Secret Warriors #1
“The Left Hand Knows”
Page 1: SHIELD black site. Mockingbird & Crossfire are reviewing criminal files. Mockingbird holds one up and asks isn’t the subject dead? Crossfire says they’re X-People, who can bother to keep track. Surveillance has seen her around, so good enough. Crossfire says that some are too unpredictable. Mockingbird says that’s what they need.
Page 2: Kraven is tracking something in the jungle. No dialogue or narration.
Page 3: ½ page panel of a tiger jumping at Kraven as he goes for a knife, then it’s shot from off-panel. Crossfire approaches an angry Kraven with an offer. He tells Kraven they want the man who buried the Spider.
Page 4: Back alley, and not a clean one. Siryn, now the Morrigan, chasing Scarecrow. Floating rather than on foot. She says it’s time to answer to the Flames for what he’s done.
Page 5: Crossfire again, saying he needs “your blessings”. Siryn says she’ll go with him as soon as she kills Scarecrow. Crossfire tells her he needs them both, but don’t worry at least one of them will probably die on the job.
Page 6: Mockingbird, now in HYDRA uniform, shows up at Bob’s door. Telling him his commission has been reactivated. He says he’s retired (despite still wearing HYDRA uniform around the house). Mockingbird cocks a gun and he immediately says he’s in.
Page 7: SHIELD raid on Secret Empire facility. Laser guns, jetpacks, the whole works. No named agents we’d recognize.
Page 8: In a briefing room with the last panel of the raid page now on a screen. Crossfire tells the assembled villains that the raid was a fake. SHIELD tech and uniforms, but no authorization and no intel made it back to anybody at the organization. Secret Empire weapons were just stolen. Tiger Shark asks how he knows & why they care. Crossfire tells them he has a source, codename “Mockingbird” who has a personal interest in the situation, and in addition to the individual leverage he offered each of them to join, they’ll get a million dollars to solve it.
Page 9: Siryn asks why they need a team, and calls feral a Monster, which Maria finds funny given how Theresa looks now. Feral explains that anything that brings them closer to dismantling the Weapon X program is worth her time.
Page 10: “Your mission should you choose to accept it” bit. Raid a SHIELD facility. Steal what you can. Deal with the defenses. Crossfire says Mockingbird didn’t give full information, but what they’re looking for is occult and Siryn should be able to tell if it’s the real deal. A panel of Scarecrow huddling up next to HYDRA Bob, smiling and telling him not to worry,”I’ll look out for you”. Bob is terrified, of course.
Page 11: Mockingbird and Crossfire meeting in a park, dressed like normal people. Someone is watching them from the trees, but they don’t see it. It’s cat eyes. Crossfire is worried about Feral, and tells Mockingbird the lie they recruited her with won’t hold for long. Mockingbird tells him it’s just for 1 mission and she’s surprised he’s not more worried about Scarecrow. Crossfire tells Mockingbird he’s just going to shoot Scarecrow as soon as possible.
Page 12: Crossfire asks Mockingbird why she came to him instead of going to the villains directly. She says they won’t trust a “hero”, no matter what backstory they give her fall from grace. And he can be persuasive. Plus, she jokes, he’s a great cutout: She hates him and is just going to shoot him as soon as possible.
Page 13: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” A cult meeting, but high-tech. Everyone in black coats, and eyepatches. Mostly men but at least a few women, and one of them has dark hair. Mockingbird is at the altar, addressing the group. She congratulates them on the first salvo against the corrupt SHIELD establishment. They all answer “we know”.
Mockingbird relays the goal of The Master: Freedom from Deep State conspiracies. “Don’t Yield, Kill SHIELD”. Closeup panel of her smiling. Whether it’s about how well the infiltration is going or the paramilitary cult being against ‘government control’ is up to the reader.
Page 14: Feral and Kraven in a maintenance tunnel. Feral sniffs the air and holds Kraven back, throwing something at an electrified filament web. They start talking. Kraven tells Feral that whoever Crossfire is working for is lying about Weapon X. Feral knows, but she’s planning on using Mockingbird’s resources to go after them anyway, whether they’re provided or not. Feral asks Kraven what he was offered. He says they can bring him peace. They look up at the ceiling, waiting for something.
