to ride this out, stay close..." Selina gritted, urgingly, as the feral variances of combative intimidation defensively mirrored the adrenalized fusion of their reactive poise, with a blinding swipe of her lithe hand, unerringly, Selina clutched his fur-sheathed forearm-their dynamic tenor became electrifyingly symphonic against the dragging knifepoint graze of her fingers."Listen, this new make-over will keep you from doing the things you want...Go back to your friend, and you'll be choking on a bullet..."

"Who the hell are you...What are you?" Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight, but Bucky thought he saw her eyes glow with flecks of gold. Brilliant and entrancing. The answer appeared to gleam right back at him as he continuously gazed into her eyes, understanding the scope of what she was telling him. He couldn't go back. Not like this. His friends would shoot first and ask questions later, even if Steve tried to stop them and explain. He couldn't go back..

So where did that leave him? Heartbreak and woe encompassed him and the seven-foot tall lycanthrope released a dismal sound. "Guess I have no choice," He uttered with a deep throaty voice. His snout bristled with emotions and he wanted nothing more than to retreat into a dark corner and expel them. Shrugging out of her grip, Bucky stomped across the path and began to march across the small river. He could see a small cave hidden near the edge of the waterfall, hidden by the cascading water rain down from high up.

He didn't turn to look if the woman was following him, but inwardly he hoped he wouldn't be left alone tonight.

--------------------------------

"Where are ya, Buck...?" Against the vacuous gloominess of the Bavarian forest, trudging his desperate momentum over the boggy ground; steeling himself against the heart-arresting reality that his best friend had been recaptured by another dispatched HYDRA convoy; after getting patched up back at the SSR encampment, Steve had relentlessly pushed himself to locate Bucky-nothing derailed him. Vigilantly, he paced through the forested warren, the potent aroma of evergreen burningly clashed against his temperate senses as he lowered into a mid-crouch, bracing his muscled haunches with tactical-honed agility.

Doing his utmost to brandish his unshakable reserve, Steve his hand to urgently signal Duggan not to approach his exposed position, Steve traced his leathered palm flatly over a massive canine pawprint evidently gouged in clumpier muddy heaps. Steering the glacial coolness of his azureous irises hawkishly in the infinite direction of the mountain pass, only to find tattered scraps of a distinct navy blue jacket had been wrenchingly discarded over shredded paratrooper boots. "No..." he murmured against despairing breath, as wetted bleariness mistily dampened his lashes, blonde tresses errantly clung over his tensing brow as he downcastly gazed at the blood-smeared remnants of Bucky's uniform. "Buck..."

"This doesn't look good, Cap…" Duggan remarked with a touch of remorse in his tone. He knew a wild animal attack when he'd seen one and whatever it was that attacked could still be lurking in the area. "Maybe Barnes has just been wounded? There's no way to know for sure." He knew how deep the friendship ran between Steve and Bucky and he wanted to offer his captain some measure of reassurance that his friend wasn't lost, captured or worse: dead. But he knew that in war, denial wasn't a luxury they could afford. MIA meant good as dead. The other Commandos somberly agreed but said nothing as they allowed Steve a moment to gather his thoughts.

Steve knew what Duggan was trying to tell him but steadily ignored his commentary. Unlike the rest of his men, he understood just what had happened to Bucky and it could only spell bad news for everyone. Against his own better judgment, he hadn't told the others about the changed Bucky was experiencing since he'd been bitten by that wild animal. Peggy and Howard had insisted but the last thing Steve wanted was for Jones, Falsworth and Duggan to see Bucky as a mad dog they would have to put down if he got too wild in their opinion. He had believed and hoped the inhibitor serum Howard developed would be enough to stave off Bucky's symptoms at least until they were finished here in Bavaria, but apparently it wasn't.

Now Bucky had run off, was probably unrecognizable and incredibly dangerous right now to anyone near him. He knew his friend wasn't dead. He could feel it. Steve's only hope was that he would somehow find his way back to them. "He's not dead...We'll give it a day." Steve finally said to his men who had been waiting patiently for him to give a directive. Steve pocketed the emblem from Bucky's jacket and rose up to face the others. "If we don't find him...we'll move on." It was a hard thing for him to say, but he knew what his friend would want.

"I don't think we should be searching this late. Whatever it was that attacked Barnes will be even more difficult to track out here." Falsworth said. Steve shrugged in agreement.

"We'll head back to camp. There's something I knew to tell all of you...about Bucky. Something you probably won't believe." He said as they begin to make their way back. The others exchange unsure glances before Duggan chuckles.

"Trust me, Cap. At this point, nothing can surprise us."

--------

It was still nightfall when Bucky had awoken that night. The sight of a crackling fire at the entrance to the cave caused alarm to set in before he sensed that familiar female scent he'd come to identify. The warm lighting allowed him to see his furry body that cast an ominous shadow upon the cave-wall. He let loose a tired growl as he settled on a rock close to the burning pit.

He had slept easier that night, dreaming of times past where he and Steve used to come home dressed in pirate costumes after a long night of trick-or-treating through Brooklyn's commercial district. Times were happier then. Simple. The only horrors to be experienced were the bullies they'd angered with a barrage of eggs, and the ghoulish costumes worn by other trick-or-treaters on the streets. How did his life change so drastically that he was now a walking terror that parents told their children scary stories about at night?

Was he going to spend the rest of his life this way? He wondered as he gazed at the gargantuan fingers held out in front of him, and the razor-sharp nails that could slice open human skin with ease. "I'm a monster…" He growled mournfully.

Quirking up her pointer ears, grudgingly she registered the anguished gravelliness of his despondent timbre, nonchalantly the wolfish vixen kept herself sveltely crouched on her lissom haunches; bracing her fore-paws over the rocky peak. Against the firelight sconces that enchantingly contrasted over the vibrant silkiness of her dishevelled mahogany fur, with a rueful thrust of her delicate muzzle, inadvertently she narrowed the delicate length of her canine muzzle down with chagrined ease, readily she caught the saltiness of heated wetness-a banking scent of unwarranted heartache that wouldn't be staved down- the wolfy sergeant was a verminous captive within the forsaken thralls of a chastened reality. "Don't get comfortable there, Wolf Boy," she rasped, grittily, in sardonic pitch, her luminous bronze orbs fixedly glaring at the bulkier he-wolf. "This is just a one-time exception, nothing else..."

Bucky didn't think he could be startled anymore after the surprises he'd experienced over the past couple of nights. But the deep feminine voice caused hot anticipation to run through him, causing him to nearly jump to his feet. Remember what he had witnessed early today, his suspicions were all but confirmed as he observed a pair of bronze eyes gazing at him from the shadows on the opposite side of the fire-pit. "You're like me, aren't you?" Bucky rumbled. It all made sense-her strength, her confidence and this familiarity he felt towards her. He squared his shoulders and sniffed, capturing that floral heady scent that caused his blood to burn hotly. It was intoxicating just as it was alluring. His inner beast recognized the female as a shared member of his race and howled inwardly with delight. "Show me..." He rumbled once more, trying to control his heightened state of awareness.

The feverous implosion of wanton-addictive heat grippingly purged out deep-seated tension, coquettishly with a foxier glint melding within her autumn- bronze depths-the innate need of sensuous release effusively commanded him with abandoned urgency as he unstintingly encroached on his arched hind-paws with strained clunkiness, leashing down unslaked aggression. Predatory menace roguishly surged through the graven-cords of his furred bulk-intimate tension rode on high voltage as he breathlessly angled his canine muzzle up, against conscious sanity and growingly inhaled the cherry-infused decadence of her feminine-naked scent- a headier aphrodisiac rapture of beckoning ecstasy. "Not what you were expecting, Wolf Boy..." she purred in a breathy undertone, vaulting balletically off her perch in a distractive succession of her effortless graces.

With a deceptive play of kittenish mischief, Selina had friskily sashayed a hairbreadth from the hunkish anthro-canine, and blindly felt the shadowy pulse of ardent heat, as the jutted length of his fanged-muzzle hungrily delivered intensifying pressure over the lithe-contours of her furred shoulder. Fascinatingly, the phantom flexion of his clawed fingers, brushingly shifted each virile- driven caress over tauten-supple curves of her mid-drift, tactilely revving up her arousal. "A little close don't you think, handsome?"

A she-wolf was the last thing Bucky would've expected to be meeting in the dim hours of the night. And yet, it was a surprisingly spell-binding sight that caused his piercing eyes to slowly drink in the furry anthro-form to the last detail. She was as nearly as tall as him, possessing a keen muscular shape with layers of dark fur encompassing her lithe frame. Her claws were longer-sleeker that made them appear almost as knives upon her hands. She was an imposing sight that would have no doubt inspired terror in the hearts of ordinary men who would see her-see them both-as a werewolf monster.

But to Bucky, the sight was as ardent to him as seeing a naked woman in front of him. He should've felt abashed by the thought, but it was as unshakable as the burning intense hunger that surged throughout his body. The beast within howled with vigor and craved to have the she-wolf enveloped into his embrace. Her scent of was as intoxicating to him as a hot whiskey and he felt drunk with allure which caused him to take long quick strides in her direction, backing her up against the wall to which he pounced forward trapping her between his arms as his hands planted into the rock wall.

"Not close enough," he growled with a deep throaty voice that conveyed nothing but deep desire as his luminous blue eyes gazed into her glimmering golden orbs. Her warm breath wafted onto his snout, causing him to lap at his incisors and growl.

The definite promise of untamed intimacy was damn alarming, uncompromisingly headier rushes of his panty breath echoed with bestial fervency over the sleek contours of her delicate muzzle; cravingly against the unfeigned pulse of evocative lucidity, Selina braced herself as his clawed-fingers edged virile-sensuous reverence over the unkempt tresses silkily fusing over the litheness of her shoulders. Gutturally jutting his muzzle with an hungered thrust of rampant demand-unanswered longing, Bucky was aware of the crushing strength of his massive paw, he shakily bracketed a possessive grip over her furred nape, capturing the implosive need of breathtaking release, as he grazed a chaste drag of his incisor-fangs a breadth from her muzzle, reaching for a heady kiss-only to heart-crushingly realize they weren't human. Gripping onto the muscled heaviness of his forearm, Selina gazed into his sweltry grayish-aquamarine depths, urging him to hold back. "It's just not the same, huh?"

A timber growl emanated from the back of the wolf's throat. Heady and desirous as he became immersed in the spell-binding scent wafting off of the she-wolf in front of him who had awakened something deep unshakable from within. A dangerous craving that was equal parts frightening as well as euphoric. Her question rattled his thoughts, allowing the man from within to regain some semblance of awareness as he blinked repeatedly, his pupils normalizing despite their unbreakable proximity. "Maybe…" He rumbled as if lost in thought. Unconsciously the lengthy digits on his gargantuan hands trailed up and down her forearm, almost teasingly as he felt her resound against him. His hands closed around her arms as he brought her closer. "...I can get used to this." The tips of their muzzles brushed against one another, an act so leisurely it was instinctual-it was perfect.

Answering the surging need as their canine muzzles sultrily edged with beckoned grace to mirror a rush of wet heat, starvingly against the unhinged-addictive thrill of bone-deep abandon. Blindingly, Selina felt his paw-hand deftly trace the underside length of her furred jaw with a phantom caress as the unslaked upheaval for headier-novel supremacy burningly rode through her. Dragging pants of their breath rampantly echoed in an outpaced-wonderous cadence as Bucky naughtily flashed her a toothy smirk, urging her wolfish form to become his flesh and blood reality as she arched the bustier cushiness of her furred swells against the steel-honed rigidity of his bulked torso, gazing in the voltaic blaze of lucent sapphire that smolderingly melded in his irises. Groaningly, Bucky thrust his muzzle with a headlong promise of their sensuous havoc-an irresistible vitality. "It's funny in the morning you won't remember this dance..." she murmured, hushedly, as the heated dampness of his tongue feverishly glided kiss-soft pressure of her delicate features. "Do you want to risk it?"

It was a tempting offer that he wouldn't have thought to question. Not in his present state of mind. To the animal-the wolf-within, he inwardly howled with eagerness to dive deep into the abyss of pleasure and lay claim to the willing she-wolf and have her become his mate. The solidifying pact would ensure their safety, their shelter from the storms raging throughout the world where humans hunted them for sport. But there was something amiss about all of this. That much he was able to discern by the she-wolf's sudden appearance and willingness to pull him head-first into this new world he'd become a part of. He was mystified by her just the same as he was drawn to her. She was a beautiful and cunning creature that he would relish the thought of chasing into the moonlight.

Even if it was for one night they would be together, there could be risks. The same risks humans took each time they had i***. His mind conjured the thought of children, but remarkably they were a trio of furry pups swarming him and the she-wolf in front of him with loving affection. It was a strange thought at the same time it was a dangerous one. "I don't even know your name," he growled, allowing himself a moment to bask in the warmth of her heated proximity before slowly slinking back. "We should get some rest," he growled, forcing himself to the ground to lay on his side.

As the beasty-wolf rested sulkily near the makeshift firepit, huffishly, pursing her sleekier muzzle, Selina became painstakingly attuned with the pained resonance gravelly emitting out of him. Quashing down instinctive urgency against grounded relevance, she was inexorably grappled into an unwarranted deadlock of rigged consequence - she was on the knife-edge of being a disposable fugitive against the parasitic ranks of HYDRA. As her bronze irises unblinkingly flitted over the silvery light of the moon ethereally haloing over furred bulkiness delineated under his dishevelled chestnut fur Selina gazed at his tremulous paw-hand that glided quiveringly over his slacken muzzle on dejected accord, as hitching choke-off sobs gurgled raspily up his throat. "Look, I usually don't give something back unless it's worth a trade, but..." she paused, tersely, watching defensive tension rapt over the furrier thickness of his shoulders. "You did kiss me, James Barnes, so I guess that makes an exception for you to call me...Selina."

It was an unexpected revelation to him that left him momentarily stricken with surprise. If he was a betting man, she didn't reveal her name to many people. Briefly, he wondered if it was a fake name to deflect his curiosity. He quickly shut away the thought knowing she had no reason to lie. As flirtatious as she carried herself around him, she was still very secretive and private with the details of her life just as any person would be. But it nevertheless made him feel appreciative that she chose to trust him with such a personal thing about herself. And...she wasn't wrong, he did decide to leave a lasting impression that was still setting his blood on fire. He felt suddenly connected to her in a way that he didn't realize until now, he'd been yearning for. Before he could reconsider himself, he turned onto his side to face her and stared into her glimmering orbs of gold-smiling with his smouldering gaze. "Selina...I like it. Somethin' tells me I'm one of the lucky few to know it. Fair is fair, darlin'. You can call me "Bucky"." He rumbled as he flexed his jaws as if yawning. "What do you say we get some shut-eye?"

He watched her carefully as she silently laid beside him. A short distance apart but they could feel each other as if they were pressed closely against one another. The events of the night played in their thoughts repeatedly before sleep would claim them. Neither of them stirred as they slowly drifted closer into a warm embrace, their cinnamon-coloured fur bathed by the crackling of flaming embers to the firepit with the stars shining above.

------

Feverish grogginess blearily grounded her into content; dozily, Selina temped down a breathy groan, as she eased her cheek off the rocky surface tactilely aware of the virile nakedness of hard-corded flesh-a thermic heat bodily contrasting against as the frigid morning ambiance ushed October chilliness starkly ghosted over the freckled pearlescence of her shoulders. The pillow-soft lushness of her voluminous lips grazed over the palm as she threaded her lithe fingers consciously through sleep-tousled whorls of mahogany, feeling the spooning heaviness of a muscled arm embracingly bracket over supple curves of her mid-drift with blinded reverence. "M-Must be morning..." she rasped against a throated moan, sleepily "Too early..."

A deep comfortable groan emanated from behind her brought about by the shift of her awakening. The arm that was wrapped around her waist suddenly tugged her closer as if alarmed by the thought of her escaping the warm security she was blanketed in. She followed the arm to its bearer and saw an enchanting sight she had not been expected. A very human, very n***, Bucky Barnes laid on his side with his head resting against scattered remains of his clothing that made a make-shift pillow. His brunette bangs hung over his face, his stubbled jaw twitched as he muttered something soft and intelligible in his dream. Interestingly enough, he appeared more relaxed than he'd been for the past week. As if the days of unending pain brought about by the transformation were gone with no hint that they had been there before.

His eyelids fluttered and his brow pinched. Slowly but surely, they opened and crystal blue eyes reflected the light of the morning sun. They immediately snapped closed and Bucky groaned as he covered his eyes. "Someone get the blinds," he sleepily murmured as he pressed his face into a sea of dark mahogany and inhaled the soothing lavender scent.

Quirking her eyebrow as she registered the murmurous gravelliness in his suave-timbered drawl, amusingly, Selina gazed at the hunkier radiance of his graven-edge features that held traces of boyish chubbiness as the wolfish shagginess of his tresses disheveledly clung over his pointed-tip ears—under the fringe of his lashes, the glacial steeliness of his heavy-lidded aqueous irises bleary mirrored her stare, achingly capturing a riotous heartbeat—an untamed wolf incarnate. Groaningly Bucky dragged out a fevered breath, as his incisor fangs unabashedly grazed over his pouty underlip. "Well this is the first morning I actually like waking up too, soldier boy," she quipped in snarkier pitch, her full-bow lips curvily played off a jaunty smirk, as she roved her dark gaze vexatiously at the cave's entry point, as encroaching silhouettes of black uniform HYDRA enforcers were readily poised in sentry-mode. "A girl can get used to this..."

An oblivious Bucky was only aware of two things; his body was no longer a fur walking terror, and he was laid sprawled out on the ground with a beautiful dame pressed snugly against him. Not just any beautiful dame. "Selina? ...Selina." He would never get tired of saying that name, it rolled right off the tongue causing a rush of heat to burst through him. His eyelids peeled open and he gazed wondrously into those warm brown eyes gazing back at him. "So...it wasn't just a dream," he said with a boyish smirk curled at his shapely lips. He had slept so peacefully last night, dreaming of mahogany curls and glowing amber eyes above him-beneath him.

It took seconds for him to realize that they were both in fact naked beneath a tattered sheet that was used for tents. He would've wondered where it came from were he not so enamoured by the state of the woman beside him who made him feel so many things; life, excitement...desire. His blue eyes flicked to her lips, watching as she bit on her bottom lip with a sharp incisor still noticeable. Were he not so distracted he would've noticed her eyes had flicked towards the outside of the cave as if seeing something he didn't.

"Good morning to you too, darlin'." Bucky couldn't help himself as he leaned towards and pressed his lips against hers. It was meant to be a chaste but clear show of affection, but the noise she made, a soft and heady m*** that transitioned into a sigh caused hot desire to flood through Bucky's veins as he threaded his fingers through her curly locks. The kiss deepened and he felt her applying firm moist pressure, her nails trailing up his biceps towards his neck. Bucky felt himself becoming lost in a sea of passion, drifting aimlessly as he surrendered to the instincts of his heart and body.

That was until his hearing detected a cluttering of footsteps and something fast and sharp whizzed through the air. "GAAAH!" Pain exploded through him as if he'd been lanced with a hundred needles up his arm. The kiss was broken and a gasp of shock escaped him. In his n*** arm was a tranquillizer dart with a sickly green fluid pouring into him.

Glancing over his shoulder with an impassive reaction, evicting a throb of betrayal that thrummed a chord bone-deep cunningly Selina watched HYDRA operatives-the gatecrashers- mechanically advancing with sniper rifles poised, their synced precision cobra-like as she caressed a splayed palm lithely over his bicep with nail-dragging ministrations with a vicious flex. "You should be more careful who you play in the dark with, handsome..." she purred, wickedly, grazing her kiss-swollen lips over his stubbled jaw, as heated breath ghosted out."Hail HYDRA..."

"N-N-No…" The sting of betrayal hit Bucky harder than any bullet wound once he realized what was happening. He'd been lied to-deceived by a Hydra agent who led him into a trap. His immediate inclination was to fight back, to recoil from her touch despite how much it pained him to part from her. But his muscles failed him. Whatever they had shot him with had paralyzed his limbs to the point he could do nothing but swim through a sea of fatigue. He was drowning, feeling the world bearing down upon him and pulling him under. Through hazy eyes he watched as Selina rose up to her feet with the sheet draped around her, leaving him exposed to the operatives that entered the cave and locked his hands into reinforced cuffs. He thought he saw a look of remorse in Selina's eyes before they carried him away out of view.

"Steve…" Bucky called out somberly as he was carried out into the daylight. The sun lingered high in the skies, blinding him to the point he could do nothing but give in to the tranquilizing agent permeating his senses. He fell in and out of consciousness; feeling detached from his own body-his own world. He could hear voices surrounding him. The warm touch of the daylight evaporated as he was dragged indoors. He felt himself being laid out on a table. The cold sterile surface brought back an onslaught of horrific memories, as did the face he saw hovering over him. "No...Not you..."

"Good morning, Sergeant Barnes..." A toadish cadence sneeringly resonated from the jowled-faced HYDRA doctor as his stubbier fingers maliciously grazed over Bucky's pointed ear with assessing ministrations of surgical-unmerciful- precision, like a prophetic divergence, heralded a new bestial evolution, as furrier skeins of chestnut melded with flesh, while his other hand clutched Bucky's GI dog tags, hypnotically dangling the metallic chain in a taunting sway of a pendulum a breadth from the young Commando's sweat-damp brow with possessive ease, creepily, stoking up dormant aggression, as Bucky half-paralyzed, jutted his stubbled jaw with fevered strain into a defensive clench, refusing to cater Zola's unsated-reaping indulgence. "Time to finish what we've started..."

-----

A full night and day had passed in the Howling Commandos camp, and Bucky hadn't returned. A tension lingered over the band of brothers that was growing uncomfortable as time passed, and none knew how to broach the subject of Bucky's disappearance to the vigilant captain. Steve stood at the ridge of the camp, staring out into the vast forests like a statue for hours on end. He didn't move a muscle, not even so much as a twitch, and it had begun to weigh in on the several members of the unit who knew that one of them would have to help Captain America see the grim truth of things. Duggan wished it didn't have to be him, but he wasn't going to wait for Falsworth, Swayer or Jones to get off their a*** and do it first. As he made his way across the camp from his tent, he was surprised to see several of the men huddling close towards one of their parked jeeps where the Captain himself seemed to be deeply engrossed in a map laid out. Were they moving out? Duggan jogged over towards the group just as Steve looked up and waved him over.

"What do we got, Cap?" Duggan asked readily.

"Marita came in this mornin' after scouting the valley ahead. We thought the news of a Hydra facility were just rumors being spread to deflect Allied resources into investigating dead-ends. But sure enough, he found tire-tracks headed to the ridge of the mountains. High up here," Steve pointed his pencil towards a narrow gap between two towering teeths of rocks. "There's an old castle that belonged to a wealthy Bavarian family called the Struckers. We think they're connected to Hydra and have been letting them use their castle as a research base. If Bucky has been captured, this is where they would've taken him."

"Seems like a Hail Mary, Cap." Jones expressed with a frown. "How can we be sure is a prisoner after what you told us yesterday?" It was a valid point, Steve knew. The men's reaction to Bucky being a werewolf had been various from shock to disbelief. Slowly they all seemed to be coming around to the idea based on the evidence found, but now none were sure how to approach the situation with their missing and possibly dangerous commando.

"Bucky might be dangerous, but he's still vulnerable. My gut tells me that Hydra will want him alive, and they'll throw as many bodies as they can at him until he gets overwhelmed." Steve explained. A look of concern flashed over his features at the thought of what kind of torture his best friend could be going through if he was indeed being held captive again. "Regardless if they have Bucky or not, this is Hydra facility is a priority target that we can't ignore."

The commandos shared silent exchanges, all understanding the importance of what lay ahead. "So when do we leave?" Duggan asked with an enthusiastic grin, prompting nods of approval from the others. A relieved Steve could only smile at his men with gratitude.

'Hang on, Buck. We're coming for you.'

-------

Against the caliginous ambiance of the HYDRA-infested dungeon, Baroque-Romanesque columns gothically fused with the stairway, as gossamer webbing adorned the mustiness of the stone-brick walls, slinkily with her brazen prowess, Selina advanced her soft-footed paces closer to the laboratory station, her coffee irises fleetingly caught glimpses of liquid bluish vials and surgical instruments placed on medical trolleys as traumatic-razed cadences agonizingly echoed from stacked cages. She had breached the forbidden underground of Zola's hellish domain of mutative butchery where soldiery denizens became forsaken.

The odorous- macabre stench reekingly enwreathed over gutted-out skeletal canine forms-defective captives that had no tactical usefulness to serve in the HYDRA ranks. Evicting a traitorous impulse that strummed against her heartbeat of unwarranted-knifepoint betrayal, without staunching up her cautious deterrence, Selina roved a sidelong glance at the reinforced chains bolted on the grimy wall against from a vacant cage, shackling Bucky's slumped form into anesthetic-hypodermic- thrall, as his unkempt tresses of chestnut grungily webbed over the graven-edged planes of his bruised cheekbones. The young sniper-wolf appeared exhaustingly grappled into chasmal submission. He was cruelly denuded from shreds of his tattered Commando uniform, athletic- corded definition- that etched cuttingly into bracketed washboard ridges of his tauten abdomen was damply glazed with feverish sweat.

A contractive numbness dredged in her veins, as Bucky emitted a growly pant. "Look, I don't care if you play the silent game, just know it wasn't personal...I did what they wanted me to do, handsome," she gritted, ruefully, her dark irises trepidatiously staring that demonic Kracken-skull of HYDRA insignia on her leather jacket's sleeve-a brand of her morphic servitude-her dynastic bloodline of point-blank relevance. Gnawing kittenishly on her lush underlip, she tried her damnedest to hold back a shaky breath. "D-Doesn't mean that I wanted this..."

He said nothing to her in response. His sweaty bare-chested form was shackled back against the wall, arms held in place by manacles designed to restrain a wild animal in a zoo enclosure. But even in his secured state, he exuded strength and a festing buildup of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. Hurt. Betrayal. Anger. They were only three of the emotions he was feeling in this moment, but they were perhaps the most devastating to him as he helplessly glared at the brunette in front of him. A woman he had only this morning shared something deep and intimate with in his moment of vulnerability only to discover he'd been deceived.

"What did you want?" He asked with a bitter taste in his mouth. The narrowed squint of his eyes conveyed nothing but displeasure as he tugged at his restraints, trying and failing to disguise the hurt in his watery gaze. "Was it all an act? Everything?" He seethed with a quivered lip. "You were just sweet talking me into letting my guard down so you could bring me back to your viper's nest?!" He yelled ruefully allowing a single tear to shed but nothing more. He'd give her nothing else to show how much her betrayal hurt him-how Hydra was so close to breaking him.

Feigning the steeliness of her ebbed tension, unwaveringly Selina glared at the evident treks of bloodied drool that smeared over his dimpled chin, as his sweltry grayish-ultramarine irises piercingly scythed with luminous-bestial heat, evident to a throaty snarl that she registered. "I'm not someone that you can trust..." she rebuffed in a velvety rasp, tartily, with balletic grace, she fluidly pivoted a breadth near the medical trolley, as her coffee irises flitted over the metal—calibrated instruments—the murderous arsenal of torture at her impulsive disposable. With a thievish precision of her swiping her leather-clad fingers, unerringly, Selina clutched onto a bone scalpel, viscerally captured his arrested pulse at knifepoint, as she flashed her makeshift weapon; brandishing cool rapt of indifference over her elvish features. "I was taught the knife always cut deep when the angles shift..."

He wasn't sure what to say to her as he listened to her cut-throat words he would've construed as taunting. But the moment she picked up the scalpel he immediately became apprehensive. His toned muscled coiled in preparation for what he perceived to be an imminent lethal threat against him. His jaw tightened and his fingers hardened into fists, watching as she moved with an elegance that was swan-like and enchanting. It drew his eyes to her alluring gaze and the coyness he saw on her face confused him. Especially once he saw her pocket the scalpel in the b***-pocket of her jacket and her form straightened to one of at-readiness. What was she doing? The answer eluded him until he heard a new step of footsteps entering the abysmal lab.

"Good afternoon, Sergeant Barnes. I hope you enjoyed your rest. Tell me, are the manacles uncomfortable for you?" The short and stocky man that entered sent a jolt of unease through Bucky's body but it was quashed by the overwhelming hatred that threatened to consume him. He couldn't help but to lurch forward only to cry out in pain as his limbs twisted against the restrains hold him in place.

"I will take that as a "yes"." Arnim Zola removed his glasses and proceeded to clean them with a handkerchief while casually listening to Bucky's painful whimpers. "Now, mein junge (my boy). You mustn't overextend yourself. I would have thought it was a lesson you would have learned by now."

"Go to hell, you sadistic b***!" Bucky growled behind sweaty dark tresses. His clenched jaw revealed rows of sharpened incisors that gleamed with malice. A sight that would've provoked fear in ordinary men. Zola, however, merely smirked with the adoration of a parent seeing its child take their first steps.

"Hydra put considerable time and effort into their investment in you, Barnes. An investment stolen by that shield-wearing buffoon months ago. Were it not for the skills of my esteemed operative here, I feared you would have been lost to us forever." Zola said, glancing at Selina with a calculating eye. "Quite the silver-tongue she has, does she not? To lure my lost cub back to his new home. I think proper introductions should be made by now, shouldn't they, fraulein? Go on, tell him who you really are, and who your family is."

Cringingly at the virulent tempo of maniacal-crazed insanity that resonated out the bloated-faced toad, unperturbed Selina levelled her coffee irises at the baronial crest of the Strucker legacy etched above the hearth-an imperious, warmongering bloodline of Roman-like conquers that deceptively reigned with tragic vendettas of mortal betrayal. She was condemningly bred into the Iron-Cross legion, helmed by her father: Wolfgang Strucker; only to become remade into a virtuosic -lethal marionette harnessing the calibre of stealth infiltration-a weaponized siren of covert espionage in the HYDRA ranks.

Glaring at the porcine doctor with a flintier intensity of her brandy depths, with revamped disgust, Selina dragged out a breath, scathingly, as he wobbled to his cluttered desk, lowering a fleshy hand with demented ease over a syringe filled with a greenish liquid-the genetic infusion of that would usher a carnage-reaping reality of lycan supremacy, as his piggish sneer tellingly conveyed his sadistic indulgence. "Well it's a bit complicated..." she gritted in huskier pitch, sardonically. "Besides I'm not sure if Charm boy can handle it..."

"You are too modest, my dear. Better to discard all illusions. After all, you and Sergeant Barnes will be spending much more time together." Zola's sinister implication left both Bucky and Selina confounded as they discreetly shared a look with each other. "Beautiful is it not," the scientist said as he holds the vial of purple fluid up for them to see. "Something so unassuming-yet capable of turning even the most pitiful man into a beast of unstoppable destruction. The Red Skull believes magical relics of the past are the way to secure total victory for Hydra. He has his weapons. I have mine. Science is the future, the weapon I have cultivated to ensuring not only victory, but a new beginning...for all beings." His spellbound eyes meet Bucky's cold blue, lost in a dream as if gazing upon a work of art he had carved by his own hands. Bucky for his part wasn't willing to remain silent as he scoffed at the evil scientist's ambition.

"I've already heard this noise before, k***. Why don't you just kill me and be done with it already? Better than listening to you monologue about turning me into your mindless puppet. Its not gonna happen." Bucky wasn't putting on a show for anyone's benefit. Something inside told him that Steve and the Commandos wouldn't ignore this place for too long. When they came, they would raze it and everything to the ground. Bucky didn't care if he was caught in the middle, he just wanted to see Zola's world crumble around him and wallow into total defeat.

"Yankees," Zola spat. "So ill mannered and arrogant. No matter. Once I inject you with this, I won't have to hear your prideful bluster anymore. You see the creature that bit you was a pure wolf, injected with a modicum of human DNA and the super-soldier serum laced to it. An imperfect trial with disastrous results, but one that we learned much from. Time and patience is key, and you have seen the fruits of my labor..." Zola motioned towards Selina, beaming with pride as her iris glimmered golden in the pale light of the room. "Perfected."

A shivery flexion of unwarranted dread knifed through her veins on heart-paralyzingly accord when she caught Zola's froggish eyes slimily narrowing at tautened curves of her svelte midriff; a phantom throb of generated white-hot pulses of contractive tension as Selina deftly splayed her lithe palm over her abdomen, kneading a reactive caress over the feminine suppleness that would bloatedly swell with morphic heaviness-straddling her into inescapable-grievous thrall of unremitting anguish. The naked revelation of her damnable existence was to fatteningly deliver a wolven litter. Reeling back in tremorous reaction, breathlessly Selina gnashed her incisor fangs, curbing down the lethal tumults of ferocity as she watched Zola gesture his stubbier hand in direction of the 'breeding' cage. She couldn't run. "You don't own me.." she hissed against a snarl, gazing unwaveringly at the syringe. "Put the damn stuff in him and I'll do something unpleasant..."

"My dear. You have belonged to Hydra ever since the moment Herr Strucker pledged all in his name to its cause. That includes his fortress, his massive wealth...and his only daughter. Do not misplace your anger towards me, Fraulein. You flirt with the darkness when you go out at night, seeking spoils to satiate your thrilling need for adventure. But now it is time for you to stop running, and accept the duty your name demands of you." With quick striding steps, Zola made his way towards Bucky with the needle held towards him. Bucky stiffened and recoiled backwards, knowing it was futile to make himself small as possible while he was restrained to the wall. "Together with Sergeant Barnes." With a quick jab of the needle into Bucky's exposed arm, the scientist pumps the putrid purple fluid into Bucky's arm while he groans out in discomfort. "You will sire a new species of soldiers. Fast as the wind, deadly as the night-they will know nothing but total obedience to Hydra."

The chemical infusion surged as the bruising flesh of his muscled forearm sweatily oozed as unbidden vulnerability crescendoed against their echoed heartbeats; vertiginously as choked against belching heave, Bucky angled the heaviness of his jaw in exhausted fruition as the fevered intensity of his grayish-aqueous depths blankly glared at her with stark heartache while as his pointed ears had furrily outstretched against his temples. "Alright..." she rasped in disarming tenor vehemently as Zola prepared another syringe of a mutative cocktail. "I'll do it..."

Zola turned and spared Selina a curious look. "Is that so?" He asked, surprised by her malleable acceptance. "That is refreshing to hear, fraulein. Perhaps there is hope for you yet." Shifting his focus once more to Bucky, Zola watched as the serum began to do its work and begin forcing Bucky's transformation in a manner that could not be surprised-could not be reversed. "As for you, Sergeant Barnes, I believe this will be the last time we will truly speak. Once the serum is done, you will be nothing but a blank canvas for me to sketch whatever I wish. You will become the Fist of Hydra-lurking the shadows, always prepared to eviscerate our enemies with one stroke. You, and your off-spring."

Bucky said nothing, unable to fight against the rampant flow of discomfort shooting through his body. His words were lodged at the back of his throat that closed in on him, making him feel as if he were suffocating. His dismal eyes make contact with Selina's who promptly shifted her gaze from him, unable to stare at the hurt and betrayal in his eyes. But the screams that followed couldn't be ignored. Bucky's flesh rippled and fur slowly sprouted from every pore on his skin. His face was contorted in agony as he trembled, fighting against the poisonous serum seeking to undo his humanity.

