"CLONE OF ME," Chapter IV

"CLONE OF ME,"Chapter IV
by Matt B.

While enjoying a "Thank you" type of dinner from his mentor & friend George Mc Rain at the Ranch House with his new friend Sasha Evermore present as well Jonathan Ryder received a call from his mom. The call was concerning his father Max Carter the fourth, & weather or not he was alive at all, or was he killed moments ago in one of two places in Manhattan, New York. With sweat on his brow Jon wasn't wanting to chat about his father, Sasha mouthed "what is it?" as she could now see his hand shake.
"What are you sure?"
Jon's own eyes as Sasha & George looked at him could see them start to water with tears. Samantha Ryder had truly only seen a few minutes of the National news on channel nine, while talking to Sasha's mother Rebbecca she would be the first & last person to admit that because she was frantic of hearing of where in Manhattan that she wasn't thinking straight, she went on her feelings at that said moment: fear.
Sasha handed Jon a napkin as she could see his nose dribbling snot, she once again mouthed to him "Here you go" he smile at her slightly realizing himself his need of the napkin.
"Okay Sam tell me of what you know of this, and it's alright to compose yourself as you tell me
so if your still crying as you tell me it's alright too"
Samantha was doing her best as to keep herself composed while she was trying to recall everything she'd heard from the tube.
"All that I really know is that I was chatting with your new lady friend's mother & making a apple pie for you, because I know of course it's your favorite type of dessert & while I was starting to making the pie's crust..." she started to get the need of needing to wipe her own eyes & nose before continuing on. "Excuse me a minute dear I need to clear my eyes as I think of how the news caster said it", Jon exhaled just a little as he waited for Sam to return to the phone.

Their waitress had appeared with a huge oblong tray with their steak meals, the restaurant's dress code was a white dress with the employee name plate at the top right for the waitresses, for the male servers they wore leather vests over a checkered black & red denim shirts, denim black jeans with a black cowboy hat with their name plate as well on the right. A male server was helping the waitress by setting up a wooded four leg tray for her to set the oblong one down onto.

"I seem to remember hearing the "Forever Movement" that was the terrorist group's name I
believe the newscaster called them, were placing c4 explosives at Madison Ave & east 59th,
where of course you know is where Interlude Energy Enterprises was loca..."
Jon interrupted Sam and asked, "Sam do you know if the Forever Movement had the explosives on the building structure of Interlude Energy Enterprises or in the street of 59th somewhere like on a mail box near there or on a passing vehicle somewhere nearby?"
"I'm not sure they didn't go that far into detail for right now, I'm sure it will be in the late news
later tonight though."
"You said that you were making an apple pie for me, & talking to Sasha's mom while you saw
this right, was there anything more that they said on the tube at all?"
"They had said that Carnegie Hall is nothing more but a smoldering mess now too as well."
" When was the last time you & Max talked last Sam?"
"Last Friday at noon he said he had to go because he was getting ready for a seminar at.."
"Don't tell me Carnegie Hall please don't say that was where the seminar was held.
There was a moment of slience once again from Sam's side the phone, Jon figured that by her not saying anything at all he knew he was right about Max Carter being at Carneige Hall.
"Yes he was there, & I feel so bad for you Jon because now that he's gone you'll never be able to tell or show him how far you, yourself have come in you knowledge of being a scientist in your own field of study."
"Yeah I know Sam I feel like a heel in that way myself for not sharing my work with Max since
he was my father..."
Sasha was really getting irked by Jon's disrespect of talking to his mother by using her first name she wanted to know why he showed this while talking to her. So to get Jon's attention she just stopped eating her dinner.
Jon noticed her while continuing his conversation with Sam on the cellphone, so he pulled the cellphone from his ear & held both hands palms out.
"What's with you Sasha?"
"You and your disrespect to your parents, Why don't you just call them mother & father like
I do with mine or how George here does?"
"I have my reasons why I do that right, Sam?" Sam could hear her son voice even though he
didn't have the phone near his ear now.
"Listen Sam can we come there & talk to you in person at home & can I bring along a friend
besides Sasha
George was waving his hands in a swaying way as if what he had to tell Jon what he had to
say could be at another time.
"Sure I don't see why not, how long will you be before coming over?"
"A half hour at most, why?'
"Great that will be just about time when the pie will be ready"
Jon was looking at both George & Sasha "Well you both heard my mom no dessert from
here then Ok with you guys I hope?"
*******************
Cars were overturned all up & down Madison Ave and East 59th street, flames were spreading everywhere. People were screaming at what they saw when they looked across the street the explosion of the C4 bombs from under the street had blown a taxi cab onto a gasoline tanker, both were lodged at the base of Interlude Energy Enterprises, as the fireball shot up into the air from both vehicles it appeared that one floor was safely intact but only that floor. Both occupants of those two vehicles were killed by the impact from slamming into a solid structure, nothing could have saved them no one who was an onlooker could do anything at all but pray & be thankful that it wasn't them that had just lost their own life. The flames of the raging fire had blown out many of Interlude Energy's windows per floor as it was being fought by Manhattan's fire fighters, because of another fire not to far away but still within Manhattan's district the fire chief had to call on fire fighters from other boroughs of NYC. Suddenly the fire on the top of the building had heated the iron girders that held the signage of Interlude Energy Enterprises that the heat had caused the huge letters to loosen and start to fall towards street level.