Page 15: Hydra Bob cuts through the wall of the tunnel & lowers down a ladder. He smiles and thanks them for some reason, and asks where they are exactly. Kraven says “downstream”. Bob mentions finding a route that takes them past any guards.
Page 16: Scarecrow crawls out of a vent in a security post and kills a bunch of guards.
Page 17: Feral and Bob meet Scarecrow outside the security post. Bob asks where the rest of them are and Feral looks at the door. She notes there’s a lot of dead people in the room. Scarecrow’s shrug is so exaggerated that his shoulders are almost a foot above his head. Feral says Kraven is looking for the way in.
Page 18: The same cult assembly Mockingbird was leading. She’s not at the altar anymore. Kraven is hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Panel of him scanning the crowd and then burrowing into a pile of cables when one of the cultists looks up. Odd word balloons of half-conversations about Wundagore, SHIELD, Kraken and probably one joke panel of a cultist saying his eyepatch itches.
Page 19: Kraven comes in from offpanel to sneak up on Feral, Bob and Scarecrow but none of them act startled. He describes the layout of the meeting chamber. It’s like a cathedral built inside a fallout shelter. Stained glass windows against steel walls and a 2 dozen cultists, all of them fighters. Feral says they need to wait for them to disperse and pick them up one by one, and search the room. Bob wants to wait for Siryn or Crossifre, they were supposed to know what they were after. Kraven says patience is useless if they don’t know the quarry. Scatter the herd now. Feral refuses to go in and attack, saying it’s sloppy and too risky. Kraven says he’s no massacrer, they need to throw confusion into the group and get them running in separate directions. Scarecrow tells them they’re both overthinking it, this is a cult; he should walk in, say he’s their God and tell them to eat each other.
Page 20: Feral hears Crossfire’s voice. He says Tiger Shark is on his way with the distraction. Bob asks who she’s talking to, and gets confused because they don’t have radios or earpieces. Crossfire’s voice congratulates Feral on her high-frequency hearing. He tells Feral what they want is a book and one of the eyepatches has it on them. They’re not here to kill everyone, but the Shark and Scarecrow will cause some damage and mayhem and between 2 super-hunters and a trained HYDRA infiltrator they should be able to lead small groups where they want them for Siryn to pick up.
Page 21: Kraven is back on the ceiling, with Scarecrow squeezing through the cables. He points to a section of the wall and tells Scarecrow to put the explosives there, then take out the lights when it blows.
Page 22: Bob is trying to make small talk with Feral while they wait. He asks if she’s part cat, and whether she’s a mutant. Feral is annoyed but doesn’t answer. Bob says he’s surprised she’s in on this, whoever’s really behind this cell must be more tolerant than a lot of HYDRA commanders. Feral tells him to be quiet. They shouldn’t be noticed until it’s time to grab the book. Tiger Shark and Scarecrow are the noise but it’s still a stealth job for the rest of them. “So if you shout ‘Hail Hydra’ I will throw you to the Shark.”
Page 23: Inside the main chamber, the bomb goes off and Tiger Shark washes in with the rubble. The Fury-cultists start shooting at him with energy guns. Tiger Shark throws them around as more water pours in. Scarecrow drops from the ceiling and joins the fight.
Page 24: Feral knocks people out as they run for the exit. Bob searches them. One of the cultists shouts for “the mercenary”. Kraven is watching from the ceiling. A sai flies at him and hits him in the leg. Elektra takes off her eyepatch.
Page 25: Kraven falls down into the crowd and lands on a cultist. Scarecrow and Tiger Shark are already going after her. Elektra shoves Scarecrow’s head into Tiger Shark’s mouth as Kraven circles them all.
Page 26: Bob aims at Elektra from the entrance but she dodges the shot. Feral runs into the fight. Her hair is standing on edge and teeth & claws look longer.
Page 27: Elektra hits Feral and Tiger Shark as they both snarl and bite at her. Kraven is still standing near with a knife. Scarecrow has broken off and he’s attacking cultists.