It was at that exact moment, the building rumbled as if the very Earth had shifted. Zola and Selina stagger while a number of his instruments clattered off his desk. It was so sudden, so unexpected that Zola did not have time to voice his confusion before he heard an alarm blare and numerous Hydra security guards were rushing through the corridors outside his laboratory. Were they under attack? "See to it he makes no trouble." Zola said to Selina as he makes to leave the room. He sees an exasperated look upon the young woman's face which sparks the old man's ire. "And stay here! I would hate having to reduce such a capable operative as yourself to living as a mindless brood in the kennels."

With that, the scientist rushed out of the laboratory in search of his head of security, leaving Selina alone with Bucky.

---

True to Zola's held suspicion, Castle Strucker hadn't been hit by a sizeable earthquake or even a mountain avalanche. It was a very heavy, very lethal assemblage of frag grenades being thrown into the shipping courtyard by a conspicuously heavy trooper wearing a Hydra blazer. "I'm gonna need a long bath after this," Duggan groaned at his disguise as he picked up a discarded Hydra weapon. Rushing to a platform, he began raining fire on a unit of Hydra guards taking cover behind flaming barrels.

The soldier grinned devilishly as the barrels exploded, sending debris and gory limbs across the yard. Duggan ducked behind cover just in time to avoid an energy projectile being shot at him, only to respond in kind. The gatekeeper was incinerated into ashes, filling the commando with a grim sense of satisfaction after seeing so many of his Allied brothers perish by these weapons. He marched towards the security boot hand then pulls the lever on the control panel. "Open-sesame."

The gates to the castle open, allowing a caravan of SSR reinforcements to drive in, led by Peggy Carter and Colonel Phillips at the helm. "Cavalry is here, Cap." Duggan says into his radio.

"Copy. Secure the perimeter, make sure no one gets away. They'll be looking for the backdoor." Captain America replied through his transmission.

"Guess I'll go knock on the backdoor." Duggan brushed his mustache and nodded, making his way out of the booth. That was until another voice came in on the transmission and stopped him.

"I'm on it, sergeant. Rejoin the captain. He'll be needing you in there."

Uneager to argue, Duggan did exactly that.

----

Against a splinter fraction of vestigial awareness, errantly Selina gazed at the graven-roughen contours of Bucky's lengthening jaw mortifyingly furrier as the boyish chubbiness of hunkier beauty heart-wrenchingly fused with chestnut skeins in morphic succession, as corded thews of athletic-honed muscles tautly stretched against the bulging-mutative rotundity of his bulkier mass. Grimacingly, against erratic convulsions, as Bucky choked back sobbing breaths, his shapely lips hung voicelessly agape, evident to his curved incisors grazingly jutting into a twined length of canine fangs-bestial havoc that echoed with implosive urgency.

Driven by the addictive heat beckoning with the undeniable-sensuous rush of escalating hunger, readily Selina answered that headier cadence of their duelling ferocity became symphonically rapturous for her to evade. In a poised variance of her controlled grace, hushedly the lithe delicateness of her gloved palm ardently feathered over the bonier curves his furred muzzle with chaste—feminine reverence. Everything became unstoppable as tension forbiddingly amplified into headlong -denotative abandon.

The decadent fusion of wolfish heat blood-poundingly surged in their bones as Selina curvaceously arched the bustier swells of her voluptuous breasts against the heavier solidity of his chest; catching the viscerous tenor of his resistance, as the flexing of her sleekier thighs heavily intensified at the moment she dragged into the wolven thrall, achingly feeling a bushier-canine- tail furrily emerge through the ripped visages of her garbed backside. "Y-You're not alone in this, handsome..." she murmured in a breathy rasp, as her fingernails inexorably sharpened in bestial sync. Riding on the morphic fringe, shimmeringly the vibrance of her bronze irises gazed into cool whitish sapphire as Bucky raggedly grazed his fangs with virile-driven precision over her graceful nape, stealing her pulse against fevered- breaths. "I don't belong to HYDRA..."

Bucky couldn't bring himself to say anything. Not at first. The pain of her betrayal was too fresh for him to discard. But the longer he gazed into her deep brown eyes, he felt as if he were falling back under her warm spell. Could he trust her? He couldn't be sure. What he did know was what he was feeling at that moment. Longing, desire, tenderness. There was an innate kinship-a bond that couldn't be broken. If anything, the beast within begged for it to be solidified with a rush of c*** heat. But he forced the beast to heel, to think beyond the physical aspects of desire and focus in on the burning emotion that needed a proper outlet.

They were connected, they were both cursed into becoming beasts of war for an evil regime. But they were still human, and they understood what they wanted: each other.

"Neither of us do, darlin'." He responded finally with a deep growl, gazing at her from behind sweat drenched locks. He grimaced as his balled fists began to ache with the pressure of expanding digits and sharpening claws. "Now's our chance to do somethin' about it. What do you say? Are we gonna spend our lives in cages, or are we gonna chase the moon...together?"

The whiskey-roughen huskiness of his gravelly timbre resonated with contralto smoothness; his clawed hand fiercely strained against in warring traction of the chains, edging to reach the delicate fineness of her jaw, Selina braced against the sensuous maelstrom-a definite surrender against forbidden heat between them. A subtle glide of his veined knuckles became caressingly invested with a shivery whisper of virile need, their novel reality of infinite passion was ushered against boneless-electrified gravity shockingly drag them into bestial throes of a feverous-indescribable rapture. With gracing steadiness, Bucky cupped her jaw as his sensuous-pouty lips breathlessly angled to deliver a feathery tracery of melding wet heat over the crimson flush of her sheening, readied pillowy lips. "Uh...M'not sure how we're gonna do this..." The murmurous suaveness of his Brooklyn drawl hitched in panty breaths. "I-I just wanna try..."

An hungered cadence fierily stoked a possessive contrast, propelling them deeper into a soul-racking communion, milky-white suppleness of her flesh became sheathed with mahogany as she felt the arrowing drift of his nose hotly scrunched into her furrier cheek as the reined grip of his clawed fingers tactilely kneaded amorous reverence through her dishevelled tresses, keeping her gloriously captive against heated rushes of untamed fervency that coupled with a bruising thrust of his open-mouthed kiss throatily crushed the plusher lushness of her swelled lips voluminously wide—a raging promise of tempestuous intimacy-a floored awakening that breathtakingly surged into an incendiary nova of white-heat that searingly arced between them. The jutted curve of his fangs grazingly tugged fiercer pressure on her recaptured underlip as bone-liquifying ecstasy careened them into sensuous oblivion-Bucky had claimed her as his she-wolf.

Slowly but tenderly their bodies began to transform in their heady exchange. Unlike the past several times before, Bucky didn't feel pain. He didn't fight the change. He didn't know if it had anything to do with the serum Zola had injected him with, or if it was just his body-his soul-accepting the change and the mate that inspired him. But as he felt his manacles come free with a simple pick of a scalpel, Bucky felt freedom on a level he hadn't anticipated as he gazed into the golden flecks of amber gazing back at him. Wordlessly he touched his snout against hers, conveying a sum of affection and gratitude. "Now let's get out of here."

-----

It was reaching dusk by the time they had happened upon the old fortress built at the ridge of the mountains. It was just where Marita said it would be. Captain America's trojan horse plan had worked. As an avid learner of Greek Mythology, Steve employed this war tactic he remembered from his high school days and was able infiltrate a caravan of supplies headed into the heavily guarded castle. Once the truck had entered the courtyard, he'd given the all-clear and the Commandos had unleashed hell upon the bewildered contingent of Hydra troopers stationed outside. Over three dozen of them were taken by surprise by a mere dozen SSR soldiers led by their courageous Captain.

Explosions were ripping the old courtyard apart as a number of munitions trucks were set ablaze causing their cargo to violently combust in a shower of sparks and flames. Captain America held his shield at the ready as he charged through a score of troopers firing at him, using his shield and unrelenting force as a battering ram knocking out anyone in his way. Steve threw his shield at one of the soldiers attempting to activate the sluice gate leading into the castle, hoping to shut away the storming enemy. The shield zipped through the air and found its mark, breaking the lever to the gate and preventing anyone from closing it.

"Push forward!" Steve commanded.

The Howling Commandos formed a line behind their captain and began firing as they chased the fleeing troopers into Castle Strucker. Steve could only hope they weren't too late to save Bucky from whatever they were planning on doing to him.

Castle Strucker wasn't the first old castle that Steve had launched an incursion into since the war began. These parts of Europe still had very old historical structures and ancestral homes that were well-fortified and made easy ideal testing-grounds for Hydra experiments. But Castle Strucker was by far the biggest one yet that he and his Commandos had nearly gotten lost as they exited the grand-foyer where they left a scorching devastation and a dozen dead enemy soldiers.

The Neo-Gothic architecture reminded him of Rome and the decor of old Anglo-Saxon Britain. If circumstances were different, the artist inside of him would've stopped to appreciate the old fortress with awe and curiosity. It nevertheless still filled him with remorse knowing that they couldn't afford to leave this structure standing after they were done here. Colonel Phillips ordered it brought down to a scorching ruin to make sure Hydra couldn't salvage anything to use against them later.

It was why Steve made no objection as he watched Falsworth and Marita plant explosives around the foundations and interior load-bearing walls of the fortress. Steve, Jones and Sawyer gave them cover-fire as they moved across the vast corridors, searching every room-for Bucky and key Hydra officials to take them captive. "I feel like we're walking in circles here, Cap," Jones grumbled uneasily as they circled another corridor that looked almost exactly the same as the one they'd left. "And this place gives me the creeps. How are we gonna find Barnes?"

Steve inwardly sighed as his eyes scanned the area. The interior corridors were lit only by a few sconces on the walls. Due to the age of the fortress, it was unlikely it had any electricity installed except for what would undoubtedly be Zola's laboratory. As his eyes continued to scan the area, he saw a faint impression beneath the Persian rug beneath their feet. A cable? Steve lifts the rug and sure enough, finds a conduit taped to the ground. "We follow the electrical conduits. They'll lead us to wherever Zola is."

"Done here, Cap." Duggan chimed in. "Whoa!" The sergeant's sharp reflexes availed him as one of the doors opened and he was met with the barrel of a gun to his face. A young Hydra Trooper exiting the lavatory with his pants hanging loose. "Don't mind us, son. Just go on about your business-"

"Stirb, amerikanisches Schwein! (Die, you American pig!)" And then the young soldier vanished in a burst of ashes and residual blue energy while a stunned Duggan could only blink in bewilderment.

"That's another you owe me," Marita said as he held a Hydra pistol in hand.

"Didn't realize we were keeping score." Duggan huffed as they jogged to catch up to Steve and the others as they made their way up a grand-stair case.

----

he infectious valance of HYDRA calamitously enwreathed over ghostlier shadows of the chamber, predatorily with her rampageous-adrenalized momentum, Selina propelled her wolfish agility as white-noise frequency screechingly caromed against the banshee assonance of demonic mania. Inadvertently, Selina felt her pointer ears swivel in a reactive flex against deafening concussive pulses of klaxon alarms as HYDRA enforcers robotically mobilized by intercom broadcasts. 'Destory them...Destroy them...Now!'

Growling under a stifled breath, the snarky vixen knew was in a deviant fugitive in the parasitic crosshairs, bracingly, she hesitated in her paces, as electric salvos tectonically delivered a lightning-strike, the vitreous-bluish energy mournfully incinerated Allied soldiers into smouldering ash-heaps. The cosmic voltage was being discharged by the HYDRA-Reapers, as the smokiness of cindered flesh reekily breached her attuned senses.

Arcing her bushy tail, involuntarily Selina gestured to the bulkier sniper-wolf, conveying her apparent warning as her curvier muzzle eased up, rampantly sniffing a viscid potency of ashy remnants-Allied soldiers that blindingly overstepped into the rigged kill-zone. "These party-crashes didn't stay long..." she deadpanned, tersely, as Bucky narrowed his canine head downcastly, holding onto a moment of heart-shunted grief, his shaggier thatch of chestnut fur bristlingly rapted with a predatory edge, trying his damndest to curb anguished wetness that feverishly bleared his vision. With a coaxing nudge on his muzzle, Selina urged him to follow her stealthier lead. "We need to keep moving, handsome..."

The grim reality surrounding them was a great incentive for them to just take the opportunity to cut and run. The fortress was under siege, losses were being taken on both sides. No one would miss them in the chaos that they could use to mask their escape. But Bucky couldn't discard the bonds of duty and brotherhood inside of him that were every bit as strong as they were when he was still human. The doubtful part of his mind that begged for him to follow Selina and escape told him that there was nothing he could do. As a wolf, he couldn't fire a weapon. But the beast within growled chidingly as it reminded him that he himself was now a living weapon. Bred with untamed ferocity with the supersoldier serum still humming inside of his veins, aching for the chance to extract his pound of flesh from those who had captured and tortured him. But beyond vengeance, his sense of smell alerted him to the striking fact that this wasn't just about the two of them.

"Steve's here," Bucky whined with concern. He knew the punk would punch his way through hell to find and rescue him all over again. Bucky couldn't just leave him behind. Not without at least...saying goodbye. "I gotta find him." Bucky grunted, shifting his luminous blue eyes to gaze at Selina's who gazed back at him, torn by his decision.

Quirking up her furred brow, inscrutably, Selina tamped down the revamping of her murderous ferocity that rapted the sleekness of her mahogany fur as wolfish vixen became pressingly aware of his brotherly-hellbent devotion that he underlyingly stowed back; a visceral callback of deterrence that would they grudgingly prevent them from reaching Zola's lockdown office. Against her collective periphery, riskily Selina caught a thermal pulse veining from a HYDRA sentry, mordacious fumes of carrion rancidity wafted off stinkily discarded tatters of leather. "How do we even know your powerful friend has breached my father's castle..." she huffed, pointedly, as Bucky tensely shifted on his massive paws, noncommittally growling in throatier pitch, his glacial-aqueous orbs stormily razored over the ash-dusted uniform. "Let me guess you got his scent.."

"Not just his…" Bucky growled. Malice and hatred entered his tone while at the same time his luminous eyes had narrowed into deadly slits. Before Selina could question him he had taken off at break-neck speed, leaping over the gunned down ashen remains of dead Hydra and SSR soldiers littering the hallway. She followed him at a brisk pace, easily matching his speed as she was left to wonder just what it was he was after. And then she detected the scent as well. It was poignant and detestable as every other thing that reeked of Hydra in this fortress that belonged to her family. Maybe, just maybe there was one last thing they could do before escaping into the night. As they turned a corner they pounced right through a line of cross fire between SSR agents and Hydra troops. The sheer size and speed of the two wolves caused the fire to stop if only for a moment as the slawjacked soldiers were stunned by the enormous beasts that just entered their midst.

There was an enormous set of double doors ahead of them that led into what looked like an old study. Voices reached their sharp hearing, setting them on edge.

"I don't care what Wolfgang will think. The fortress is lost-the Allies are closing in. The best we can do is salvage the research and escape. Under no circumstances can I be captured. ...Release the beasts from their cages. They will give us time. I must retrieve Barnes and Strucker's brat."

What followed was a radio transmission on the other end, "Yes, sir. It will be done… Hail Hydra."

Brandishing up warred restraint against bestial savageness in the fissionable moment as the patrolling HYDRA sentry ghosted his tremorous hand jerkily over his taser-gun hostler, in explosive tempo, Selina angled her curvaceous-lissome girth with acrobatic swiftness as her fore-paws bodily hammered viciousness of her aggressive-deadlier momentum blindingly over his armoured chest with bone-jarring pressure. Slashingly her muzzle poised into a menacing stretch, holding the guard into an immobilizing stance as the undercurve knifepoint drag of her fangs arrestingly grazed over the pulsing vein of his exposed throat with feral delicately. It would be so damn easy to malignity deliver a throat-strike; Zola had deceptively calibrated a safeguard-unforgivable contingency 'free ticket' if the Strucker ancestral domain became a warzone. "It would nice if someone opened this door for me," she coaxed in huskier pitch, silkily, brushing her muzzle with devious-seductive ease over his ear, as bearish dire-wolf flashed his lucent sapphire orbs glacially at the metallic door. "Hail HYDRA..."

Zola snapped with alarm the instant the double doors to the study were thrown open by a frightening force. The Hydra scientist recoiled with fear, immediately anticipating being rained down by Allied gunfire. But what he hadn't been expecting was the beastial set of growls that followed. The fear he had been experiencing multiplied exponentially once he saw the two beasts that stalked into his study. Tall magnificent creatures they were, standing over five feet tall and nearly six feet in length. Their cinder-brunette fur seemed to glow like fire in the light of the fireplace bathing the interior dim light, making it difficult to see. But the glowing orbs of amber and blue glaring at him from the darkness paralyzed the Hydra scientist with unshakable fear...and awe. "Such perfected magnificence to become conceived into a reckoning of nightmares...Come, my pets, we must leave the past into the ashes..." he commanded, fiendishly, his tailored fedora shadily tilted over his jowelly features as he gazed at the ravishingly exquisite she-wolf anthro's shapelier mid-drift, covetously imaging a bulbous protrusion of HYDRA-born whelps. "To herald new promise..."

"Stay away from her..!" Clunkily on his arched hind-paws, as Bucky gutturally vented out a full-throat snarl, he daringly sidestepped in front of his wolven beauty with intimidating traction; the hard-edged virility of his canine features cuttingly rapted, evident to razor-thin slits that gleamed with murderous heat, bankingly fusing in his cool aquamarine irises as he glared at the pudgy-faced doctor cowardly staggered behind his obstructive desk.

With predatory-honed advances, bearishly he sashayed heftier momentum, the knifing length of his massive claws deathily arced a hairbreadth from Zola's graspable briefcase, papers—schematic notes were loosely stuffed. He wanted the maniacal HYDRA composer that damningly morphed him into a lycan-highbred, the apparitional mantras of heart-razed agony, deafeningly teamed with slingshotted images of his 107th infantry being harrowingly reaped into sifting vapours of mulchy ash on the Azzano ridgeline as Uber tanks wheeled over trenches; HYDRA had surgically amputated out humanity into a monstrous fringe, purging soldiery valour-resistance as young-traumatized POW's were freakishly mutated into draconic war-dogs."Y-You're not gonna win..." he gnashed his fangs, his paw massively shadowed over Zola's flabbier cheeks, poised to make the doctor suffocatingly choke on his own blood, without a breath of mercy. "M' gonna enjoy this..."

"Freshly turned and anxious for a kill?" Zola huffed. Though his question may have been perceived as a taunt, his eyes were glimmering with genuine curiosity. "How splendid. Tell me, Barnes, would you have been so eager if you were still the useless soldier you once were?" The scientist smirked ever slightly as he watched the enormous direwolf pause in his steps and bristle. "Would you not have been compelled to take me captive so that I may be interrogated by your superiors? I am valuable to them, am I not? Instead you easily succumb to the lure of malice. Like a perfect predator-a perfect killer."

"Shut up!" Bucky growled, fighting to reign in his bloodthirsty impulse to pounce on the doctor and rip his throat out with his jaws.

"You are exactly what I intended to create." Zola beamed. "And with the abilities you doubt possess-enhanced sense of scent, speed and strength, you would have spawned an army the likes of which would help Hydra conquer the world." And just as soon, the Germanic scientist had become slackened with disappointment crossing his features as Selina flanked his right side to prevent him from escaping. A threatening growl from her caused Zola to sigh as he continued to gather his things, appearing unconcerned of the threat teetering so close to him. "But now I realize, perhaps I chose my test subjects poorly. You and this impudent girl clearly cannot appreciate the vision of a better future."

"Your future isn't the one we want. Hydra will never rule this world." Bucky sneered.

"You could have had a prominent role, and yet you pretend as if you can return to your old one." Zola chuckled tauntingly. "Do you think the Allies will accept you as you are now? All they will see is a monster to be caged or executed." Outside the noise of gunfire and screams increased, setting the scientist further on edge as he realized time was running out for him to make his escape. "I offer you one final chance to come with me."

Bucky and Selina's responses were twin ferocious growls. Zola sighed with disappointment, reaching into his coat pocket and producing a glass vial with a clear blue substance. "Pity. Once your service to Hydra was finished and you delivered to us the army we envisioned, I would have reversed the transformation. You could have both lived the rest of your mundane existence together as you would have pleased."

"No! Wait!-" Couldn't help but bark out with mounting panic. But it was too late. Both he and Selina watched as Zola grimly chucked the vial into the fireplace where it shattered and evaporated into nothing. Their hopes of returning to humanity, painstakingly, vanished before their eyes in a crackling hearth. Bucky and Selina closed their eyes, both of them sensing the other's despair.

"Too late." Zola scoffed as he took a moment to savor the anguish he could see radiating off of the pack of wolves." Two sets of eyes opened, and burning fury scorched the atmosphere while the oblivious scientist picked up his umbrella. "Now you will know nothing but the lives of mindless beasts, your only instinct to kill and concei-AAAHHH"

"B***! DIE!" Every muscle on the Bucky's body visible tensed with anticipation before he lunged towards the scientist, eyes wild with savage instincts. Zola didn't have time to react before the wolf's frontal paws shoved into his chest-the augmented strength of the beast easily propelling the short stocky man off the ground and sailing towards the panoramic windows of the study. Selina watched listlessly as Zola screamed in terror as he fell multiple stories into what she could only assume to be a hard-hitting death.

Crystalline shards of glass piercingly hailed over the marble-stone flooring, as the screeching resonance of Zola's terror-razed scream clashingly deafened against concussive volleys of SSR division artillery, obstructive traction of Sherman convoy tanks mightily barricaded near the castle's drawbridge. The mordacious-vampiric reek of HYDRA's tyrannous denizens sailed within her father's ancestral domain as blowback depth-charges explosively rattled the monolith foundations. Harnessing a variance of feline-swiftness, balletically, Selina crouched over the stone ledge of the arched window, her bronze irises unblinkingly chased the porcine doctor's freefall, as her fanged muzzle curved into a deviant smirk. "Guess his future came real quick, huh..." she quipped, snarkily, as her paw deftly ghosted an instinctive caress over the curvaceous litheness her furred mid-drift. "So what happens now, Wolf boy?"

Bucky had been so absorbed in the dark disturbing satisfaction of having exacted retribution on his tormentor that he nearly forgot that he wasn't alone. Teetering at the edge of the window, he stared into the abyss below where a cluster of trees enveloped the castle with the mountains looming ahead. A pale full moon lingered in the skies, casting a luminous glow upon the countryside. Were it night for the booming thunder of rain clouds and the unrelenting noises of war and death, he would've thought this was a peaceful moment with a breathtaking view. Wordlessly, he turned his head and felt his muzzle brush up against the she-wolf's.

They held each other close in an intimate embrace, feeling the weight of oppression having lifted with the apparent death of their captor. They could escape now together, into the night and no one would know their fates. But he couldn't do that. Not yet. The soldier, the man inside wouldn't walk away from his duty.

"Now we finish this."

----

Chaos was ramping up a large body count by the time Captain America and his Howling Commandos burst through a set of double doors on what had to be the third floor of the castle. The grand staircase they'd used had seemed unending, the steps spiraling up a tower sized keep that were no doubt used to transport heavy objects between levels. Despite the few floors they'd climbed, they may as well have been trying to climb up a step-ladder one at a time due to the number of Hydra troopers they clashed with on the way up. They'd followed the conduits up two stories until finally they pushed through a set of immaculate wooden doors.

"I hate stairs," Duggan wheezed as he struggled to catch his breath. The other Commandos were equally exhausted, their worn expressions matted with sweat and drops of blood belonging to the enemy troopers they determinedly fought through.

"I second," Jones agreed as he took a swig of his canteen. Duggan swiped it before he could take another drink. "Its just water," Jones chided.

"Good enough," Duggan grumbled as he drank the cool nourishing liquid in one go.

"Form up, stay close," Steve instructed as they began racing down the corridor. Far head they see a group of guards forming a barricade made up of furniture and supply crates. "Take cover!" Raising his shield, deflects a number of plasma energy projectiles while his men hurdle behind stone columns and tentatively return fire.

"Captain, they're guarding something up ahead!" Marita yelled over the chaos while continuing to shoot from behind a wall corner. Sure enough, Steve could see two guards standing in front of a massive set of iron doors. It was heavily reinforced with multiple bars and a sluice gate. They appeared to be opening it while the troopers in front of them provided cover fire. Whatever was inside either had to be very important or…very dangerous.

Warning alarms sounded in Steve's mind as he realized what. "Damn it. Cover me now! We can't let them open that door!" The urgency of his voice brought no room for question as the commandos began raining fire against the man-made barricade of troopers, careful not to hit their captain, as he charged their ranks. Steve held his shield up, deflecting as many plasma bolts as possible without exposing himself. The floor suddenly shook as if an earthquake hit the castle. Steve wasn't sure if it was the battle raging outside, or something much more ominous.

"Mach die Tür auf! (Get the door open!)" One of the guards cried out as the troopers began to get picked off by the ceaseless onslaught of the Howling Commandos. There was also the frightening fact that Captain America was charging at them like a madman prepared to spear them through the wall. "Jetzt! Jetzt! (Now! Now!" Steve watched as the bolt on the iron door was released and the sluice gate began to rise. Forgoing thoughts of safety, he propels himself over the barricade and barrels into the nest of troopers like a torpedo. At that exact moment, the walls shook and chilling roars emanated from inside the room.

Steve and the Hydra soldiers he had trampled all looked on from their spilled position upon the ground, forgetting the battle entirely as the 500lbs iron doors began to shake with violent force as something inside fought to break free.

"What the hell did you do?" Steve murmured with mounting anticipation. The guards who opened the door didn't have time to react nor lament their fates when the doors were thrown off their hinges, smashing them into mangled puddles of crimson gore upon the wall. The other troopers that formed the barricade only now appeared to realize what fate they had consigned themselves to as demonic eyes gazed back at them from the dark abyss inside. It was at that exact moment, lightning flickered and illuminated the towering mass of monstrosities that lurched forward.

There were three of them. Apparitions of grisly horror that should've only existed in stories and feature films. One stood an impressive six feet tall wearing a disheveled black suit that was once finely tailored. Pale deathly skin encompassed a scrawny posture that was sickly. The eyes were sunken hollow with blood-red eyes glaring hungrily upon the pack of troopers. The sharpened incisors confirmed what many woefully guessed but were unwilling to believe; a vampire.

The second reeked of animal fur and dead vermin. Like the vampire, he wore tattered rags that were ripped by and matted with brown stains. The beast was hunched over as if used to walking on all-fours despite standing vertically on two feet. Pelts of dark fur encompassed the entire body but its face revealed leathery skin with an elongated mouth-a wolfish snout with gleaming incisors that dripped with malice. A beastial grow let loose as the best tugged on the broken chains that clung to the manacles on its joints. A deformed wolfman.

The third of the lot stood front and center, alarmingly tall-over eight feet. A walking tower or terror and putrid muscles. Like the others it wore tattered remains of clothing, ripped in many places only to reveal mounds of stitches used to attached broken dead flesh. It was a walking ghoul of horror with a stony face and ashen green lips. A monster that showed no life, only an unshakable will to destroy all in its path.

"Offenes Feuer! (Open fire!)" The Hydra troopers cried out. A few even tried to run while their comrades hopelessly rained fire upon the trio of abominations that Zola created in his experiments. The monsters moved freely and swept through the troopers like mindless beasts, driven only be sheer instincts which were to kill. Steve for his part wisely retreated several paces as his men rushed to join him. Jones and Duggan help him to his feet as they watch the horror unfolding before them. The vampire treated the troopers like open buffet that ensnared into his clawed embrace, sinking his teeth into their necks and draining them of their life-blood as their cries carried into the corridor. The vampire didn't react, even as they poured their bullets into his body, he continued to feed.

The wolfman treated his prey much the same, savoring both their blood and the terror they exuded as he climbed the walls and pounced on them. The monster was a wrecking house of destruction, picking up two troopers by their necks, holding them several feet off the ground. The duo snaps sent chills across the area and the bodies lifeless fell.

"My God. What is this…" Sawyer whispered.

"What Zola's been doing here," Steve finally said. He couldn't see Bucky among them and he couldn't help but to feel relieved by it. Gazing upon the trio of monsters, the Captain briefly hesitated, not knowing who these men once were-whether they were volunteers who submitted to Zola's sick experiments, or whether they were once like Bucky-victims caught in the crossfire.

The question of whether or not they were friendlies was answered when the bloodsucker of the group rushed towards him and tried to tackle him to the ground. Steve's quick dexterity availed him as he bashed the vampire with his shield, sending tumbling back to the ground where he landed with a roll-up. The creature proceeded to hiss at him with blood-stained teeth. That was enough to answer his question. This was Zola's response to their presence here-his way of buying himself time. But what did that mean for Bucky?

"What do we do, Cap?" Jones asked, a hint of unease in his voice as the monsters turned their sights towards them and began their slow approach.

"We fight on," Captain America urged them. The strength and determination in his eyes inspired them to push past the fear of this situation, and work together.

"Well then. Happy Halloween," Duggan raised his Hydra weapon and they all began to fire.

----'This better be damn well worth it...' Advancing past the mechanical war-machines as SSR units rapidly dismantled the long-gun cannons, garbed stylishly in her leather bomber jacket, Agent Peggy Carter grounded her steel-maiden poise, readily levelling the nozzle of her Walther pistol with a point-blank flex a hairbreadth from Zola's bulbous throat, as he vomitously groaned out a pitiful. "Doctor Armin Zola," she murmured composedly in adamant pitch, and bruisingly dragged generous pressure of her tactical boot over his pudgier wrist, forcing a pained grimace to rapt saggily over his jowelly features. "It's over... Do not even think about getting up, we have you surrounded."

Zola couldn't stand up even if he tried. The knife-digging pain that traveled up his body and the feeling of nausea in his stomach told him what he knew-his leg was broken in so many places after his harsh landing. He would have surely plummeted to his death had dumb luck not been on his side, causing him to hit the bark of tree that softened the speed to his collision upon the ground behind the castle. But his luck had just as quickly evaporated as he found himself facing the barrel of Margaret Carter's pistol.

The scientist released a weary sigh, knowing he was hopelessly incapable of escaping now. The Red Skull would never forgive this failure.But perhaps...Perhaps he still had one card left to play."Perhaps." He groaned as he propped himself up against a rock. "But if there is one thing I have learned in the theater or war, Fraulein, is to always have a contingency plan." It was only then that Peggy noticed something small and metal held in his hand. "And here is mine." His thumb pressed the button to the detonator in his hand, which triggered a red light to blink alarmingly from the device. "I may have lost this battle-but if my instinct is correct, and Captain America is inside searching for his beloved friend, then I have just won this war. In five minutes, it will all be over. For the Red Skull. Hail Hydr-"

Against heart-plummeting desperation, breathlessly, with a hinged grip of her warring composure, Peggy drove jaw-breaking ferocity of her delicate fist crushingly into Zola's flabby jaw, as the radio detonator evidently slipped out of his possessive clutch. Pivoting on her boots, mistily her chocolate-umber irises gazed at the direction where the Howling Commandos infiltrated. Removing a radio transmitter from her jacket, quakingly she hitched out a thread breath. "Captain Rogers..." she whispered in fevered rawness, hearing flatlined static echo back. "Steve...Come in...Steve...”

----

"Captain America and the Howling Commandos knew they had their work cut out for them as they watch the wolf and vampire evade their gunfire with unnatural speed. It was like trying to shoot lightning before it struck. The monsters were that quick, and openly allowed their prey to take their best shots. It was a game to them-to play with their food and allow it to marinate in concentrated fear. As for the big hulking zombie, while he lacked the speed and dexterity of the other two monsters, he more than made up for it due to his constant regeneration.

No amount of plasma projectiles they fired into his scorching dead flesh was enough to disintegrate him entirely unless they focused their collective shots on him, which was impossible without leaving themselves open for attack by the other two creatures.They had to rely on close-quarters combat and unity to get them through these odds. Steve raised his shield in time to block and thunderous right hook coming from the big green undead monster.

The kickpain of the vibration nearly made him lose his footing. Jones and Duggan stood back to back, shooting at the walls and ceiling where the vampire was practically teleporting due to his enhanced speed. Marita and Sawyer were covering each other by firing at the wolfman and preparing explosives.

"Look out!" Duggan yelled. Marita yelled in fright as he was tackled to the ground from behind. A chilling snarl blew against his ear and hot breath grazed his neck. The vampire was prepared to feast until a boot collided with its face, sending it scampering back. Duggan held a hand out and helped Marita to his feet. "That's two you owe me."

"I'd say we're even," Marita grumbled.

"Naw, he counts as two!" Duggan snarked.

"Focus!" Steve yelled, leaping off a vanity and power-thrusting his shield against the head of the eight-footer, sending him staggering backwards

."Eat this, you freak!" Jones fired into a dark corner where he perceived the vampire to be, showering the corridor with debris. Though he missed his target, the dust particles blew wildly in their left direction, alerting them to a moving target.

"Got him!" Duggan fired at the chandelier on the ceiling, causing it to fall and crush the dark specter, pining it to the ground as it howled with pain. Holding the barrel of the Hydra rifle against the monster's head, Duggan fired multiple concentrated shots and watched as its head and entire body disintegrated.

"Whoo-ya! One down!"Just as it seemed the Commandos could collectively take a breath to appreciate this closer step towards victory, Peggy Carter's voice came through on the radio.

"Steve...Come in...Steve..."

"A little busy right now, Peggy!" Steve yelled as he tossed his shield across the corridor, sending it bouncing across numerous columns until it struck the head of the monster, dazing him for but a moment before he began stomping towards him with renewed determination.

Staunching down a paralyzing numbness that infinitely crescendoed into knife-stabbing ache in her bustier, leather garbed chest, stiltedly Peggy flitted the heat bleariness of unshed wetness off her lashes as she clutched onto transmitter becoming motionless-stuck in gravitic thrall of apocalyptic elysian as incendiary blasts of cosmic-voltaic energy blindingly arced over the castle's iron spires, Peggy became viscerally aware that Steve was beyond her reach.

Measuringly she brandished her stoic demeanour as the starkness of naked dread betrayed her spycraft resilence—it was suffocating tumult as she was irrevocably careened on the bleeding-edge, gripping onto the radio device as tense-jawed General Philips sat in the backseat of a convoy Jeep, grumpily voicing the order of Zola's arrest. Easing the radio to the voluminous swell of her rose-petal lips, Peggy whispered in huskier pitch, beckoningly. "Captain listen to me...Zola has rigged everything to blow in four minutes..." She dragged out a choked-off breath, shakily. "I-I know how much James Barnes means to you, but you need to get your men out of there..."

"Negative! We can't leave without Bucky!" Steve yelled, desperation gnawing at him as he tried to come up with another plan in this hopeless scenario. He was prepared to give his men the order to evacuate without him even if his search doomed him to perpetual death. He couldn't leave his best friend behind. He-

"Cap, look out!" Steve had been so caught up in his moment of disquiet he didn't see the tall putrid monster come up behind him with a broken piece of column held over his head. Steve raised his shield just in time to avoid getting his head smashed in, but the excessive weight of the object caused him to crash to the ground with blocks of stone pouring over him.

"Gaauughh," Steve groaned. Blackness threatened to consume his blurred vision as static rang in his ears. 'Concussion'. The word rang in his mind and he fought desperately to keep his eyes open and focused. He could hear shouts and screams all around him. Plasma bolts nearly blinded him by their intensity. He stared listlessly up at the monster standing over him, preparing to raise its enormous boot to smash his head in. Duggan and Jones threw their body weight against the monster, uncaring of the danger their proximity to the creature posed to them, they wouldn't allow it to kill their captain.The monster ignored them entirely, its unnatural strength keeping it vertical like a statue with a machine-like will to see its task done.

