Pendragon Comics - The Pendragons 29

The Pendragons

Issue # 29

Brought together in defense of Avalon and the British Isles, the Pendragons are the officially-sanctioned heroes of Great Britain. Originally led by the Black Knight, the group is composed of the remnants of the old Knights of Pendragon group, as well as several other heroes. Willing to die for their beliefs, the Pendragons stand united as England's best defense against threats of a superhuman nature.

Special "Silver Anniversary" Pendragons logo created by Kell Carpenter, inspired by the logo created by Des Davies!

Written by Barry Reese

What Has Come Before: The Pendragons, aided by an ancient dragon named Rathoon, journeyed to Paris in hopes of stopping a sorcerer called Paradox from utilizing the power of the Dragon Stone. Their attempt was only partially successful, as interference from the Emissaries of Darkness allowed Paradox to unleash the Stone's eldritch energies. To the surprise of all, however, the power was drawn away by forces unknown. Shortly thereafter, Victor Von Doom's Latverian castle was breached by a being calling itself Doctor Strange, in honor of the mage who gave his life many months ago. This new Strange seemed imbued with the power of the Dragon Stone and he claimed the mystic artifacts that once belonged to Stephen Strange, leaving Doom to wonder if the balance of power had shifted yet again. Meanwhile, the Pendragons themselves are beset by a number of personal problems: Captain Britain is seeking answers about the woman called Lady Mandarin and the young Albion is covertly giving away the team's secrets to the mysterious Penance Council. And unbeknownst to almost everyone, the killer cyborg Death's Head II has been hired by Deputy Prime Minister Thomas Wellington to remove a threat to British security -- Victor Von Doom....

Cam McClellan sipped his tea and tried to steady his nerves. He was sitting in the V-Battalion's control center, seated beside Roger Aubrey, who was busy thumbing through the reports that Cam had just turned in. Aubrey was in terrific shape for a man his age, though there was a definite sense of decline in his every movement. Cam felt both comfort and pity in the man's presence -- and he thought, not for the first time, of Peter Hunter.

Peter had been Albion, defender of the realm, for almost ninety years. He had faced the likes of Nekros, Blackheart and Mys-Tech without breaking a sweat. He had been a hero.

He was Merlin to my Arthur, Cam thought sadly. He taught me to be a man. I wish you were here now, Peter. I wish you could tell me if you still think I'm worthy to possess your power. Your name.

Aubrey's voice made Cam snap out of his reverie. Like all the members of the Battalion's inner-circle, the mysterious Penance Council, Aubrey was dressed in a dark purple uniform with a long cloak tied about his shoulders. He somehow managed to carry off the ridiculous outfit with a surprising amount of grace. Cam glanced around the room, pleased that no one else seemed to be listening. All the technicians and agents were involved in their own affairs, each of them dedicated to preserving freedom and equality in a post-Black Mass Europe. "What part?"

"The whole affair with Paradox and the Scriers... So no one knows what happened to all the magical energy that had been stored in the stone?"

"No... Rathoon says he can sense that it's still in existence, but it's cloaked somehow. Dark Angel's trying to create some sort of scanner that we can use to track it."

"Ms. Haldane is very clever at things like that, isn't she? Her father was rather high on our threat list for years. I can't say I was sad to hear of his death... or that of the other Mys-Tech board members."

Cam chose to say nothing in response, though it did make him wonder. Shevaun rarely spoke of her father, or of the harrowing battle she had fought against the company he had once served. He knew that Ranulph Haldane had been slain by Mephisto, but what of Shevaun's mother? Who was she? Was she dead? Sometimes you can be with someone day in and day out and still not really know them, he pondered. Clearing his throat, he said "Have you gotten any closer to understanding more of the prophecy?"

