Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With the Light

Chapter 4: No Clowning Around

Liz Allen and Harry Osborn could only sit and watch in horror at the ghastly show taking place on the stage before them: animated puppets viciously beating each other with spiked clubs, with blood flying everywhere; toy scarecrows screaming in agony as they were set on fire by cackling dolls painted to look like witches; jack in the boxes popping open to display leering human skulls; mannequins of superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Moon Knight, and Daredevil being hung and impaled by insanely giggling masked teddy bears; and the horrific master of ceremonies, the Brothers Grimm, who hung upside down from a toy swing that dangled from a toy cloud, juggling what looked disconcertingly like human bones.

Liz and Harry were among the Brothers' kidnap victims, people abducted by the strange things the Brothers seemed to be able to conjure, put in a captive audience and forced to watch the hideous performance, after which the Brothers expected "payment" in the form of all the money his victims had on them. Briefly glancing around, Liz and Harry could see that most of the other people in the audience were horrified, sickened, nauseated and frightened, to varying degrees in each. Like the rest of the Brothers' victims, Liz and Harry felt much the same way. Held in place by the Brothers' winged monkey servants, and trapped within a large ring of thorn bushes several meters high, there was no way to escape.

"What do you think?" the Brothers grinned beneath his skull-faced mask. "Remember, I need feedback-a good performer always tailors his act in response to what the audience tells him. Come on…please?" he finished, speaking in his assertive 'Barton' voice.

"Please, please, please don't make him angry," the Brothers suddenly whimpered in his childlike 'Percy' tone. "You wouldn't like Barton when he's angry."

SPIDER-WOMAN #4

"NO CLOWNING AROUND"

As she swung through the city, following the insistent feeling that led her towards Central Park, Spider-Woman was left wondering just why she was developing these emotions.

It's part of my…'gifts', I suppose, she thought caustically as she came towards Central Park. A hell of a lot of good it did when those rejects from the Wizard of Oz attacked Harry and Liz…she finished bitterly.

Coming down into the park, she knew full well that the large ring of thorn bushes should not be there, especially in the dead of winter. The screams, cries and music coming from within the ring were even more of a giveaway.

"Could this be any more obvious?" she muttered to no one in particular, before she realized that was exactly the point-it was too obvious. Her first instinct had been to blow a hole in the side of the thorn bushes and make her way in, but she paused now, realizing that she needed a better view of what was going on inside, to figure out a way to save Harry, Liz and the other people those monkeys had kidnapped before doing anything else.

Climbing a tree with her spiderlike agility, Spider-Woman saw the twisted scene within the ring of thorn bushes, and the two dozen monkeys hovering threateningly over the audience members.

Her eyes narrowed as she began to think.

His nerves on edge, Harry could no longer bear looking at the Brothers Grimm's demented performance, and averted his eyes. Immediately, the winged monkey nearest him raised its fist to strike at him, beating him until he went back to watch, until the creature started in shock, even as the Brothers Grimm screamed out in pain and crashed to the ground as an electric blast struck him, almost out of nowhere, it seemed…

As Harry looked up, he saw the winged monkeys taking to the air, howling in surprise. Before the creatures could do anything, they were suddenly entangled in a mess of…spider webbing?, by a figure swinging into the ring of thorns from overhead. The figure released a long stream of webbing from one of its hands, using the other to swing as it entangled all of the monkeys, before making a three-point landing in front of the monkeys, whipping them up and over so they crashed in a pile all over the stage in front of her.