That was when he saw it. An enormous wolf. Mistakenly he thought it was the other beast that climbed onto the monster's back and wrapped its maw around the neck. Then he saw that same creature get trampled down by another wolf-this one more slender in its shape and too quick to spot. Steve closed his eyes, blinking repeatedly as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.And what he was hearing. "Get up, punk...run!" The wolf seemed to growl at him as it continued to bite on the monster's neck.

"Bucky…" Steve realized.

Snarling against heaves of panty breaths, with beastlier momentum of his predator-hone graces, slashingly Bucky knifed the jutting length of his incisors fangs into protrusive greenish veins of the hulkish-zombiefied behemoth as the massive deformed hand unremittingly grappled Steve into a back-breaking chokehold. The bilious-lurid stench of intestine fluid wafted off the bulging orcish flesh as Bucky aggressively thrust his canine muzzle into the monster's collared neck in a feral stupor, driving a penetrative throb into an exposed vein as vaporous reddish mist oozily hazed in that vicious wake. "S-Steve you gotta leave..." he growled, croakily, flashing his sapphire orbs at blackened shark-like depths manically gleamed alight with uncontained rabidness-a soulless hunger as tarry-mucus drool gloopily dampened over his unkempt chestnut fur. "Argh...GET OUT OF HERE...NOW!"

Mustering all his strength, Steve gritted his teeth and bashed his shield against the monster's face. It was like hitting a concrete with steel, but the force of his attack caused a deafening gong to emanate throughout the corridor, causing the wolfman to howl with discomfort. The monster crashed down onto its back, knocked out if only temporarily. With the wolfman disoriented it allowed the she-wolf the opportunity to pounce on him and wrap her maw around his neck.

A chilling snap followed and the wolfman creature laid deathly still. Steve fell onto his knees, gazing with hooded eyes at the blue glimmering orbs of the beast that had saved him.There was humanity to be found in those depths-and a familiar face smiling back. "Bucky...You gotta...come back with us…" Steve urged, struggling to keep his eyes open. Duggan and Jones were quick to catch him as the fighting in the corridor had come to an abrupt pause. "Buck…" Steve held out his hand, trying to touch his friend and feeling as if this might be the last time.

The invincible echoes of their everlasting brotherhood heartily mirrored in effusive tenor, edging closer on his massive paws, heart-crushingly Bucky sniffily eased his canine muzzle towards Steve's leather-gloved hand; they were inseparable-hellbent kids of Brooklyn; always daringly getting in smart mouthin' alley-scrappers with jock-face brutes, never backing down to protect the little guys-it was a brotherly dynamic-a covenant that cherishingly ran soul-deep.

As the monstrous cadency of the ghoulish-hybrids chillingly amplified into a hellish tumult, keeping himself poised on his furrier haunches, as his glacial aqueous irises gleamed unwarranted heartache, Bucky smirkily quirked his muzzle into a breathless smirk. "You gotta promise me somethin' punk...' he rasped out his Brooklyn drawl, murmuringly, staring into teary heat of Steve's azure depths, as he nuzzled a cherishing flexion of unbreakable--brotherly reverence against Steve's palm. "Don't this put ya on ropes...M' always gonna be your Bucky, nothin's gonna change that, Stevie."

"I know… I know…" It was a heartfelt exchange that allowed a tear of remorse to escape Steve's cloudy eyes. There was too much he wanted to say to his friend. But the ticking at the back of his mind reminded him that they were running out of time. "We gotta go. We gotta-" An ominous groan disturbed the moment. All eyes diverted to the monster that had been subdued, and they all expressed varying degrees of exhaustion and frustration. Was it unkillable? The wolf and vampire had been easier to pick off, but they all surmised this zombie-like giant wasn't going to be as easy. With time quickly dwindling towards an explosive decimation, they couldn't afford to dawdle any longer.

"Howling Commandos, come in! Get your a*** out of there! I don't care what you have to do! Pull Rogers out kicking and screaming if you have to! That's an order!" General Phillips' voice barked through the radio transmission.

The monster slowly began to rise up off the floor as Bucky looked apprehensively at his brother's in arms."Get out of here. We'll hold him off." He growled. The men didn't question it. They helped the injured Steve back to his feet and began making a beeline for the exit, leaving Bucky and Selina to stare down the monster rising to its feet. There was no going back now. The castle was going to blow any minute, and they couldn't let the monster escape before it did. "Wish it didn't have to turn out like this darlin'," Bucky said with remorse.

Catching a drag of breath as she registered the murmurous despondence fringing against his gravelly-throatier drawl, Selina brushingly whipped her tail over his muzzle in a frisky coaxing. "Don't worry, handsome, I know where they keep the back door..." she purred, briskly. "Ready to play a game of chase with Frankstein over there..."

Bucky grimly watched as the monster full made it to its feet, seemingly no longer concerned by the fact the soldiers he was attacking were now gone as he instead focused his mindless course of destruction on the two direwolves that had attacked him. He began lumbering towards them with outstretched hands. With Zola taken care of and Steve now being taken to safety, Bucky couldn't think of any other reason to stick around this hellhole. "After you, darlin'. Ladies first. Lead the way." Bucky quipped with a flirtatious grin of his incisors. Together the two wolves took off at a brisk pace through the corridor. The telltale stomping vibrations telling them that the monster was following a short distance behind.

Outside the castle, Captain America and his men stagger across a draw-bridge headed for the main courtyard when the first explosion detonates. The store-rooms and grandhall of the castle combust in roaring flames. The charges were detonating by each level to bring it to collapse in on itself. Peggy ushers for a jeep to meet them half-way. Duggan and Jones help Captain America climb into the back before they join him. "Go! Go! Move!" The jeep takes off just before the draw-bridge collapses.

Bucky felt the explosions rattling the fortress and knew they were losing time. "How much further?!" He barked as he followed Selina, and trying hard to ignore the monstrous groans following them every step of the way. He thinks he hears Selina yell "up ahead". A set of double doors with the Strucker family crest emblazoned on the wood. The two direwolves don't stop as they barrel inside, their combined physical strength causing the wood to splinter and explode inwardly. Another explosion shakes the castle causing a stone column to collapse onto the monster before it can follow them inside."Where are we?" Bucky barked worriedly. He couldn't see any windows or stair-cases leading to this "backdoor" Selina mentioned. The room they were in and dozens of weird looking objects on high-shelves along with tomes and dimly lit candles. Was this a library?

A veristical contrast of infectious desolation heart-arrestingly pulsed over the barcode ambiance of the darkened library-occultic santorum of HYDRA's treasure stash, gothically adorned on black-ochre bookcases were Eldritch relics of forbidden magery etched with runic glyphs of the celestial tree- Yggdrasil-the dimensional branches of time deciphered from Noric mythos. As the candlelight sconces became captured in lucent heat of her autumn-brandy irises, with practiced ease Selina reared her sleekier muzzle up near a shelf, reaching for granite-quartz horse figurine, Bucky zeroed his sniper-vison on the wooden door, his pointer ears tensely speared at the moment, he detected proximal earth-shaking thumps of the hulking- dreadnought. "That's not good..." he gnarled out, throatily, whiplashing his bushier-wolfy- tail against the shelf. "Grah...Can't even control this stupid thing yet..."

" Lucky for you I know all my father's tricks when he beats the dodge," she gritted, edgily, applying enough pressure as they became aware whirring resonance of mechanisms unlocking behind the case. They had one chance to evade the soul-crushing grip HYDRA's tentacles, despite the irreversible purge of their humanity. "Shall we, Wolf boy..."

Bucky didn't question her. Knowing there was no time left for second-guessing he helped her to push against the bookcase. "If this works out, I owe you dinner, darlin'." He quipped. It was a motivating thought that lightened the apprehension they carried on their shoulders as they listened and felt the explosions continue to shake the castle. This was it going forward for him. The life of Sergeant James Barnes was a thing of the past. The she-wolf with him was the way forward for him. What it might lead to, he didn't know. But as his focused gaze landed on her midriff, the thought of it swelling with his off-spring no longer seemed like such an outlandish idea to him. If anything, it was something he would look forward to.

Together the two wolves pushed, their amplified strength turning the 500lbs bookshelf clock-wise until the figurine she had been reaching for teetered off. Seeing this, he watched as she pressed herself towards him almost as if to hold on for whatever came next. The relic struck the ground between them and took on an otherworldly blue glow that enveloped the entire room. Bucky and Selina's world's were filled with a blinding light that consumed them-detaching them from their surroundings. It was at that exact moment, the final bomb detonated and Castle Strucker collapsed into a smouldering ruin.

Outside the castle, the SSR and Howling Commandos look on with varying degrees of pride and remorse. Steve stood front and center, anguish consuming him as a tear slipped down his cheek. "Good bye, Bucky."

---

"Yeah...It's just...I had a date..."

The vestigial shunts of bone-numbing iciness ghosted through his veins, as cacophonic volume blared incessantly from jumbo-screens of digitized imagery of whiskey bottles and apparel stores frenetically broadcasted around him —the enigmatic director of SHIELD garbed in a black long-coat vanishingly blurred with a stealthy variance o phantom coolness from obstructive roadblock of armoured SUV vehicles.

'What happened, Rogers...'

As his twangy- blonde tresses errantly askew over his tensing brow against the November gusty chillness, Steve clumsily pivoted on his boots, feeling like a drifter being detachedly ushered on a groundless fringe of paradox reality; spectral latent echoes of grievous heartache tearily gleamed in his oceanic azure irises as he felt straying trek of heated wetness errantly glide down his angular cheek; he ultimately made the votive -interminable -sacrifice to end the genocidal reign of HYDRA's carnage-reaping scourge-the unbidden cost was too high—when he tragically nose-dived the Red Skull's futuristic winged bomber—the Valkyrie into the glacial fathoms of the Atlantic. ‘I hate to step on our toes...’

Everything faded out as onrushing gallons of frigid water heart-stoppingly entombed him into the cockpit. Now, he was standing in the congested hub of a modernized Times Square, in a listless vigil, trying his damndest to adamantly harbour onto a grip of threadbare-heartsick restraint.

Staving off the paralytic tremors racking within his unthawed veins, Steve clenching the broad heaviness of jaw, steadily daring himself to move forward, as he sprinted his near a traffic gridlock, uncharted environs that made him feel awkwardly vulnerable. He didn't know if Peggy or the Howling Commandos were still-alive. If this was a simulated reality that Armin Zola torturously induced with a mind-trap experimenting.

"I-I gotta find em'..." he murmured rawly, against breathless timbre, knowing his option was to find a library-museum. Everything contractedly imploded around like avalanche-force, the industrial grandiosity of downtown Manhatten deafened, as he footedly staggered to cement his warring balance, nabbing a subway tunnel guardrail with an unshakeable flex of his fingers that damagingly crimped the iron, tasting watery saltiness dampened on his plush-chiselled lips, and feverishly quashed down a gut-retching surge of unwarranted vomit, while he exhaustedly collapsed on his knees.

"You gotta shake it off..."

Steve didn't know what he was doing. He must've looked delirious to many of the passing civilians on the streets going about their daily life. Several curious eyes had wandered towards him and the small platoon of agents that surrounded him in the middle of Times Square. Everything looked so different. Everyone looked so different. There was a loudness to the city that was familiar, but everything else Steve had difficulty connecting to the world he knew. He was home, but it wasn't the home he remembered. If he wasn't so shaken by the changes surrounding him, he would've marveled at how much the world had advanced in 65 years.

"Just...try to take it in slowly, soldier." The man, Fury told him after nearly a minute passed of silence. The directive gave Steve a little bit of comfort due to its familiarity

."So we won?" Steve asked. They had to have if Americans were going about their daily life in such a carefree and leisurely fashion. And they weren't speaking German.

"In large part thanks to you." Fury affirmed. "Lot of good men made the ultimate sacrifice. But in the end, it all counted."Steve lowered his eyes in sorrow. Fury's word's weren't far from the truth as even in what he perceived to be a short murky dream, he was still haunted by the loss of his best friend. His fate sealed in a collapsing fortress on Halloween night. How many more of his Commandos lost their lives after Steve had plunged the Valkyrie into the water? Were any of them even still alive to this day? Was Peggy…He was lost in his thoughts while his wandering gaze took in the small crowd of on-lookers watching him from across the street. He felt he must've been so disconnected from reality, locked in a perpetual fantasy that he thought one of the men on the street looked familiar to him...

Broadway street vendors were maddeningly stationed near a crosswalk, the wintry gusts whirlingly flitted discarded hot-dog wrappers as three adorable baby wolf pups adorned with cindery-chestnut fur were squeakily pouncing on a loose wrapper, the daintiest of rambunctious litter, angelically shivered against the stranger's motorcycle boot as he stood intimidatingly a breadth at Daily Bugle newspaper kiosk, his nonchalant stance invested with sniper tack as he gripped protectively onto a leash.

For an unimpeded moment, against heart-starved wariness, everything felt unreachable Steve confusedly gazed at the resurrected phantom of his past-James 'Bucky' Barnes garbed in slim-fit denim jeans hunkily curved against the athletic litheness of his bulkier calves, roguish length of dark brunette tresses disheveledly curtained under a Brooklyn Dodgers cap akin to a wolfish mane; the razor-edged virility of his stubbled-heavier features boyishly held telltale chubbiness as his shapely-wide lips breathlessly kicked up into a quirky smirk. "S-Steve..." he choked out against murmurous pitch, shakily as gossamer drifts of snowflakes powdered over his leather-clad shoulders, his grayish-aquamarine irises nakedly held alighted radiance of skyrocketing- joy. "Punk...S'it's me.."

Standing collectively at his side, garbed in a black long-coat was gorgeously exquisite beauty-a voluptuous siren incarnate- the sleek glossiness of her tousled mahogany whorls cascaded off her wool-clad shoulders as voguish sunglasses classily bordered against the delicate-coolness of her elfish features. Tensely she clutched a Starbucks cup of brewed coffee as the chubbiest of the litter feistily swatted a tiny paw over Bucky's motorcycle-boot. Her luscious-pillowy lips curved dazzlingly, evident to a jaunty laugh. "This little chubb-ball knows how to steal the moment..."

Adjusting the sunglasses off her kittenish nose, covertly Selina glanced at the barricade of SHIELD vehicles, giving a curvaceous uniformed operative, the vibrance coppery-scarlet tresses fierily contrasted tactical neoprene as she remained lethally remained impassive behind Director Fury, on the svelter curves of her lithe midriff the blood-red hourglass insignia of the Black Widow was visible-she was a convenient friend in the shadow-zones. It was denotative powder-keg of exposed risk, they needed to remain off-grid from SHEILD's vexatious proximity while deceptively playing a blank-slate gambit of relevance in spades.

"Looks things might get crammed around here, Wolf boy," she purred, breathily, her amberish-bronze irises knowingly gazed Fury who signalled his mobilized agents to position a defensive ground around the revitalized-thawed-out First Avengers. "We need to keep walking, handsome...No looking back."

It should've been an open and shut argument in any other instance. Bucky knew how crucial it was for he and Selina to keep a low profile in this modern day and age where they were still struggling to adapt. Civilization had evolved to depend so much on technology that news and answers were available to them in just a few clicks away. Anyone could easily match their faces to historical archives if they knew where to look. Making a few friends in high places kept them under a small umbrella, but if they stepped out from under it even an inch it ran the risk of exposing not just them…"They found him, Lina…" Bucky whispered trying hard to repress the emotion in his eyes but his voice betrayed him. He ached more than anything to rush across the square and envelope his friend in a warm hug, laughing with joy. "I can't believe they actually did it." Bucky sniffed, smiling a watery as Steve held his gaze, the recognition in them noticeable enough for him to know that Steve knew it was really him.

"Bucky?" Steve whispered in mute shock.

Thinking quickly, Bucky held a finger to his lips in a "shushing" manner, making it clear to Steve that they couldn't do this in public. "How do you feel about a walk in the park, darlin'?" Bucky said as he leaned forward to plant a coaxing kiss against her cheek.The velvety heat of his sensuous lips featherily ghosted whisper-soft pressure over her supple cheek as his stubbled jaw pricked her chilled flesh against the gusty frostiness, knowingly Selina flitted her dark gaze in the unobstructed direction of Central Park, they needed to get out of SHEILD's crosshairs, as she registered the onerous whimpering of her dozy baby-pups who shiveringly tucked underneath the kiosk station. "You think the kiddos will sleep this off later on..." she rebuffed in a huskier undertone, snarkily, as Bucky crouched on his denim-clad haunches, and brushingly kneaded the one of the little girl's downy fur with fatherly-driven tentativeness invested with each pacifying caress, as crow-lines deeply bracketed his temples. "So which one do you want to carry to the park, handsome..."

Gazing down at the trio of adorable furriness, Bucky grinned with fatherly enthusiasm as he watched two of the litter yip up at Selina with an eagerness that only both she and him could understand. The third of the lot, also by far the most chubby and feisty of the group, seemed to be fixated on trying desperately to climb up Bucky's hamstring as he rested his frontal paws against him. "I think they decided for us. Besides, I wouldn't want to deny this fussy little guy." Leaning down Bucky patted the head of the male pup, watching as he wrinkled his nose and yipped. "Up and at em, Bren." Bucky laughed as the two tiny females practically bounced into Selina's arms, their tails wagging happily to be held so close to the warm security of a motherly embrace. The chubby male did the same as he snuggled into the crook of Bucky's arm, poking his head out to gaze curiously at their surroundings.

"You ready?" Bucky asked Selina.

With thievish precision of her stiletto-heeled boots, embracingly Selina cradled her lithe arms over her precious heart-stealing baby girls who nestled cozily in mirrored unison as NYPD cruisers speedily whooshed through a clamorous procession of Midtown traffic, news choppers intrusively haloed over Times Square to obviously film the awakened Sentinel of Liberty as Steve Rogers vertiginously braced his shoulder against a curbside telephone pole, evading swarms of bustling -near-to-two media reporters, aggressively blaring out their rampant questions to Nick Fury: a smokescreen distraction. "Looks like Sleeping Beauty over there isn't going anywhere..." she quipped, jauntily, while giving a subtle nod tacitly at the 'Black Widow' operative-the luxury of personal space wasn't compromised. "She'll have fun keeping soldier boy level on his feet..."

"I just hope it's not too soon for him," Bucky uttered to himself as he and Selina navigated their way through the rapidly expanding masses of civilians who had now caught wind of the spectacle occurring in the street.

If anyone had any illusions about it, the news broadcast being run on every screen in the vicinity was a clear picture as it ran the live feed of a living legend returning to life. "CAPTAIN AMERICA LIVES!"It was a couple hours later that Steve Rogers had finally managed to extricate himself from the SHIELD Base that he had been sequestered too in the height of the public frenzy over his return. He liked to think of himself as a patient man who could tackle any issue with a clear mind. But the weight of this shocking revelation that he had not only been on ice for over sixty years, but that Bucky was somehow still alive and in the same point and time as himself had Steve feeling anxious for answers.

When he had saw his friend gesture for him to keep quiet, Steve knew that his answers would need to wait and that Bucky was probably keeping a low profile that he himself and failed to mere minutes after waking up.Now Steve found himself walking through familiar streets that were not quite as he remembered them to be. But the destination was thankfully still the same.

---

It was rapidly closing in on midday and the sun was starting to vanish behind the enormous skyscrapers in the distance. Steve wore a navy blue jacket and beige cargo pants with a blue cap. Not an elaborate disguise but it made him feel comfortable. He wasn't so sure he could completely say the same about his "babysitter". Or "handler" as Director Fury called her. "Thanks for convincing Fury to let me do this...Natalie was it?" He asked.Steve would've lied if he said something about her alluring teal eyes didn't make him feel like the skinny shy kid he used to be.

"I usually shuffle names to keep things complicated ..." Natasha snarked in raspier pitch, jokily, bracing against matte-black Camaro's hood, she deftly eased a leather-sheathed hand up to the level of the bulkier tautness of wartime Adonis's t-shirt garbed chest, giving him a high-priority envelope. "For your eyes only..." Her voluminous lips quirked into a half-smirk. "Everything you need is packed inside..." A chaste tracery of virile heat ardently breached her pulse as Steve hesitantly accepted the package. "Since I like you slightly...I guess you can call me, Natasha..."

Something about the Russian woman made Steve feel as if there was more to her than met the eye. The wistful part of himself that saw what reminded him of Peggy shuttered away those thoughts as he focused instead on what made her different. And in a weird sense, Steve felt Natasha was someone he could grow to trust if he considered taking Fury's offer to join SHIELD's ranks. And that made the soldier feel mildly assured as he accepted the envelope she gave him and responded with a grateful nod.

"Something tells me you don't let too many people in on that." He said after a short pause. She arched an eyebrow at him perhaps confirming his suspicions and in turn causing him to smile at her with gratitude. "You can call me Steve. I can find my way the rest of the way from here. But I guess we'll be seeing each other around?" He asked, hoping he didn't sound too hopeful.

The apparitional incarnations of SHILED's behind-the-curtain espionage protocols were rigged to set an imploding firestorm against the World Council, warrants of freedom-liberty had become a deadlock relevance as Fury set his underhanded cards on the table, everything was classified as new-extraordinary -players were being selected against calibrated mechanisms of governmental oversight; dynamics of cadenced trust were artificial, she wouldn't allow a valorous-hearted Brooklyn soldier compromisingly breach her anesthetized heart-she was unforgivingly conditioned in the Red Room Academy to become cold as granite-to feel no pulse of sentiment. Splaying her lithe palm with a distractive glide over the Camaro's door, flirty Natasha flitted her lashes with a teasing wink, and replied in a smokier undertone, brusquely as she gave him a sidelong glance. "Don't get too comfortable...Or I might have to check up on you."

Steve watched her drive off in a stylish fashion that left him lingering a few seconds longer than he intended. Once she had turned a corner out of view, he let loose a small sigh and shifted his attention back towards the street ahead. Central Park. The last time he remembered being here was on his 20th birthday. He and Bucky had just come from seeing the Dodgers playing a double-hitter and walked through the park while mimicking some of the incredible plays they had seen. That almost felt like another life-time.Crossing the street, Steve watched as an elderly woman dropped her back in the middle of the crosswalk. He instinctively picked up the bag for her and watched how alarmed she looked by the action until he held the bag out to here.

"Here you go, ma'am." He smiled tenderly, confused for a moment by how stunned she was."Thank you, young man. I thought you were a mugger. Rare to see such gentleman these days," she said as they crossed the street. Steve felt a smidgen of despondence at her claim, realizing that the city he called home probably hadn't improved entirely for the better.

"Have a good evening, ma'am." Steve said his farewells as she continued pushing her food-cart towards the bus-stop. The blonde released another sigh, this one heavier than the last as he gazed around his surroundings, searching aimlessly for that familiar face...

The picturesque vistas of autumn-laden Central Park were scenically ominous against the shadowy oak trees adorning near the iron gates; shadowily bolstering the corded-planes of his garbed back underneath gnarled branches, the Brooklyn sniper wolf -Bucky Barnes grimacingly feigned a nose scrunch against the aching traction of his incisors fangs, that curved under the shapely-bow of his lip; unkemptly his roguish chestnut tresses shaggily askew under his gray UnderArmor baseball cap as his gloved hand unconsciously traced over his GI dog tags-looping on the wartime chain a platinum-silver ring was revealingly tucked against the leather collar of his leather jacket.

After being careened into a time paradox of a transdimensional gateway from the cindery ruins of Strucker's castle, his wolven form was detected by the monkish sentinel of the Eldritch Arts named the Ancient One-Sanctum guardian of the Multiverse. She had mystically fused their wedding rings with telestic energy-anchoring a soul-bond that chastened them onto the cimmerian fringe of embracing their humanity again.For two-years, Bucky adapted to a new-morphic- existence, only to become a young alpha when his exquisitely-snarky- beautiful she-wolf delivered their baby pups. Now, he waited for his best friend-little Stevie- to return to his side.

For a stalled moment that blood-poundingly electrified his overhauled resistance, unwaveringly with impassive tack, Bucky roved the grayish smokiness of his aquamarine irises as he drawled out, cockily in murmurous timbre, watching Steve pace crunchily over heaps of reddish maple leaves on his determined tread. "Hey don't keep me waitin' all day, punk..." he snorted out a throaty chuckle. "I've done enough of that..."

Following the voice to its source, Steve smiled warmly in kind. "Yeah well, at least you didn't have to do your waiting on ice. I'm still feeling the chills in this weather." Their banter reminded him of simpler times that he wasn't sure he'd ever relive again. After Bucky's presumed death at Castle Strucker, Steve had been a depressed shell, consumed with grief. He had no source of comfort, not even the temptation of alcohol could numb the pain he felt in his heart. Peggy had been a rock to him, keeping him anchored from the waves of sorrow. It was thanks to her that he had managed to keep his head on straight continue fighting. Losing Bucky made Steve feel as if he lost a part of himself--a crucial part of the man he was born as and not the soldier he'd become. Taking a few steps forward, the emotion must've been clear in Steve's eyes as Bucky came forward to greet him. They didn't say anything, only engulfing each other in a crushing hug. "It's good to see you, man," Steve said, finding his voice as they simply held each other close, pouring years of longing into it.

Uncontrollably against chest-racking sobs, Bucky heaved out fever-pitched breaths, as he viscerally held onto Steve with unabandoned -grounded-resiliency of his brotherly grace, every second was undeniable release as the bristled heaviness of his dimpled chin pudgily rested on Steve's tauten shoulder-flesh and blood, not a grievous chimera of heartache that hauntingly resonated against the spectral lucidity of jacked-off hope. An inseparable-timeless brotherhood that was forged on the downtrodden avenues of Flatbush borough was reignited. Pinching his eyelids shut, Bucky felt a heated trek of straying wetness over the knife-edged curve of his jaw-they needed this. "Didn't I tell you not to do anythin' stupid..." he snarked against throaty croakiness, grazing his canine fangs over the jutted swell of his underlip, whisperingly.

"Couldn't have. You took all the stupid with you," Steve chuckled as they slowly parted but still stood close enough to observe one another. Steve for a moment was astonished by how much Bucky looked the same but also noticeably different in some parts. The stubble was new. In all the years they'd known each other, Steve had never seen Bucky grow a beard. Despite his youth, his friend could get as bushy as his father was if he didn't go to Stanley's barbershop every couple of weeks for a shave. His hair had grown out too-wolfish and neatly combed into a mop tucked behind his ears. His teeth were sharper and cleaner than he remembered. But his eyes remained largely familiar and unchanged. It made Steve wonder if Bucky had somehow managed to cure himself of the wolf curse or if he found some way of controlling it. Natasha and Fury had been vague when they mentioned Bucky and the woman he had apparently married-the woman who was with him in the 40s. Selina Kyle Strucker.

"How long has it been for you?" Steve finally asked. "How did you end up here like me?"

"S'it's kinda hard to explain..." Bucky dragged out a timorous breath, stammeringly, as he mirrored the hawkish intensity of Steve's turquoise-azure irises as shaggier tresses, unabashedly his gloved splayed over the chubbier bulkiness that evidently thickened his leather garbed abdomen; a telltale visage from the long-haul pregnancy that he beautifully endured with Selina. "After Lina ad I were...Uh..." A straining wince raptly tugged over his shapely-wide lips, crestfalleningly. "Transported here in 2010 after the castle got blow-up... We met these incredible people who helped us get everythin' back..." He nipped his poutier underlip, as his fangs morphically lengthened. "M' still always gonna be a wolf...Zola's genetic cocktail made damn sure that I would never be a soldier again..."

Steve stood pondering this revelation with mute shock. A year. For Bucky it had been only a year since he lived in the 1940s before he was thrust into the future to continue living as a wolf. Ironically enough, the amount of time passed for them both was nearly the same. It had been only a few months, close to a year after Castle Strucker had fallen that Steve defeated Red Skull and plunged the Valkyrie into the ocean. A year he lived believing his best friend was gone forever.And now here they were, two men out of time, embracing each other like the past 65 years had never happened and it had been only yesterday that they'd seen each other. It wasn't too far from the truth. But much had changed it was clear as Steve glimpsed the shimmering ring on his friend’s neck.

"But you're not alone, Buck. A good soldier knows when its time to just be just a man...or a wolf." Steve said with an amused smirk as he watched Bucky shake his head mirthlessly. "And now you got a wife…A family?" Steve couldn't help but ask, remembering the trio of cute puppies he had seen being carried away by Bucky and Selina this afternoon when he'd seen them.

"Yeah, Lina is back at our place feedin' the pups..." Bucky drawled in whisper-soft pitch, throatily as Steve involuntarily glanced back at the park's entrance gates-a vacuous, inevitable road that seemed agonizingly directionless for him to trudge alone. This wasn't a victorious homefront-the vivacious, tough-as-nails-Peggy Carter had tragically aged into a fragile eighty-five-year-old woman; a transmissible brain disease -dementia- had emptily purged out her memories. He couldn't let Steve regrettably discover that heart-wrenching truth of what his 'best girl' had become.

Quirking his lips into a fanged-smirk, toothily, Bucky registered the saltiness of errant tears as Steve mistily downcasted his azure depths, guardedly stowing up his anguish. Bracing his arm over the First Avenger's tensing shoulders in a tenor of brother-drive protectiveness, Bucky snorted out a dorky laugh, underlying every measure of his indent to help Steve cross the road. "C'mon on punk, I think it's time for my little guys to meet their uncle Stevie...I definitely think it's gonna be one helluva of night..."

It was an invitation that Steve was grateful to receive after what originally had been a shockingly distressful day. The shaking fact that his entire world and all he knew was gone-lost to time-still weighed heavily on him. But he found comfort in the fact that even when having nothing, he still had Bucky like he always did. And now apparently he had new nieces and nephews eagerly waiting to meet him. This wasn't the life he envisioned for either him or Bucky after the war, but he wouldn't trade it for anything else. "I think I'm excited to meet em' too." Steve replied as he began following his friend out of the park. "Halloween party you said? ...Just tell me you're not showing em' anything with monsters, werewolves and vampires?" Steve asked with a fake grimace causing Bucky to snigger.

"No that's a little too soon, even for me." Bucky replied. "Something called Hocus Pocus. The girls love witches. Can't say the same about my boy, he hates it.""Witches I can do," Steve chuckled. Bucky however appeared mildly hesitant as he glanced towards the skies, seeing the full moon hidden by wisps of clouds.

"I don't know. I still howl at the moon, Steve…" He nearly laughed as he saw Steve become jittery.

"Terrific," Steve chuckled. Halloween had come, and for once the two Brooklyn brothers were eager to celebrate together with their growing new family.

THE END.

{October 31, 2020}

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nicksstoryvault · 4 years

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A ghoulish eeriness sailed over the darkened environs of the Bavarian forest, as discarded hulls of shelled-out HYDRA Uber tanks became obstructive sentinels over the ridgelines as whiteish sconces of moonlight haloed over the SSR division encampment, pitched up tents adorned with the Red Cross insignia flappingly beckoned medic evac ranks to haul the wounded, bloodied faced GI's that were screamingly pulled out of razed fox-holes.

A chagrined gleam betrayed his battle-lagged wariness as Bucky flashed a knifing glance heatedly onto the white star insignia that heroically contrasted over the patriotic mantle of the Allied Force's new valorous poster boy- Captain America. The runtish gaunt-faced asthmatic that determinedly traded blows with Flatbush jock-faced bullies was now a hunkish-enhanced Adonis-a soldiery paragon that vivaciously gorgeous USO dames swooned over. Hell, Steve even had a radio theme that inspiringly broadcasted over Europe. He wasn't the 'big brother' anymore, his best friend had daringly trudged into the tenebrous labyrinth of HYDRA stronghold-liberating Zola's torture-starved POW's, with just a theatrical prop shield on his back. "Yeah..." Bucky drawled throatily, his suave-boyish features nakedly rapt with phantom anguish as he bluntly gave Steve an offish smirk. "M' guessin' you pals gave you orders to push me out there again, huh?"

Quirkily, Bucky felt a half-smirk tug at his shapely-wide lips as he unwaveringly steered his grayish-aqueous gaze at the blackened towering pines that spookily enwreathed over the drive-out clearing, with adamant reserve Steve tellingly recognized his steeled-hellbent bravado, giving him a subtle nod, warringly evident to the hawkish gleam of his azure irises-the brotherly cadence felt weightily heart-driven; Bucky needed to break distance from the SRR ranks, the nightmarish apparitions of his grievous failure. "I guess it's gonna a rough night .." he murmured in snarkier pitch, easing down in mid-crouch to knot the laces of his tactical boots. "Don't worry, punk, this Brooklyn kid knows how to put em' on the ropes..."

Somewhere in the distance, a foreboding howl sang up into the moon.

The ghoulish ambiance that malignantly veined against the bordering pines of the forest, singed remnants of metallic shrapnel were discarded over the frigid ground; miles outward, the symphonic infernos of rampant mayhem of the night raids deafeningly caromed over the shadowed environs in a tumultuous succession. Unbeknownst to his laser-edged vision, with his Springfield rifle poised in the clutch of his roughened fingers, Bucky swaggeringly advanced with the measured precision of his tactical prowess, gnarled branches whip-lashed over the garbed padding of his shoulder as implosive pulses of the carious miasma of decaying flesh odiously wafted off gutted-out skeletal maggoty deformities that were once HYDRA scouts, black material of their Iron-Cross uniforms tatteredly sheathed over jutted torso bones.

"Shoulda figured Barnes..." he quipped under breath, croakily, feeling a bone-shunting-ghostlier chill rake numbingly through his veins in paralytic fruition at the stunted moment Bucky shudderingly registered full-throated fierceness of wolfish snarl menacingly resonating in amplified volume. Piercingly the mesmeric smokiness of his grayish-aquamarine irises became fixed on unmistakable-murderous visages of bestial claw-marks stamped on mudded clumps of dirt. "W-What the hell...?"

A brackish stench of frothing drool assailed over the underbrush, grappling him into a entrancing thrall of prevalent menace, a homicidal entity breached his isolated position, blurringly against feverish sweat that grungily drenched his chestnut tresses. With mechanized traction, in peripheral vigilance, Bucky leveled his long-barrel rifle against a point-blank deadlock, as the monstrous-beastlier phantom growlingly emitted volumes of rabid aggression.

Choking out vomitous breaths, rackingly against a throated rasp of hitching agony, Bucky dragged his knuckles with blinded urgency over the ground, jackknifing his bulkier abdomen into a planking stance as ribbons of blood gruelingly drenched his Commando tactical jacket, corded thews of his mangled forearm were evidently gouged by a knifepoint assault of wolven fangs that had bleedingly gored through his flesh bone-deep.

The camp was still wide away by the time he came racing through the tree-line. His arrival was announced by Morita was immediately called for the medical tent to be cleared.

"What the hell happened?" Duggan yelled once he saw a bleeding Bucky on Captain America's shoulders, barely conscious. The other Commandos picked up their weapons at the ready in case of an attack.

'M' with ya until the end of the line...'

Its nothing we can't handle, and nothing you should be concerned about," Steve only replied to his friend's initial question. A group of ragtag militia who belonged to neither Hydra nor the Allies had stumbled onto their camp and thought they could raid the supplies.

"Now stand down, and get some rest." He ordered. "We'll handle this."

"I'll be right out." Duggan exited the tent, leaving Bucky and Steve to make one last exchange. "Will you be all right?" Steve asked worriedly.