Aubrey's expression seemed to soften a bit. He felt a kinship with the boy, and not just because so much of Cam's life was wrapped up in things that mirrored Roger's own: friendships with Union Jack and Spitfire, an almost reverent respect for British history and a mother whom he adored. But he had made many hard decisions over the years, decisions which had hardened his heart. He would not allow his feelings for Cam to interfere with whatever had to be done. "Cam, more and more it looks like you are the person in the prophecy. All the references seem to be there." He reached out a hand and patted Cam's knee. "We'll do all that we can. In the meantime, this information is quite useful. There are some people inside the British parliament who are associates of ours. We can use this sort of thing to insure that the Pendragons continue to receive their full support. It's obvious they're involved in protecting England to a greater scale than the general public could ever know."

Cam nodded, taking notice of a figure watching them both. He was on the suspended catwalk that circled above the control room, half-hidden in shadow. He appeared to be in some sort of wheelchair device, though something about it seemed off somehow. "Who is that?"

Aubrey didn't turn around. "No one you need concern yourself with, Cam. Let's talk more about this new defense system the Pendragons have installed. What's the name of the system's designer?"

Cam looked away from the mysterious figure with a bit of reluctance. "Suzi Endo. She's going to be staying on Lyonesse as a scientific advisor for awhile."

While Aubrey pressed for more information, the being that had once been Jim Hammond wheeled back into the shadows. Since being caught onboard the V-Battalion's mobile aircraft when the Black Mass Barrier went up, Hammond had been increasingly changed. His interest in looking human had begun to wane and his body had been hardwired into a mobile chair-unit. His eyes, which despite their artificiality had always seemed to be windows into an all-too human soul, were now cold and distant. The android hero who had once fought for freedom and justice as a member of the Invaders was now long gone, replaced by something dark and not altogether sane.

Hammond turned his gaze towards a young woman who stood nearby. She hadn't come too close -- no one did, anymore, unless they were forced to -- and Hammond could see her trying to avert her eyes from his face. He'd begun to let the synthetic flesh wilt and fall away, giving his features a half-finished appearance. "What is it?"

"You wanted to be notified when Death's Head II and his partner arrived in Latveria...."

Hammond sighed. Aubrey was supposed to have sent a team to intercept the cyborg. Things could spiral out of hands quickly if Death's Head II actually engaged Doom in combat... "Send in Citizen V," he murmured, enjoying the look of surprise on the girl's face. John Watkins III had been the most recent Citizen V, but his demise in the crash of the Battalion's floating base had left a void that had only recently been filled by a candidate of Hammond's own choosing. Putting a harder edge to his voice, he whispered "Go. Tell him to suit up. I don't give a damn if he's finished with his indoctrination or not."

The girl nodded quickly, almost running in her haste to be away from him. Hammond didn't care.

Joey Chapman sat in the middle of a grand meadow, a sketchbook cradled against his knee. He'd been here for several hours, enjoying the tranquility and the chance to actually draw in peace. Both Lyonesse and the Crichton Estate were busy places, with far too much noise. It was enough to drive a man mad.

Joey looked up with a mixture of both surprise and annoyance. Gulliver Jones, aka "Captain Kerosene," was one of the newer members of the Pendragons -- and the oldest, as well. Active since World War II, Kerosene had always managed to fly beneath most people's notice. Always mistaken for his more famous contemporary, the original Human Torch, Gulliver was an almost forgotten hero -- but one who had been recently chosen by the Lady of the Lake as one of her champions. Joey didn't mind it overmuch -- though Gulliver's attitudes were sometimes hard to swallow. And then there was the fact that Gulliver was an old lover of Spitfire's.... "What brings you calling, Gully?"

Gulliver sat down in the soft grass, looking tired and ancient. "Had a heart to heart with the Lady of the Lake. I told her I'm too old for this. Ever since our battle with the Scriers, my joints have been aching terribly. I can barely sleep from the pain."

Gulliver sighed. "Bloody hell... I wish! She told me that I had been given a great and momentous task. I felt like a fool even standing before her. She asks me to defend the realm, makes me feel like a knight in some old fairy tale and I'm complaining because my hip aches. Bugger it all."

Joey couldn't resist laughing. Gully frequently tried to avoid any off-color remarks, preferring to give the impression of a proper old Englishman. Acting on impulse, he reached out and squeezed the older man's arm. "She can do that. Make you feel like you couldn't deny her anything in the world."

