The name’s Joe Morris, the Ivory Ghost--and I could be a very dead man right now!
With regret, I looked back at the events of the past two days--in my captive position, it was all I could do.... See, while in Wakanda with my pal T’Challa, I’d received the news that my brother Randall and his boy had been murdered months before. Randall had been head of Morris Enterprises, and one of the richest fellows in the world. But with him and his son killed, T’Challa suggested that Randall’s fortune might rightfully be mine. So I’d come to New York City, joined by T’Challa’s assistant, M’swa, and her everlasting torment, American documentarian Jeff Hoffman. The dollar signs hadn’t brought me to Morris Enterprises Tower--I just wanted to know that my brother’s legacy was in good hands.
It wasn’t.
When I stepped into the new CEO’s office, I was blasted with a bolt of ruby energy, taken prisoner. Somehow,* this scoundrel named Klaw had taken over Randall’s company--and legally! Or so it seemed. It wasn’t yet clear to me, but then, the crimson-clothed kook wasn’t done with his prattling.
“...but we all need a change of pace every so often, wouldn’t you agree?” he said. It wasn’t that grotesque, inhuman face that only a blind mother could love that cemented his villainy--after all, I was one to talk of looks! (My flesh was made of ivory, after all!) No, it was that raspy voice of his, like fingernails on a chalk board. Made me want to take the jump from the penthouse window.
“I’d tried conquering foreign lands many years ago, but that wasn’t my scene,” he continued. “Then it was robbing banks and other brilliant schemes, but evading the Fantastic Four and the Avengers grew monotonous. I needed to go legit--or as legit as I can get, at least. And when your brother played me wrong a few months back, I saw the perfect opportunity to do just that.”
“So you just killed Randall?!”
“Oh, sure, but I’ve killed a lot of people.”
Damn him. Who could be so ruthless?
Klaw kept going on, not that I wanted to hear any more. “I had the right documents forged, the right officials bribed, made a few changes around the place. Now I’m a man of the people.” His vile grin churned my stomach.
“What people?” I shot back.
“Sick people, to be sure, but they’re my people.”
Wasn’t a pure bone in his mangled body. I saw a man like this, and in a way I was glad my old friend T’Chaka was dead--a soul as pure as his should never have to face a monster so wretched as Ulysses Klaw.
The Wakandans Take Manhattan
MAY, YEAR FOUR
by Sam Everett
Meanwhile, outside the Tower’s lobby, Jeff was trying to cajole some answers out of a determined M’swa.
“You had another vision of the future, Missy? What did you see? What’s about to happen?”
“Stay here, Jeffrey, while I investigate just that.” She tossed her black dreadlocks over her shoulder regally, defiantly, but Jeff wouldn’t be swayed.
“If it’s dangerous, then two heads’ll be better than one!”
“King T’Challa trained me for stealth,” M’swa said. Her cold, brown eyes crawled across Jeff’s aloof, pudgy form. “You, Jeffrey, are not built for stealth. I’m better off alone.”
Jeff jiggled his belly playfully. “Aw, this? That’s just more for you to hold on to, girl!”
Her eyes turned to slits. She hated it when he flirted with her. “If you follow me into this building, I will be forced to incapacitate you.”
Jeff shook his head and cleared the way for M’swa.
She took off her jacket and handed it to him as she started through the revolving doors. “I’ll be back shortly.”
“Careful,” Jeff sighed. He slipped his hands into his pockets and took a seat at the fountain outside of the building. M’swa would regret ditching the kid.
She stormed across the lobby, to the empty elevator.
“Ma’am, you need to check in!” one of the secretaries called out. But M’swa was determined, and as the elevator doors closed, she did not heed the warning. She would wish she had.
The secretary’s icy stare met the departing elevator with a sickening glee. She pressed a command on her phone. “Lobby to penthouse: Be on the lookout for another visitor. Try not to mess her up too good, hun--she’s kinda pretty.”
M’swa’s vision--her mysterious, precognitive sense (she can see into the near-future, for laymen like us)--directed her to the tower’s penthouse. She didn’t know just what had happened to me--only that I was in trouble.