Including himself…

With the trade-off alliance of Baron Wolfgang Strucker, he conditioned tractable-sirenic perfection in a kittenish Füchsin (vixen)--a highbred-feisty daughter who virtuosically harnessed a furtive-thieving- caliber against the parasitical throes of her leashed existence. "Do not fail me, little Fraulein..." he warned, sneeringly, as he lifted his pudgier hand with malicious ease to inspect the blue material, watching her slink vanishingly into the shadows -into the phantom drift. "Indeed you won't..."

Sick. Fever. Chills. Sweat. Blood. Hunger. Hunger…

So he ran. He could hear Peggy calling out to him, but Bucky ignored her as he rushed through the tent-flaps and into the dead of nightfall.

Refusing to join the victorious shing-dig of the Howling Commando's achieved mission against HYDRA installations of the battlemented ridgeline, noncommittally without suave reserve, Bucky emitted a huffish breath, as he vexatiously strapped the glazed beef with aggressive flexion of his clutched fingers and sloppily chewed a mouthful in wolfish bites. "S'good..." he murmured in a growlier pitch, belchingly, as his jutted canine incisors devouringly shredded the beef in one aggressive gulp, drizzles of gravy trekked over his dimpled chin- succulent flavors meatily quashed his gluttonous barrage. For the umpteenth time, Bucky couldn't stave down the onrushing mania of wolfish-induced hunger- a stuporous ecstasy that made him bloatedly like a debauched slob-not a hunkish Brooklyn kid. "Gotta have more..."

There was no homefront of victory, embracing the valorous mantle of Captain America-the avenger of unswerving liberty-made Steve a straight-arrow that bravely directed grief-exhausted GI's out of the interminable crossfires, despite the high stakes of mortal freedom were collapsing each time the battle-tested Allied units became tragically sledgehammered by an inexorable blow that HYDRA counter-played. Gesturing the bar-keep with the determined smirk tugging at his plushier sculpted lips, Steve hailed a shot glass of whiskey. "Y'know, I can't really feel the effects..." he admitted, sheepishly, as Bucky played off his smirky cockiness, arching up an eyebrow. "Remember when you sweet-talked me to empty out a bottle of jack-daniels..." His azure irises unabashedly downcasted on the amber liquid in the glass. "Couldn't even stand on my feet..."

Through it all, he kept a focused look on the dame across from him, wondering how she might reply to his rebuff.

"Not really a smooth player night?" Selina purred in snarkier pitch, brusquely, as the virile smokiness of his naked scent headily contrasted sensuous—addictive tracery of a fevered beckon of his leashed arousal; she registered an incarnate tenor of wolven heat bankingly teeming with his pulse as beer-drenched GI uniforms frowsily sailed over the crowded booths as poker decks were chintzily shuffled on tables, braggingly Duggan sliced the cards with a fast-hand, while the high-player royal flush was on the rigged fringe of sealing a full-house gambit.

Tersely, evading the drunken pandemonium of the Howling Commandos, with brazen-practical graces, felinely, Selina eased down onto the booth's cushioned seat aware of his subtle invitation-cool pearlescence of her ivory-white flesh ethereally gleamed against the black chiffon Italianesque dress, the vixenish flare of a ribboned bodice slinkily fringed over her voluptuous decolletage, while svelter tautness of her lithesome form braced nonchalantly against the booth's polished wood.

After Selina was -remade- with blood shunts of mutative injections, Armin Zola desired her to usher his maniacal-berko-legacy of elite operatives on the conquered battlefront. Her power-mongering father 'Baron Von Strucker' had traded her off to become a 'shifter' executioner, lethally dispatching traitorous scum that betrayed the Iron Cross legion as a furred-canine- vixen. "So, I'm guessing you like to pack in all the spoils, handsome..." she inferred, pointedly, gesturing a lithe hand at the evident landside heap of meat- greased plates that sloppily adorned on the bartop. "Obviously, your taste for the good stuff runs deep..."

If Bucky were being honest with himself, his favorite past-time back home was to go out for a night of fun on the town with a lively cute girl on his arm. But he wasn't in the mood to be chasing a pretty dame to share a dance with. Not tonight. In fact, he had only seconds ago thought about taking the bottle of whiskey with him back to the camp and drinking himself to sleep to escape the misery he was now feeling. But out of nowhere this mysterious woman seemed to have come and tickled his curiosity until she had finally stepped out of her dark corner. Bucky was grateful his expression was hidden behind the glass in his hand because he was sure he would've looked like a fish out of the water, gasping for oxygen the minute he caught a glimpse of her face.

'Okay Bucky, time to turn on that Barnes Charm.' He straightened in his seat and flashed her a dimpled smile with glowing blue eyes. "Well I do work out a lot in the field. Sometimes you gotta take in as much as you give." He reasoned. Despite the awe he felt, he regained a bit of his focus and took in the woman's appearance from the dark trenchcoat she wore of a blouse and tight pants with high-heeled boots. She looked like she came from money and he wondered briefly what she was doing in a place like this. "How about you? I mean no disrespect, but you like you're used to being in nicer places than this. You local?" He wondered.

Against the October chilliness that penetratively sailed over the forested labyrinth of evergreens, with the flintier intensity of her coffee irises Selina darkly gazed at the desolated-grievous vistas of the battleground, brickwork remnants of shell-out foundations-no stone was left unturned. Her kittenish nose scrunched raptly against miasmatic potency of corpse-laden decay wafted from stacked-up trenches, as uniformed silhouettes of young men became lifeless-phantom denizens within the chasmal graves as the amberish luminance of moonlight spookily graced them with reverence.

James B Barnes

32557038 T4 3092

3092 STOCKTON RD

SHELBYVILLE, Indiana

"Bucky?! Where are you?!" Steve called out as he exited the tavern searching for his friend.

"Oh, no…" Steve whispered, convinced now more than ever that Howard's theory wasn't ridiculous but a horrifying reality. His best friend was turning into a wolf.

"So will we," Duggan added with a constipated look that was a rarity for the normally bold soldier. "They'll cut us down to ribbons if they see us coming."

The vestigial tension galvanically mounted in tenfold against the predatory onslaught, despite his Brooklyn spirit rebelled, thirstily Bucky couldn't slake down the insatiable tumults of undeterred bloodlust; Steve had anchored him back out of the bestial thralls as the wolven-canine- divergence-promise of humanity was still graspable. After being isolated in a Red Cross tent after the infusions, Bucky felt like was cinematically propelled in an unfathomable reality where silver--screened players scarily morphed into repulsive chimeras of tragical monstrosities. 'You're gonna be howlin' soon, Barnes...'

Easing up tremorous shakiness of his clawed-hand, quakingly , Bucky accepted the visage of brotherly reverence that his 'little Stevie' conveyed, aware of the knife-edge sharpness of his fingernails as his palm mirrored against the underside of Steve's leather-gloved hand. An expressive quirk on his shapely-bow lips toothily exposed his canine incisors, as his grayish-aquamarine irises piercingly silvered with latent menace. "I gotta have that look of the Wolfman now, huh, punk?" he snorted with derisive snarkiness, humorlessly. "S'just waitin' for Duggan to chuck a can of dog chow at me..."

Ensuing yells followed and they watched as several armed men jumped out of their vehicles to approach the blockade. "Bucky, how many are there?" Steve whispered into his radio.

"Bucky, take out their tires!" Steve yelled as he narrowly leap to the side to avoid being run-over. The officer wouldn't escape through the barricade but he would be worth more to them alive.

With downshift jerk, screechingly the Mercedes gunned up full-throttle, the red HYDRA pennants whippingly tore off the hood, the twined motorcycles explosively flipped into a waterline ditch as Bucky's dead-shot precision blurringly aimed for the wheel-spokes. With a half-smirk tugged at his shapely lips, he emptied up the calibre-barrel in rapid succession of an earshot, as the hailstorm of bullets flurringly shredded the rubber of the frontal tire-a deafening pop ensued as the swerving vehicle destructively careened a nosedive into a station-house." All yours, Cap..." he rasped out gravelly, feigning a tight-jaw grimace as feverish torrents of nauseous heat blearily stole his vision. "N-Not again..."

"CAP!" Duggan yelled in horror. "He's***. Damn it, Barnes! There's a sniper. Cover us!"

Bucky Barnes was gone. The wolf had emerged to prowl the night, hunting anything and anyone one in his way.

------------------------------------------

A vaporous putridness of stagnant blood miasmically breached her senses, as skeletal remnants of a gutted-out Black Forest stag were odiously discarded over the rocky smoothness that fused into an isolated den. Thunderous cascades of onrushing water dampishly became an elemental valance; after observing the grislier bloodbath of the HYDRA sniper with recon vigilance, Selina had advanced within the sanctuary-domain with tempered cautiousness, impassively brandishing her vehement poise on sashaying accord-the reeky stink of bloodied decay pungently sailed over the fang-gored deer husk.

Crouching on her sleekier haunches, scones of moonlight ethereally arced over the wolfish fur-sheathed tautness of bulkier mass-graven-edged ridges that heavily bracketed protrusive flesh as frayed traces of navy blue tellingly clung over the hulkish massiveness of his slacken canine form. "Sleeping it off, Wolf Boy...?" she breathily scoffed, gazing down at the furred length of his canine muzzle, the ivory gleam of his curved incisor-fangs disturbingly smeared with viscid crimson.

valorous resiliency

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weirdsciencecomics · 5 years

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STRANGE ACADEMY #1

SKOTTIE YOUNG • HUMBERTO RAMOS (A/C)

CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT VARIANT COVER BY TBA

DESIGN VARIANT COVER BY HUMBERTO RAMOS

VARIANT COVER BY J. SCOTT CAMPBELL

VARIANT COVER BY HUMBERTO RAMOS

VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG

VARIANT COVER BY JEROME OPEÑA

A SORCERER SCHOOL FOR THE MARVEL UNIVERSE!

The Marvel Universe has mysteriously changed in such an alarming way that Doctor Strange has done what he’s avoided for decades; he’s opened a school for young sorcerers. Young people from around the world with aptitude in magic have been brought together in New Orleans to study the Mystic Arts under Strange, Brother Voodoo, the Ancient One, the Scarlet Witch, Magik, Hellstrom and ALL your favorite Marvel magicians. But with all the new magical threats, is it too late?!

40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99

SPIDER-WOMAN #1

KARLA PACHECO • PERE PéREZ (A)

CLASSIC COVER BY JUNGGEUN YOON

NEW COSTUME COVER BY JUNGGEUN YOON

VARIANT COVER BY ARTGERM

VIRGIN VARIANT COVER BY ARTGERM

VARIANT COVER BY KAARE ANDREWS

VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM

HIDDEN GEM VARIANT COVER BY CARMINE INFANTINO

VARIANT COVER BY PEACH MOMOKO

VARIANT COVER BY J. SCOTT CAMPBELL

VILLAINS VARIANT COVER BY TODD NAUCK

VARIANT COVER BY BRUCE TIMM

COLLAGE VARIANT COVER BY MR. GARCIN

WEB VARIANT COVER AND BLANK VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE

DIE CUT VARIANT COVER BY CHIP KIDD – USE DIAMOND CODE DEC191017

SPIDER-WOMAN IS BACK, AND PULLING NO PUNCHES!

Jessica Drew hasn’t been feeling like herself lately (she’s not a Skrull, we promise). When the angry, irritable, and unwell Spider-Woman takes a simple security gig to help get back on her feet, she finds herself besieged by unknown forces out to destroy everything around her. What’s wrong with Jessica? Just how DID she get this job? And who are these violent lunatics who keep trying to blow her up? WHO CARES? Does Spider-Woman have someone to punch? THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS.

An explosive new series that pushes Spider-Woman into new heights of action and adventure from the mad minds of Karla Pacheco and Pere Pérez, this is the Spider-Woman book you’ve been waiting for!

40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

SPIDER-MAN NOIR #1 (OF 5)

MARGARET STOHL • JUAN FERREYRA (A)

Cover by DAVE RAPOZA

VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM

VARIANT COVER BY JAVIER GARRON

VARIANT COVER BY MARK BAGLEY

MURDER AND MYSTERY IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER!

DATELINE, 1939!

As the specter of war looms on the horizon, SPIDER-MAN: NOIR fights the good fight at home, stopping the injustices of a more friendly-neighborhood variety. But after a dame is murdered at The Black Cat nightclub and all clues point overseas, Spidey will have no choice but to board the next flight to Europe and kick off a globetrotting adventure through yesteryear of the Marvel Universe!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

HELLIONS #1

ZEB WELLS • STEPHEN SEGOVIA (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY WHILCE PORTACIO

VARIANT COVER BY WOO DAE SHIM

HIDDEN GEM VARIANT COVER BY JIM LEE

VARIANT COVER BY TBA

ORANGE VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE

BAD IS THE NEW GOOD!

When Krakoa opened their doors to all mutants and forgave all past crimes, they might have known they’d have to accept some of their worst foes into the fold… but they didn’t plan for what to do with them. Not to worry—Mister Sinister knows what to do with the troublemakers. Meet his new Hellions: Scalphunter, Wild Child, Empath, Nanny, Orphanmaker, Psylocke…and Havok?! Under Sinister’s direction, they are sure to become productive members of mutant society. Writer Zeb Wells (AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, NEW MUTANTS) and artist Stephen Segovia (WOLVERINE: MANIFEST DESTINY, SUPERIOR CARNAGE) bring you the team you’re going to hate to love!

48 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

CABLE #1

GERRY DUGGAN • PHIL NOTO (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY W. SCOTT FORBES

VARIANT COVER BY Nick Bradshaw

HIDDEN GEM VARIANT COVER BY TBA

VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG

BLACK BLANK VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE

THE DAWN OF REBELLION!

Cable was a grizzled old veteran of the wars to save the future… and he will be again. But for now, he’s a young mutant living in paradise leading a life of adventure! Nathan Summers, son of two of the most powerful mutants on Krakoa, has a destiny leading the youth of mutantkind in rebellion… so why not start now? Gerry Duggan (MARAUDERS, DEADPOOL) and Phil Noto (STAR WARS, POE DAMERON) bring us young Cable as we’ve never seen him before!

48 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

WOLVERINE #2

BENJAMIN PERCY • ADAM KUBERT (A/C)

Variant cover by DAVID FINCH

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY Gerald Parel

GOD LOVES MAN KILLS VARIANT COVER BY MARCOS MARTIN

THE WORST IS BACK!

Wolverine has never been one to back down from a fight — not even a combined assault from Lady Deathstrike, Sabretooth and Doctor Cornelius — but the Flower Cartel might have enlisted his worst and greatest foe: Logan himself.

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

INCREDIBLE HULK #182 FACSIMILE EDITION

Written by LEN WEIN

Penciled by HERB TRIMPE

Cover by HERB TRIMPE

CONTINUING THE FIRST APPEARANCES OF WOLVERINE!

Completing one of the most famous Hulk sagas of all! The INCREDIBLE HULK #180-181 FACSIMILE EDITIONS reintroduced you to Wolverine, who joined the Hulk in a three-way tussle against the monstrous Wendigo! Now find out what happens next as Wolvie’s bosses take matters into their own hands! But the puny humans only succeed in making the Hulk even angrier — and set him on a collision course with the super-powered escaped convicts known as Hammer and Anvil! Prepare for a surprisingly touching chapter in the Hulk’s endless wandering, as the jade giant makes a friend…and learns the meaning of loss. It’s one of the all-time great Marvel comic books, boldly re-presented in its original form, ads and all! Reprinting INCREDIBLE HULK (1968) #182.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

THOR #229 FACSIMILE EDITION

Written by GERRY CONWAY

Penciled by RICH BUCKLER

Cover by RON WILSON

CONTINUING THE FIRST APPEARANCES OF WOLVERINE!

The mighty Thor and his staunch ally Hercules face a demonic threat like no other! As a string of strange deaths confound the police, the Asgardian and the Olympian join the investigation. The victims all referred to an enigmatic “he” with their final words — but what dread threat could they mean? As a shadowy menace presents himself, one deadly enough to devastate even the Prince of Power, the mystery only deepens — but who…or what…is he who dwells in darkness? Prepare to know terror in the haunting debut of one of the Marvel Universe’s most terrifying Fear Lords! It’s one of the all-time great Marvel comic books, boldly re-presented in its original form, ads and all — including the ad that gave readers a glimpse at Wolverine before his first appearance! Reprinting THOR (1966) #229.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

X-MEN: GIANT-SIZE – MAGNETO #1

JONATHAN HICKMAN • BEN OLIVER (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY ESAD RIBIC

HICKMAN & OLIVER MASTER MAGNETISM!

Jonathan Hickman continues his one-shots showcasing some of Marvel’s best artists! This time, he teams with Ben Oliver (ULTIMATE X-MEN,

THUNDERBOLTS) to bring a tale of Krakoan Ambassador and Master of Magnetism, Magneto! Krakoa may be only for mutants, but mutants still

need to deal with the human world around them. Magneto has a plan for that.

40 PGS./ONE SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99

X-MEN/FANTASTIC FOUR #3 (OF 4)

CHIP ZDARSKY • TERRY DODSON (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY MARK BROOKS

Flower Variant Cover by MEGHAN HETRICK

A nation of mutants’ lives is at stake while FRANKLIN RICHARDS makes a momentous decision! Will the FANTASTIC FOUR and X-MEN just

stand by and allow it to happen?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

X-MEN #8 & #9

JONATHAN HICKMAN • ISSUE #8 – RB SILVA (A)

ISSUE #9 – LEINIL FRANCIS YU (A) • CoverS by LEINIL FRANCIS YU

ISSUE #8 – GOD LOVES MAN KILLS VARIANT COVER BY MARCOS MARTIN

GET READY TO RUN!

The New Mutants are back from space, and they’ve brought intergalactic trouble with them! The Brood! The Shi’ar! The Starjammers! The Imperial Guard!

32 PGS. (EACH)/Rated T+ …$3.99 (EACH)

EXCALIBUR #8 & #9

TINI HOWARD • ISSUE #8 – WILTON SANTOS (A)

ISSUE #9 – MARCUS TO (A)

Covers by MAHMUD ASRAR

ISSUE #9 – GOD LOVES MAN KILLS VARIANT COVER BY MARCOS MARTIN

HARK! THE HUNT FOR TRUTH

Excalibur emerges from the woods with a journey before them. Their destination: Starlight Citadel.

32 PGS. (EACH)/Rated T+ …$3.99 (EACH)

NEW MUTANTS #9

JONATHAN HICKMAN • FLAVIANO (A)

Cover by MIKE DEL MUNDO

GOD LOVES MAN KILLS VARIANT COVER BY MARCOS MARTIN

A NIGHTMARE BECOMES REAL!

With Krakoan confidence, the youth of mutantkind are ready to take on any challenge the world has to throw at them – but when reality itself betrays them, what hope is there for the NEW MUTANTS?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

X-FORCE #9

BENJAMIN PERCY • JOSHUA CASSARA (A)

Cover by DUSTIN WEAVER

GOD LOVES MAN KILLS VARIANT COVER BY MARCOS MARTIN

REAP WHAT YOU SOW!

In the heart of South America, X-Force finds a problem growing that threatens to destroy everything they’ve built… and one of their own might be responsible.

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

MARAUDERS #9

GERRY DUGGAN • STEFANO CASELLI (A)

Cover by RUSSELL DAUTERMAN

GOD LOVES MAN KILLS VARIANT COVER BY MARCOS MARTIN

PEST CONTROL!

A very small attack on Krakoa grows into something much bigger, thanks to Yellowjacket! Can Captain Kate’s crew swat him before his sting pays off?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ROAD TO EMPYRE: THE KREE/SKRULL WAR #1

ROBBIE THOMPSON • MATTIA DE IULIS & JAVIER RODRIGUEZ (A)

Cover by PHIL NOTO

VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM

EMPYRE IS COMING!

The build-up to Marvel’s massive event series of the spring begins here—but in actuality, it began a millennia ago, with a challenge on the moon! In the wake of INCOMING, everything has changed for the Kree and the Skrulls. And out in the cold on Earth, the Warner family (MEET THE SKRULLS) need to work out what has happened and what it means for the future of their family and their race! And that means educating their kids on just how the Kree and the Skrulls first went to war!

40 PGS./ONE SHOT/Rated T …$4.99

MARVEL #1 (of 6)

ALEX ROSS, KURT BUSIEK, STEVE DARNALL & SAJAN SAINI

ALEX ROSS, STEVE RUDE & FRANK ESPINOSA (A)

Cover by ALEX ROSS

VARIANT COVER BY STEVE RUDE

Thirty years ago, Alex Ross had a vision of a new series showing the Marvel heroes in a way they’d never been seen before. The first realization of that idea became the blockbuster MARVELS — but today Alex finally brings about his original vision: An anthology of stories by unique, exceptional talents, many of whom are doing Marvel characters for the very first time. Over this showcase series you’ll see work by such artists as Adam Hughes, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dan Brereton and more, linked together by an overarching story by Alex and Steve Darnall. This inaugural issue kicks it all off with superstar artists Frank Espinosa (Rocketo, Looney Tunes) telling an unusual Spider-Man story and Steve Rude (Nexus), teaming up with Kurt Busiek (Marvels, Avengers) for an Avengers story, framed by Alex and Steve Darnall (Uncle Sam, Marvels) presenting a tale of the dread dreamland Nightmare, and his threat to the entire Marvel Universe…and possibly beyond. A once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of talent — you won’t want to miss a single page!

40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99

SUB-MARINER: MARVELS SNAPSHOT #1

ALAN BRENNERT WITH KURT BUSIEK • JERRY ORDWAY (A) • Cover by ALEX ROSS

VARIANT COVER BY JERRY ORDWAY

VARIANT COVER BY GABRIELE DELL’OTTO

HIDDEN GEM VARIANT COVER BY JACK KIRBY

It begins here — a series of specials that show us Marvel’s greatest characters from the Golden Age to today, all through the eyes of ordinary people! Project curator Kurt Busiek (Marvels, Astro City) has brought together an amazing assemblage of talent to bring you a total of eight new and unusual viewpoints on Marvel history and Marvel heroes, two per month for the next four months. To kick it all off, best-selling novelist and Emmy Award-winning TV writer Alan Brennert (L.A. LAW, TWILIGHT ZONE) and superstar artist Jerry Ordway (All-Star Squadron, Crisis on Infinite Earths) to tell a story of Marvel’s debut superstar: Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. It’s 1946, and the boys are back from World War II. But they haven’t left the battlefields behind, as reporter Betty Dean discovers when she and Namor reunite for an outing at Palisades Park, only to find themselves under attack. Also featuring the All-Winners Squad. A dramatic, unexpected and revealing tour through the Marvel Universe by a cornucopia of amazing creators.

40 PGS./ONE SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99

FANTASTIC FOUR: MARVELS SNAPSHOT #1

EVAN DORKIN & SARAh DYER WITH KURT BUSIEK

BENJAMIN DEWEY (A) • Cover by ALEX ROSS

VARIANT COVER BY BENJAMIN DEWEY

HIDDEN GEM VARIANT COVER BY JACK KIRBY

Our tour through Marvel history continues, showcasing Marvel’s greatest characters from the Golden Age to today, all through the eyes of ordinary people! This time, writers Evan Dorkin & Sarah Dyer (Beasts of Burden, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, Superman: The Animated Series) and artist Benjamin Dewey (The Autumnlands, Beasts of Burden) tell the tale of the ten-year high-school reunion of the Fantastic Four’s own Human Torch. His hometown of Glenville, Long Island is going wild, and we see it all through the eyes of the Torch’s ex-girlfriend Dorrie Evans and reporter Marcia Hardesty – the preparations, the Torch’s long history in town, the festivities and more. But there’s a strange distance between Johnny Storm and his old schoolmates, one Dorrie knows all too well and Marcia is determined to get to the bottom of. Featuring ex-villains, strange souvenirs, a weenie roast on the beach and, of course, the hulking Inhuman hound known as Lockjaw! Don’t miss the festivities!

40 PGS./ONE SHOT/Rated T …$4.99

MARVELS X #3 (OF 6)

ALEX ROSS & JIM KRUEGER • WELL BEE (A) • Cover by ALEX ROSS

VARIANT COVER BY WELL BEE

There’s something hunting the last boy on Earth. Something that doesn’t want him to be the cure and restoration of humanity. And no matter what Spider-Man or Daredevil or even Doctor Strange do to try to protect him, they can’t save him from an entire world of monsters. Alex Ross, Jim Krueger and Well Bee continue this fantastic prequel to the EARTH X Trilogy.

40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99

OUTLAWED #1

EVE L. EWING • KIM JACINTO (A) • Cover by PEPE LARRAZ

Wraparound Variant Cover by Tony Daniel

Variant Cover by CORY SMITH

VARIANT COVER BY ANNA RUD

EXPLODING FROM THE PAGES OF INCOMING!

In the wake of a devastating tragedy, the United States passes a law that will shake the Marvel Universe to its core. The world has had enough of teen heroes. The crackdown has begun. And the lives of Marvel’s next generation will never be the same again. EVE L. EWING and KIM JACINTO launch a new era in this game-changing event one-shot that will send shockwaves across the Marvel Universe! You won’t want to miss this one!

40 PGS./ONE SHOT/Rated T …$4.99

IRON MAN 2020 #3 (OF 6)

DAN SLOTT & CHRISTOS GAGE • PETE WOODS (A)

5th Color Fluorescent Ink Cover by PETE WOODS

CONNECTING VARIANT COVER BY SIMONE BIANCHI (3 OF 6)

HEADS VARIANT COVER BY SUPERLOG

VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM

VARIANT COVER BY TBA

“The Kill Switch”

Stop uploading this content! I said STOP, bit-head! What is your malfunction?! Why are you still scanning this?! GO OFFLINE! Fine. You kept going. Happy? You just uploaded the software patch that will END the Robot Revolution. Great going there, Sparky! The countdown’s started. There’s nothing left to do now but wage all-out war against the fleshies! Screw on your best attachments, rust bucket, ‘cause we’re storming the tower! Time to take the fight straight to IRON MAN himself! KILL THE MASTER PROGRAMMER! DEATH TO ARNO STARK!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

2020 MACHINE MAN #2 (OF 2)

CHRISTOS GAGE & TOM DEFALCO

ANDY MACDONALD & Mike Hawthorne (A)

Cover by NICK ROCHE

VARIANT COVER JUAN JOSÉ RYP

Machine Man is fighting to save his true love, but will he be able to defeat – himself?! Outdated and overpowered, Machine Man goes head-to-head with the updated X-52 model! Will Machine Man be able to overcome or will he find himself paved over in the name of progress? Plus, part 2 of a backup story by legendary Machine Man writer, Tom DeFalco and artist Mike Hawthorne!!

40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

2020 FORCE WORKS #2 (OF 3)

MATTHEW ROSENBERG

JUANAN RAMÍREZ (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY TOM TENNEY

War Machine, U.S.Agent, Mockingbird and Quake have joined forces to fight against the robots for human survival as Force Works! But when the team finds themselves infected by Deathlok technology and turned into robots themselves, will that prime directive stand? Or will they find themselves turning coat and bringing about humanity’s end?!

32 pages/Rated T+ …$3.99

2020 RESCUE #1 (OF 2)

DANA SCHWARTZ

JACEN BURROWS (A)

Cover by PACO MEDINA

Variant Cover by JEN BARTEL

Pepper Potts moved on from Tony Stark. She’s getting her life together, finding her place in the world. Unfortunately, that’s exactly when Tony Stark decides it’s time for a full-tilt, full-blown meltdown. And if Pepper can’t suit up and save the day, Tony is toast.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

2020 IRON AGE #1

TOM DEFALCO, CHRISTOPHER CANTWELL

& FONDA LEE

NICK ROCHE, MATT HORAK

& DAMIAN COUCEIRO (A)

COVER BY CORY SMITH

VARIANT COVER BY RAHZZAH

The Robot Revolution rages on! But as the fighting escalates and convictions are put to the test – is everyone committed to their cause or is there more going on than meets the eye? Don’t miss out on this collection of epic adventures from both sides of the conflict featuring Machine Man, Doctor Shapiro and Alkhema. From industry legend Tom DeFalco & Nick Roche, Christopher Cantwell & Matt Horak, Fonda Lee & Damian Couceiro!

40 PGS./ONE SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99

MARVEL TALES: SILVER SURFER #1

Written by GERRY CONWAY & ROY THOMAS

Penciled by JOHN BUSCEMA & SAL BUSCEMA • Cover by INHYUK LEE

VIRGIN VARIANT Cover by INHYUK LEE

The Sentinel of the Spaceways rides the cosmic waves as we celebrate the legacy of the House of Ideas with the era-spanning MARVEL TALES! This anthology series shines a spotlight on fan-favorite characters, features timeless stories and highlights some of our most impressive talent from the past eight decades. First, the Silver Surfer aids the mighty Thor in conflict with the deadly Durok in a heavyweight team-up from the legendary creative team of Gerry Conway and John Buscema — from THOR (1966) #193! Then, Roy Thomas and Sal Buscema pave the way for the creation of Marvel’s greatest non-team, the Defenders, when they assemble the “Titans Three” in SUB-MARINER (1968) #34-35! Can this trio of powerhouses — the Surfer, Namor and the Hulk — stop squabbling long enough to battle…the Avengers?!

80 PGS./ONE SHOT/Rated T …$7.99

IMMORTAL HULK #32

AL EWING • JOE BENNETT (A) • Cover by ALEX ROSS

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY PATCH ZIRCHER

The gentle giant XEMNUTM has come to EARTHTM to fight evil – as the INCREDIBLE HULKTM! And YOUTM can join him – as he battles ROBERT BANNERTM, the STRANGEST MAN OF ALL TIMETM! (HULKTM is a trademark of ROXXON ENERGYTM. For a brighter tomorrow.)

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

IMMORTAL HULK #33

AL EWING • JOE BENNETT (A) • Cover by ALEX ROSS

VARIANT COVER BY JOE BENNETT

VIRGIN VARIANT COVER BY ALEX ROSS

VARIANT COVER BY LOGAN LUBERA

VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM

SPIDER-WOMAN VARANT COVER BY CORY SMITH

HIDDEN GEM VARIANT COVER BY WALTER SIMONSON

VARIANT COVER BY Steve Skroce

PURPLE VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE

Celebrating 750 ISSUES of the INCREDIBLE H%LKTM! Something is wrong. Something has compromised the simulacrum. EXTRA-SIZE HULK-SM&SHING ACTIONTM! Banner is refusing to yield. Something is wrong. PLUS! ENTER – THE THOUGHTFUL MAN! Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.

56 PGS./Rated T+ …$5.99

CAPTAIN AMERICA #20

TA-NEHISI COATES • JASON MASTERS (A) • Cover by ALEX ROSS

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY BEN CALDWELL

ALL DIE YOUNG!

The ramp-up to CAP #25 begins!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

CAPTAIN MARVEL #16

KELLY THOMPSON • LEE GARBETT (A) • Cover by MARK BROOKS

CONNECTING VARIANT COVER BY INHYUK LEE (5 OF 5)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY DAN PANOSIAN

“THE LAST AVENGER” CONCLUSION!

It’s all come down to Captain Marvel versus Vox Supreme! Since discovering her Kree heritage, Carol Danvers has struggled to reconcile her human and her alien sides. Now she must fight for both — or lose everything. But Earth’s Mightiest Hero has a new plan…will the power of the Avengers be enough to save the world?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SAVAGE AVENGERS #11

GERRY DUGGAN • BUTCH GUICE (A) • Cover by VALERIO GIANGIORDANO

The horrific secret of Kulan Gath’s power is revealed. Steel yourself, True Believers, this one is a bummer for the ages. Plus, Dr. Strange & Elektra did what last night?

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

AVENGERS #32

JASON AARON • ED MCGUINNESS (A/C)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY MIKE MCKONE

EARTH’S MIGHTIEST VILLAINS!

What do the King of Atlantis, the Lord of the Vampires, the deposed duke of Hell, a mysterious Russian assassin and the secret boss of Washington, D.C.’s greatest super-team have in common? They all really hate the Avengers. And so there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest villains found themselves united against a common threat.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

FANTASTIC FOUR #20

DAN SLOTT • SEAN IZAAKSE (A) • COVER BY NICK BRADSHAW

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY EMA LUPACCHINO

EMPYRE IS COMING!

The Mole Man and his biggest Kaiju return to the surface, with all of their righteous wrath aimed at one man… Wyatt Wingfoot! How can the Human Torch and Sky possibly save him? Y’know, this really would’ve been a good time to have brought ALL of the Fantastic Four! Also this issue: Meet a never-before-seen Elder of the Universe! Who are they, and how will they change the FF’s life… forever?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

VALKYRIE: JANE FOSTER #9

JASON AARON & TORUNN GRØNBEKK • CAFU (A) • Cover by Mahmud Asrar

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY AUDREY MOK

THE FALL OF ALL-FATHER THOR!

Valkyrie and Thor have discovered a vast and terrible secret buried deep in the Earth, one that has haunted Asgard for eons. The Røkkva, a magic older than the gods, has broken free from its long prison. And one man seeks to turn it to his own gain. He just needs to get rid of Valkyrie first — and what better way than at the hands of Thor?!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ATLANTIS ATTACKS #3 (OF 5)

GREG PAK • ARIO ANINDITO (A) • Cover by ROCK-HE KIM

Variant cover by NICK BRADSHAW

SWORD OF THE SIRENAS!

As the tenuous peace with NAMOR collapses, WAVE and AMADEUS search their souls and measure their allegiances – and end up on opposite sides of the war! What happens when the dream you thought you were defending turns out to be your ally’s greatest nightmare? Young heroes grapple with impossible conflicts with the fate of three great civilizations in the balance!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

TAROT #4 (OF 4)

ALAN DAVIS • PAUL RENAUD (A/C)

Variant Cover by ALAN DAVIS

VARIANT COVER BY STEPHEN MOONEY

Merged into a single amalgamated band, the combined heroes of the amalgamated Avengers and Defenders race against the clock to put everything right – as the final card begins to turn.

40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

AVENGERS OF THE WASTELANDS #3 (OF 5)

ED BRISSON • JONAS SCHARF (A) • Cover by JUAN JOSÉ RYP

Variant Cover by Gerardo Zaffino

A FULL MOON RISES ON THE WASTELANDS!

The AVENGERS have assembled! But so has BARON BLOOD and his legion of vampires! The saga continues with more revelations and a SURPRISE reappearance of a hero of the Wastelands to guide the new team!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

DR. STRANGE #4

MARK WAID • KEV WALKER (A) • Cover by PHIL NOTO

The return of Dr. Druid!

What has brought Doctor Strange’s fellow sorcerer back from the dead, and has he truly renounced all magic as he claims? Or is something more sinister brewing in the halls of the McCarthy Medical Institute?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

STAR #3 (OF 5)

KELLY THOMPSON • JAVIER PINA (A)

Cover by Carmen Carnero

Variant cover by RAHZZAH

THE FIGHT FOR THE REALITY STONE IS ON, AND WHO CONTROLS IT…CONTROLS THE WORLD!

The universe is Star’s command…IF she can figure out how to control her powers. And the race is on – because the galaxy’s greatest hunters are hot on her trail. The Reality Stone is one of the most powerful weapons in this or any world, and currently, the only way to obtain it…is to kill the woman called Ripley Ryan.