The question made Joey's smile wither away. "So it's back to that, is it?" he asked. He closed his sketchbook and started to rise, all his enjoyment at being in Avalon fading. "I'm returning home."

Joey paused, surprised at something in Captain Kerosene's voice. He saw that Gulliver was looking away from him, a pained expression on his face. "What is it?"

"I'm dying, lad." He looked up at Joey's face, his eyes set deep in his face. It gave him a cadaverous appearance and chilled Joey's blood. "I've avoid the truth for far too long, but after we came back from France, I saw a doctor. He says I have cancer. It's bad."

Joey wasn't sure what to say. He swallowed hard, letting the silence lengthen. "Can the Lady cure you?"

"No... Not that I could bring myself to ask her. How low would a man be to petition someone as wonderful as that, just for a few more years of life? I'm old, Joey. I've seen the highs and lows of life. My time... My has come."

Gulliver rose then, a bit unsteadily, and Joey helped support him with a firm hand on the older man's elbow. "A few months, at best."

"Of course not... But you shouldn't give up so easily. Even if you can't ask the Lady for help, there's always Shevaun or Wynter."

Gulliver nodded, but Joey could already see that he had considered doing just that -- and had dismissed the notion. "Mind sharing your drawings with me?"

Joey hesitated for only a second before offering up a crooked smile. "I can do that. But you'll forgive me if I skip past the shots I drew of Jackie's bum?"

Gulliver pulled a disappointing expression, but his eyes were full of mirth. "I promise to avert my eyes should the pages happen to fall open."

The two men shared a laugh, both of them keenly aware of how strange their relationship was now becoming.

Jacqueline Falsworth Crichton tried, and failed miserably, to hide her amusement. She balanced her grandson on her hip and grinned as Suzi Endo, the team's resident scientist, debated the notions of Chaos Theory with Shevaun Haldane, the Pendragon known as Dark Angel. The two women had hit it off -- so to speak -- almost immediately, plunging forth into a conversation that was as wide-ranging as it was brain-numbing. Jackie caught the eye of her other teammate, Betsy Braddock, from across the dining room. The telepath's mental voice appeared, warm and inviting, inside Jackie's skull. They're quite a pair, aren't they?

That's putting it mildly, Jackie replied. Out loud, she asked "So... Are we going to get a preview of what this new system of ours can do, or not?"

Suzi looked up with a faint blush touching her cheeks. The Asian woman was a beauty, though her intelligence and grace were her true winning features. She stood up and said "Of course. I apologize."

"It's nothing to be concerned over," Betsy assured her. "We're just anxious to see if PLATO will really help us as much as you say."

"You'll be very impressed, I'm sure." Suzi looked around the room, in obvious disappointment. "None of the men are joining us?"

"Joey and Gully are both in Avalon," Jackie replied, "and Adam is in London with Rathoon. I'm not sure where Cam is."

"We'll catch them up on whatever they miss." Betsy, like all those present, was dressed casually, but she had a way of making herself look far more glamorous than most women. A holdover from her days as a model, Suzi assumed.

Suzi pressed a button on the tabletop, which doubled as both a dining area and a meeting place. A holographic figure emerged, a smug smile on his lips. "This is PLATO, originally designed by Tony Stark but revised extensively by myself. Thanks to the havoc that the Barrier has wreaked on electronics, I was forced to go in some unique directions with the project. With notes left over from a corporation known as Mys-Tech, I have managed to magically augment PLATO's parameters and interface him with your own defense grid. He--"

"Mys-Tech?" Shevaun asked. Her face was drawn tight with worry. "You're not serious."

"They were pure evil. Believe me." Shevaun stared at PLATO and whispered "Turn him off. Before he tries to sell us to Mephisto or something."

PLATO rolled his non-existent eyes. "Stop with the histrionics, please. I am no more a servant of darkness than you are a virgin. Can we just ignore the basis for my core programming and instead focus on what I can offer you?"

"Betsy!" Shevaun hissed. "Nothing that comes from Mys-Tech can be trusted. Nothing."

