Lee Stan - The Ultimate X-Men

Stan Lee

Editor

BYRON PREISS MULTIMEDIA COMPANY INC. NEW YORK

BOULEVARD BOOKS, NEW YORK

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INTRODUCTION

Stan Lee

Illustration by Joe St. Pierre

ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE ^ $****>'&***>

eluki bes shahar Illustration by Tom Grummett

GIFT OF THE SILVER FOX

Ashley McConnell Illustration by Gary Frank

STILLBORN IN THE MIST^*'6*'1

Dean Wesley Smith Illustration by Ralph Reese

X-PRESSO

Ken Grobe

Illustration by Dave Cockrum & John Nyberg

FOUR ANGRY MUTANTS

Andy Lane & Rebecca Levene Illustration by Brent Anderson

ON THE AIR .

Glenn Hauman Illustration by Ron Lim

SUMMER BREEZE

Jenn Saint-John & Tammy Lynne Dunn Illustration by James W. Fry

(OITtHTS

LIFE IS BUT A DREAM 205

Stan Timmons

Illustration by Rick Leonardi & Terry Austin

Evan Skolnick

Illustration by Dave Cockrum & John Nyberg

HOSTAGES

J. Steven York Illustration by Ralph Reese

OUT OF PLACE 287

Dave Smeds

Illustration by Brent Anderson

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES 309

iimuaion

Stan Lee

Illustration by Joe St. Pierre

in A WONDERFUL LlfE

eluki lies shahar

Illustration by Tom Grummett

roily miles north of New York City in the northernmost tip of Westchester County lies the small town of Salem Center, New York. Here vast tracts of gently wooded greensward cradle the sprawling estates; they are still mostly private houses, though one of the stately homes that once boasted a secret dock for smuggling Prohibition-era booze and still can claim an unrivaled view of the Hudson River has become a five-star restaurant, and another is now a thriving bed-and-breakfast. The town of Salem Center is the kind of place that driven Manhattan professionals like to escape to: surrounded by riding academies and private schools, all the grace notes of a life of wealth and privilege, it. is a community that values privacy, where secrets are jealously guarded.

Although some secrets are bigger than others.

On Greymalkin Lane the houses are set far back from the road. Their existence is proclaimed only by the pillars flanking the iron gates of the widely spaced driveways. On one gate in particular, as if identification of what lies within is particularly important, there is a small brass plaque: The Xavier Institute of Higher Learning.

Once I had a normal life. The running man clung to that thought as if it were a place he could go to hide. Hed had a normal life, a quiet life, a life where men with guns didnt come to his door, and thenand then

His foot hit an exposed tree root and he was knocked sprawling. He lay facedown, sucking the wet-earth-scented air into burning lungs and wondering where he was. His last ride had dropped him north of New York City somewhere; hed thought it was safe enough to hitch again. The

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running man had never heard of Professor Charles Xavier or his school, although hed certainly heard of the X-Men. He had no idea that he was less than a mile from possibly the only people on earth who could help him. The running man had given up hope of help long ago.

Hed been standing at the edge of the road when he saw the black sedan with the government plates cruise past him In the southbound lane and then pull into the Official Vehicles Only turnaround. Hed taken off cross-country; when the landscape opened out into woods and fields, he was sure hed lost them.

His breath rasped in and out of his lungs with a desperate gasping sound as he lay there. His throat felt as if hed swallowed dry ice. Thoughts spun through his mind like angry hornets.

Have to get up.

Almost finished.

Get up, dammit!

But he couldnt. He could only lie there. A matter of minutes now and Black Team 51 would have him.

If only he could be sure theyd kill him.

But they wouldnt. That was the special hell of it. They wanted him to work for them. And he was afraid, afraid of what they would make him do....

Once upon a time, the running man had possessed a name. Hed been David Ferris; twenty-nine, unmarried, andaccording to his now ex-girlfriend Alicialooked a lot like Fox Mulder on The X-Files. Until a week ago hed been just another teacher at Penrod High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, brass buckle of the Corn Belt.

A normal life. Once hed had a normal life.

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* * *

It was August, and so it was hot, and the four men and one woman could easily have sought the sanctuary of the air-conditioning inside the sprawling mansionor even the pool on the other side of the house. Instead they sat in a casual grouping upon the shady flagstoned terrace at the back of the house, concealed from accidental view with a caution that had become habit long since. The only sound on the hot summer air was the rattle of ice in the tall lemonade glasses and the desultory sound of relaxed talk among them. These five had passed through Life and Death together, and the most important things they could express to one another had already been said long ago.

They were all in their twenties, all at that peak of health and conditioning that marks the professional athlete, whose success or failure depends entirely on the educated bodys response to the demanding mind. But these five were not professional athletes, though one of them, at least, had arrived at that peak of fame and adulation that only sports stars and rock starsand super heroesknow.

Once hed stood with the Avengers, Earths mightiest heroes, in the days when there were no East or West Coast Avengers, no first or second team. But before that his allegiance had been to another assemblage, in the days now long past when that supergroups roster could be counted on the digits of one hand: in that twilight moment between their discovery that they were different from the rest of humanity, and the moment the world learned to hate and fear them.

His name was Henry P. McCoy, and he was the X-Man known as the Beast.

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Of the five heroes gathered on that shady secluded terrace, Hank McCoy looked least human, though all five of them had been able to pass for human oncehad in fact passed for human during one of those dark periods when the X-Men were driven underground by a prejudice so deep that even some of their fellow heroes turned against them, and Hank McCoy had left them to pursue his first love, biochemistry research. There, youthful pride and an experiment gone wrong had trapped him forever in a shape as bestial as his code namethe form of a burly blue-furred monster with long, gleaming fangs. Since his transformation Hank stood upright only with the greatest of effort, though he could bound along on his knuckles and toes faster than a racehorse could run.

At the moment Hank McCoy reclined in a specially reinforced lawn chair, the dark glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose adding a note of absurdity to his broad inhuman countenance. He perched his slippery tumbler of lemonade on the tip of one taloned finger and studied it meditatively.

I hate to mention this, Warren mboy, but youre interfering with my tan, Hank said.

Behind the Beast stood his teammate, bio-mechanical wings spread to block the sun. When Hank spoke, he spread them wider, then turned aside so that his shadow no longer fell upon the Beasts blue-furred body.