I know, I know, my What If...? LB needs attention, too. I'm still trying to figure out what issue I should do next, and let me tell you, it's harder than it sounds. I've attempted to write up a new installment four times in the past week, if you can believe it. I'll probably have something up tomorrow, so don't sweat it.
Alright, let's dive right into Spider-Man Noir: Eyes Without a Face #2.
The second part of our story begins not unlike our first - g-men from the Bureau of Investigation discover bodies of those who crossed the Crime Master. In this case, however, it's multiple bodies. Many bodies. They're in the old Alhambra theater, which I imagine means Peter called in an anonymous tip upon discovering the scene. If you'll recall from last issue, this is the place where the Sandman stores his kills. Yuck, right?
One of the investigators, Jean DeWolfe, theorizes that this is the Crime Master's idea of marking his territory. That thing with the stoolpigeon was to show the feds he's not scared of them - this is to show his rivals what happens if they go up against him. They recognize one of the bodies by his fancy clothes; must be Donato Moretti. "What happened to his face?" "It's in his lap." Jean and his partner Walter decide to catch some fresh air after witnessing such a gruesome scene.
Outside, Agent DeWolfe is notified of some familiar-looking webs on the fire escape. Right about here seems like a good place to mention this, but Jean DeWolfe was a supporting Spider-Man character for quite a while. You may notice the Gender Flip, which I think is perfectly appropriate given the setting. Anyway, someone asks if the webs mean Spidey's with the Crime Master. Jean doubts it - if he were, he wouldn't be sneaking in the back window. He's got to be the "concerned citizen" who called this in. Walter asks if this means Spidey's on their side, but Jean isn't having any of that. "If he was on our side he'd be carrying a badge and calling me 'sir.'" Spidey's a vigilante; he does what he wants, no rules, no constraints... Walter wonders where he can sign up.
Now, at what I'm assuming is around the same time, Spider-Man walks down the streets of Harlem. He's wearing some kind of desperado hat, and between that and the darkness of late evening people don't seem to be taking notice of him. He narrates that Donato owned a club around here, Seventh Heaven... but since the old boss lost face (tee hee), it's under new management. He knocks on the door, which has one of those eye-level slide-out things. The guy recognizes him as Spider-Man and calls a tommy gun wielding pal over. Huh, the wallpaper in that place has Elektra on it. Spidey knocks the door down before they get the drop on him. Title page, son!
Spider-Man, having taken the guys' guns, walks out to the main hall and addresses the revelers inside. He tells them that this is a den of filth built on crime and corruption, and from this night on he'll consider anyone who sets foot in the Seventh Heaven just as guilty as the Crime Master in every foul deed he's committed. To clarify, he notes that if you want to unwind you can go to any one of several local clubs - the Savoy, the Cotton Club, the Radium - as long as they don't come here. He tells them all to leave, and handily starts firing his guns into the air to encourage them.
But he doesn't leave it at that! Spider-Man sees to it that everyone in the place take their leave. He then starts grilling the owner, Fat Larry. Fat Larry ran this place for the Goblin, then Moretti, and now the Crime Master. "This rat is a survivor." At Spider-Man's violent insistence, Fat Larry agrees to give him the "guided tour". Larry shows Spider-Man the back rooms (which still have people in them), from which he runs prostitution and drugs. Sickening, but nothing Spider-Man hadn't expected. There's one more room he hasn't seen with three locks on it - not for keeping people outside, but for keeping people in.
Larry opens the door, but wishes Spider-Man hadn't pushed the issue. He sees soundproofing, chains and meathooks, a table with straps on it... and surgical tools. Larry tries to play it off like this is where the S&M freaks get their kicks when Spidey asks if this is where the Crime Master tortures his victims. He offers Spider-Man a bribe. This angers our hero, who grabs him by the collar and insists that nobody can buy him. Larry's to tell the Crime Master that Seventh Heaven is shut down permanently, and if Spidey so much as catches him running a shoe shine stand in this city after this, he'll do things to him that aren't fit to print.
He rushes out of there like a bat out of Hell. He feels dirty. He goes Roof Hopping, hoping the air will wash the stink of that place off him. He goes to see Felicia, who's gazing out from her balcony as Louis Armstrong's Body and Soul plays on her gramophone. When I said he went to see her, well... he seems to be working up the courage to go over there as he watches her from across the street when he sees a man in her bedroom asking her to come back in.
Later, Peter arrives home to the Bowery Welfare Center, where Mary Jane has evidently found part-time employment filling in for Pete. Aunt May wants to know where he's been. He dodges the question by joyously showing her the Bugle - Jameson ran his piece on Octavius! Aunt May notes that didn't answer her question. "Have you been hanging around those places Ben Urich used to take you?" I love that line, because there's no way Pete would have said anything to her about Urich taking him to the Black Cat - she just knows.