"It could be argued that you come from Mys-Tech," Suzi pointed out. "Your father was a member of their Board of Directors. Your powers are attributable to them, in a way. Yet you are not evil. And neither, despite his personality quirks, is PLATO."

Shevaun took a deep breath and calmed herself. "Fine. But I want to look over all the specs myself."

"Agreed." Suzi continued, eager to regain some control of the meeting. "PLATO can take a wide range of factors into account and then extrapolate out their most likely results. Thus, he can predict danger zones before they erupt."

PLATO's lights flickered suddenly and a map of Europe appeared before him. A bright star illuminated the nation known as Latveria. "97.3% probability of metahuman-induced casualties resulting within the next sixty minutes."

Suzi gestured for PLATO to continue. She hadn't expected a genuine emergency so soon, but she wasn't going to pass up an opportunity for PLATO to strut his stuff.

"Cybernetic mercenary Death's Head II is now on the ground, accompanied by his partner Tuck. Doom Bots have been sent to engage and the EU's official superteam, the Commonwealth, is believed to be en route."

"We monitor the situation for now. Let the Commonwealth handle this... and we'll be prepared to pick up the pieces if they fail."

"I can't believe you found that," Rathoon murmured. The dragon was resting on much of the street facing the Ancient Tomes Bookstore, attracting a huge throng of admirers -- and stopping traffic for several miles. He lowered his head and stared at the title page of the book that Ginny held before him. "The Dragon's Guide to Lovemaking by Rathoon B. Dragon," he murmured. "How in the world did that ever stay in print?"

Ginny, wearing a sunny yellow dress, laughed out loud. "I don't think it did. The guy who owns the store says that a number of book have just popped up in the last few months. You actually wrote this?" she asked, flipping through the pages. A number of expertly drawn illustrations lined the pages.

"Oh yes, indeed. I was quite the playa in my day." Ginny reached out and patted the dragon's nose. Though he was big enough to swallow her whole, she wasn't the least bit afraid of him. He had a gentle spirit, enhanced by his playful attempt at keeping his speech 'modern.' "I think I see our homeboy approaching."

Adam Crown offered a wave to the crowd, many of whom were calling out to him by name. Of all the Pendragons, he had most easily accepted the adulation of the public. "Are you two finished causing a scene?" he asked, holding a bag of groceries against his chest.

Rathoon scooped up the young lovers and placed them delicately on his back. "Where now, my friends?"

Adam held on tight as the dragon lifted off into the air, eliciting cries of amazement from those below. "Back to Lyonesse, I suppose. Unless there's someplace you'd like to go, Rathoon?"

"None of my peeps are still around, Adam. If not for you Pendragons, I'd be totally alone." The dragon sounded melancholy. "I owe you all for allowing me to stay on Lyonesse."

"No thanks are necessary, old man." Adam stroked the dragon's scales. "You're one of us now."

"So... Which do you think will happen first? You'll actually listen to me and take my advice... Or Hell freezes over?" The scantily-clad beauty known as Tuck kept up her banter even as laser beams criss-crossed above her head. She performed an awe-inspiring acrobatic flip that kept her out of the reach of an oncoming Doombot, landing beside her partner, the cybernetic killer known as Death's Head II.

"Quit your whinin', Tuck. Our boss wants us to make a statement here, and we're makin' it." Death's Head transformed his right hand into a buzz saw, slashing it through the last of the robots blocking their path. Over the last couple of hours, the duo had made short work of a plethora of robotic troops, all of whom had tried to stop them from progressing to Castle Doom.

The towering structure was ancient, dating back centuries. It was an imposing building, whose walls spoke of ancient tortures and hidden secrets. The great and wise of Europe had stayed within it during their visits to Latveria, but in the past few decades, it had come to be more famous for its current occupant: Victor Von Doom, the armored tyrant who treated his countrymen as sheep. With the rise of the Black Mass Barrier, Doom's brilliance -- mixed with his knowledge of sorcery -- had allowed Latveria to become a chief power in the new Europe.