32 PGS./Rated T+…$3.99

THOR #4

DONNY CATES • NIC KLEIN (A) • Cover by OLIVIER COIPEL

Variant cover by RYAN STEGMAN

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY JAVIER GARRON

THOR’S GREATEST ENEMY – AND THE UNIVERSE’S ONLY SAVIOR – REVEALED!

The Black Winter is coming – the end of the entire vast universe – and only one entity can stop it. The only one who has survived it before, Galactus the World-Eater, has come to Midgard…in search of a herald for the end of everything.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ANT-MAN #3 (OF 5)

ZEB WELLS • DYLAN BURNETT (A) • Cover by EDUARD PETROVICH

The threat of Macrothrax and the impending invasion looms large! With no choice but to call the Avengers for help, will Ant-Man be able to convince them to take both this threat and himself seriously? Plus, when a certain web-slinging hero joins the investigation, will the stage be big enough for two wise-cracking crime fighters? Guest-starring Spider-Man and the Black Cat!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

FALCON & WINTER SOLDIER #2 (OF 5)

DEREK LANDY • FEDERICO VICENTINI (A) • Cover by DAN MORA

Variant Cover by PACO MEDINA

Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are on a mission: to identify and stop the next leader of Hydra. To do so, they’ve got to make their way from one end of a high-speed train to the other…and every carriage is filled with assassins. Eight carriages. Eight kinds of killer. All aboard.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

HAWKEYE: FREEFALL #4

MATTHEW ROSENBERG • OTTO SCHMIDT (A)

Cover by KIM JACINTO

Daredevil tips Hawkeye off to the formation of a new task force. They have one mission: to stop the dangerous new Ronin before he tears the city apart. Clint joins up, but he can’t help but notice that Ronin gets results. Whose side is he really on? And as Hawkeye’s own hunt for the Hood intensifies, he’s about to find himself in the sights of one of his most dangerous foes of all time…

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

REVENGE OF THE COSMIC GHOST RIDER #4 (OF 5)

DENNIS “HOPELESS” HALLUM • SCOTT HEPBURN (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY CULLY HAMNER

VARIANT COVER BY LOGAN LUBERA

Cosmic Ghost Rider’s soul hangs in the balance!

Lost to the ravages of space, will Cammi be able to claw her way back to Cosmic Ghost Rider in time to keep him from making a deal with the devil?Or will Cosmic Ghost Rider damn the whole galaxy to hell to get what he wants?

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

NEBULA #2 (OF 5)

VITA AYALA • CLAIRE ROE (A) • Cover by JEN BARTEL

VARIANT COVER BY JAVIER RODRÍGUEZ

Marooned on an unknown planet, Nebula has been stripped of her memories! Struggling to find out where she is, what hope does Nebula have of finding herself? And more importantly, will Nebula be able to recover her wits before her infamous reputation puts her in someone else’s crosshairs?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #3

AL EWING • Juann Cabal, Chris Sprouse, Nina Vaqueva & Belén Ortega (A)

Cover by IVAN SHAVRIN

VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY DECLAN SHALVEY

The Guardians saved the Galaxy – at great and terrible cost. And now, they have to break the news… to the Guardians. Four artists tell three stories of two bonds broken, one born again…and the birth of the West Spiral Arm Guardians!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

GWEN STACY #2 (of 5)

CHRISTOS GAGE • TODD NAUCK (A) • Cover by ADAM HUGHES

VARIANT COVER BY Ryan Brown

VARIANT COVER BY HUMBERTO RAMOS

VARIANT COVER BY TODD NAUCK

Gwen’s dad is hurt, in the hospital and implicated in corruption charges. But what is a high school student of the month/class president candidate/science team captain supposed to do about that? Gwen isn’t the type to sit on her hands even if it means crossing the Crimemaster and worse!!! Don’t miss this in-continuity tale that will change the way you look at the most-beloved Marvel character of all time!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #41

NICK SPENCER • RYAN OTTLEY (A/C)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY LEE GARBETT

Spider-Man needs to know WHAT BOOMERANG IS UP TO and he (and you) will finally get their answers this issue! What does it have to do with Mayor Kingpin? And who are all those eyes looking at our hero and his lousy roommate?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #42

NICK SPENCER • RYAN OTTLEY (A/C)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY TONY DANIEL

Well, knowing what Boomerang is doing sure didn’t help. Spidey and Boomerang are in trouble in a VERY BIG WAY.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

SPIDER-HAM #4 (OF 5)

ZEB WELLS

WILL ROBSON (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY TBA

WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

Spider-Ham might finally know who is causing all this ruckus in his Universe! But is Ham alone enough for a meal? Wait, what? Let’s try that again: BUT IS HAM ALONE ENOUGH TO STOP (REDACTED VILLAIN NAME)?!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: THE DAILY BUGLE #3 (OF 5)

MAT JOHNSON • MACK CHATER (A)

COVER BY NIKO HENRICHON

VARIANT COVER BY Rahzzah

Shrinking revenues, kidnappings, one dead body that points to more crime and also implicates a hero! The journalists at the Bugle have their hands full – and they’re about to be targeted by the most powerful man in the city. Why has Mayor Wilson Fisk set his sights on the paper? Don’t miss what might be his most devastating scheme yet!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

AMAZING MARY JANE #6

Leah Williams • Carlos Gómez (A) • Cover by Paulo Siqueira

VARIANT COVER BY GREG LAND

WELCOME TO NY, MJ!

After the CAN’T-MISS events of AMAZING MARY JANE #5, your favorite redhead is back home! First stop: Spider-Man! But has her relationship with Mysterio changed things with the love of her life? Next stop: a press tour! Complete with iconic New York guest-starring gigs, and OH NO WHAT’S THAT?!?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

GHOST-SPIDER #8

SEANAN McGUIRE • IG GUARA (A)

Cover by TAKESHI MIYAZAWA

Rock and roll dreams come true! It’s all eyes on THE MARY

JANES as Gwen takes the band on a rip-roaring multiversal concert tour! But not all those eyes belong to starstruck fans. There’s something symbiotic and sinister stirring in the Prime Universe – and GWENOM may have a part to play…

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

SPIDER-VERSE #6 (OF 6)

JED MACKAY

ZÉ CARLOS (A)

Cover by DAVE RAPOZA

The conclusion to SPIDER-VERSE is here!

All the various threads of this series (Miles Morales, Spider-Man Noir, SP//dr, Webslinger, Spider-Ma’am, and all the other Spider-People and Spider-Sonas) come together to re-spin the Web of Life and Destiny! But the journey won’t be easy, so don’t be surprised if all the spiders don’t make it through alive!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

MILES MORALES: SPIDER-MAN #16

SALADIN AHMED • CORY SMITH (A) • COVER BY JAVIER GARRÓN

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY PASQUAL FERRY

MORALESES VS. MONSTERS!

Miles is taking on his biggest responsibility yet–babysitting his new little sister, Billie Morales! But fussiness and feeding are the least of their problems–there’s SOMETHING UNDERGROUND! Meanwhile Miles’ uncle Aaron made a deal with a different kind of beast–ULTIMATUM–and he’s about to get bit.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

MORBIUS #5

VITA AYALA • MARCELO FERREIRA (A) • Cover by SKAN

CONNECTING VARIANT COVER BY JUAN JOSE RYP (5 OF 5)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY PYEONG JUN PARK

For years, Michael Morbius has looked in the mirror and seen a monster. Thanks to his recent tampering with his own genes, that horror has become a reality. Can his immortal bloodlust finally be satiated – and at what cost?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

RAVENCROFT #3 (OF 5)

FRANK TIERI • ANGEL UNZUETA (A) • Cover by KYLE HOTZ

VARIANT COVER BY TBA

Ravencroft is fully staffed, but who thought it was a good idea to put these people in charge of helping inmates? Watch as John Jameson attempts to keep the beasts at bay!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SCREAM: CURSE OF CARNAGE #5

CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN • CHRISTOPHER MOONEYHAM (A) • Cover by RYAN STEGMAN

VARIANT COVER BY TBA

SPINNING OUT OF ABSOLUTE CARNAGE!

With Eddie Brock nowhere to be found, Andi Benton – the new SCREAM – will have to tangle with a monstrous creature at the bottom of the bay all on her own! But what exactly IS that monster? Where is it from? And what is its connection to KNULL, THE GOD OF THE SYMBIOTES?!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

VENOM #24

DONNY CATES • MARK BAGLEY (A/C)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY ROCK-HE KIM

THE WAR WITHIN! VENOM ISLAND CONTINUES!

Cletus Kasady may be gone, but CARNAGE is another story – and its evil has infected Venom and the entire ISLAND OF BONES. As every living thing on the island hunts him, Eddie Brock may have no choice but to burn it – and everything he holds dear – to the ground…

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SYMBIOTE SPIDER-MAN: ALIEN REALITY #4 (OF 5)

PETER DAVID • GREG LAND (A/C)

Variant Cover by ALEX SAVIUK

VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM

VARIANT COVER BY TBA

THE FATE OF THE FUTURE IS IN SPIDEY’S HANDS!

Can Spider-Man fix reality, or is he doomed to live in a world not his own?!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

BLACK CAT #10

JED MACKAY • KRIS ANKA (A) • Cover by J. SCOTT CAMPBELL

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY TBA

Felicia and Logan on the run from all matter of Madripoorian murder squads! Kade Kilgore, former head of the Hellfire Club, current boss of the criminal capital of the world, has marked them for death and you won’t believe who comes to collect!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

MARVEL’S AVENGERS: CAPTAIN AMERICA #1

PAUL ALLOR • Georges Jeanty (A) • Cover by STONEHOUSE

Variant Cover by Dale Keown

CAPTAIN AMERICA BATTLES BATROC IN THIS NEW PREQUEL TO THE UPCOMING VIDEO GAME, MARVEL’S AVENGERS!

Since World War II, Steve Rogers has fought for the side of good as CAPTAIN AMERICA! As one of his last friends from the war is laid to rest, Cap must contend with the mysterious robbery of a high-tech weapons company. But what is BATROC THE LEAPER planning, and how will this technology change the FUTURE of the AVENGERS? The journey to MARVEL’S AVENGERS continues with a mystery and an adventure that sets the groundwork for an inciting incident in the upcoming video game!

32 PGS./ ONE SHOT/Rated T+ …$3.99

MARVEL’S AVENGERS: BLACK WIDOW #1

Christos Gage • Michele Bandini (A) • Cover by STONEHOUSE

Variant Cover by Greg Land

THE SUPER SPY STARS IN THE FINAL ADVENTURE BEFORE THE LAUNCH OF MARVEL’S AVENGERS!

Former Russian spy Natasha Romanoff has joined SHIELD, but when a spectre from her past resurfaces, where do her loyalties really lie? And what is the source of her deadly feud with the villainous TASKMASTER? Solve the mystery in this adventure leading up to the upcoming MARVEL’S AVENGERS video game as we explore a key episode from the dramatic saga of the woman called BLACK WIDOW!

32 PGS./ ONE SHOT/Rated T+ …$3.99

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN: THE BLACK CAT STRIKES #3 (OF 5)

DENNIS “HOPELESS” HALLUM • LUCA MARESCA (A) • Cover by SANA TAKEDA

Variant Cover by CARLOS PACHECO

HAMMERHEAD’S REVENGE, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF SPIDER-MAN AND THE BLACK CAT!

PETER and FELICIA’s past revealed! In the present, HAMMERHEAD makes good on a deadly threat to the Black Cat! The all-new Gamerverse story continues with an unforgettable chapter in the saga of Marvel’s Spider-Man!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

DEADPOOL #5

KELLY THOMPSON • GERARDO SANDOVAL (A/C)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY MIRKA ANDOLFO

A KAIJU HAIKU!

Deadpool loves monster! Monster SPRINGS city attack! What to do, Deadpool?!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

BLACK PANTHER AND THE AGENTS OF WAKANDA #7

JIM ZUB • LAN MEDINA (A) • Cover by CARLOS PACHECO

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY IBAN COELLO

FIN FANG DOOM!

A trio of space dragons attacks Avengers Mountain, and now the Agents of Wakanda are all that stand between their epic reptile

rage and…FOOM?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

BLACK PANTHER #22

TA-NEHISI COATES • DANIEL ACUÑA (A/C)

Variant cover by Kaare Andrews

THE INTERGALACTIC EMPIRE OF WAKANDA – “WAKANDA UNBOUND” part 4 THE GOD KILLER AWAKES!

N’Jadaka’s vast army nears Wakanda Prime on Earth — and now even the gods are despair of their chances against him. But Bast will not abandon her avatar, the Black Panther…even if she has to recruit an outsider to save him. The Goddess makes an unexpected ally as the war grows desperate!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

GHOST RIDER #6

ED BRISSON • JUAN FRIGERI (A) • Cover by AARON KUDER

Spider-Woman Variant Cover by JUNGGEUN YOON

DESIGN VARIANT COVER BY AARON KUDER

VERSUS THE SORCEROR SUPREME!

As far as Johnny Blaze is concerned, there’s one man who had the power to pull him outta Hell, but that man chose not to lift so much as a finger for him, and that man’s name is Doctor Stephen Strange! So now Johnny’s got a can of whupass with ol’ Stevie’s name on it!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

DOCTOR DOOM #6

CHRISTOPHER CANTWELL • SALVADOR LARROCA (A/C)

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY MIKE MAYHEW

After uncovering the Symkarian plot against him, Doctor Doom seeks an “insurance policy” that will ensure his reign over Latveria forever. Before he returns to his homeland to wage a one-man war on those who usurped his throne, he embarks on a covert mission to find a secret and powerful device with an unlikely ally, Kang the Conqueror—all while being pursued by mercenaries hired to kill him on sight.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

JESSICA JONES: BLIND SPOT #5 & #6 (OF 6)

KELLY THOMPSON • ISSUE #5 – MATTIA DE IULIS (A)

ISSUE #6 – Marcio Takara (A)

Covers by VALERIO GIANGIORDANO

ISSUE #5 – VARIANT COVER BY MARTIN SIMMONDS

ISSUE #6 – VARIANT COVER BY MARTIN SIMMONDS

BLINDSPOT Part 5!

Jessica’s hunt for a deranged serial killer comes to an explosive and bizarre end.

BLINDSPOT Part 6!

In the aftermath of a brutal investigation, Jessica reunites with her family for a much-needed break. Since Jessica Jones and Luke Cage got married, there’s been nothing they couldn’t handle together. But that’s about to change…

32 PGS. (each)/Parental Advisory …$3.99 (each)

DAREDEVIL #19

CHIP ZDARSKY • MARCO CHECCHETTO (A) • Cover by JULIAN TOTINO TEDESCO

SPIDER-WOMAN VARIANT COVER BY MIKE DEL MUNDO

Hell’s Kitchen is hanging by a thread—and that thread is Daredevil! Owl makes his play while Mayor Fisk watches from the sidelines.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

RUNAWAYS #31

RAINBOW ROWELL

ANDRÉS GENOLET (A)

Cover by KRIS ANKA

CANON FODDER CONCLUDES!

The most battle-heavy issue of RUNAWAYS (and possibly ANY COMIC EVER) is here and you won’t believe your eyes. Doc Justice and the J-Team (i.e. the Runaways) has their most dangerous mission and it does not end well for anyone. The Runaways end this issue very very different from where they started it.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

MAGNIFICENT MS. MARVEL #13

SALADIN AHMED • MINKYU JUNG (A) Cover by EDUARD PETROVICH

This town ain’t big enough for the both of ‘em. Or is it? There’s a new hero in Jersey City! Introducing FADI FADLALAH, A.K.A. AMULET! What secrets is this gentle giant hiding? Is he friend or foe? And why’s he showing up now, just when Kamala got her life back on track? Read and find out, True Believer!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

STRIKEFORCE #7

TINI HOWARD • GERMÁN PERALTA (A) • COVER BY JUAN JOSÉ RYP

SHOWDOWN ON DEADPOOL’S MONSTER ISLAND!

There are still hundreds of shape-shifting Vridai sneaking their way through Midgard — and Strikeforce is the only team that can recognize them. But when Blade and his team go hunting on King Deadpool’s Monster Island, they’ll find the worst monsters of all may be the ones in the mirror!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

AERO #9

ZHOU LIEFEN & AMY CHU

KENG (A/C)

AERO SUITS UP FOR HER BIGGEST BATTLE YET!

AERO meets one of the Marvel Universe’s best and brightest when IRON MAN makes a surprise visit! But is he friend or foe? And the secret origin of the mysterious Madame Huang is finally revealed!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SWORD MASTER #9

SHUIZHU & AMY CHU

GUNJI (A/C)

FORGED IN STEEL!

SWORD MASTER has learned how to be a hero the hard way… He’s been haunted by the past and under attack in the present. But the introduction of two new players will change everything…

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

PUNISHER: SOVIET #5 & #6 (OF 6)

GARTH ENNIS • JACEN BURROWS (A) • Covers by PAOLO RIVERA

ISSUE #5 – VARIANT COVER BY TBA

ISSUE #6 – VARIANT COVER BY TBA

The soul-chilling end of PUNISHER: SOVIET is here. Frank and Val have fought side-by-side against not only a Russian mob but also against the tide of history and these issues will make you see The Punisher (and possibly the world) differently than you do now.

32 PGS. (EACH)/Explicit Content …$3.99 (EACH)

CONAN: BATTLE FOR THE SERPENT CROWN #2 (OF 5)

SALADIN AHMED • LUKE ROSS (A) • Cover by Mahmud Asrar

Variant Cover by BEN CALDWELL

VARIANT COVER BY John Tyler Christopher

THIEVES IN THE NIGHT!

CONAN has reached his treasure…only to find the BLACK CAT has beaten him to his prize! It’s a cat-eat-cat world as one thief has to outrace another on the trail of the mystical Atlantean artifact! Plus: MEPHISTO’S sinister scheme could spell dire consequences for both!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #14

JIM ZUB • ROGÊ ANTÔNIO (A) • Cover by E.M. GIST

Variant Cover by Tommy Lee Edwards

THE DEADLY TRAP IS SPRUNG AS “INTO THE CRUCIBLE” CONTINUES!

CONAN, equipped with only his strength and wits, must survive the deadly traps of the Great Crucible! With a cadre of contestants against him, and only a local boy named DELIAN to translate, can anyone or any THING be trusted?! Who is really playing who…?

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

DARK AGNES #2 (OF 5)

BECKY CLOONAN • LUCA PIZZARI (A) • Cover by STEPHANIE HANS

Variant Cover by JAY ANACLETO

MAYHEM, A MASKED BALL, AND MURDER MOST FOUL!

AGNES and ETIENNE enter the lair of the beast—sneaking into the palace of DUKE D’ALENCON, even as his agents hunt for them! But when a murder victim turns up in the court, will they escape notice or be drawn deeper into the labyrinth of disaster forming around them?

All this and the return of a ghost from Agnes’ past!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS #1

ETHAN SACKS • PAOLO VILLANELLI (A) • Cover by LEE BERMEJO

Variant Cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN

Variant Cover by Dave Johnson

Variant Cover by KAARE ANDREWS

Movie Variant Cover also available

Blank Variant Cover also available

VALANCE’S FIRST APPEARANCES, ALSO AVAILABLE…

NEVER BETRAY A BOUNTY HUNTER – ESPECIALLY IF IT’S BOBA FETT!

Years ago, VALANCE and fellow bounty hunters BOSSK and BOBA FETT took on a mission that went sideways in a bad way after Valance’s mentor, NAKANO LASH, violently betrayed them. Valance’s team barely escaped with their lives. He never thought he’d face his old mentor ever again…until Lash finally resurfaces under mysterious circumstances. Every bounty hunter in the galaxy wants a piece and Valance is hell-bent on getting to the prize first. He has score to settle—but so does Boba Fett! ETHAN SACKS (OLD MAN HAWKEYE and GALAXY’S EDGE) and PAOLO VILLANELLI (VADER: DARK VISIONS and JEDI FALLEN ORDER – DARK TEMPLE) are teaming up to bring you the bounty hunter adventure you’ve been waiting for this March!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS #2

ETHAN SACKS • PAOLO VILLANELLI (A) • Cover by LEE BERMEJO

VARIANT COVER BY PHIL NOTO

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSE

BOUNTY HUNTERS DRAW FIRST BLOOD!

Cyborg bounty hunter VALANCE will stop at nothing to find his old mentor, NAKANO LASH, after her stinging betrayal years earlier. But other bounty hunters have taken the job after a vicious crime lord put out the hit. Everyone’s got a reason to go after the traitorous Nautolan. BOSSK, BOBA FETT and a slew of new killers are hot on Lash’s trail. Can Valance get to her first? And what could have possibly made Lash break her word and betray her fellow hunters? The truth could shake the foundations of the criminal underworld in the galaxy!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS #4

CHARLES SOULE • JESUS SAIZ (A) • Cover by R.B. SILVA

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSE

VARIANT COVER BY DANIEL ACUñA

CATASTROPHE IN THE CLOUDS!

LUKE SKYWALKER, LANDO CALRISSIAN and LEIA ORGANA have returned to CLOUD CITY! They each left things on BESPIN they desperately need – a weapon, a friend, and crucial information. But the city is swarming with IMPERIALS, under occupation by an EMPIRE desperate to steal its resources. Things did not go well for the trio the last time they visited this place. This time… might be even worse.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS: DARTH VADER #2

GREG PAK • RAFFAELE IENCO (A) • Cover ByInhyuk Lee

VARIANT COVER BY RAFFAELE IENCO

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK VARIANT BY CHRIS SPROUSE

THE FACE OF THE QUEEN!

In the wake of the shocking revelations of The Empire Strikes Back, DARTH VADER continues his quest for revenge against everyone who hid his son Luke from him. But when his search takes him deep into his past, he uncovers a hauntingly familiar face that will challenge everything he knows.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF KYLO REN #4 (OF 4)

CHARLES SOULE • WILL SLINEY (A) • COVER BY E.M. GIST

Variant Cover by GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI

SINS OF THE SON

The Rise of KYLO REN concludes, as BEN SOLO, once the Jedi’s greatest hope, is swallowed by the Dark Side. It is his destiny – and if there was ever another path, SNOKE and the KNIGHTS OF REN made certain he could not see it. From Ben, to Ren… and now he is lost.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

March 2020 Marvel Comic Solicits STRANGE ACADEMY #1 SKOTTIE YOUNG • HUMBERTO RAMOS (A/C) CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT VARIANT COVER BY TBA…

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eddycurrents · 7 years

Photo

For the week of 11 September 2017

Just one favourite this week: Ninjak #0 by Matt Kindt and Francis Portela (with MJ Kim, Khari Evans, Roberto de la Torre, Sija Hong, and Juan José Ryp). Published by Valiant.

Ninjak #0 provides a capstone to Matt Kindt’s run with the character, giving both an encapsulation of Ninjak’s history to date and one final mission to propel the series further into a more in-depth exploration into the Ninja Programme and legacy, before handing the character off to Christos Gage and Tomás Giorello for their new Ninja-K series.

I very much like how Kindt plays with time in this story. After firing an arrow on the first page in the present, the book’s pages are bisected by that arrow’s path, with the top telling of the events immediately leading up to that first page--illustrated by Francis Portela--and the bottom offering snippet’s of Ninjak’s history--illustrated by MJ Kim, Khari Evans, Roberto de la Torre, Sija Hong, and Juan José Ryp. (You can see an example above). It’s an interesting and effective way of delivering a lot of simultaneous information and narrative at once and I was particularly impressed by everyone involved.

As time on the top converges with the arrow, the structure reverts to a standard one timeframe narrative as it leads into a teaser for the new Ninja-K series from Gage and Giorello.

Like with the previous recent zero issue offerings for Bloodshot Reborn and Divinity, this serves as an excellent primer for people interested in the character and in jumping into the Valiant Universe.

Quick Bits:

All New Wolverine #24 wraps up the “Hive” arc guest-starring the Guardians of the Galaxy and Leonard Kirk’s tenure as artist on the series. This arc was fun, with Tom Taylor delivering some very nice and heartfelt interactions between Laura and Gabby, as well as continuing to present some strong characterization with Rocket and Groot.

| Published by Marvel

Amazing Spider-Man #32 is a single issue story of Norman Osborn trying to reclaim his Green Goblin persona. It’s an interesting look into Osborn’s drive and potential, with some absolutely beautiful artwork form Greg Smallwood & Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Marvel

Birthright #26 provides a jumping on point as it begins a new story-arc. It’s fairly exposition heavy, but Joshua Williamson still makes it feel interesting, even to old readers since there’s a bit of a shift since the last issue. As always Andrei Bressan’s art is beautiful.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Deadpool #36 is a transitional issue from Deadpool working for “Stevil” Hydra Cap and the forthcoming Despicable Deadpool, closing out some old plot threads and sending off the remaining supporting characters, while setting up Wade’s new status quo of reluctantly working for Stryfe. As usual Gerry Duggan mixes in humour while ultimately making Deadpool a tragic figure.

| Published by Marvel

Doctor Strange & The Sorcerers Supreme #12 is a fitting send-off to a series that still feels gone to soon. From Javier Rodriguez to this issue’s Nathan Stockman, the series has been great artistically, and this issue’s sideways widescreen format is well appreciated. Robbie Thompson also brings it back full circle to how this excursion started in last year’s Doctor Strange Annual by closing on the “Not So” Ancient One’s journey.

| Published by Marvel

Grass Kings #7 is still an inscrutable beauty. Part crime drama, part mystery, part family drama, part treatise on loyalty and community in an extremely independent society, Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins have something special here. This issue adds another layer to the problems that they’ve been having with Cargill, while more explicitly breaking open the mystery of a potential serial killer and giving us some more details on what happened in Bruce’s past that led him to coming home to the Grass Kingdom.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Gwenpool, The Unbelievable #20 is going to mess with your head. In a good way.

| Published by Marvel

Hulk #10 brings Mariko Tamaki’s second story-arc to a conclusion. I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as I did the first, but there have still been some entertaining moments. The character interaction between Jen and Patsy being particularly strong.

Also, like the previous issue, the art shift part way through detracts. Both artists, Julian Lopez and Francesco Gaston, are good, but their styles kind of clash. Lopez uses a thick line and somewhat realistic style similar to Jesus Saiz, whereas Gaston has a thinner line and a bit more angular, stylized character composition--much like Georges Duarte, who started this arc.

| Published by Marvel

Kill or Be Killed #12 pushes Dylan further into darkness, even without his little demon friends whispering not-so-sweet nothings into his ears. As always, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are creating a compelling, nuanced story month in and month out. There’s also some good development in Dylan and Kira’s relationship, but, as per the original dissolution, I’m expecting the other shoe to drop sometime soon.

| Published by Image

Mech Cadet Yu #2 brings Yu and his adopted Robo back to the Sky Academy, where he’s officially accepted as one of the cadets. The story beats are pretty standard coming of age, living through adversity by being a fish out of water, ruffling the feathers of the establishment-type thing, but Greg Pak never allows it to feel old. Yu and his Robo are just too likeable characters to not enjoy seeing their advancement and acceptance. It also helps that Takeshi Miyazawa’s artwork is wonderful.

Despite not being published under one of their more all-ages imprints like Boom! Box or kaboom!, this series remains something that I think that kids would get a lot of enjoyment out of as well.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Old Man Logan #28 is a work of art. I don’t know who made a pact with the devil in order to consistently get this level of artwork out of Mike Deodato Jr., but whatever they did since at least the Jeff Lemire Thanos series, Deodato has been producing some of the most beautiful, thoughtful, and compelling work of his career. He’s been a great artist for more than twenty-five years in the industry, but his work lately has been absolutely next level. His shading, page layouts, character designs & staging, and panel transitions are practically a masterclass on the art form.

| Published by Marvel

Pestilence #4 unveils some secrets as we head towards the conclusion. This has been a fairly bloody and brutal tale of knights vs. zombies from Frank Tieri and Oleg Okenev and it’s not letting up. It delivers a nice satisfying crunch.

| Published by Aftershock

Redlands #2 jumps the series ahead to modern day, fleshing out the sisters’ characters and the world that they live in, having pretty much taken over Redlands, Florida following the bloodbath back in ‘77. We’re still left a lot of details out, but we’re given a better look at some of the things going on, as a game of murderous cat and mouse between the sisters and an unknown potential blackmailer unfolds. Jordie Bellaire and Vanessa Del Rey are creating something interesting here and I’m definitely hooked to see what happens next.

| Published by Image

Retcon #1 is...something, I’m not really sure what. Interesting, though, certainly, and something I’ll continue to read for a bit. Ostensibly this is about a team of supernatural beings working for the government, but the interview in the back and the title suggest something else. If anything, the artwork from Toby Cypress is worth the price of admission alone. Still not sure what to think of the story.

| Published by Image

Sacred Creatures #3 again challenges me to decide whether or not I like Pablo Raimondi’s mix of traditional comics art with photography. I’m leaning towards yes.

| Published by Image

Secret Warriors #6 kicks off a two-part arc with the members of the Warriors back on their own. The bulk of the issue is devoted to Daisy tracking down who murdered Coulson and it leads to some humorous exchanges. Who would have known that life model decoys are anatomically correct?

| Published by Marvel

Spy Seal #2 feels even more like a European funny animal book than the first issue. To me it feels like Rich Tommaso is doing a take on something like Tin Tin, but with an anthropomorphic seal, and it’s just wonderful.

| Published by Image

Transformers: Lost Light #9 gives a kind of closure, or at least a transition, to the Natuica/Velocity/Skids character and story arcs. It’s kind of bittersweet when you consider the implications and I expect that James Roberts will undoubtedly revisit this somewhere in the future. Also, the reveal of who the “Grand Architect” is at the end of this issue is pretty epic.

| Published by IDW

Uncanny Avengers #27 is a pretty straight-forward conclusion to the team’s confrontation with Graviton. It’s mostly action, but there are some character moments cementing that this team can still work together fairly effectively. The artwork from Sean Izaakse again is very nice.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Babyteeth #4, Black Science #31, Clue #4, Curse Words #8, The Damned: Ill-Gotten #4, Defenders #5, Dread Gods #2, First Strike #3, Genius: Cartel #2, Ghost Station Zero #2, Harrow County #25, Hellboy & BPRD - 1955: Occult Intelligence #1, InSEXts #13, Jane, Lumberjanes #42, Mage: The Hero Denied #2, The Realm #1, Riverdale #6, Rocket #5, Rose #6, Runaways #1, The Shadow #2, Shadows on the Grave #8, Slam!: Next Jam #1, The Sovereigns #5, The Spirit: The Corpse Makers #4, Star Wars #36, Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #12, TMNT Universe #14, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #24, Venomverse #2, War for the Planet of the Apes #3, Weapon X #8, Winnebago Graveyard #4, X-Men Blue #11

Recommended Collections: Britannia - Vol. 2: We Who Are About to Die, Elektra: Always Bet on Red, Kingpin: Born Against, Saucer Country, TMNT - Vol. 17: Desperate Measures

d. emerson eddy believes that uptown funk is going to give it to you. Don’t believe him? Just watch.

#This Week in Comics #Ninjak 0 #Matt Kindt #Francis Portela

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gokinjeespot · 6 years

Text

off the rack #1251

Monday, February 25, 2019

It was so windy last night that it blew over our amaryllis flower that was inside the house. That was the crash I heard overnight. Actually, this amaryllis bulb produced a mutant flower stem that was the tallest I've ever seen. We got two stalks, each almost 2 feet tall, topped by three huge red blooms each. I had rotated the pot regularly so that they wouldn't grow at an angle but there was enough of one to make them topple. I should have supported them sooner.

Black Widow #2 - Jen & Sylvia Soska (writers) Flaviano (art) Veronica Gandini (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I like this new Natalia who doesn't have to hold back like she has a license to kill now. Her mission to shut down a torture porn site based in Madripoor is a good story but a couple of things bothered me about this issue. Clayton Crain's cover is very nice but you couldn't tell that one of the women was the Black Widow in disguise compared to what's shown inside. I thought the veil Nat wears was dumb and the next issue teaser spoiled the last panel. A better match on the hair colour would have fixed the cover problem and a different image for issue #3 in the next issue ad page would have been nice.

Catwoman #8 - Joelle Jones (writer) Elena Casagrande & Fernando Blanco (art) John Kalisz (colours) Josh Reed (letters). Something Smells Fishy part 2. We find out what the Penguin wants Selina to do and she goes and does it. This story isn't too complicated and I expected better. I didn't like the facial expressions that the artists used when Selina was puling off the heist. I thought that it was an amateur imposter trying to steal the artefact. Catwoman should never look like she's afraid. I hope the next issue is better.

The Unstoppable Wasp #5 - Jeremy Whitley (writer) Gurihiru (art) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This is a wonderful issue dealing with mental health. Nadia needs help but will she reach out before it's too late? Read this great issue to find out.

Stronghold #1 - Phil Hester (writer) Ryan Kelly (art) Dee Cunniffe (colours) Simon Bowland (letters). Meet Michael, just a cog in the wheel of life. Or is he? The Stronghold is a sort of cult and their mission is to protect Michael from the Adversary. The mystery of what Michael really is and what happens if he is awakened is more than enough to make you want to keep reading. This is a good comic book about people with super powers without the spandex posturing.

Auntie Agatha's Home for Wayward Rabbits #2 to #4 - Keith Giffen (writer) Benjamin Roman (art). I fell in love with the art and the quirky characters after reading the first issue and I want to thank my Jee-Riz partner Chris for lending me his copies to read so that I can finish this story. There aren't many funny animal comic books on the racks other than the Disney stuff so this one is a rare gem. It's a great David versus Goliath story.

Hulkverines #1 - Greg Pak (writer) Ario Anindito (art) Morry Hollowell with Andrew Crossley (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). It's good to see Weapon H back on the racks and a classic Hulk villain being their evil self. This new book is blatantly targeted at die hard old Marvel Zombies like me but it's well written and well drawn. Read the title page to catch up with what's going on in Clay Cortez's life and then jump right in to watch as Hulkverine and the Hulk duke it out in a battle to the death. The last page surprise made me pine for the next issue.

Naomi #2 - Brian Michael Bendis & David F. Walker (writers) Jamal Campbell (art) Carlos M. Mangual (letters). I like how the mystery of Naomi's true self is progressing naturally. There aren't any leaps and cuts in the origin story that I find annoying. Please give this book about an adopted daughter looking for answers a try. You won't be disappointed.

Sharkey #1 - Mark Millar (writer) Simone Bianchi (art & colours) Peter Doherty (letters). I can't pass up a comic book with those names in the credits. This sci-fi series is about an interstellar bounty hunter. The art is out of this world. Sharkey is going after a huge bounty but the competition is fierce. It's going to be fun to see who wins.

Love Romances #1 - This $3.99 US anthology of "love stories that can only be told in a comic book" should have hit the racks February 13 in time for Valentine's Day but it's still worth reading. All stories were lettered by VC's Travis Lanham.

"The Widow and the Clockwork Heart" by Gail Simone (writer), Roge Antonio (art) & Jim Charalampidis (colours) takes place in a Steampunk future where robots mend broken hearts.

"Heartbroken from Beyond" by Margaux Motin & Pacco Dorwling-Carter (story & art) & Lee Loughridge (colours) is a haunting ghost story of love and loss.

"French Quartered" by Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum (writer), Annapaolo Martello (art) & Jim Charalampidis (colours) is about an overprotective father in old New Orleans.

"Gone Like the Wind" by Jon Adams (story & art) & Tamra Bonvillain (colours) is a love lost and found story.