Page 29: Elektra doesn’t seem hurt. Tiger Shark is down and Feral keeps swinging her claws. Kraven tries to stab Elektra but she drops to the floor and guides his arm into Feral instead. Feral isn’t talking at all, just growling. Crossfire’s voice yells “can you hear me?” a couple times before giving up and saying Covert isn’t an option.
Page 30: All the windows shatter and everyone drops except Feral. People’s eyes are open but they’re not moving and look like they’re in agony. Siryn floats in and points to one of the eyepatch cult goons. “He has it. Let’s go.” The rest of the team starts to rise. Crossfire tells her the plan was to go in quiet, but thanks for the Deus Ex Machina. Siryn corrects him: “I didn’t come from a machine.” Bob notices that Scarecrow is still on the floor and aims at him.
Page 31: Feral stops Bob from shooting Scarecrow. Kraven has the book and they’re ankle deep in water. Tiger Shark and Scarecrow are standing again. Shark asks what this place is. Bob says it’s typical Fury worship from what he’s told. Elektra twitches so they all run.
Page 32: Inside an armored transport. The team are arguing about whether that was really SHIELD. Tiger Shark says it was too weird to be the law. Kraven says that Law is just a meaningless show. Scarecrow says SHIELD, Hydra, Church and Crime are all the same thing. Crossfire from the driver’s cab says that’s not true. Church pays the best.
Page 33: Feral asks Siryn why her Banshee’s scream didn’t affect her. Siryn says it’s because she didn’t want it to. Feral says she’s surprised Siryn passed up the chance to hurt her. Siryn says “Theresa was never that petty. We’re not angry young mutants anymore.” “Right. We’re not mutants. We’re not young. And we’re undead.”
Page 34: They ask what’s in the book that’s so important. Crossfire says he doesn’t care or want to know. Stuff like that is usually the “drive whoever reads it horribly insane” type stuff. Scarecrow has already grabbed it & he’s several pages in. It’s lab notes interspersed with weird runes.
Page 35: Crossfire hands the book to Mockingbird. He tells her Elektra was there and they had to go in loud. Mockingbird says she’s impressed she didn’t spot Elektra in the crowd. Crossfire is confused. Was she with them? Are they really SHIELD? Is Mockingbird? She tells him there’s too many spymasters in this mess. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
Crossfire asks “Whose fingers are we?” Mockingbird tells him they’re the Sinister Six.
Page 36: Feral and Kraven are sitting by a pond. He’s pouring a healing powder on his leg wound and offers some. Feral says she’s fine. Kraven of all people should know how resilient animals are. Tiger Shark comes up from the water and says us natural predators gotta stick together. Feral asks what Mockingbird offered him. He tells her Mockingbird offered to hide him from the law. They’re getting serious about super-criminals. Tiger Shark heard they even sent The Trapster to some orbital prison. Kraven laughs at this. He tells him Peter Pulaski has been in Bellevue Hospital for 2 months after overdosing on glue.
Page 37: Mockingbird is in a lab, reading the book they retrieved. She gets angry at the notes not making sense. Closeup panel of an open page. Words are smudged out, but we can read “Reanimate”, “Herbert W” “Chth-” and “1939”.
Page 38: The Morrigan is praying in the cult’s meeting chamber, abandoned and flooded. A few cultists are still dead in the water. She asks if this was the right path. If going back into the world of costumes and spies and fighting will do anything to hold back the end. She answers her own prayer with “It hasn’t done enough.” The bodies and Siryn both disintegrate.
Page 39: One of the Eyepatches is reporting to a man in a vintage suit, sitting in shadow. He tells him a Banshee, Kraven the Hunter and a gang of other criminals took The Darkhold from Sacred Base #33. He asks the shadow man to take his life for his failure. The shadow man tells him he already has it.
Page 40: The shadow man is impressed that Barbara Morse infiltrated one of his gatherings. To say nothing of assembling a team of supervillains. He hopes she doesn’t kill him, but then again the things he’s done “sow seeds of fury and reap bitter fruit.” Then he starts laughing.
NEXT ISSUE:
- Mockingbird calls a Doctor for a second opinion!
- A History Lesson with Werewolves!
- Whose Side is Bobbi On?
- A Secret Warrior Dies! Probably HYDRA Bob!