The final Doombot lay crumpled at the cyborg's feet and he looked up at the towering structure that was Doom's seat of power. Behind he and Tuck, the citizens of Latveria, still clinging to old traditions and dress, huddled in their homes. Few of them were frightened, however. Though Doom was a terror to the majority of the world, here he was beloved as a protector. He never failed to defend his charges and they saw no reason to believe that he would not now stride forth from his castle and smash these interlopers.

"So... Where do you think he's at?" Tuck asked, looking about. There was a strange silence surrounding them, made all the more eerie by the smoke and acrid scent of warfare.

Death's Head grunted. "Don't have a clue... But if we have to kick in the front door to find out, then let's do it."

The cyborg moved forward, stopping before the huge oak door that barred his path. Kicking out with all his superhuman strength, Death's Head sent the debris flying away from him. The open doorway now beckoned him inside, offering up the promise of not only completing a contract but also profiting off the treasures within.

"Honeyyyyy... I'm home!" the cyborg bellowed, but the only answer was his own echo. The castle was empty and barren, showing little signs of being inhabited. The two mercenaries moved through the halls, stopping in each room as they went, growing more and more concerned. "I don't like this."

"Me neither," Tuck whispered. "Do you think they evacuated the place when they heard we were coming?" She left the remainder of the thought unspoken, though she knew that he'd picked up on it: Maybe they would still be here if we'd snuck in instead of barging up to the door like Hell on wheels.

Death's Head II finally came to a stop in the throne room, gazing up at the massive chair in which Doom often sat. Two portraits hung on the wall behind Doom's throne: one showing a beautiful Gypsy woman with a tantalizing smile; the other showing Doom in full regalia, staring out from behind his iron mask. "Where the hell is he?"

Death's Head II cast one glance at his partner, acknowledging her words. Then he was crouching and whirling about, ready to fire upon his foe. He expected to see Doctor Doom, or at least another Doombot. Instead, he saw a cloaked figure before him, a sword brandished in his right hand. "Oh, spare me," Death's Head murmured. "Who are you supposed to be?"

The figure paused, as if uncertain how he should answer. "Citizen V." He rushed forward, springing up and over Death's Head before the cyborg could stop him. He landed smoothly, slapping the flat of his blade hard against Tuck's skull. The sound of the blow was painfully loud and Tuck fell forward, clutching at her head. "You shouldn't be here," the swordsman added, ducking under a blow from Death's Head. "You're only making an already unstable situation worse."

"I'm not one for politics, V." Death's Head snatched out a hand and grabbed hold of Citizen V's cape. He pulled hard on it, slamming the swordsman into a wall. The portrait of the Gypsy woman fell from to the floor, landing hard.

Citizen V shook his head, trying to clear it. His ears were ringing and stars were obscuring his vision, but he thought he heard Death's Head II utter some sort of exclamation -- and the hairs on V's arms and neck stood on end. He glanced around, seeing that the previously empty palace was now anything but, for servants and guards stood by now, all eyes focused on the scene before them. They were here all along, he realized, but we couldn't see them.

"...invaded my home," someone was saying, their voice catching V's attention. "I was not present when you first arrived and had hoped that my spells would prevent you from harming my palace and its inhabitants, but I see that I was wrong. You are nothing more than animals, demolishing all that you touch. And Victor Von Doom will not stand for it!"

Citizen V looked up into the visage of pure evil, for Victor Von Doom had returned.

Next Issue: Death's Head II. Doctor Doom. Citizen V. What more could you ask for?

This issue was meant to be a slower one in some ways, focusing on moving forward a number of our dangling subplots and showcasing the personal changes that a few of the characters have been undergoing. With regards to Shevaun's relationship with Micky, be sure to read Tom Deja's excellent Miracles, Inc., which features Miracleman's current exploits.

The decision to turn Jim Hammond into one of the series' villains was one that has eaten at me a bit. On the one hand, I love the character, so I hate to "do him wrong." But I also thought the move was an unexpected one and had tons of possibilities inherent in it. I hope you're enjoying where I'm going with it.