Each story has a clever twist that makes them special. Give this to your sweetie as a belated gift.

Guardians of the Galaxy #2 - Donny Cates (writer) Geoff Shaw (art) Marte Gracia (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). The Final Gauntlet part 2. Team books can be unwieldy but this isn't a real team book anymore. There are many factions trying to either stop or facilitate the resurrection of Thanos. This involves either killing or saving Gamora. There are many good guys and bad guys to keep track of but Donny and Geoff do a great job of keeping everybody straight. I'm happy to put this book back on my "must read" list.

Batman #65 - Joshua Williamson (writer) Guillem March (art) Tomeu Morey (colours) Steve Wands (letters). The Price part 3 of 4. This story is all about Gotham Girl wanting to resurrect her dead brother. I didn't read part 2 in the Flash and didn't feel like I missed anything. I don't care what happens to Claire Clover/Gotham Girl so I'm not going to read part 4 either. I'm sure some of the buying public doesn't like being coerced into picking up a couple of extra comic books off the racks that they don't normally read to get the full story. DC should have spun this story off of the Heroes in Crisis books instead of interrupting the Tom King story. I can't wait to get back to that.

Wolverine: Infinity Watch #1 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Andy MacDonald (art) Jordie Bellaire (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). These new Infinity Stone stories hurt my head. I read the first one where Thanos got them all with the Gauntlet and the Avengers stopped him from killing everything but after that, every time these gems showed up things got more confusing. Now the stones all have souls thanks to Adam Warlock and they are inside humans. The Time Stone is still on Earth and that's not good. A big bad alien named Warbringer has landed and wants the stone for himself. Cue Logan's involvement. He's supposed to protect the hapless human. The appearance of Loki and Phoenix Force Wolverine was fun and since Logan was dead during the Infinity Wars, this will be a way for him to get caught up with Marvel continuity. If you're a fan of Wolverine being the best at what he does then you'll want to get in on this 5-issue mini.

Doctor Strange #11 - Mark Waid (writer) Jesus Saiz with Javier Pina (art) Jesus Saiz & Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). The Dread Dormammu, what a doofus. Stephen defeats the demon again and all is well. The Doc had a little help from his friends with one friend returning as a big surprise. I'm looking forward to the bad guy on deck in the next issue. He's big, he's red and he's hungry.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3 - Tom Taylor (writer) Juann Cabal (art) Nolan Woodard (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Mother of Exiles part 3. Wow, talk about an underground society. Welcome to Under York, miles below New York City. Spider-Man and the Rumor mount a rescue mission which is sort of successful. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Avengers #15/LGY #705 - Jason Aaron (writer) David Marquez (art) Erick Arciniega (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). The team is caught in the middle of a Vampire Civil War and one of their own has been forced to switch sides. Can the Ghost Rider break his evil bondage? I'm guessing yes. I loved the devil dog riding in the ghost car with its head out the window. It's artistic touches like that that adds enjoyment to reading a comic book.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man #3 - Saladin Ahmed (writer) Javier Garron (art) David Curiel (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). The team-up with the Rhino and Captain America ends with fighting a new super villain. Snatcher is a lame super villain name but the good guys still have a tough time taking him down. There sure were a lot of expletives deleted in this issue.

Avengers LGY #709: No Road Home #2 - Al Ewing, Jim Zub & Mark Waid (writers) Paco Medina (pencils) Juan Vlasco (inks) Jesus Aburtov (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). It's the big fight issue with Voyager and her team trying to beat Nyx, goddess of darkness. She just killed all the gods of Olympus so good luck with that. Fortunately for the good guys, Nyx reveals her plans, which saves the heroes from certain death. This issue has a running narration by Hawkeye and it takes a surprising turn in the last few pages. This twist makes me glad that the next issue hits the racks in a week.

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eddycurrents · 6 years

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For the week of 11 June 2018

Quick Bits:

30 Days of Night #6 concludes this retelling of the original 30 Days of Night story. The art from Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson has been great, but as the series has progressed, I’ve increasingly been wondering what’s the point? While there have been minor differences, this essentially amounts to the same story extended out further. Personally, the decompression doesn’t add a lot for me.

| Published by IDW

A Walk Through Hell #2 continues this weird and creepy horror story, with Garth Ennis, Goran Sudžuka, and Ive Svorcina giving us an ever present sense of dread with this story. It’s heavy. It’s dark. Ennis is dealing with some dark and depressing subject matter through politics, homophobia, and child sex trafficking and that’s just the backstory in the flashbacks. In the present, we get more terror and the appearance of one of Ennis’ favourite recurring story items. Also, the art is gorgeous.

| Published by AfterShock

Analog #3 takes a bit of a detour following up on Oona’s night out and the ramifications of it. I really like how Gerry Duggan and David O’Sullivan are teasing out this story, giving us glimpses into Jack’s character and supporting cast, making us really care about them and their predicaments, even while his job and being snatched by the government continue to simmer.

| Published by Image

Animosity: Evolution #6 begins the next stage in this story, as Adam continues to search down what exactly happened in the death of most of the lex animata. I love the mix of politics and thriller that Marguerite Bennett is throwing at us with this series.

| Published by AfterShock

Astonisher #8 kicks things into high gear as we approach the end of this arc. We get some impressive action sequences from Al Barrionuevo in the second half of this book, as Magnus begins to enact his plan to stop his brother’s nefarious plans and save his girlfriend from the clutches of Dr. Saperstein.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime

Babyteeth #11 nicely plays with conventions as Sadie trains to enter the hell dimension of the Red Realm to rescue Clark. In a typical action/horror story the hero trains and finds herself ridiculously good at everything, Donny Cates doesn’t play it like that. It’s kind of hilarious. Also, Gerry Brown shows off some impressive hellscapes as we get a little more information on the Red Realm.

| Published by AfterShock

The Ballad of Sang #4 takes an interesting turn as we focus on the Dandies capture of Sang and Lucy trying to talk some sense into the Black-Eyed Betties. This series has been over-the-top violence and fun, this issue is no different.

| Published by Oni Press

Betrothed #4 sees the crap hit the proverbial fan as the betrayal of Kieron and Tamara lies out in the open and everything goes to hell pretty fast. The action from Steve Uy is particularly nice.

| Published by AfterShock

Bloodshot Salvation #10 takes us almost in sync to when the series began, giving us a look at why Magic and Jessie were on the run, and what Ray was doing in 4002. It’s interesting how Jeff Lemire has been using time in this series.

| Published by Valiant

Bloodstrike #0 is an oddity, beginning the “Brutalists” arc that runs through this issue and then the two missing issue numbers from the original ‘90s series, #23 & #24. I’m not exactly the target market for this, as I have no real affinity towards Bloodstrike, but this is still interesting. Michael Fiffe is presenting a kind of origin story here, so you needn’t worry about having read any Bloodstrike before, but what makes it stand out is Fiffe’s approach to the artwork and storytelling. It looks and feels like an indie book out of the ‘80s, the offbeat and highly violent stuff that was out there and it has a nice appeal about it.

| Published by Image

By Night #1 is a fun debut issue, featuring all of the charm and humour that John Allison brings to Giant Days, plus some great art from Christine Larsen and Sarah Stern.

| Published by Boom Entertainment / BOOM! Box

Coda #2 is every bit as good as the first issue, possibly even better, as Hum finds himself the prisoner of an old wizard with dementia and his doting daughter. I loved Matías Bergara’s art in Cannibal, but the art here, with Michael Doig, is incredible. Bergara makes it look like he was born to draw this kind of weird fantasy.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

The Damned #10 begins “Daughter’s Danse”, with Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt kicking off Maura’s scheming. It adds another wrinkle to the already complex mess of the series’ crime drama.

| Published by Oni Press

The Dead Hand #3 keeps this thriller chugging along, with a new obstacle in an obstinate MI-6 agent trying to find his missing friend. The missing friend who, last issue, was murdered after stumbling upon the series’ mysterious test city in Russia. Some particularly nice action sequences from Stephen Mooney and Jordie Bellaire this issue, great layouts and use of colour washes.

| Published by Image

Deadpool: Assassin #1 reunites Cullen Bunn with another Deadpool mini-series, this time with some impressive art from Mark Bagley, John Dell, and Edgar Delgado in tow. Bunn writes some good Deadpool.

| Published by Marvel

Death of Love #5 ends this series in an unexpected way. Sure, some people are likely to be angry about it, but when you think about it, and read Justin Jordan’s missive in the backmatter, it makes sense. Dudebro Eros is also pretty funny. Good art from Donal DeLay and Omar Estévez.

| Published by Image

Dejah Thoris #5 is a bittersweet end to this first arc, with Dejah finding Ephysium and the source of the waters of Mars. Amy Chu and Pasquale Qualano are largely playing this as straight-forward adventures and it certainly works as that.

| Published by Dynamite

Domino #3 begins to give us some flashbacks to Neena’s childhood. I’m somewhat reticent when characters who bank on a mysterious past start to have their backstories filled in, but I trust what Gail Simone is doing here.

| Published by Marvel

Dry County #4 goes into the expected territory of an amateur detective’s professional (and personal) life suffering due to obsession with a case. Despite being expected, it’s still highly entertaining.

| Published by Image

Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda #2 continues this bunch of New Avengers members search for Wolverine. It’s still one of the groups investigating that makes the most amount of sense, and the picture of what’s going on here comes even more into focus with a couple of other character reveals. Good stuff from Tom Taylor, RB Silva, Adriano di Benedetto, and Guru-eFX.

| Published by Marvel

Kick-Ass #5 shows again how easy it is to get in over your head when doing the wrong thing and addicted to the cheap, “easy” fix. Then everything goes to hell. Definitely like what Mark Millar, John Romita, Jr., and Peter Steigerwald have been doing with this story.

| Published by Image

The Magic Order #1 is an interesting start to this first series borne of Millarworld’s sale to Netflix. The art from Olivier Coipel and Dave Stewart is suitably gorgeous, with some really nice designs for the villain and one of the tricks to take the family off the board.

| Published by Image

Marvel Two-in-One Annual #1 is possibly one of the best things that Chip Zdarsky has written. This is an excellent character study in Doom, wrapped in revelations of bits of Victor’s past, the end to Secret Wars, and more. All with gorgeous art from Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Marvel

Nancy Drew #1 is a great first issue, presenting the kind of fun and exciting, beautifully illustrated mystery adventure that I’m used to seeing mostly from Boom these days. Kelly Thompson, Jenn St.-Onge, and Triona Farrell pack a lot into the initial salvo, giving us a conclusion to a goat-napping adventure, before propelling us into a personal crisis for Nancy Drew, while delivering a fairly large supporting cast. It’s fun and the art is wonderful.

| Published by Dynamite

New Mutants: Dead Souls #4 has the X-Men of all sorts coming together for Rictor’s funeral. Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Gorham put Magik through the wringer as she tries to deal with the loss and the burdens of leadership. Then the other shoe drops.

| Published by Marvel

Oblivion Song #4 has a lot of quiet moments, allowing for Lorenzo de Felici and Annalisa Leoni to really show off their chops.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Old Man Logan #41 begins another two-parter. I like how Ed Brisson is structuring these arcs, contributing pieces to the larger whole of the elder Logan’s story of his diminished healing factor, while telling discrete, entertaining stories in their own right. Also, some really nice art here from Francesco Manna and Carlos Lopez.

| Published by Marvel

Port of Earth #6 foreshadows something horrible happening at the port, as the introductory interview starts diving further into potential problems with one of the agents, looking for what looks like a target for blame. I like how Zack Kaplan is setting this up, even if the story does move relatively slowly in execution.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Proxima Centauri #1 is some very weird sci-fi. It’s being done by Farel Dalrymple, so it should come as no surprise that there are odd visuals, strange characters, and bizarre occurrences, just as it’s rather entertaining and beautiful to look at.

| Published by Image

The Punisher #226 pivots Frank’s direction a bit to attacking Hydra. Matthew Rosenberg is layering a lot of humour into the script and it’s working very well.

| Published by Marvel

Quicksilver: No Surrender #2 continues what is an excellent character study of Quicksilver. I would argue that Pietro’s characterization of himself is a little too favourable, but don’t we always cast ourselves in a better light than we often are? Great work from Saladin Ahmed, Eric Nguyen, Rico Renzi, and Chris Brunner.

| Published by Marvel

Stellar #1 sees the return of another creation from Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri’s turn at Top Cow’s Pilot Season back in 2009/2010 after Demonic in 2016. You don’t need to have read the original one-shot to follow this. Joe Keatinge and Bret Blevins handle the creative and this is, well...stellar. Blevins’ artwork is amazing, with some truly breathtaking sci-fi imagery. This is a damn fine looking comic. The story of a reticent soldier trying to make amends for her horrible past is a common one, but it’s entertaining. Especially when you add the mix of possible unreliable memory and fuzzy reality. This looks like another winner for Skybound.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Thor #1 begins the third act in Jason Aaron’s epic run, turning towards the War of the Realms and the previously Unworthy Thor reclaiming his name and mantle. The various Thor series have been blessed with god-tier artists from Esad Ribić through Russell Dauterman, and this book continues that traditional with Mike del Mundo handling the main story and Christian Ward the back-up. Even if the story wasn’t exciting, with an added amount of humour that’s been missing for a bit as the last volume took a serious turn, the art alone would be worth the price of admission.

| Published by Marvel

Tomb Raider: Inferno #1 follows on from the story in the Survivor’s Crusade mini, with Lara travelling to Antarctica to discover the secret that Trinity is willing to kill to protect there. It’s nice to see Phillip Sevy doing more Tomb Raider artwork. If you like the games since the 2013 reboot, I largely consider these comics a must.

| Published by Dark Horse

Transformers: Lost Light #18 continues this arc that, like its counterpart in Optimus Prime, is bringing all the chickens home to roost.

| Published by IDW

Venom #2 is just as excellent as the first issue, with Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, and Frank Martin building upon Eddie Brock’s legacy and adding new lore to the history of the symbiotes. Stegman is probably doing the best art of his career here, this book looks incredible.

| Published by Marvel

The Weatherman #1 is an interesting debut, bringing to mind to me some of the weird, offbeat, and humorous sci-fi like The Fifth Element. Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox start this series off straight enough, with a future Mars mourning the loss of Earth, seemingly transfixed only by the “extreme” antics of the titular weatherman. It’s a weird premise, sure, but it’s entertaining, and gets even more so when the other shoe drops. Some really great art from Fox and Dave Stewart.

| Published by Image

Witchblade #6 sees Alex assemble her Scooby Gang to help investigate the kidnapping of her guardian demon, Asher. Caitlin Kittredge is doing a great job of building up the supporting cast, as well as giving us glimpses into Alex’s past. This continues to be one of Top Cow’s best looking books, with phenomenal art from Roberta Ingranata and Bryan Valenza.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Xena: Warrior Princess #5 brings the first arc of this series to a conclusion. The art from Vicente Cifuentes and Triona Farrell has been a real high point for the book and this issue is no different.

| Published by Dynamite

X-Men Blue #29 jumps ahead a bit, taking us past the original five’s return to Earth and the events of Venomized, to spotlight a transformed Jimmy Hudson on the run from the team. It’s a good follow-up to the Venom event so far with some very nice art from Nathan Stockman and Matt Milla.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Accell #11, Betty & Veronica: Vixens #7, Copperhead #19, DuckTales #9, Exiles #4, The Fix #12, Invader Zim #31, Kaijumax: Season 4 #1, Mage: The Hero Denied #9, Marvel Rising: Alpha #1, Mech Cadet Yu #9, Monstress #17, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #305, Resident Alien: An Alien in New York #3, Rose #12, SHIELD #6, Spider-Man vs. Deadpool #34, Star Wars: Darth Vader #17, Star Wars: Thrawn #5, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #33, World of Tanks: Citadel #2

Recommended Collections: Babyteeth - Volume 2, The Beauty - Volume 4, Dakota North: Design for Dying, Defenders - Volume 2: Kingpins of New York, Invincible Iron Man - Volume 2: Choices, Rumble - Volume 4: Soul Without Pity, Slots - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy thinks it’s probably a bad idea to eat deep fried mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce at one in the morning, but is doing it anyway. Clearly, he’s a demented rebel just asking for a heart attack.

#This Week in Comics

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aion-rsa · 8 years

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Marvel Comics Solicitations for June 2017

Marvel Comics has provided CBR with covers and solicit information for product shipping June 2017. Discuss these solicitations here on CBR’s Marvel Comics forum, Spider-Man forum, or X-Books forum and share with fellow fans what titles spark your interest.

Marvel Solicitations – Last Six Months

Product shipping May 2017

Product shipping April 2017

Product shipping March 2017

Product shipping February 2017

Product shipping January 2017

Product shipping December 2016

SECRET EMPIRE #4 (of 9)

NICK SPENCER (W) • LEINIL FRANCIS YU (A)

Cover by MARK BROOKS

Variant Cover by J. SCOTT CAMPBELL

Hydra Hero Variant Cover by ANDREA SORRENTINO

VILLAIN VARIANT COVER BY DAN MORA

VARIANT COVER BY LEINIL YU

Action Figure Variant Cover by JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

There is a power that can either save the world or doom it! Both Steve Rogers and the heroes arrayed against him need this power! But unfortunately for all of them, the key to possessing this power lies in the hands of the unstoppable Ultron! LIVE IN X-CITING TIMES! SECRET EMPIRE!

40 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SECRET EMPIRE #5 (of 9)

NICK SPENCER (W) • LEINIL FRANCIS YU (A)

Cover by MARK BROOKS

Variant Cover by J. SCOTT CAMPBELL

Hydra Hero Variant Cover by ANDREA SORRENTINO

VILLAIN VARIANT COVER BY DAN MORA

VARIANT COVER BY LEINIL YU

Action Figure Variant Cover by JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

They thought they were safe! They thought they could handle anything that was thrown against them! But the united heroes of the Marvel Universe never reckoned on the dread power that Steve Rogers would unleash! THE SECRET EMPIRE WILL AMAZE YOU!

40 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SECRET EMPIRE: BRAVE NEW WORLD #1 (of 5)

Paul Allor, Jeremy Whitley, Nick Kocher (W) • BRIAN LEVEL, DIEGO OLORTEGUI, WILL ROBSON (A)

COVER BY PAULO SIQUEIRA

Variant cover by CHRIS SAMNEE

TEASER VARIANT COVER BY JOHN CASSADAY

Steve Rogers, Captain America, Liberty’s most dedicated defender is actually the Supreme Leader of Hydra. Faced with this adversity, the world’s heroes have two choices: stand and fight or fall in line. See how Earth’s protectors come to grips this earth-shattering revelation in an action packed first issue featuring Gwenpool, Giant-Man and Steve’s oldest allies, THE INVADERS!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SECRET EMPIRE: BRAVE NEW WORLD #2 (of 5)

Paul Allor, Fabian Nicieza, Rodney Barnes (W) • Brian Level, Tana Ford & Juan M. Frigeri (A)

Cover by PAULO SIQUEIRA

DEBUT OF THE ALL-NEW PATRIOT! Living in the Hydra Nation doesn’t have to be all bad, especially if you can get with the program. But even in times of peace, some folks help but fight for what’s right. Featuring The Invaders, Hydra Bob and introducing the all-new Patriot!!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SECRET EMPIRE: UNITED #1

JIM ZUB (W) • Ario Anindito (A)

Cover by RYAN STEGMAN

VARIANT COVER BY Rafael Albuquerque

Steve Rogers has finally brought peace to the planet, securing the borders of the land that he loves against any and all threats. And his peace will be maintained—by any means necessary. So when skirmishes break out on the outskirts of mutant-controlled territory, Hydra’s supreme leader takes matters into his own hands…

40 PGS./ONE-SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99

SECRET EMPIRE: UPRISING #1

DEREK LANDY (W) • J. CASSARA (A)

Cover by MEGHAN HETRICK

VARIANT COVER BY Rafael Albuquerque

A crucial SECRET EMPIRE tie-in that bridges issues #3 and #4! There’s a new order to things in the world, but it’s not one that everybody agrees with! So what is there left to do about it? The Black Widow has a dangerous plan—but to carry it out, she’ll need the help of the young heroes of the Marvel Universe—and it may require them to cross a line they never thought they would! THE SECRET EMPIRE WILL CHAMPION YOU!

40 PGS./ONE-SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99 • ON SALE MAY

SECRET EMPIRE: UNDERGROUND #1

JEREMY WHITLEY (W) • ERIC KODA (A)

Cover by RB SILVA

VARIANT COVER BY Rafael Albuquerque

From a hidden base in the Rocky Mountains a coallition of heroes have staged a resistance against Hydra and their former friend, Steve Rogers. Up until now, their successes have been few—but they may have discovered a way to end the long natinoal nightmare. The only catch? They’ve got to brave the dangers of the Savage Land!

40 PGS./ONE-SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99

U.S.AVENGERS #7

AL EWING (W) • PACO MEDINA (A/C)

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! The U.S.Avengers have been broken — but now it’s time to fight back! In exile…believed dead…surrounded by HYDRA forces… Squirrel Girl and Enigma get a much-needed assist…from Guillotine and the Champions of Europe!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

UNCANNY AVENGERS #24

JIM ZUB (W) • KIM JACINTO (A)

Cover by R.B. SILVA

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! Tricked by Hydra, trapped in a prison they never anticipated, the Uncanny Avengers have a cunning escape plan…but it might just make things even worse!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SECRET WARRIORS #3

MATTHEW ROSENBERG (W) • JAVIER GARRON (A)

Cover by TRADD MOORE & MATTHEW WILSON

VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SAMNEE & MATTHEW WILSON

MARY JANE VARIANT COVER BY JAVIER RODRIGUEZ

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! The team’s quest to unite the Inhumans will bring them into the land of the only people who truly understand the dangers they face: The X-Men! But, uh, it does NOT go well…Quake’s leadership forces Ms. Marvel to make some tough choices about what she is willing to do to win this war. And all of this leads to a shocking showdown with [REDACTED]!!!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

THE MIGHTY CAPTAIN MARVEL #6

MARGARET STOHL (W) • MICHELE BANDINI (A)

Cover by ELIZABETH TORQUE

Mary Jane Variant Cover by Chris Samnee

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! Captain Marvel and her crew are up against the ropes as the full force of the Chitauri fleet bears down on Alpha Flight Space Station. Can Carol find a way to inspire her ranks — including the battalion of young cadets — to rise to the challenge of protecting the planet?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

OCCUPY AVENGERS #8

DAVID F. WALKER (W) • GABRIEL HERNANDEZ WALTA (A/C)

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! With Hawkeye pulled into the fray of SECRET EMPIRE, the rest of the team finds themselves without a leader on their most important mission to date, forcing Tilda to take charge. But honestly, was Clint that much of a leader? And with new members joining the fight, the team is poised to save the country, or die trying.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

DOCTOR STRANGE #22

DENNIS HOPELESS (W) • NIKO HENRICHON (A)

Cover by CHRIS BACHALO

Variant Cover by NIKO HENRICHON

Mary Jane variant by Francisco Herrera & Fernanda Rizo

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! With the incredible current events in NYC, Strange must ally himself with some unsavory people. No, Spider-Woman isn’t unsavory, though the Doctor is allying with her. It’s Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. the Kingpin. That’s who we’re talking about.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

CAPTAIN AMERICA: SAM WILSON #23

NICK SPENCER (W) • JOE BENNETT (A)

Cover by ELIZABETH TORQUE

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! Drawn back into the fight, Sam Wilson battles to restore sense to a world in chaos! But for Hydra, there isn’t a need for two Captain Americas!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

CAPTAIN AMERICA: STEVE ROGERS #18

NICK SPENCER (W) • JAVIER PINA (A)

Cover by ELIZABETH TORQUE

MARY JANE VARIANT COVER BY PAOLO RIVERA

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! As Steve Rogers enacts his grand vision for a new Hydra world order, he is forced to confront an old friend. But will Namor, the Sub-Mariner, prove to be ally or deadly enemy?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #29

DAN SLOTT (W) • STUART IMMONEN (A)

Cover by ALEX ROSS

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! As revealed in ASM #25, Otto Octavius is back as THE SUPERIOR OCTOPUS!!! And Ock has a mission to take down the company that he helped create: PARKER INDUSTRIES!!! Does Spider-Man stand a chance?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

ALL-NEW GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY ANNUAL #1

CHAD BOWERS & CHRIS SIMS (W) • DANILO BEYRUTH (A)

Cover by DAVID NAKAYAMA

Variant Cover by DAN MORA

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! The Chitauri invasion has arrived, and Captain Marvel and Earth’s heroes are outnumbered. Now it’s up to the Guardians of the Galaxy to find reinforcements! There may be a weapon that could turn the tide of the battle, but in order to obtain it, the Guardians will have to rely on the help of the last alien Star-Lord ever wanted to see again…Yondu Udonta!

40 PGS./ONE-SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99

DEADPOOL #32

GERRY DUGGAN (W) • MATTEO LOLLI (A)

Cover by DAVID LOPEZ

Secret Comics Variant Cover by SCOTT KOBLISH

Mary Jane Variant Cover by ELIZABETH TORQUE

SECRET EMPIRE TIE-IN! Who’s the guy in Hydra green the chicks all call a sex machine? DEADPOOL! You’re darned right. You know…I am starting to think he might be on the wrong side here.

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

EDGE OF VENOMVERSE #1 (of 5)

MATTHEW ROSENBERG (W) • ROLAND BOSCHI (A)

Cover by FRANCESCO MATTINA

Variant Cover by RON LIM

TEASER VARIANT COVER BY FRANCESCO MATTINA

EDGE of VENOM-VERSE starts here! The series that sets up the epic VENOM EVENT of 2017 STARTS HERE! Each issue introduces another major Venomized character that will feed into VENOMVERSE itself! THIS ISSUE, the young mutant clone designated X-23 collides with a cryogenic tube containing a strange alien symbiote during her frenzied escape from The Facility, . Bonding with the alien enhances her already considerable abilities, and aids in her escape, but it begins to alter her mind! On the run from the very people that made her, can X-23 hold it together or is she doomed to give in to Venom!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #1

CHIP ZDARSKY (W) • ADAM KUBERT (A/C)

Variant Cover by TBA

Remastered Variant Cover by TBA

YEAR OF THE ROOSTER VARIANT COVER BY ZHANG WANG

Hip-Hop Variant Cover by SAM SPRATT

Action Figure Variant Cover by JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

Blank and Movie Variant Covers also available

SPIDER-MAN RETURNS TO THE FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD! The webslinging, wallcrawling wonder returns to New York City in the all-new PETER PARKER: THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN. A companion series to the best-selling Amazing Spider-Man series, Peter Parker is going back-to-basics for big heroics in the Big Apple. Featuring adversaries old and new, be there as Spider-Man returns to his friendly neighborhood for his never ending battle against crime and the dreaed “Parker Luck”.

40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99

DEFENDERS #1

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • DAVID MARQUEZ (A/C)

Variant Cover by NEAL ADAMS

Variant Cover by DAVID MACK

Variant Cover by RON LIM

Young Variant Cover by SKOTTIE YOUNG

Kirby 100th Anniversary Variant Cover by JACK KIRBY

Hip-Hop Variant Cover by TBA

Blank Variant Cover also available

Daredevil! Luke Cage! Jessica Jones! Iron Fist! Individually, these four heroes have been on the front lines of the battle to keep the streets of the city safe and secure! But now, with a deadly enemy from the dim past making a major move to unite the underworld, they will need to become more — they will need to become DEFENDERS! Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez unite to bring you the next great super-team, in the tradition of NEW AVENGERS!

40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

ICEMAN #1

SINA GRACE (W) • ALESSANDRO VITTI (A)

Cover by KEVIN WADA

VARIANT COVER BY DAMION SCOTT

Young Variant Cover by SKOTTIE YOUNG

Corner Box Variant Cover by LEONARD KIRK

Hip-Hop Variant Cover by SKAN

Bobby Drake has been in the super hero game longer than most. But while reflecting on what he’s accomplished over the years, he realizes that the legacy he’s built is a few good one-liners and a string of failed relationships. Not only that, but now a younger version of himself has emerged from the timestream and he’s more put together than Bobby ever was: already a world-class hero in his own right, but also totally comfortable in his own skin, complete with a relationship with a handsome Inhuman to boot. In this new ongoing series penned by Sina Grace (Burn the Orphanage, Self-Obsessed) and drawn by Alessandro Vitti (SECRET WARRIORS), Bobby realizes that the time is never or now, and sets out to build a life and legacy he can be proud of…and be the best ICEMAN he can be!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ICEMAN #2

SINA GRACE (W) • ALESSANDRO VITTI (A)

Cover by KEVIN WADA

VARIANT COVER BY TANA FORD

When a newly manifested mutant signals the X-Men for help, Iceman teams up with Kitty Pryde to stage a rescue mission! And surely nothing can go wrong when you ask your former girlfriend for advice on meeting guys while you’re in the middle of a firefight, right?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ZOMBIES ASSEMBLE #3 (of 4)

YUSAKU KOMIYAMA (W) • Adapted by JIM ZUB • YUSAKU KOMIYAMA (A)

COVER BY KIICHI MIZUSHIMA

VARIANT COVER BY GREG LAND

The outbreak is spreading, and two of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have been infected! Captain America, Hawkeye and Iron Man venture out into the zombie-filled streets to stem the tide, while Bruce Banner and Dr. Amano race to find a cure — and one of them will make a shocking sacrifice to test its effectiveness! Will another Avenger succumb to the virus? Where did the outbreak originate? The thrills continue as the original manga is adapted into English for the first time!

40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

AVENGERS #8

MARK WAID & JEREMY WHITLEY (W) • PHIL NOTO (A)

Cover by ALEX ROSS

Mary Jane Variant Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED

Once and for all, the Avengers have to decide whether the Infamous Iron Man is friend or foe! It’s hard to trust an “ally” you’ve been fighting against for years — but the Avengers will have to!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

INFAMOUS IRON MAN #9

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • ALEX MALEEV (A/C)

As the impossible task of redeeming himself to the universe begins to overwhelm him, the truth about Doom’s reincarnated mother is revealed!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #8

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • STEFANO CASELLI (A/C)

Mary Jane Variant Cover by MARCO CHECCHETTO

Riri Williams strikes out on her own as her idealism is pushed to the test by a world she does not understand yet. How far is Riri willing to go to do what she knows is right?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

MIGHTY THOR #20

JASON AARON (W) • RUSSELL DAUTERMAN & VALERIO SCHITI (A)

Cover by RUSSELL DAUTERMAN

Mary Jane Variant Cover by Patrick Brown

THE SAGA OF THE ALL-NEW ULTIMATE THOR STARTS HERE! The Ultimate Thor died defending the Multiverse, but his hammer remains. Who will hold the hammer now? War is coming to the Ten Realms. Can the new Ultimate Thor keep back the bloody tide?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

HULK #7

MARIKO TAMAKI (W) • GEORGES DUARTE (A)

Cover by JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

MARY JANE VARIANT BY RAHZZAH

LET THEM EAT CAKE! JENNIFER WALTERS is only just getting used to her new HULK alter-ego when an internet-famous cooking show host transforms into a hideous monster – on camera. • Can Jen come to terms with her own monstrous side in time to help this young man? Guest starring PATSY WALKER, AKA HELLCAT!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ULTIMATES 2 #8

AL EWING (W) • AUD KOCH (A)

COVER BY CHRISTIAN WARD

Galactus faces the ultimate battle with his oldest enemy — Ego, the Living Planet! But if the Devourer of Worlds could never fully defeat the Living Planet — what chance does the Lifebringer have? Tell no one about the astonishing ending of this epic issue, True Believer! Some things are too good to spoil!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

CHAMPIONS #9

MARK WAID (W) • HUMBERTO RAMOS (A/C)

Mary Jane Variant Cover by HELEN CHEN

Casting a spotlight on young synthezoid Viv Vision! After what became of her family, she willingly shut down her emotions — but does that come with a price to pay?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

BEN REILLY: SCARLET SPIDER #3 & 4

PETER DAVID (w) • MARK BAGLEY (a/C)

BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT — Ben’s back in his classic threads! We hope it’ll make a difference, because the Scarlet Spider’s at odds with a deeply connected crime lord and her impervious consigliere. And will Kaine finally catch up to his clone-brother?!

32 PGS. (EACH)/Rated T+ …$3.99 (EACH)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #28

DAN SLOTT (w) • STUART IMMONEN (a)

Cover by ALEX ROSS

OSBORN VS. SPIDER-MAN! NO HOLDS BARRED! The outcome of this battle will change both of these men. And that’s nothing to say of Osborn’s master plan that Spider-Man is powerless to save! ONLY SILVER SABLE AND MOCKINGBIRD STAND A CHANCE!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

SPIDER-GWEN #21

JASON LATOUR (W) • ROBBI RODRIGUEZ (A/C)

MARY JANE VARIANT COVER BY Kevin Wada

A new villain has appeared on Earth-65…one with claws and an attitude. With Wolverine and Matt Murdock gunning for Harry Osborn, Spider-Gwen will need to step in and save him. However, the cost of this rescue might be her own soul!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: RENEW YOUR VOWS #8

GERRY CONWAY (w) • RYAN STEGMAN (a/C)

Variant Cover by CLAYTON CRAIN

Mary Jane Watson-Parker has been saving the day as Spinneret, but at the cost of some of her husband’s powers. So she’s going to try something new… That’s right, MARY JANE VENOM. It’s on!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #18

JOE KELLY (w) • ED MCGUINNESS (a/C)

The culmination of Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness’s run is here! Is it the end of Spider-Man and Deadpool’s friendship?!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

SPIDER-MAN #17

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (w) • OSCAR BAZALDUA (a)

Cover by PATRICK BROWN

Spider-Man and his amazing friends!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

SPIDER-MAN 2099 #24

PETER DAVID (w) • WILL SLINEY (a)

Cover by FRANCESCO MATTINA

Miguel races the clock to bring down The Fist before they can complete their plan to bring about the apocalypse. But with the entire city under some kind of trance, Spidey’s hopes of winning the fight are dwindling… Luckily, help has appeared in the form of a mysterious new Spider-Man!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

VENOM #151

MIKE COSTA (w) • GERARDO SANDOVAL (a)

COVER BY Francisco Herrera

Mary Jane Variant Cover by Francesco Mattina

“THE LAND BEFORE CRIME” Starts Here! Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote have been reunited at last – and their hatred of Spider-Man is greater than ever! While hunting the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler, Venom comes face-to-face with none other than STEGRON THE DINOSAUR MAN! Can Venom postpone feasting on Spider-Man’s brain long enough to stop Stegron from turning everyone in New York into a bloodthirsty dinosaur?!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR #20

BRANDON MONTCLARE (W) • NATACHA BUSTOS (A/C)

FANTASTIC VOYAGE! Lunella and Devil make landfall in a new cosmos, and their host is much bigger than they imagined! But GIRL MOON’s got even bigger problems for them to solve…and Lunella still can’t figure out how to get them all home…

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

BLACK BOLT #2

SALADIN AHMED (W) • CHRISTIAN WARD (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY DECLAN SHALVEY & JORDIE BELLAIRE

Mary Jane Variant Cover by Ryan Stegman

Black Bolt begins to find his bearings in the remote prison to which he has been mysteriously banished. And an unlikely alliance with Crusher Creel, a.k.a. the Absorbing Man, could provide the Silent King with some answers about his captor’s motives and identity. But not every prisoner is ready to trust the hero-turned-inmate. There are those who would see him fall…and they are more than happy to push.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

MS. MARVEL #19

G. WILLOW WILSON (W) • Marco Failla (A)

Cover by NELSON BLAKE II

An enemy from Ms. Marvel’s past resurfaces and begins targeting those closest to Kamala. As the world around her is spinning out of control, it becomes clear that this time there’s something more sinister at work… Kamala’s no stranger to fighting for what’s right, but in facing down this challenge, everything she is will be called into question. Not just as a super hero, but as a human being.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ROYALS #4

AL EWING (W) • JONBOY MEYERS (A/C)

Welcome to the ruins of Hala! Once, this world was ruled by a noble family, promising a new dawn for the Kree Empire. But then…the House of Boltagon decided they had better things to do. And in their absence, Hala died. Now the Royals stand accused — and Ronan, last survivor of Hala, is the Accuser!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

HAWKEYE #7

KELLY THOMPSON (W) • LEONARDO ROMERO (A)

Cover by JULIAN TOTINO TEDESCO

Hawkeye finally gets a lead on the top-secret case that brought her out to Los Angeles in the first place — and it might be more than she bargained for… In order to solve this mystery, Kate will have to take a good hard look and who she is and where she came from. But is she really ready to face the ghosts of her past?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

AMERICA #4

GABBY RIVERA (W) • JOE QUINONES (A)

COVER BY JOE QUINONES

FOOLS RUSH IN! When an enemy she thought she’d punched away returns, America will have to face the facts: She messed up. What will her mistakes cost her — and the people she loves? One thing’s for sure: She’s gonna need help. Good thing she’s the leader of the Ultimates! Uh, they’re around, right? Guys? And while America fights the good fight, the mysterious figure behind those time-travel mishaps makes a move! Who is Madrimar, and what does she want with America?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

DAREDEVIL #21

CHARLES SOULE (W) • GORAN SUDZUKA (A)

Cover by DAN PANOSIAN

MARY JANE VARIANT COVER BY HUMBERTO RAMOS

NEW STORY ARC “SUPREME” BEGINS! MATT MURDOCK has a bold new plan to eradicate crime in New York City using the massive power of the LEGAL SYSTEM! But does this mean he’ll have to give up being DAREDEVIL? GUEST-STARRING Luke Cage and Echo!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

DAREDEVIL #22

CHARLES SOULE (W) • GORAN SUDZUKA (A)

Cover by MIKE DEODATO JR.