Just like she was.
When she stepped out of the elevator and into the corridor, she met a large, hairless man in a security guard’s uniform.
Relieved, she asked, “Are you an officer of the law? Come with me to the CEO’s office! There is a situation there.”
“Hold it right there, lady. I can’t let just anyone see the boss.”
“You’re trying to...stop me?”
“Yes’m.”
“That is...” her fists clenched in preparation, “a mistake.”
With just enough force to put the guard on the ground, she sent her foot into his chin and hurried around him. She’d let T’Challa pay the schlub’s medical bills.
Not that there’d be any.
“Your mistake, tootz!” the man cackled as he tore off his uniform and pulled his billy club from its holster. With the press of a button, a long chain slid out of the top of the club, and a large wrecking ball grew from the chain’s end. I’m sure Klaw was proud of that little invention.
So was...
“Crusher Creel, to my friends. But you can call me...the Absorbing Man!”
Down in the lobby, that creepy secretary excused herself from the front desk and stepped anxiously into the elevator, popping her knuckles all the while. But just before the doors could close, a pudgy hand held them open, and she hid her ghastly, excited grin, replacing it with apparent disdain for the shaved, bleach blond hair under the loud beanie cap of her fellow passenger.
“What floor?” she offered with a sneer.
“Top floor. Penthouse.”
She groaned, noting that the “P” button was already lit. She was going to the penthouse--she could be the only person going to the penthouse.
Don’t Jeff get in the way at the worst times?
M’swa dodged a few swipes of Creel’s wrecking ball, but she didn’t anticipate the debris from the walls that he tore apart around them. She was trapped under a massive chunk of plaster wall, from her torso to her feet.
“Too easy. I shoulda let my girl handle ya,” Creel boasted as he stood over the plaster-encased M’swa.
Her eyes narrowed, and her foot shot through the debris and straight into his...er, let’s just say it wouldn’t have hurt his girl so bad.
He reeled back in pain, and she unloaded on him with enough roundhouse kicks and kung-fu chops and whatnot to almost make me feel bad for the guy. Almost. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw the indicator above the elevator doors make its way across, toward the “P” symbol.
Creel noticed this too, and grinned. “There’s my girl. She’d make Tammy Wynette proud.”
Maybe Creel was bluffing, maybe he wasn’t, as far as M’swa knew. But what she did know, and what she didn’t need any vision to tell her, was that either way, Jeffrey Hoffman was on that elevator. With a sigh, she realized that she had to end this fight quickly; Creel was a big enough dog that she didn’t need to be bothered scratching the pesky flee incessantly on her rump.
Wouldn’t be much time.
She and Creel locked hands, wrestled each other across the corridor...
“I’m afraid the penthouse is off-limits to non-Morris personnel at this time, sir,” the secretary informed Jeff. More like off-limits to non-costumed, sane people.
“I’ve really got to get up there. Some friends of mine might be in trouble.”
“What a shame.” She stared at him a moment too long. “You look kinda cute when you’re worried.” She brushed up closer to him, rubbed his arm. Threw herself at him like a lawyer on an ambulance.
“Er...thanks.”
Her hands moved around him more furiously.
“I mean it, hun. Whatsay me and you head back downstairs for some fun?”
Any man’s dream!
“Um...no thanks,” and he gently took her hands off his chest!
“Well...I’ve never tried it in an elevator...”
Jeff did a good job of keeping his eyes off of her. “Look, we’re almost there,” he muttered.
The secretary became alarmed now, and desperate. That look of lust turned to rage. A titanic rage.
“You may not think like a man,” she cried, ripping off her blouse and skirt to reveal brightly colored spandex, “but I surely fight like one!”
She balled her fists, measured her punch...
DING!
M’swa desperately threw Creel off of her, and he flew toward the opening elevator, where he blindsided a costume-clad woman, and they both toppled over, unconscious.
Jeff casually stepped over the two dozing villains and into the debris-cluttered corridor. “I’m...impressed!”
“I told you not to follow me,” she hissed.
“Yeah, and I listen to instructions soooo well. I couldn’t leave you alone up here. C’mon, let’s find Joe!”