Peter tries to come up with a lame excuse, but is interrupted by the arrival of Robbie's grandfather, Carver. Carver needs to talk to Peter for a moment: Robbie's gone missing. Aunt May suggests that he might be staying over with a friend, but Gloria, Robbie's girlfriend, denies this as impossible - he'd never go anywhere without telling her. Wh-PISH! Everybody sits down, and Carver gives everybody the story on Robbie's recent activities. He'd been investigating white supremacists. Though Carver thinks the KKK is pretty much finished, Robbie's convinced they've gone underground - assimilating into mainstream political parties. He also thinks they're connected to the Friends of New Germany, German immigrants who want to set up an American Nazi party.
Robbie had a contact in a former member of the Friends of New Germany who claimed the group is planning treasonable acts. Peter flashes back to Robbie talking about the "bigger story" on Octavius. And, as SKJAM predicted, Robbie had also been looking into dozens of disappearances from Harlem in the past few months. Carver blames himself; all this time, he'd told Robbie that he was imagining things. Mary Jane proves to be ridiculously naive when she insists she would have heard about those disappearances. Gloria sets the record straight: "If they were white you'd have heard about it." Carver relates that he tried to report Robbie missing at the Police Department. They told him to check the drunk tank.
Peter's frustrated with the fact that Robbie didn't just tell him about any of this, but Gloria says he wasn't sure Peter would take him seriously either. Pete has an epiphany, flashing back to the torture room at Seventh Heaven. He storms out to look for Robbie. Gloria tries to follow him, but he's gone with the wind.
On Ellis Island, Dr. Connors shows Octavius the new arrivals, kept like all the others in large prison cells. Robbie tells Octavius that he won't get away with this. Octavius is surprised that he knows his name. Robbie realizes that Octavius actually doesn't remember him even though they met just the other day, and asks if they really all look the same to him. Octavius tells him he can distinguish gender - that's "sufficient." He reaches into the cell with one of his mechanical arms, prodding a pretty young woman with the syringe at the end. "Have her cleaned up and bring her to the lab."
"Somewhere in Manhattan", the Crime Master reports to a high-ranking member of the Friends of New Germany - if the American flag with a Swastika stamped on it is any indication. He's not happy about what happened at Seventh Heaven - if Spider-Man had decided to drop by just 24 hours earlier he would've found four black people in chains. The Crime Master uses a slang term I've never heard before ("Everything's Jake"? Really?) and reassures his FNG benefactor that the whole city's afraid of him. In response, he finds his mask torn off his face - "This is what they're afraid of. I created the Crime Master. Without the mask, you're nothing!" He tells the Crime Master to take a hike, because he's got a meeting to go to.
The Friends of New Germany guy, Josef, goes to said meeting - with Connors and Octavius. Octavius notes Josef is late, but he attributes it to a political matter that needed his attention. This brings Octavius to talking about The State as a Form of Life as he hands a knife to one of his mechanical arms. It introduced the concept of "Biopolitics", with the state as an organism that hosts certain parasitic lifeforms... "lifeforms which must be cut away if the state is so survive." Josef doesn't necessarily agree with the idea as Octavius applies it - surely there are more effective ways to deal with parasites than to cut them up one by one. At this point it's clear that Josef and the Friends of New Germany are responsible for Octavius' government funding.
Octavius insists simple extermination is wasteful. In his correspondence with Heinrich Himmler, Octavius has found that he agrees. Josef asks is he has an alternative, and it's origin time! Octavius was born in German Southwest Africa, where his father's copper mine was worked by indigenous forced labor. Life would have been impossible without the native servants... but they were "troublesome, lazy, and degenerate." And we see that Octavius' idea of troublesome, lazy, and degenerate amounts to "they act like perfectly normal human beings." They play sports to keep active in their downtime, they have relationships, that sort of thing. In any case, he figures the solution is "a marriage between neurological and behavioral science."
Essentially, using brain surgery to remove free will from the minds of the "lower races" to make them the perfect slaves. He's about to provide a demonstration, in fact, with the woman he picked from Robbie's cell - who, eyes wide open, appears to be fully conscious as Octavius starts cutting off the top of her head. "Obedient, hard-working, incapable of rebellion... because their will to resist has been cut away like a cancerous tumor."
Okay, we're back at Seventh Heaven. It's empty but for Fat Larry and a bartender. Spider-Man came to check up - and, obviously, to take another look at that room from before. He wants Larry to tell him what those chains are really for. The Bartender splits and clandestinely calls someone to tell the Crime Master that Spider-Man's come back.
Spider-Man tells Larry he knows that this is where the kidnapped black people have been stored. Larry plays dumb, but right now that's not important - Spider-Man gets that weird feeling like he's in trouble again, and looks behind him to see the Crime Master, the Sandman, and a ridiculous number of goons wielding blunt instruments. "You'll notice my boys aren't using their cannons. I want you alive when I slit you open and your guts spill out on the floor." For his part, Spider-Man isn't even scared - and takes care of the Crime Master's stooges with remarkably little effort. Unfortunately for him, the Sandman is Made of Iron. With a single shove, Spidey is Blown Across the Room. The Crime Master pulls out a switchblade and holds it right up to Spider-Man's face.
End of issue 2
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