Amazing Fantasy (vol. 2) #10

Jun 23

Jun 23 Amazing Fantasy (vol. 2) #10

Going Native

Carmilla Black is having a nightmare where her mother, AIM leader Monica Rappaccini, is diagnosing the human embodiment of Western Civilization. She has deemed it terminally ill but has the cure, unveiling Carmilla in a vat marked with a skull and crossbones. Throwing a switch, Monica channels Carmilla’s poison sting, using it to kill the personification of Western Civilization.

Carmilla wakes up and is greeted by a man named Lars Branco. Branco calls her Thasanee, Carmilla’s birth name, and welcomes her home. She is still disorientated after the heavy drug cocktail they had to use to incapacitate and move her, but Lars insists that it was necessary in order to get her away from her SHIELD handlers, whom Lars calls “corporate-paid liars”. He takes her down into the secret AIM compound and tells her that this is what her handlers were afraid of. He shows her around the AIM created bio-havens where a group of women harvests fruit. Carmilla learns that these women were rescued from the genocides in Darfur and that this AIM facility is cloaked from government surveillance. In order to live in peace here, the people they rescue must undergo a brainwashing process that purges their minds of so-called “toxins of the psyche” such as religion and national and ethnic identity. She then asks where Monica is but is only told that her mother is “around”.

Lars then tells Carmilla about how a local militia has taken over a hospital and been attacking their supply convoys and asks her to kill them as a show of loyalty. He suggests that maybe she might have already been tainted by SHIELD, but Carmilla reminds him how they tried to arrest her in Prague. She insists that she doesn’t want anything to do with the “globo-fascists” in SHIELD. When asking if her mother knows about this mission, Lars tells her that it’s a test to prove that Carmilla is her daughter in more ways than just biology. When she grabs a machine gun out of Lars hand and walks off, he tells her that the new world will come out of the ashes of the old and to leave none of the enemy soldiers alive.

Meanwhile, aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier, Derek Khanata is meeting with Nick Fury to complain about other agents interfering with his operation.[1] Meanwhile, his colleague Noriko Nagayoshi is called to a nearby phone. He is connected with Doctor Anish Rao from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. Doctor Rao has just finished examining the samples of Carmilla Black’s DNA that they collected in Prague. Rao explains that Carmilla’s biology naturally produces various life-saving chemicals to counteract exposure to poisons and toxins. A side effect of this treatment is what created her poison “sting”. After getting off the call, Noriko tells Ayna Sareva that Derek was right, Carmilla was biologically engineered to survive a biological or radiological attack.

It’s nightfall in Sudan when Carmilla Black arrives at the hospital where the militia has set up operations. Seeing the death and destruction caused by this group makes her angry. As she stakes out the area an unmarked helicopter arrives to deliver a bunch of biological weapons. To create a distraction, Carmilla makes the militants camels run into the desert and attempts to shoot a propane tank. However, she is caught by one of the enemy soldiers, and thinking about how she accidentally killed her homecoming date when she was 16, Carmilla tells the soldier to stand down telling him that she is not a killer. The soldier fires at her, one of the bullets bounces off her gun and strikes one of the chemical warheads. The resulting explosion kills everyone on the site except for the Scorpion. Horrified by what she has done, Carmilla finds one of the terrorist’s satellite phones to call Troy Goddard. He is upset at Carmilla for standing him up a second time, but she tells him to shut up. She tells him how she feels about him, that he is the first boy she has cared about since her boyfriend in high school, but tells her that Carmilla Black is going away for good and her name is actually Thasanee. As she hangs up an AIM craft arrives to pick her up.