"Look out" the fire chief said as he was directing a ladder from squad Engine 51 to the one part of the building that wasn't seemly burning. As to why this floor was safe from the heat of the fire was unknown to general populace of New Yorkers on the streets & specifically those fighting the raging inferno itself. While the ladder from 51 was being raised ever closer to that floor a fireman was hanging tightly on the ladder as a huge lower case e's smoking flames caught his coat on fire he hadn't a chance to do anything as his Oxygen tank exploded he feel onto the area of the engine of where the ladder he was on was an was paralyzed. The fire chief knew he had to think of something else to get to that floor but what the hell would it be he's brain was on overload of fear.
As more EMT ambulances, and finally city maintenance crews arrived to help the cops police to make sure no looting or loitering was occurring while fire fighters were busy trying to contain the flaming streets & the ruins of what was left of Interlude Energy Enterprises, no one saw the black stealth plane overhead.
The leader of the Forever Movement was pissed as hell at his employer he was aboard the stealth plane now passing a disrupted business section of Manhattan while on the phone to him.
"What Goddamn hell was the need to kill my men down there for Mr. Raven?"
"To show you McKnight, I mean business when I want something done I mean it at all cost,
where are you know by the way?"
"Just now passing a "certain Enterprises"in flames, continuing southward towards the south street seaport near the east river"
A groggy man that was just now waking up from having a tranquilizer shot in his right shoulder just moments ago was having his vision clear as he looked out of the tinted window of the stealth plane and saw below him his family company in ruins. He was thinking he had saved the world by not letting the terrorist group known as the "Forever Movement" know of the new satellite technology that they had developed to help control weather easier for agriculture uses, then all of a sudden he remembered what he was to be doing today giving a lecture about the system to new collage science engineers at Carnegie Hall then everything was a blur after willingly boarding this stealth plane.
"um where am I?"
McKnight whilst still on the phone to Mr. Raven saw him arose from his dreamland sleep, only to tranq him again. " What's going on McKnight is there a problem on the plane there?"
"No Mr. Raven it's nothing at all, just that Mr Carter woke before we reached our destination
was all"
"You have appropriately taken care of the matter as I've wanted & requested then?, he has no
idea where he's going, Yes."
"Yes" McKnight said all he could hear from his cell phone was laughter.
The smoking filled clouds gave way that something was high in the air, but what was nobody working on Madison & east 59th street knew what it was till they heard the sonic boom.