“SUPREME” CONTINUES! It’s the biggest case of MATT MURDOCK’s career. But in order to win it……DAREDEVIL will have to take the witness stand! Be here for the turning point that will kick off the next big phase of the Man Without Fear’s career!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

BLACK PANTHER #15

TA-NEHISI COATES (W) • WILFREDO TORRES (A)

Cover by BRIAN STELFREEZE

CONNECTING VARIANT COVER BY JAMIE MCKELVIE

“AVENGERS OF THE NEW WORLD” CONTINUES! The gods of Wakanda have forsaken T’Challa and his nation. As monsters of might and myth flood our world, the Midnight Angels must act… But whose interests do they serve? The crown’s or their own?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

BLACK PANTHER AND THE CREW #3

TA-NEHISI COATES (W) • BUTCH GUICE (A)

Cover by JOHN CASSADAY

VARIANT COVER BY SANFORD GREENE

When the Black Panther makes it known that he too was an associate of Ezra Miller, the late Harlem community pillar and social activist who died in police custody, the case finds new life. Was there more to Miller than he let on? Was his activism a front for something larger? One thing’s for certain: What’s happening in Harlem is not new. It stretches back decades. The secret super hero history of the Marvel Universe continues!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL #21

RYAN NORTH (W) • ERICA HENDERSON (A/C)

Squirrel Girl, Nancy, and Mary go to the Negative Zone for the weekend! So Koi Boi, Chipmunk Hunk, and Brain Drain PROMISE to fight any crimes that pop up so that the city will be just as Squirrel Girl left it when she returns! This would be a very short and uneventful issue, except for these facts:

A crime wave begins the second Squirrel Girl leaves

Koi Boi and Chipmunk Hunk are powerless to stop it so things get real bad real quick

And Brain Drain is a nihilist brain in a jar on a robot body which means he’s KINDA a pain to be around sometimes?

This special stand-alone issue features friendship, fights, and friendship fights! PLUS other things too, but you’ll have to buy the issue to find out, because this is just the solicit text and we don’t want to spoil everything. Honestly, you probably shouldn’t even be reading these solicits unless you own a comic-book store because they are chock FULL of spoilers!!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

IRON FIST #4

ED BRISSON (W) • MIKE PERKINS (A)

Cover by JEFF DEKAL

Mary Jane Variant Cover by Stephanie Hans

A DARK HISTORY UNVEILED! The secret origin of the island of Liu-Shi is revealed! And Danny takes it personally. VERY personally. The fight for the Chi of K’un-Lun is about to get very bloody!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

KINGPIN #5

MATTHEW ROSENBERG (W) • BEN TORRES (A)

Cover by JEFF DEKAL

THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF WILSON FISK! SARAH DEWEY realizes there’s no turning back from the KINGPIN now…but how much MORE is it going to cost her? WILSON FISK reestablishes his reputation with his biography…but what is his end game?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ELEKTRA #5

MATT OWENS (W) • JUAN CABAL (A)

Cover by ELIZABETH TORQUE

HUNT OR BE HUNTED! The epic climax of “ALWAYS BET ON RED”! Trapped in MURDERWORLD, ELEKTRA is close to ending ARCADE’s sick games. But surrounded by trigger-happy high rollers who have paid top dollar to participate in the hunt, will Elektra survive long enough to reveal Arcade’s treacherous scheme?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

LUKE CAGE #2

DAVID F. WALKER (W) • NELSON BLAKE (A)

Cover by RAHZZAH

Variant Cover by JOHN CASSADAY

A BROKEN CAGE! There’s a war brewing in New Orleans…and Luke is right in the middle of it! Luke recovers from a brutal attack with the help of a VERY unsuspected ally! Luke Cage will put body and soul on the line to learn the truth about Dr. Burstein. He might live to regret that. MIGHT.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

JESSICA JONES #9

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • MICHAEL GAYDOS (A)

Cover by DAVID MACK

Variant Cover by Tony Fleecs

The mysteries of Maria Hill! Ousted by the world peacekeeping task force to which she dedicated her life, Maria Hill has no choice but to turn to Jessica Jones to help her find…the last secrets.

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

NICK FURY #3

JAMES ROBINSON (W) • ACO (A/C)

Variant cover by Fernando Blanco

NICK FURY’S NEXT MISSION GOES OFF THE RAILS! The mission is simple enough: prevent an assassination on the maiden voyage of a new international train line. But when another player enters the fray, it’s a thin line between friend and foe! Can NICK FURY solve the mystery and prevent the killing before his enemies punch his ticket? All aboard for the ASSASSINATION LOCOMOTION CAPER!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

MAN-THING #5 (of 5)

R.L. STINE (W) • GERMAN PERALTA & TBA (A)

Cover by TYLER CROOK

THE FINAL INSTALLMENT!! As QUEEN IRENA continues to torture MAN-THING, chaos reigns supreme throughout all known realities. Man-Thing is going to have to pull it together in order to save the NEXUS OF ALL REALITIES! Will he become the hero we all know he can be? Or is he really the monster we all see him as? This ending will leave everyone — including Man-Thing — shocked and amazed!

Plus! You guessed it — another bonus horror story from R.L. STINE’s chamber of chills!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

MONSTERS UNLEASHED #3

CULLEN BUNN (W) • DAVID BALDEON (A)

Cover by R.B. SILVA

Variant Cover by DAVID BALDEON

THE INTELLEGENTSIA IS REVEALED! Who are the mysterious villains obsessed with KID KAIJU and his monsters? Can ELSA BLOODSTONE protect her young ward from their evil intent? Guest-starring LADY HELLBENDER!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

VISION DIRECTORS CUT #1 (of 6)

TOM KING (W) • GABRIEL HERNANDEZ WALTA (A)

Cover by MIKE DEL MUNDO

BLACK AND WHITE YOUNG VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG

One of the most surprising super-hero stories ever told, now better than ever! Experience Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s masterpiece…re-presented with bonus behind-the-scenes content! Behold the Visions! They’re the family next door, and they have the power to kill us all. What could possibly go wrong? Collecting VISION (2015) #1-2, plus extras — including Tom King’s original series pitch, script excerpts, character designs and sketches by Gabriel Hernandez Walta, cover sketches by Mike del Mundo and more.

80 PGS./Rated T+ …$6.99

DOCTOR STRANGE AND THE SORCERERS SUPREME #9

ROBBIE THOMPSON (W) • JAVIER RODRIGUEZ (A/C)

Sir Isaac Newton, Sorcerer Supreme of his day, has mastered an ancient, evil magic and has gone power-mad. It’s up to the Sorcerers Supreme to stop him from sending the world – and all of their own individual timelines – into chaos. Unfortunately, even with the Avengers on their side, it seems like they are still no match for Newton.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

THE UNSTOPPABLE WASP #6

JEREMY WHITLEY (W) • ELSA CHARRETIER (A/C)

This is it! The clock is ticking and both Nadia and Ying’s lives are in the balance. Can the geniuses of G.I.R.L. come up with a way to outsmart the Red Room, or will Nadia’s adventure be cut short as she’s forced to go back to the bunker? The conclusion of our first story comes to a head. You can’t miss this!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

THE PUNISHER #13

BECKY CLOONAN (W) • KRIS ANKA (A)

Cover by DECLAN SHALVEY

MARY JANE VARIANT BY DAVID WILLIAMS

THE PUNISHER IS BACK IN THE BIG APPLE! Start spreading the bullets! He’s coming today! He wants to destroy the crime of it! New York, New York!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

BULLSEYE #5 (OF 5)

ED BRISSON (W) • GUILLERMO SANNA (A)

Cover by DAVE JOHNSON

S.H.I.E.L.D. SWOOPS IN! It’s mass bloodshed at TEODOR ZARCO’s compound, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is claiming jurisdiction! No one wants to see a vacation end…but if BULLSEYE doesn’t find a way out of Colombia, this’ll be his last job! Don’t miss the blockbuster conclusion to “The Colombian Connection”!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

GWENPOOL, THE UNBELIEVABLE #17

CHRIS HASTINGS (W) • GURIHIRU (A/C)

Mary Jane Variant Cover by DAVID NAKAYAMA

“BEYOND THE FOURTH WALL” continues! Gwen is back in her “home universe,” but she is far from happy. Will she be able to get back to the Marvel Universe? And at what cost?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ALL-NEW GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #3

GERRY DUGGAN (W) • FRAZER IRVING (A)

Cover by AARON KUDER

Variant cover by FRAZER IRVING

Mary Jane Variant Cover by TBA

Gamora — the most dangerous person in the galaxy and the Guardians’ resident woman of mystery — has been hiding something from her teammates. What is her secret quest, and how did it find her? Guest artist Frazer Irving joins writer Gerry Duggan to reveal the soul of Gamora’s obsession…

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

ALL-NEW GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #4

GERRY DUGGAN (W) • AARON KUDER (A/C)

VARIANT COVER BY RUSSELL DAUTERMAN

When the Guardians learn that Gamora hasn’t been honest with them, they get angry. But who knows, you might like the Guardians when they’re angry! Can the team stop threatening each other long enough to get the goods they’ve been hired to procure?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

I AM GROOT #2

CHRIS HASTINGS (W) • FLAVIANO (A)

Cover by MARCO D’ALFONSO

Variant Cover by NIKO HENRICHON

Mary Jane Variant Cover by TBA

Trapped on a world that doesn’t understand him!! Groot is stuck on a strange alien planet, but the first step in finding a way home is for someone who can translate “I am Groot.” This isn’t gonna be easy…

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

ROCKET #2

AL EWING (W) • ADAM GORHAM (A)

Cover by MIKE MAYHEW

Variant Cover by Steve Epting

It’s the Technet versus the Technet – and only the Technet will survive! Also in this issue – Rocket in court! It’s the trial of the (light) century, and there’s only one thing keeping our hero out of the iron hotel…the galaxy’s greatest lawyer, Murd Blurdock!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

NOVA #7

JEFF LOVENESS & RAMON PEREZ (W) • SCOTT HEPBURN (A)

Cover by Dan Mora

As Richard Rider struggles to come to terms with the revelations from his return to the Cancerverse, Sam Alexander struggles with homework, his family and (gulp) dating!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

THANOS #8

JEFF LEMIRE (W) • GERMAN PERALTA (A)

Cover by MIKE DEODATO JR.

A threat worse than Thanos. Let that sink in. Worse…than the Mad Titan himself. That’s why we need Thanos.

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

ALL-NEW WOLVERINE #21

TOM TAYLOR (W) • LEONARD KIRK (A)

Cover by David Marquez

Variant Cover by LEONARD KIRK

Variant Cover by DAN MORA

Mary Jane Variant Cover by David Lopez

WOLVERINE RACES FOR A CURE! The strange alien disease is spreading quickly and scientists are no closer to a cure than they were when the spaceship crash-landed… With a population rapidly falling to the illness, Laura will have to turn to former allies and new friends to save the day…

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

WEAPONS OF MUTANT DESTRUCTION!

For years, the Weapon X Program has engineered the deadliest mutant killers on planet Earth, until they mysteriously vanished. Now, the Weapon X program is back, and it’s deadlier than ever, and it isn’t to use mutants for their lethal ends. Under the leadership of its mysterious new director, Weapon X has a new mission – exterminate all mutants! The key to achieving their master plan? Amadeus Cho, the Totally Awesome Hulk! What is the sinister secret of Weapon X’s mysterious new “Batch-H” experiment? Find out in this June in WEAPONS OF MUTANT DESTRUCTION!

MAY

TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #19 – PRELUDE

JUNE

WEAPON X #4 – PRELUDE

WEAPONS OF MUTANT DESTRUCTION: ALPHA #1 – PART ONE

TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #20 – PART TWO

JULY

WEAPON X #5 – PART THREE

TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #21 – PART FOUR

WEAPON X #6 – PART FIVE

AUGUST

TOTALLY AWESOME HULK# 22- PART SIX

WEAPON X #4

GREG PAK (W) • GREG LAND (A/C)

Prelude to WEAPONS OF MUTANT DESTRUCTION!

Logan, Sabretooth and Domino have unraveled the plot against them, but is it too late for Warpath and Lady Deathstrike? The explosive conclusion that leads directly into “Weapons of Mutant Destruction”! Guest-starring: The Totally Awesome Hulk!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

WEAPONS OF MUTANT DESTRUCTION: ALPHA #1

GREG PAK (W) • MAHMUD ASRAR (A)

COVER BY SKAN

Variant Cover by RON LIM

VARIANT COVER BY TBA

THE WEAPON X PROGRAM IS BACK! Their goal is a simple one…ERADICATE ALL MUTANTS! And they’re starting their hunt with the most dangerous group of mutants on planet Earth — Old Man Logan, Sabretooth, Domino, Lady Deathstrike, Warpath and…the Hulk?! But with an army of genetic cyborgs at their disposal, this may just be the beginning…

40 PGS./ONE-SHOT/Rated T+ …$4.99

THE TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #20

GREG PAK (W) • MAHMUD ASRAR (A)

COVER BY TBA (CLASSIFIED)

WEAPONS OF MUTANT DESTRUCTION PART 2! What is the mysterious Weapon Gamma? AND WHO IS BEHIND ITS CREATION?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

X-MEN: GOLD #5

MARC GUGGENHEIM (W) • R.B. SILVA (A)

Cover by ARDIAN SYAF

MARY JANE VARIANT BY ANTHONY PIPER

Double ships every month!

Each new generation of Sentinel has been DEADLIER than its predecessors…and 0101 is no exception to that rule! As the X-Men race to stop the perfect mutant-killing machine from executing its programming, they’ll find themselves asking one question: Are they the hunters…or the hunted?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

X-MEN: GOLD #6

MARC GUGGENHEIM (W) • R.B. SILVA (A)

Cover by ARDIAN SYAF

Double ships every month!

The perfect mutant-killing machine has MUTATED. As the X-Men fight for their lives against the most fearsome SENTINEL yet, one X-Man decides to do the unthinkable! Will it take the life of one X-Man to save the rest?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

X-MEN: BLUE #5

CULLEN BUNN (W) • JULIAN LOPEZ VELARDE (A)

Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS

Mary Jane Variant Cover by TBA

Double ships every month!

THE RETURN OF…

The X-MEN and their new teammate investigate the NEW MARAUDERS. Who are they? And what do they want? Guest-starring MS. SINISTER and a whole gang of nasties you won’t want to miss!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

X-MEN: BLUE #6

CULLEN BUNN (W) • JORGE MOLINA (A)

Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS

IT’S A PERFECT DAY IN MADRIPOOR…OR IS IT? – Double ships every month! Of course nothing can ever go right for the X-MEN — even when they’re exploring the streets of MADRIPOOR! But, then again, what did they expect? Sunshine and lollipops? It’s freaking Madripoor, guys!!!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

OLD MAN LOGAN #25

ED BRISSON (W) • MIKE DEODATO JR. (A/C)

Corner Box Variant Cover by LEONARD KIRK

TEASER VARIANT COVER BY MIKE DEODATO

HOMAGE VARIANT COVER BY TOM GRUMMETT

A LONG-LOST THREAT RE-EMERGES! LOGAN is confronted by an enemy from his past! And if Logan’s past is a dystopian future, you know this can’t be good… ENTER: The MAESTRO!

Don’t miss the start of an all-new arc by breakout writer ED BRISSON and fan-favorite artist MIKE DEODATO JR.!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

DEADPOOL VS. THE PUNISHER #5 (of 5)

FRED VAN LENTE (W) • PERE PEREZ (A)

Cover by DECLAN SHALVEY

Variant Cover by RYAN STEGMAN

When the shells all hit the ground, who finally wins? I mean, aside from ammunition manufacturers. Find out inside — the last round is finally here!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

CABLE #2

JAMES ROBINSON (W) • CARLOS PACHECO (A)

Cover by DALE KEOWN

VARIANT COVER BY JON MALIN

ONE STEP FORWARD — THREE CENTURIES BACK! CABLE follows his target back to feudal Japan…and is met with decidedly FUTURISTIC warriors! But WHOM exactly is Cable after, and what do they need in this time period? Jump into the timestream with CABLE and find out!

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

JEAN GREY #3

DENNIS HOPELESS (W) • VICTOR IBANEZ (A)

Cover by DAVID YARDIN

VARIANT COVER BY RUSSELL DAUTERMAN

Desperate to find any information that will help her stave off possession by the Phoenix, Jean Grey ventures to Atlantis to entreat its surliest former host: NAMOR, THE SUB-MARINER! But Namor has his own fish to fry… And when Jean is swept up in the Sea King’s madness, will she find herself in over her head?

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

GENERATION X #3

CHRISTINA STRAIN (W) • AMILCAR PINNA (A)

Cover by TERRY DODSON

Something is lurking in the shadows of Central Park…a monster that steals mutants in the night. And when GENERATION X takes it upon themselves to investigate…they might just find themselves face-to-face with an all too familiar threat.

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VS. THE SINISTER SIX #10

Adapted by Joe Caramagna

THE REVEAL OF THE NEW SINISTER SIX! After a shocking betrayal by one of SPIDER-MAN’s closes allies, DOC OCK now knows that the key to retrieving Hydra Island is hidden somewhere in AUNT MAY’s house. Will Spider-Man be able to protect his family or will he be pulled in another direction when the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy is attacked? Man, can’t PETER ever catch a break?

32 PGS./All Ages …$2.99

MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS: ULTRON REVOLUTION #11

Adapted by Joe Caramagna

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT! When a new Inhuman called THE GHOST sets his thieving sights on the Avenger’s AI sidekick, FRIDAY, CAPTAIN AMERICA and IRON MAN must reach out to a group of young new Inhumans for help. Together, with the help of GOLIATH, INFERNO and MS. MARVEL, will they be able to stop the Ghost or will they be too late?

32 PGS./All Ages …$2.99

STAR WARS: DROIDS UNPLUGGED #1 *

CHRIS ELIOPOULOS (W) • CHRIS ELIOPOULOS (A/C)

Variant Cover by MIKE ALLRED

Collecting three stories featuring everyone’s favorite droids!

What adventures did the probe droids in The Phantom Menace get into when Darth Maul wasn’t looking?

Luke’s got a mission for R2-D2! But can the astromech complete it in time?

And all BB-8 wants is to help…two Resistance soldiers fall in love!

40 PGS./ONE-SHOT/Rated T …$3.99

DARTH VADER #1 & 2 *

Charles Soule (W) • GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI (A)

Cover by JIM CHEUNG

ISSUE 1 – HOMAGE VARIANT COVER BY MARK BROOKS

ISSUE 1 – VARIANT COVER BY ADI GRANOV

ISSUE 1 – YOUNG VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG

ISSUE 1 – ERA VARIANT COVER BY PHIL NOTO

ISSUE 1 – ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

ISSUE 1 – BLANK AND MOVIE VARIANT COVERS ALSO AVAILABLE

ISSUE 2 – VARIANT COVER BY MIKE DEL MUNDO

The most fearsome villain of all time returns with an all-new series! When Anakin Skywalker fell, both to the pull of the dark side and to the blade of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he rose back up, more machine than man. Having lost everything that was once dear to him, the former chosen one must take his first steps into a darker world…as Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith! Join Vader as he learns a new way — the way of Darth Sidious and his newly formed Empire…the way of the dark side.

ISSUE #1 – 48 PGS./Rated T …$4.99 • ISSUE #2 – 32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS #32 *

JASON AARON (W) • SALVADOR LARROCA (A)

Cover by MARCO CHECCHETTO

Star Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by JEN BARTEL

Action Figure Variant Cover by JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

“THE SCREAMING CITADEL” – Part 4. The Queen’s influence is spreading… Our only hope lies in the kindness of scoundrels.

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS: DOCTOR APHRA #8 *

KIERON GILLEN (W) • ANDREA BROCCARDO (A)

Cover by MARCO CHECCHETTO

Star Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by STEPHANIE HANS

“THE SCREAMING CITADEL” — PART 5. Jedi! Symbiotes! Rebels! Murderbots! Smugglers! Archaeologists! This one has it all! But can any survive the horrors of the Screaming Citadel?

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS: POE DAMERON ANNUAL #1 *

ROBERT THOMPSON (W) • NICOLE VIRELLA (A)

Cover by DAN MORA

Variant Cover by Mahmud Asrar

Poe Dameron has never been one to follow the rules. So when he disobeys a direct order from General Leia Organa and gets stranded in First Order space…with no ship and little oxygen…how will he survive?

40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99

STAR WARS: POE DAMERON #16 *

Charles Soule (W) • ANGEL UNZUETA (A)

Cover by PHIL NOTO

Star Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by Elizabeth Torque

Who is Malarus and what does she want? Meanwhile, the Resistance is running dangerously low on supplies. Poe and Black Squadron are on the case!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE ADAPTATION #3 (of 6) *

JODY HOUSER (W) • PAOLO VILLANELLI (A)

Cover by PHIL NOTO

Concept Variant Cover by DUNCAN FEGREDO

Jyn Erso continues her quest with Cassian Andor to help the Rebellion fight the Galactic Empire. The team has located Jyn’s father, Galen Erso – a Death Star scientist! But the evil Director Krennic gets their first…and he’s out for blood! The Star Wars story continues!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

STAR WARS: DARTH MAUL #5 (of 5) *

CULLEN BUNN (W) • LUKE ROSS (A)

Cover by RAFAEL PINTO ALBUQUERQUE

Variant Cover by KAARE ANDREWS

Variant Cover by TERRY DODSON

Variant Cover by DAVID LOPEZ

Funko Variant Cover by DIEGO OLORTEGUI

Star Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by DAVID LOPEZ

Darth Maul has kidnapped Jedi Padawan Eldra Katiss…and he’s out for blood. But she’s not going down without a fight. Duel!

32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

EMPRESS BOOK ONE TPB

Written by MARK MILLAR • Penciled by STUART IMMONEN

Cover by STUART IMMONEN

Imagine you’re married to the worst bad guy from your favorite sci-fi movie. An alien dictator feared throughout the universe, who will kill you if you leave — but you need to escape for the sake of your three children. That’s the life of Queen Emporia. All she has is her wits, her bodyguard and three guns to get her kids across the galaxy — and her husband Morax’s forces are in hot pursuit. Easy, right? Their desperate race for their lives will take them through interplanetary war zones, across dead worlds and into the path of monstrous beasts! Danger piles upon danger when slavers circle and a tribal priestess thirsts for a blood sacrifice! All the while, Morax executes anyone and everyone in his way. Welcome to EMPRESS, your new favorite comic!

Collecting EMPRESS #1-7.

192 PGS./Rated T+ …$19.99

THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON OMNIBUS HC (NEW PRINTING)

Written by WALTER SIMONSON • Penciled by WALTER SIMONSON & SAL BUSCEMA

Cover by WALTER SIMONSON

Considered by many to be the greatest run on THOR ever, Walter Simonson’s classic tales of the God of Thunder are collected here — completely remastered from the original artwork and stunningly recolored by Steve Oliff! And there are too many timeless tales to count: the Casket of Ancient Winters! The death of Odin! The origins of Asgard! The sacrifice of the Executioner! Thor as a frog! The Mutant Massacre! The curse of Hela! The debut of Thor’s body armor! Guest-starring Beta Ray Bill, Nick Fury and the Avengers! Featuring the threats of Fafnir the dragon, Loki, Lorelei, Malekith the Dark Elf, Surtur, Hela, the Titanium Man, Kurse, Zaniac, the Marauders, the Absorbing Man, Fin Fang Foom, the Destroyer and the Midgard Serpent! Plus: Balder the Brave battles alone!

Collecting THOR (1966) #337-355, #357-369 and #371-382; and BALDER THE BRAVE #1-4.

1,192 PGS./Rated T …$125.00

HULK: WORLD WAR HULK OMNIBUS HC

Written by GREG PAK, PETER DAVID, JEFF PARKER, CHRISTOS GAGE, DAN SLOTT, ROBERT KIRKMAN, DANIEL WAY, ZEB WELLS, MATT FRACTION, FRANK TIERI, PAUL JENKINS & DWAYNE MCDUFFIE

Penciled by JOHN ROMITA JR., GARY FRANK, LEONARD KIRK, CARLO PAGULAYAN, JACKSON GUICE, STEFANO CASELLI, PHIL HESTER, ANDREA DI VITO, JAVIER SALTARES, CLAY MANN, JOHN BOSCO, ARIEL OLIVETTI, CARLOS FERREIRA, RAMON BACHS, SHAWN MARTINBROUGH, RAFA SANDOVAL, SALVA ESPIN & MORE

Cover by DAVID FINCH

Hulk versus the world, in an epic story of anger unbound! Exiled by his so-called friends, the Hulk has raged, bled and conquered on the alien planet Sakaar. Now, he returns to Earth to wreak terrible vengeance on Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Doctor Strange and Black Bolt — and anyone else who gets in the way! Madder than ever, stronger than ever and accompanied by his monstrous Warbound allies — this time the Hulk may just tear this stupid planet in half!

Collecting WORLD WAR HULK PROLOGUE: WORLD BREAKER, WORLD WAR HULK #1-5, INCREDIBLE HULK (2000) #106-111, IRON MAN (2005) #19-20, AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #4-5, IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN #10, WORLD WAR HULK: X-MEN #1-3, GHOST RIDER (2006) #12-13, HEROES FOR HIRE (2006) #11-15, PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL (2007) #12, WORLD WAR HULK: GAMMA CORPS #1-4, WORLD WAR HULK: FRONT LINE #1-6, WORLD WAR HULK: AFTERSMASH ONE-SHOT, WORLD WAR HULK AFTERSMASH: DAMAGE CONTROL #1-3, WORLD WAR HULK AFTERSMASH: WARBOUND #1-5 and PLANET HULK SAGA.

1,304 PGS./Rated T+ …$125.00

DEADPOOL: WORLD’S GREATEST VOL. 2 HC

Written by GERRY DUGGAN, CHARLES SOULE & DAVID F. WALKER

Penciled by MATTEO LOLLI, IBAN COELLO, SCOTT KOBLISH, JACOPO CAMAGNI, GUILLERMO SANNA, ELMO BONDOC & PACO DIAZ

Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED

Mayhem and magic, Deadpool style! It starts with Sabretooth — but when two unkillable killers go to war, the battle might never end! Hidden secrets, healing factors and horrific violence collide in Wade Wilson’s misplaced quest for vengeance! Meanwhile, the Mercs for Money make mad moolah in the mouthy one’s name, while Wade tries to come to terms with being a global hero and an Avenger after a lifetime as an inveterate degenerate. And Deadpool 2099 returns — but who is Zenpool 2099? Then, DP plays host to an epic crossover with Daredevil, Power Man and Iron Fist! And for his next trick, the Merc with a Mouth tries to fix one of Doctor Strange’s messes when the Empirikul brings its war on magic to Shiklah’s Monster Metropolis!

Collecting DEADPOOL (2015) #8-13 and DEADPOOL: LAST DAYS OF MAGIC #1.

232 PGS./Parental Advisory …$34.99

THOR: HEROES RETURN OMNIBUS VOL. 1 HC

Written by DAN JURGENS, TOM DEFALCO, J.M. DEMATTEIS, HOWARD MACKIE, KURT BUSIEK, ROGER STERN & JOE CASEY

Penciled by JOHN ROMITA JR., JOHN BUSCEMA, MIKE MCKONE, LEE WEEKS, MICHAEL RYAN, ERIK LARSEN, ANDY KUBERT, STUART IMMONEN, RAMON BERNADO, DAN JURGENS, JERRY ORDWAY, SEAN CHEN, TERRY SHOEMAKER & MORE

Cover by JOHN ROMITA JR.

A hero returns — and an epic saga begins! Dan Jurgens ushers in one of the greatest eras of Thor — and it begins with blockbuster art by John Romita Jr.! The Thunder God walks the Earth once more, but his new lease on life comes with new enemies — and a new mortal alter ego! Will Thor’s comeback be cut short by Dark Gods, the Destroyer and Doctor Doom? Then, on the Eighth Day, the unstoppable Juggernaut will be just the beginning for Thor, Iron Man and Spider-Man! The heavy hitters keep on coming — like Mangog and Thanos! But if Thor is busy saving Midgard, who’s protecting Asgard?

Collecting THOR (1998) #1-35 and ROUGH CUT, SILVER SURFER/THOR ANNUAL 1998, THOR ANNUAL 1999-2000, PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN (1999) #2 and #11, IRON MAN (1998) #21 (B STORY) and #22, and JUGGERNAUT: THE EIGHTH DAY. 1,232 PGS./Rated T+ …$125.00

SHANG-CHI: MASTER OF KUNG FU OMNIBUS VOL. 4 HC MACK COVER

Written by DOUG MOENCH with ALAN ZELENETZ, PETER B. GILLIS, GENE DAY & STEVEN GRANT

Penciled by GENE DAY, TOM GRINDBERG & DAN DAY with WILLIAM JOHNSON, RICK MAGYAR, MIKE ZECK, MARC SILVESTRI, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI & ALAN KUPPERBERG

Covers by DAVID MACK & RON WILSON

Doug Moench is joined by Gene and his brothers Day — Dan and David — to rise and advance Shang-Chi to this final Omnibus collection! Demons from Shang-Chi’s past return: Razor-Fist, Pavane, the Cat, Zaran and even the Master of Kung Fu’s father, the devil doctor Fu Manchu! It all builds to the ultimate battle between father and son, stoked by years of conflict. The stakes are final, and Moench’s story and Gene Day’s shadow-drenched artwork make every moment stunning. The saga also introduces new enemies: Dark Angel, Death-Dealer, Argus, Shadow-Hand — and possibly Shang-Chi’s own mother! These iconic Marvel masterpieces have never been reprinted before, so don’t miss your chance to experience the Master of Kung Fu!

Collecting MASTER OF KUNG FU (1974) #102-125, MASTER OF KUNG FU: BLEEDING BLACK and material from MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS (1988) #1-8.

784 PGS./Rated T+ …$125.00

SHANG-CHI: MASTER OF KUNG FU OMNIBUS VOL. 4 HC WILSON COVER (DM ONLY)/

784 PGS./Rated T+ …$125.00

MUPPET BABIES OMNIBUS HC

Written by STAN KAY, LAURA HITCHCOCK, BILL PRADY & ANGELO DECESARE

Penciled by MARIE SEVERIN, JEFF BUTLER & DEAN YEAGLE

Covers by MARIE SEVERIN

They’re making their dreams come true — and they’ll do the same for you! It’s all your favorite Muppets, in pint-sized antics from their youth! There’ll be adventure! Romance! Great jokes! And more! Like the ghostly tale of the haunted nursery! The fable of Kermit and the Beanstalk! And the quest for the Idol of Doom! The Muppet Babies will be lost in time and lost in space, they’ll caper in Story Land and they’ll take flight as super heroes! They’ll even end up in a comic book! And your favorite fantasy-loving frog will step into the shoes of some of fiction’s greatest heroes! Plus: Relive the Muppet Babies’ first appearance in an amazing adaptation of The Muppets Take Manhattan!

Collecting MUPPET BABIES #1-26 and MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL #32.

680 PGS./All Ages …$75.00

MUPPET BABIES OMNIBUS HC KERMIT COVER (DM ONLY)

680 PGS./All Ages …$75.00

INHUMANS VS X-MEN HC

Written by CHARLES SOULE & JEFF LEMIRE • Penciled by KENNETH ROCAFORT, LEINIL FRANCIS YU & JAVIER GARRÓN

Cover by LEINIL FRANCIS YU

The X-Men and Inhumans have been on a collision course ever since the link was proven between the Inhumans’ precious Terrigen Mist and the sickness and death of many mutants. And when the Beast discovers that mutants have only two weeks left before Earth becomes uninhabitable for them, an Inhuman/mutant war is unavoidable! It all begins with one choice, and the world will never be the same! As New Attilan comes under attack, the Inhumans won’t surrender without a fight — but when the X-Men target the Terrigen cloud, will that mean the end of the line for the entire Inhuman legacy? Karnak vs. Fantomex! Emma Frost vs. Medusa! The NuHumans vs. Magneto! IVX delivers sensational set pieces and gargantuan grudge matches that promise to shatter the Marvel Universe as you know it!

Collecting INHUMANS VS. X-MEN #0-6.

208 PGS./Rated T+ …$50.00

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING — THE ART OF THE MOVIE HC SLIPCASE (MOVIE COVER)

WRITTEN BY JACOB JOHNSON

Fresh off the heels of his first adventure with the Avengers in Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker is back in action! With a mentor like Tony Stark — a.k.a. Iron Man — it looks like Spider-Man’s about to hit the big time. But New York’s newest villain has other plans. Go behind the scenes in this new keepsake volume continuing Marvel’s popular ART OF collection! Discover exclusive concept art, production stills and commentary from cast and crew as Marvel Studios and Sony team up to bring Spider-Man into the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe!

240 PGS./All Ages …$50.00

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE MIGHTY THOR VOL. 16 HC

Written by LEN WEIN with ROGER STERN • Penciled by JOHN BUSCEMA & WALTER SIMONSON with TONY DeZUNIGA & SAL BUSCEMA

Cover by JOHN BUSCEMA

Mythic in scope, legendary in renown, the adventures of the mighty Thor are among the greatest that comics has ever seen. When writer Len Wein is joined by all-time great Thor artist Walter Simonson — not to mention John Buscema, an icon in his own right — there’s no question that what’s in store are Marvel Masterworks! Odin has disappeared. Asgard needs its All-Father, so Thor, Balder, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three venture across the vastness of space to find him. Their adventures will bring them into conflict with the Grey Gargoyle, the Enchantress and the Executioner, the Destroyer — and, of course, Loki! Also featuring a team-up with the Guardians of the Galaxy against the deadly Korvac!