Lars Branco emerges from the craft with no protective gear and tells Carmilla that its time to meet her mother. When she expresses concern for his safety, Lars reveals that he has similar powers to hers, saying that their mother, Monica Rappaccini, created them to populate the new world. At that moment, at the SHIELD helicarrier, Noriko Nagayoshi is working on a redesign of the Scorpion’s gauntlet so she can use a ranger attack. He and Ayan start talking about Carmilla’s unique biology and wonder why her adopted parents didn’t notice how they were caring for a child that had a natural immunity to all poisons. They come to the same conclusion and rush to tell Derek. Back at AIM’s headquarter, Carmilla is made to watch a video of Monica that was recorded 19 years previously where she is telling her minions how they will help bring upon a new world. She is surprised to see her adopted parents, Tim and Julia Black, were actually AIM operatives the whole time. Lars says this shouldn’t have been surprising since it was SHIELD who murdered them. That’s when Noriko and Ayna burst into the meeting between Nick Fury and Derek Khanata to tell them that Carmilla Black’s adopted parents were AIM sleeper agents. Derek tells him that they have already come to that conclusion and that AIM intends to launch a chemical attack using Carmilla. Despite his protests, Derek has been given orders to liquidate the Scorpion.

Recurring Characters

Scorpion, SHIELD (Nick Fury, Derek Khanata, Noriko Nagayoshi, Ayna Sareva), AIM (Monica Rappaccini, Lars Branco), Troy Goddard, Tim and Julie Black (in flashback)

Continuity Notes

The narrative of this story talks about how Stark Enterprises helped foster the use of helicarriers for SHIELD’s base of operations. This is in reference to the modern-day, public version of SHIELD that first appeared in Strange Tales #135. It has since been revealed that SHIELD has been around since the 1960s in Winter Soldier: Bitter March, however that version of SHIELD was a more clandestine organization.

Topical References

Janjaweed. Reference to “Unshielded: An Unauthorized Insider’s Look Behind the World’s Most Powerful Global Spy Network” being published in 2004, Tim and Kathy Black’s ties to the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Vampire by Night

As celebrity Nina Price arrives in Naples a mob of photographers are there to document her arrival. One of the photographers, a man named Louis, thinks there is something more to the elusive Nina Price, something negative that can make him a lot of money if he manages to get a picture of it. Louis begins following her around trying to figure out what shameful secret she is trying to keep. He eventually follows her into a slum where he photographs her getting ambushed by two muggers.

Surprisingly, Nina Price manages to overpower the two men, furious that they ruined her $900 blouse. Deciding that she only needs one victim to feed upon, she snaps the neck of the mugger who reeks of gin. She then exposes the neck of her intended victim and, producing vampire fangs, and begins drinking his blood.

Horrified, Louis manages to snap a photo but somehow, Nina Price manages to hear it. Amused that the paparazzi had followed her, she decides to tell him a story. She tells him that the entire world is her playground and one day she will inherit a virtual empire from her father. However, she inherited something from her mother’s side of the family, the Russells, telling him that it kicked in when she turned 18. She recalls she had a huge birthday bash with half of Hollywood in attendance. It was a full moon and she blacked out in the middle of the party. The next day she woke up at a farm mile away naked and covered in animal blood. She kept on getting these blackouts once a month and not a single professional was able to explain them. That’s when she got a letter from Lissa Prince, who told her of her family heritage that the Russell family was cursed with lycanthropy, each generation the family would give birth to a werewolf.

Draggin Louis up to the rooftops, she explains that Lissa Prince is her mother, whom she hasn’t seen since she was twelve. She then spent her time trying to find a cure for her condition, using her wealth to try and buy a cure. This led her to the Carpathian Mountains. However, he travels attracted the attention of a local vampire who decided to turn her. However, on the night of a full moon — the same night she would rise from the dead as a vampire herself — the vampire who turned her was surprised to find a wolf waiting for him. She killed that vampire and for the first time, she remembered what she did when she turned into a wolf. She then explains how she now fights her bloodlust but has to feed on live beings. Although she is not undead and can go out in the sunlight, her hunger prevents her from having a normal life.

After telling Louis all of this, she wishes him good luck trying to tell others her story as nobody will believe him. Louis then rushes back to his hotel room and downloads the photos from his camera on to his laptop. He is shocked to see that he was only able to photograph Nina Prince’s victim until he remembers that a vampire cannot be photographed.