What got me back into reading comics again is a little book named "CIVIL WAR"

Hey There all,
As you all know who know me know that I'm a very BIG COMIC buff, I've shared in another series of blogs who my fav is you wouldn't know it with the photos I've posted related to this one who that might be, huh? Well I had officially stop collecting comics in June of 2,000 I really didn't want to because I knew that the writing was starting to take all comics into a better form of characterization & also finally the comic genre itself had started producing quality motion pictures just a year or two earlier, But the real reason I stopped collecting was because of COST alone. Let me tell you when I started collecting back in the late eighties it went from seventy five cents to a dollar which was fine, the industry had the Artists supporting them into mid nineties. And in that time frame closer to the early nineties a new comic company came about named IMAGE as well.
The stories back in the eighties and nineties also had a stable of general continuity within each main comic book that flowed well into the next arc of any given character even when a crossover came about stuff got shaken up a bit, but still paid off to most everyone's liking. Two years ago in my main comic book that I have loved since forever simply known, as the Amazing Spider-Man really decided to SHAKE UP EVERY BIT OF SPIDER History with a storyline called this story REALLY HAS SPARKED flames of disgust among Spider-fans the world over. Why your asking right?, it's how the story was executed from the start that was fine I mean Aunt May yet may be dying for the umpteenth time, and Marvel wanted to get Spider-Man back to basics, and THEY DID IT WAS/IS SO marriageable WRONG! AT the end of OMD to set things right Peter Parker did the unthinkable he made a deal with the Devil to save his aunt by agreeing to ,


well I will let the panels speak for themselves, (I will get back to these in a moment). Before this was a story line called "BACK IN BLACK" here is a rare transnational piece of comic art

I wish I could have, but alas since the story is so wide known as the most controversial Spider-Man story in the past decade "One More Day" that is that cover shown above has sold out at comic retailers even online sites don't have access to it now either. Back to a real quick sum up of "One More Day" Aunt May suffers a gunshot wound from at the end of "Back in Black" storyline meant for Peter her nephew who is Spidey and is on the run from the law with his wife Mary Jane as well has tried to find any kind of help to save May's life. As shown in those panels above both he and Mary Jane give their love or Marriage to the devil, before they agree they see their future child known as "Baby May" (which is who the on/off Spider-Girl: series is based on) is "non cannon now" because editor in chief Joe Queasda wants the Spider-Man character to relate more to younger children than all spider-fans combined. He wants to have the character of Peter Parker act stupid and never grow up and be looking at adult related material and type of jokes while living with Aunt May (This right here alone, was the reason I gave up on the character when I read the reviews of his directions after hearing of where "One More Day" was headed. I in fact have all but part 2 of the story and I still will/would refuse to read it at all because I think this is poor treatment of any comic character. Maybe someday I will tell my own version of how Peter and Mary Jane get back together and still have fun while they find out where Baby May is for in regular continuity Peter and Mary Jane believe that their daughter is dead at birth, but is she really?) So now after a year of telling you of why I like and loved the character of Spider-Man you all know why I can't stand to look at another Spider-Man comic story till one of two things ever should happen but I know that they won't at least for a very long time anyway and they are this: #1, Hopefully the originator of Marvel Comics main heroes yes including SPIDER-MAN himself, none other than comic genius Stan Lee who for now seems to be following a single Peter Parker in the newspaper daily strip as well for the moment
,but even pretending that the marriage wasn't real was hard enough as you can see here as Stan puts Parker and the fans through what can only be a "Time Slip" or perhaps a "It a dreaming nightmare that Peter is having?", I don't know yet. Tells Queasda that he is fired NOT only as a comic editor, but also as entertainer in everything or anything relating to comics, hopefully one day Stan will be pleasing the fans with the marriage yet again the the newspaper strip soon. And #2 would be if Marvel sales plummet in all other characters that they own wouldn't that be grounds for TERMINATION on the spot alone, but will that happen as well only time will tell for sure? Now what Pray Tell brought me back to liking comics again was a tale that brought all hell loose on every Marvel Hero not just Peter Parker's alter ego: It is known as Simply "CIVIL WAR"
as to what it is completely about all I can say is I am VERY EAGER TO FIND OUT and when I do you know I will let you in on the aftermath some given day, but for now I can tell you this it is my reintroduction into all things MARVEL.