Collecting THOR (1966) #255-266 & ANNUAL #6 and MARVEL PREVIEW #10.

328 PGS./Rated T …$75.00

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE MIGHTY THOR VOL. 16 HC — VARIANT EDITION VOL. 251 (DM ONLY)

328 PGS./Rated T …$75.00

MIGHTY THOR VOL. 3: ASGARD/SHI’AR WAR PREMIERE HC

Written by JASON AARON • Penciled by STEVE EPTING & RUSSELL DAUTERMAN

Cover by RUSSELL DAUTERMAN

Two of the Marvel Universe’s mightiest races are on a collision course — but first Thor must deal with the escalating War of the Realms! To face Malekith, Loki and an all-new Kurse, she’ll need a team of her own. Prepare for the triumphant return of the League of Realms! Far across the galaxy, though, another conflict is brewing — as the most powerful super-army in the cosmos prepares a surprise attack on the city of the gods! The Shi’ar Empire will lay siege to Asgardia — and their target is the Goddess of Thunder! But why? And what does the fate of Midgard have to do with it? And where the Shi’ar go, the Phoenix Force tends to follow — which is bad news for Thor! Maybe the returning Odinson could lend a hand — or perhaps, Quentin Quire?!

Collecting MIGHTY THOR (2015) #13-19.

160 PGS./Rated T+ …$24.99

THE MONSTER ABCs HC

Written by STAN LEE, LARRY LIEBER & JACK KIRBY • Penciled by JACK KIRBY & MORE

Cover by MIKE DEL MUNDO

Learn your ABCs with Jack Kirby’s most monstrous creations! From the legendary behemoths that stalked a world before super heroes to the titans that terrorized the Marvel Universe, 26 of Marvel’s most memorable monsters have been rounded up in alphabetical order — from the Awesome Android to Zetora — including fan favorites like Devil Dinosaur, Fin Fang Foom, Groot, Mangog and Xemnu! They all star in awesome comic cover tributes from stellar talents including Arthur Adams, Mike Allred, Chris Bachalo, John Cassaday, Chris Samnee and Walter Simonson! Plus: original Kirby-drawn tales to astonish featuring the likes of the Blip, Elektro, Kraa and Thorr!

Collecting the KIRBY MONSTER VARIANT COVERS — plus material from TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) #15-16 and #22; TALES OF SUSPENSE #13, #18 and #23; and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (1952) #57 and #62.

128 PGS./All Ages …$24.99

BLACK EYED PEAS: MASTERS OF THE SUN – THE ZOMBIE CHRONICLES TPB

WRITTEN BY will.i.am & BENJAMIN JACKENDOFF • PENCILED BY DAMION SCOTT

COVER BY will.i.am

From the mind of Will.i.am comes this retro futuristic B-Boy Zombie Thriller, fusing together the unlikeliest of genres with ease!

Masters Of The Sun mixes L.A. Gang culture, B-Boy-ism and Egyptology to tell the heroic tale of a Hip-Hop group from East L.A. who must battle an ancient, alien God sent to earth to continue a Black Curse which turns drug dealers and gangsters into zombies. With a deep love of the Hip-Hop culture, Zulu-X and his crew go head-to-head with a nefarious ancient order that has infiltrated the inner cities to settle an ancient score. What happens next can only be described as the perfect blend of action, ancient wisdom and street-smarts all rolled into one epic adventure. Boasting one of the most eclectic ensemble cast of characters, Masters of The Sun delivers a powerful social allegory in the form of a new movement… #stayWOKE!!!

120 PGS./Parental Advisory …$24.99

COLOR YOUR OWN MARVEL MASTERS

Penciled by JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, JOHN ROMITA SR., JOHN BUSCEMA & MORE

Cover by JACK KIRBY

Celebrate the Mighty Marvel Age of Coloring Books with the artistic legends who helped build the House of Ideas! Icons of the field such as Jack Kirby, the unquestioned “King” of comics, whose boundless imagination populated the emerging Marvel Universe with a cornucopia of colorful, costumed characters — including the Fantastic Four, Avengers and X-Men! His far-out fantasy masterpieces must be seen to be believed! Then there’s “Sturdy” Steve Ditko, who ripped up the super hero rule book with Spider-Man and sent Doctor Strange into a psychedelic kaleidoscope of spellbinding dimensions! The incredible work of Kirby, Ditko and their celebrated contemporaries awaits in crisp black and white — and YOU get to stand on the shoulders of these giants by spreading the hues on some Marvel masterworks!

120 PGS./All Ages …$9.99

THE TOTALLY AWESOME HULK VOL. 3: BIG APPLE SHOWDOWN TPB

Written by GREG PAK • Penciled by LUKE ROSS, GERMAN PERALTA & MAHMUD ASRAR

Cover by STONEHOUSE

Amadeus Cho can calculate parabolas all day, but can he hit one from downtown? Find out when he takes on a classic Hulk villain, but not like anyone remembers. All-new, all-upgraded and all-terrifying — prepare to meet QUASI/MO/DO! The robot menace will be a handful for the Hulk and…basketball superstar Jeremy Lin?! Then, start spreading the news, the Totally Awesome Hulk is coming to New York City! It’s time for a Big Apple showdown with a gathering of Asian and Asian-American heroes — including Ms. Marvel, Shang-Chi and Silk! Who has brought them together? It’s not who you think! When a new alien race comes to Earth, Hulk and his new pals will be the planet’s last Protectors!

Collecting TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #13-18.

136 PGS./Rated T …$17.99

U.S.AVENGERS VOL. 1: AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE MECHANICS TPB

Written by AL EWING • Penciled by PACO MEDINA

Cover by PACO MEDINA

In a world beset by danger, the United States of America needs heroes they can rely on. Welcome to…American Intelligence Mechanics! A.I.M. will protect the nation from the wildest, weirdest threats of all! And the most patriotic super-group ever will do it all while looking tried and true in the red, white and blue! Can you live without…the U.S.Avengers? But when the Golden Skull launches his takeover bid, how will the team respond to the looming threat? With tuxedos. Really well-fitted tuxedos. It’s socialism gone wild as the U.S.Avengers literally punch the business leaders of tomorrow right in their faces! Plus: Monsters galore — including Red Hulk! American Kaiju! Vandoom! And, would you believe, Dedd-Puul, the Mercenary That Walks Like a Man?! But when Steve Rogers gets serious, so must A.I.M. Where does that leave Roberto Da Costa?

Collecting U.S.AVENGERS #1-5.

136 PGS./Rated T+ …$17.99

HULK VOL. 1: DECONSTRUCTED TPB

Written by MARIKO TAMAKI • Penciled by NICO LEON & DALIBOR TALAJIC

Cover by ELIZABETH TORQUE

Jennifer Walters survived the second Civil War…barely. But having risen from the rubble, she reenters the world a very different kind of hero. Fueled by a quiet rage, Jen is determined to move forward with her life — but the pain of the past and all that she’s lost is always there. An undercurrent, a pulse waiting to quicken — and can trigger her transformation into the one thing over which she has no control. As Jen returns to legal practice, her newest client struggles with her own dark secrets. What happens when a fear is so strong, it becomes a destructive force in its own right? Jen is about to find out — and a string of murders may leave her in over her head as a mere lawyer. Must she give in to her anger…and become the Hulk?!

Collecting HULK (2016) #1-6.

136 PGS./Rated T+ …$17.99

THANOS VOL. 1: THANOS RETURNS TPB

Written by JEFF LEMIRE • Penciled by MIKE DEODATO JR.

Cover by MIKE DEODATO JR.

Thanos, possibly the most diabolical individual in the Marvel Universe, is back — and he’s out for vengeance on all who would oppose him! Unfortunately for the Mad Titan, he’s also heading for an unexpected reckoning — with his family. Take an ongoing walk on the dark side of the galaxy, and follow the deadly trail of destruction left in Thanos’ wake! He is pure evil. He is unstoppable. And it’s time for someone — anyone — to take him down. Will it be the Shi’ar Imperial Guard? That’s the entire Imperial Guard. Time to call in the reinforcements! Meanwhile, Thanos’ son Thane is out there, making plans. When Thanos murdered all his other offspring, only Thane was spared — but it wasn’t out of love. And when the father/son reunion happens, it won’t be a happy one.

Collecting THANOS (2016) #1-6.

136 PGS./Parental Advisory …$17.99

GAMORA VOL. 1: MEMENTO MORI TPB

Written by NICOLE PERLMAN • Penciled by MARCO CHECCHETTO

Cover by ESAD RIBIC

From Nicole Perlman — co-screenwriter of Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy – and superstar artist Marco Checchetto comes a killer new adventure! Once upon a time, Gamora was Thanos’ heartless pet assassin and favorite adopted daughter. Today, she is the backbone of the Guardians of the Galaxy, putting her life on the line to defend the innocent throughout the universe. What was it that transformed her from being a tool of her oppressor to a champion of the powerless? Embark with Gamora on a journey of revenge and redemption — one that will take her to the doomed planet of Ubliex – and see her battle the Badoon as a world crumbles around her! Witness firsthand how Gamora became the deadliest woman in the galaxy!

Collecting GAMORA #1-5.

112 PGS./Rated T+ …$15.99

FOOLKILLER: PSYCHO THERAPY TPB

Written by MAX BEMIS • Penciled by DALIBOR TALAJIC

Cover by DAVE JOHNSON

Greg Salinger was just your typical merc for hire — killing those he deemed “foolish” for money. But that life is behind him now. Today he’s a psychiatrist, trying to help others. But S.H.I.E.L.D. wants him to try to rehabilitate super villains. The catch? If these patients don’t make enough progress, they’re dead! Sounds like a job for Foolkiller! But when he finds himself alone with an arsenal of weapons against an army of skinhead Red Skull sympathizers, he’ll be asking questions about his own career choices! Plus: Someone from Foolkiller’s past comes back to haunt him! Deadpool wants his therapist back! The Hood conspires with an old enemy! And Foolkiller vs. Foolkiller?! You’d be a fool to miss it!

Collecting FOOLKILLER (2016) #1-5.

112 PGS./Parental Advisory …$15.99

PROWLER: THE CLONE CONSPIRACY TPB

Written by SEAN RYAN • Penciled by JAVIER SALTARES & JAMAL CAMPBELL

Cover by TRAVEL FOREMAN

Even a super hero’s life can get boring. Double-check your gear. Patrol the city. Save the innocent. Report back to your boss, the Jackal. Wait — what? Why is Prowler working for the Jackal, and not Spider-Man? Hobie Brown, a.k.a. the Prowler, may believe in what his new boss is doing, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. As his assignments get more dangerous, Hobie will be forced to wrestle not only with the meaning of his existence, but also the underground army of unruly super villains the Jackal has resurrected! And when the whole operation begins to crumble, some of those deadly foes may be out to settle some scores! If Hobie makes it out the other side of THE CLONE CONSPIRACY, what life will be left for him?

Collecting PROWLER (2016) #1-6.

136 PGS./Rated T+ …$17.99

GHOST RIDER VOL. 1: FOUR ON THE FLOOR TPB

Written by FELIPE SMITH • Penciled by DANILO BEYRUTH & TRADD MOORE

Cover by MARCO CHECCHETTO

Robbie Reyes is back! And it’s hell on wheels as the Ghost Rider makes his roaring return! When a mysterious object from space crash-lands in southern California, some of the brightest minds in the Marvel Universe are drawn to Robbie’s backyard — including Amadeus Cho, the Totally Awesome Hulk! What mayhem will be unleashed as the high-octane hothead comes face-to-face with the jade genius? And with Robbie still possessed by the ghost of his evil uncle, Eli, who’s really in the Ghost Rider’s driver’s seat? A giant, purple space monster will walk the Earth, but who’s that on Ghost Rider’s trail? None other than the Wolverine! With Silk and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. along for the ride, it’s time to strap in and start your engines — this one’s gonna be a scorcher!

Collecting GHOST RIDER (2016) #1-5.

120 PGS./Rated T+ …$15.99

DOCTOR STRANGE VOL. 2: THE LAST DAYS OF MAGIC TPB

Written by JASON AARON, GERRY DUGGAN & JAMES ROBINSON • Penciled by CHRIS BACHALO, LEONARDO ROMERO, DANILO BEYRUTH, MIKE PERKINS & MORE

Cover by CHRIS BACHALO

They have crossed the dimensions, purging them all of sorcery, one by one. Now the Empirikul are here. And with Earth’s Master of the Mystic Arts weakened beyond measure, is there any chance of stopping them? The Sorcerer is no longer Supreme, and he will find himself at the mercy of the Imperator! With his magic destroyed and his world on the brink of disaster, are there any more tricks left up Strange’s sleeves? Or failing that, how about some cool weapons? Plus: As the Empirikul wreaks havoc on magic users throughout the Marvel Universe, discover Wong’s ultimate sacrifice, watch Brother Voodoo make a stand and meet a new player just as she is about to lose the game!

Collecting DOCTOR STRANGE (2015) #6-10 and DOCTOR STRANGE: LAST DAYS OF MAGIC #1.

168 PGS./Rated T+ …$19.99

GREAT LAKES AVENGERS: SAME OLD, SAME OLD TPB

Written by ZAC GORMAN • Penciled by WILL ROBSON & JACOB CHABOT

Cover by WILL ROBSON

“All-New, All-Different”? No, thank you! New things are bad, and different things are scary! Instead, take comfort in everybody’s least favorite super-team: the Same Old, Same Old Great Lakes Avengers! When Squirrel Girl’s former teammates get reinstated as permanent members of the Avengers and uprooted to Detroit, the Great Lakes Avengers have one more shot at super-hero glory — but can they all answer the call? With their former leader Mister Immortal buried alive, Flatman takes charge — with hilarious consequences! The heroes end up in jail, shut down by the very city they’re trying to protect! Big Bertha gets back to work! Doorman is an Angel of Death! Ant-Man guest-stars! Doctor Nod and the Bod Squad are odd! And Mister Immortal returns from the grave! (That’s not a spoiler; it’s kind of his thing.)

Collecting GREAT LAKES AVENGERS #1-7.

160 PGS./Rated T+ …$19.99

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: NEW GUARD VOL. 2 — WANTED TPB

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Penciled by VALERIO SCHITI

Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS

Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord, returns to the fold! But what does that mean for Kitty Pryde, a.k.a. Star-Lord? Is the Marvel Universe big enough for two Star-Lords? Find out as the Guardians face a new Galactic order! The Thing might miss some aspects of Earth, but he does admit space has its perks. Like riding alien horses into action as Ben Grimm: Space Barbarian! Venom and Groot get in way over their heads fighting Skrulls — and everyone knows that when Bendis writes Skrulls, it’s bad news! The galaxy’s two deadliest warriors, Gamora and Drax, take the fight to the Badoon! And Angela makes her dramatic return! They’re the galaxy’s most wanted, but they’ll still guard it all the same!

Collecting GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2015) #6-10.

136 PGS./Rated T …$19.99

MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR VOL. 3: THE SMARTEST THERE IS TPB

Written by AMY REEDER & BRANDON MONTCLARE • Penciled by NATACHA BUSTOS, LEONARD KIRK & RAY-ANTHONY HEIGHT Cover by AMY REEDER

Tony Stark, T’Challa, Amadeus Cho…the greatest minds in the Marvel Universe all have one thing in common: They’re not smarter than a fourth grader! That’s right, the rumors are true: Lunella Lafayette is the smartest there is! And now it’s time to put her unrivaled intellect to the test against some of Marvel’s finest — with Devil Dinosaur adding the brawn to her brains! The Thing drops by to defend his missing best pal Reed Richards’ pole position! Riri Williams, a.k.a. Ironheart, proves there’s room for two young, gifted girls in the MU! Doctor Strange wants to see what’s so magical about Lunella! Storm and the X-Men come to Yancy Street! And all of them and more will join Lunella as she proves herself once and for all against an enemy that can’t possibly be Doctor Doom!

Collecting MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR #13-18.

136 PGS./Rated T …$17.99

PATSY WALKER, A.K.A. HELLCAT! VOL. 3: CARELESS WHISKER(S) TPB

Written by KATE LETH • Penciled by BRITTNEY L. WILLIAMS

Cover by BRITTNEY L. WILLIAMS

Hellcat has had nothing but bad luck ever since the Black Cat crossed her path. And now that Felicia’s got a whole girl gang in her claws, how can Patsy possibly win this cat fight?! Find out in the big showdown — gato a gato! Then, Patsy will be laid low by sickness — but this is far from a common cold! Is she having fever dreams or living nightmares? As chaos breaks out all over Brooklyn, Hellcat must rely on her nearest and dearest to put out the fires — and make soup! All she wants is to get better and hang out with Jubilee at the mall: swing by the food court, catch a movie, share a fashion montage. Certainly there’d be no fighting villains. What would a villain possibly be doing at the mall? Uh-oh!

Collecting PATSY WALKER, A.K.A. HELLCAT! #13-17.

112 PGS./Rated T …$15.99

THUNDERBOLTS VOL. 2: NO GOING BACK TPB

Written by JIM ZUB & KURT BUSIEK • Penciled by SEAN IZAAKSE, JON MALIN & MARK BAGLEY

Cover by JON MALIN

If you operate in the shadows long enough, someone is going to shine a light on you. But Bucky Barnes didn’t think that person would be his best friend, Steve Rogers! Steve wants to know where Bucky’s loyalties lie. The thing is, Steve has secrets of his own. And when an original Thunderbolt returns, how will Songbird react to the reunion of her former team? Together, they all used to be the Masters of Evil — and if Baron Zemo has his way, their villainous legacy will be reclaimed with the infinite power of a Cosmic Cube! Past and present collide as Bucky confronts the truth about Captain America and the destructive path that led to him becoming the Winter Soldier! Plus: A 20th-anniversary-celebration tale by Thunderbolts co-creators Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley!

Collecting THUNDERBOLTS (2016) #7-12.

144 PGS./Rated T+ …$17.99

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: WORLDWIDE VOL. 6 TPB

Written by DAN SLOTT, HANNAH BLUMENREICH, CALE ATKINSON & MORE • Penciled by STUART IMMONEN, GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI, HANNAH BLUMENREICH, CALE ATKINSON & MORE

Cover by ALEX ROSS

An old enemy, a new artist! Stuart Immonen joins the team just in time for the return of none other than Norman Osborn! Silver Sable is back, too — as Peter Parker encounters yet another old face back from the dead! With a goblin army behind him, Osborn has worked his way into a position of power in Sable’s native Symkaria, where any incursion by Spider-Man will be seen as an act of war. Will Spidey risk international infamy to take down his most dangerous foe? Find out in the ultimate action thriller that just had to be called…THE OSBORN IDENTITY! Plus: Amazing bonus stories from creators new and old!

Collecting AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2015) #25-28.

160 PGS./Rated T …$19.99

DAREDEVIL: BACK IN BLACK VOL. 4 — IDENTITY TPB

Written by CHARLES SOULE • Penciled by GORAN SUDŽUKA, RON GARNEY & MARC LAMING

Cover by DAN PANOSIAN

There’s a bounty on Daredevil’s head big enough to bring out every contract killer in New York City. But you’ll never believe who the client is — or who takes on the hit! Then, the answer to the questions everyone has been asking! How did Matt Murdock put his double-identity genie back in the bottle? What price did he have to pay? And who got left behind in the process? The full story is about to be revealed — and so will the depths to which Daredevil is willing to sink! But once the tale of heartbreak and burned bridges is told, it may be impossible for Matt to claw his way back! It’s all leading up to a brand-new chapter for DD — and a fight unlike any he’s faced before!

Collecting DAREDEVIL (2015) #15-20.

136 PGS./Rated T+ …$17.99

MS. MARVEL VOL. 7: DAMAGE PER SECOND TPB

Written by G. WILLOW WILSON • Penciled by MIRKA ANDOLFO & TAKESHI MIYAZAWA

Cover by JOELLE JONES

CIVIL WAR II is behind her, and a new chapter begins for Kamala Khan! But it’s lonely out there for a super hero when her loved ones no longer have her back. It’s time for Kamala to find out exactly who she is when she’s on her own. And Kamala’s home life, costumed life and online life will converge when a member of her World of Battlecraft guild reveals he’s discovered her secret identity! He knows a disturbing number of details about her — but is he…human? With nobody she knows safe, Kamala isn’t playing anymore. This is the next level, and Ms. Marvel’s ready to kick some 8-bit butt! But does she have what it takes to convince an estranged ally to lend her a hand?

Collecting MS. MARVEL (2015) #13-18.

136 PGS./Rated T+ …$17.99

THE PUNISHER VOL. 2: END OF THE LINE TPB

Written by BECKY CLOONAN • Penciled by STEVE DILLON, MATT HORAK, LAURA BRAGA & IOLANDA ZANFARDINO

Cover by DECLAN SHALVEY

The Punisher’s mission takes him from wilderness to frozen wasteland! But as Frank’s quest to bring down a super-powered drug ring sends him far off-road and deep into the woods, the predator may become the prey! Agent Ortiz chased Frank into hell and came out the other side. But now she’s no longer hunting Frank with the D.E.A. This time, as they say, it’s personal! But against both the Punisher and an entire outfit of deadly mercenaries, Agent Ortiz might be in trouble! Then, Frank is held hostage on a freighter full of armed goons. They’re going to need a bigger boat. It’s all leading to an Arctic showdown, where revenge will be served cold. Ice-cold!

Collecting THE PUNISHER (2016) #7-12.

136 PGS./Parental Advisory …$17.99

MONSTERS UNLEASHED: BATTLEGROUND TPB

Written by JIM ZUB, JOSHUA CORIN, JEREMY WHITLEY, CHIP ZDARSKY, PAUL ALLOR, CHAD BOWERS, CHRIS SIMS, BRYAN EDWARD HILL & LEAH WILLIAMS

Penciled by SEAN IZAAKSE, TIGH WALKER, CARLO BARBERI, RON LIM, RO STEIN, TED BRANDT, JULIAN LOPEZ, BRIAN LEVEL, DAVID BALDEON & TY TEMPLETON

Cover by RON LIM

As monsters are unleashed across the Marvel Universe, Earth’s greatest heroes (and Deadpool) answer the call! An all-star lineup of Avengers battle behemoths! Spider-Man fearlessly fights freakish fiends, but will Wade Wilson lend a hand? As the All-New X-Men enjoy Mardi Gras, Wolverine investigates disappearances in the bayou! A protest is an easy job for the Champions — until giants fall from the sky! Doctor Strange enters the fray as a low-powered Sorcerer not-so-Supreme! The Inhumans must protect Rome from the Leviathons! Groot is kidnapped, and the grounded Guardians of the Galaxy reunite to save him! And as the Totally Awesome Hulk investigates, an intergalactic sparring partner joins the hunt!

Collecting AVENGERS (2016) #1.MU, SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #1.MU, ALL-NEW X-MEN (2015) #1.MU, CHAMPIONS (2016) #1.MU, DOCTOR STRANGE (2015) #1.MU, UNCANNY INHUMANS #1.MU, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2015) #1.MU and THE TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #1.MU.

264 PGS./Rated T+ …$29.99

CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: BUCKY REBORN TPB

Volume #3 in the Captain America Epic Collections

Written by STAN LEE • Penciled by GENE COLAN with JOHN ROMITA SR.

Cover by JACK KIRBY

Draped in the red, white and blue, there’s no character in all of comics who represents America like Cap — and his path through the tumultuous ’70s reveals both the character’s, and the nation’s, soul. Stan Lee and Gene Colan push the envelope in story after story as Cap goes behind enemy lines in Vietnam; teams with the Falcon to oppose the radical Diamond Heads; and sets out on a coast-to-coast road trip full of motorcycle gangs, rock festivals and the Red Skull! Then, Bucky Barnes returns from the grave! But with Baron Strucker, Doctor Doom and M.O.D.O.K. tied up in his revival, this can’t be the same pal that Cap remembers. What’s really going on here? Plus: An unforgettable Captain America/Falcon/Spider-Man team-up!

Collecting CAPTAIN AMERICA (1968) #120-138.

400 PGS./Rated T …$39.99

FANTASTIC FOUR EPIC COLLECTION: THE MASTER PLAN OF DOCTOR DOOM TPB

Volume #2 in the Fantastic Four Epic Collections

Written by STAN LEE • Penciled by JACK KIRBY

Cover by JACK KIRBY

Lee and Kirby set the standard for out-of-this-world, imaginative adventure and launched the Marvel Universe in the pages of FANTASTIC FOUR. Now, with all the MU’s super-hero players in place, it’s time for the FF to run the gauntlet. The Thing throws down with the Hulk in a battle so huge it takes the combined might of the FF and the Avengers to stop it! The Sub-Mariner makes a play for Sue Storm! The FF tangle with the X-Men! Nick Fury drops by in the story that set the table for “Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.”! And even Doctor Strange makes an ever-so-astral appearance! Plus: Two jam-packed Annuals featuring Sub-Mariner’s invasion of New York…and the origin of Doctor Doom!

Collecting FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #19-32 and ANNUAL #1-2.

448 PGS./Rated T …$39.99

DAKEN: DARK WOLVERINE — PUNISHMENT TPB

Written by DANIEL WAY, MARJORIE LIU & RICK REMENDER

Penciled by GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI, STEPHEN SEGOVIA, PACO DIAZ, MIRCO PIERFEDERICI, JOHN ROMITA JR., WILL CONRAD & TONY MOORE

Cover by LEINIL FRANCIS YU

During Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign, Wolverine’s son is an Avenger! And that means Daken’s supposed to be one of the good guys — in public, anyway. But when a tape revealing his true colors is leaked onto the Internet, he’ll be forced to clean up his act! But who is pulling Osborn’s strings? Then, Daken will face a bloody reckoning with his father Logan and father figure Romulus — and begin a violent rivalry with the Punisher! Osborn sends Daken to put down the skull-chested vigilante once and for all — but when that doesn’t quite work out, Daken will battle the reanimated Franken-Castle! And when the Dark Reign ends in a climactic Siege of Asgard, will Daken be hero or villain?

Collecting DARK WOLVERINE #75-89, DARK REIGN: THE LIST — PUNISHER, WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #47-48, FRANKEN-CASTLE #19-20 and DARK WOLVERINE SAGA.

496 PGS./Parental Advisory …$39.99

SPIDER-MAN: WEBSPINNERS — THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TPB

Written by J.M. DEMATTEIS, ERIC STEPHENSON, JOE KELLY, PAUL JENKINS, HOWARD MACKIE, RURIK TYLER, TOM DEFALCO, RON FRENZ, MARC ANDREYKO & KEITH GIFFEN

Penciled by MICHAEL ZULLI, JOHN ROMITA SR., KEITH GIFFEN, ANDY SMITH, BART SEARS, SEAN PHILLIPS, J.G. JONES, GRAHAM NOLAN, RURIK TYLER, RON FRENZ & JILL THOMPSON

Cover by J.G. JONES

A host of comic-book talents spin yarns across the web of Spidey history! Dive deep inside the goldfish bowl for a look at the early motivations of Mysterio! Solve the decades-old mystery of why the Silver Surfer abandoned his plan to attack mankind! Head back to Midtown High’s senior prom with ladies’ man Peter Parker — but who invited the Sandman? Chameleon spirals out of control, Vulture plots the perfect crime and a black-suited Spider-Man joins Silver Sable on a mission of international intrigue! And there are no positives to a trip to the Negative Zone — particularly when Cletus Kasady is along for the ride and Blastaar the Living Bomb-Burst is the welcoming party! Plus: Two rarely seen black-and-white tales!

Collecting WEBSPINNERS: TALES OF SPIDER-MAN #1-18 and material from SHADOWS & LIGHT (1998) #2-3.

480 PGS./Rated T …$39.99

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE AVENGERS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TPB

Written by CULLEN BUNN • Penciled by ALESSANDRO VITTI, MATTEO BUFFAGNI, BARRY KITSON, WILL CONRAD & FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA

Cover by KALMAN ANDRASOFSZKY

Captain America spends some one-on-one time with his Avengers buddies! Something is eating the locals in the San Andres Mountains — Cap and Hawkeye had better hope arrows and a shield will be enough to defeat a hive of dino-monstrosities! Then, Cap and Iron Man head to Madripoor for a technology expo — but when Batroc’s Brigade shows up, a nightmare is unleashed! Back in World War II, Invaders Cap and Namor face a huge problem when the Thule Society releases the Kraken! And Kashmir Vennema and her multiversal corporation chase Captain America and Black Widow across countless worlds! It’s all leading to an epic confrontation involving Hawkeye, Iron Man and…Doctor Doom?

Collecting CAPTAIN AMERICA AND HAWKEYE #629-632, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND IRON MAN #633-635, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND NAMOR #635.1 and CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BLACK WIDOW #636-640.

296 PGS./Rated T …$34.99

STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER — THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TPB

Written by ED BRUBAKER & JAMES ASMUS • Penciled by DALE EAGLESHAM, NICK BRADSHAW, IBRAIM ROBERSON & MAX FIUMARA

Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC

Steve Rogers is back from the dead! But with Bucky Barnes wielding the shield, it’s time for a new guise for the Living Legend! Long ago, the serum that transformed Rogers into a Super-Soldier was lost, seemingly forever. But now, its creator’s grandson has rediscovered the formula and plans to sell it to the highest bidder. Confronted with the nightmare scenario of an unstoppable army in the hands of any despot or dictator with enough cash, can the former Captain America prevent the serum from changing hands before it’s too late? Then, when the X-Men, including Cyclops and Namor, find themselves trapped in the Negative Zone, they could use a hand against Blastaar the Living Bomb-Burst! Enter: Steve Rogers, Super-Soldier!

Collecting STEVE ROGERS: SUPER-SOLDIER #1-4 and ANNUAL #1, UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL (2006) #3 and NAMOR: THE FIRST MUTANT ANNUAL #1.

216 PGS./Rated T+ …$24.99

NEW AVENGERS BY BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION VOL. 6 TPB

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Penciled by STUART IMMONEN, DANIEL ACUÑA, HOWARD CHAYKIN & MIKE DEODATO JR.

Cover by STUART IMMONEN

The order changeth! But as the Marvel Universe enters a Heroic Age, who will assemble as the newest New Avengers? Where will they call home? And which Dark Avenger is sticking around for the ride? The latest roster has come together to take on the perils too dangerous and bizarre for any other heroes — beginning with an interdimensional demonic threat to all existence! Then, a deep and deadly secret Nick Fury has kept buried for decades comes back to haunt the team — but who were their predecessors in the 1950s? And when the madness of FEAR ITSELF hits home, the New Avengers battle alongside the Avengers, super-hero nanny Squirrel Girl fights alone and the status quo gets shaken up once again. The time has finally come for Daredevil: Avenger!

Collecting NEW AVENGERS (2010) #1-16.

392 PGS./Rated T+ …$34.99

DEADPOOL CLASSIC VOL. 18: DEADPOOL VS. MARVEL TPB

Written by DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI, BEN ACKER, BEN BLACKER, CHRISTOPHER HASTINGS, TIM SEELEY, CULLEN BUNN & GERRY DUGGAN

Penciled by PEPE LARRAZ, EVAN “DOC” SHANER, JACOPO CAMAGNI, ELMO BONDOC, SALVA ESPIN & MATTEO LOLLI

Cover by TRADD MOORE

The Merc with a Mouth takes on Marvel’s greatest heroes and vilest villains! Everything you knew about Deadpool’s first encounter with Cable was wrong — now get the full story! Can X-Force save history from Deadpool? Wade Wilson goes to Infinity and beyond throwing down the gauntlet against the Mad Titan, Thanos! But who will win Death’s fair, bony hand? It’s the ultimate battle of good-crazy vs bad-crazy as Deadpool takes on Carnage — and there will be blood! And the regenerating degenerate hangs out with Hawkeye on Halloween! Oh, the horror! Plus: Madcap gets inside Wade’s head, and DP helps out his “best bud” Spidey by wearing his webs! Winning friends and influencing people, Deadpool-style!

Collecting DEADPOOL VS. X-FORCE #1-4, DEADPOOL ANNUAL (2013) #1-2, DEADPOOL VS. THANOS #1-4, DEADPOOL VS. CARNAGE #1-4 and HAWKEYE VS. DEADPOOL #0-4.

488 PGS./Parental Advisory …$39.99

STAR WARS LEGENDS EPIC COLLECTION: THE ORIGINAL MARVEL YEARS VOL. 2 TPB *

Written by MARY JO DUFFY, ARCHIE GOODWIN, MICHAEL GOLDEN & CHRIS CLAREMONT • Penciled by CARMINE INFANTINO, MICHAEL GOLDEN & MIKE VOSBURG

Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO

Marvel’s original exploration of the Star Wars galaxy continues — and all your favorites are along for the ride! Luke and Leia are trapped in a siege at Yavin! Obi-Wan Kenobi fights alone! Cyborgs clash when Darth Vader takes on bounty hunter Beilert Valance! And Han and Chewie answer the question, “Whatever happened to Jabba?” Lightsabers clash, there’s thunder in the stars and a red queen rises as the Dark Lord of the Sith finally discovers the identity of the young Jedi who destroyed the Death Star! Prepare for a Skywalker showdown setting the stage for The Empire Strikes Back! Plus: Rarely seen tales from the United Kingdom!

Collecting STAR WARS (1977) #24-38 and ANNUAL #1, and STAR WARS WEEKLY (UK) #94-99 and #104-115.

448 PGS./Rated T …$39.99

DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER BORN TPB (NEW PRINTING)

Written by PETER DAVID & ROBIN FURTH • Penciled by JAE LEE & RICHARD ISANOVE

Cover by JAE LEE & RICHARD ISANOVE

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” With those words, millions of readers were introduced to Stephen King’s Roland — an implacable gunslinger in search of the enigmatic Dark Tower, powering his way through a dangerous land filled with ancient technology and deadly magic. Now, in a comic book personally overseen by King himself, Roland’s past is revealed! Sumptuously drawn by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, adapted by longtime Stephen King expert Robin Furth (author of The Dark Tower: A Concordance) and scripted by New York Times best-seller Peter David, this series delves deep into Roland’s origins. THE GUNSLINGER BORN is the perfect introduction to this incredibly realized world, while longtime fans will thrill to adventures merely hinted at in the novels. Be there for the beginning of a modern classic!

Collecting DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER BORN #1-7.

240 PGS./Parental Advisory …$19.99

MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VS. THE SINISTER SIX VOL. 3 DIGEST

Adapted by JOE CARAMAGNA

Featuring screen-capture images from MARVEL’S ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VS. THE SINISTER SIX The search for Nick Fury! Fury has been missing ever since Doctor Octopus launched his attack on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicarrier — and Spider-Man is on a quest to find him! But instead of Fury, Spider-Man finds…Hydro-Man! He’s sure to make a big splash! If that turns into a washout, maybe Spidey will have better luck searching in Attilan — home of the Inhumans! Plus: Doc Ock’s sinister plot is revealed at last! Can Spidey survive Ock’s master plan?

Collecting MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VS. THE SINISTER SIX #9-11 and MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1.

96 PGS./All Ages …$9.99

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