Reluctantly she permitted his presence (like she had a choice) and started down the corridor. But they didn’t get far...
“Perhaps you would like directions,” Klaw said from outside his office, pointing at them the blaster that replaced his right hand, “because I would so like more hostages!”
Pretty soon, my crazy world was getting crazier...and it would get even crazier soon enough!
Klaw made a video disc of me, M’swa, and Jeff as we were encased in separate, solid sound cells. Then he managed to put the video in his computer (don’t ask me how--I’m just an uncivilized jungle-monkey who the blasted computer aged passed by, thank the Lord) and sent it to Wakanda...
“...and when T’Challa opens his email to find my video, showing the three of you as my prisoners, he will hop on his private jet and hurry to the States to rescue you.”
“And he will rescue us,” M’swa spat.
“No, dear...I’m afraid there will be no one to rescue, because you will be dead.” The door to the office opened, and two costume wearing clowns announced their arrival with growls and curses. The guard and the secretary, still recovering from M’swa’s quick thinking. Klaw just grinned at us. “I know you have met, but allow me to formally introduce you to my Employees of the Month: the Absorbing Man, and his other ball and chain, Titania.”
Creel just grunted louder. “Sorry if I don’t laugh, Klaw, but that little--”
“WITCH!” Titania screamed.
“--is due for a reunion with my fist!”
“And her boyfriend! I’ll stuff an apple in is mouth and fry him over a spit!” Apparently, the “secretary” held a grudge.
“Yes,” Klaw permitted as he dissolved the fields that surrounded M’swa and Jeff, “Consider this your holiday bonus. A good CEO truly must keep his employees pleased if he wants results.”
As soon as her field dropped, M’swa lunged at Klaw, but was quickly wrapped up in Creel’s ball and chain. Titania gave Jeff what amounted to a wedgie, and the ruthless couple started carrying their captors out of the room to...dispose...of them.
But M’swa wasn’t done just yet.
“So your evil extends beyond your relentless enmity toward Lord T’Challa,” she said, slung over Creel’s shoulder, staring Klaw dead in the eye with that look that I wouldn’t wish on anyone but Klaw.
“Relentless indeed,” he nodded. “Though I may be the nigh-legitimate head of a billion-dollar corporation, I’ve done nothing until your cursed king is dead.”
“What’s your beef with T’Challa, anyway?” I had to ask.
Klaw held up the blaster at the end of his inhuman arm. “He stole away my humanity! He turned me into...this!”
“It was years ago, and only because you tried to control Wakanda,” M’swa replied.
“Get her out of here,” Klaw mumbled.
“You killed his father!”
“Get her out of here!”
...
He...killed T’Chaka? Klaw killed T’Chaka?!
“You monster! He was my best friend!”
Klaw’s head snapped around. “Then you should have no qualms about joining him in Hell!”
He pointed his blaster at me, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.
Jeff, on the other hand...
He risked his safety, sacrificed his underpants, and tore away from Titania’s fetid grip in time to tackle the unsuspecting Klaw, sending the bastard’s sonic burst through the window across the room.
“Get him off me!” Klaw cried.
Jeff pummeled Klaw’s ugly mug with his fists. The kid was in a trance. “I knew all those nights watching the WWF would come in handy one day!” Then, dramatically, he shot his arm back and spit in his open hand (?!), then put one last fist into the devil’s face, knocking him out cold.
With Klaw counting sheep, his field went down, and I was free. Free to save Jeff from Creel and Titania, but I was also a bit weak, and the duo trapped us in the corner.
“I’m sure the boss’ll give us a raise when he finds your carcasses,” Creel snickered.
“He will have to wake up, first--” M’swa announced, suddenly free of her bonds, and delivering a foot into each of the menaces’ backs. “And I don’t think Mr. Morris will allow that to happen.” Then, skillfully, she threw them back over her head and onto the floor. I’m sure it hurt, but M’swa seemed more interested in getting into their heads, however empty they may have been.
“That’ll cost ya, dollface!” Creel threatened, and with his wicked woman in hand, took the bait and chased M’swa down the corridor.
And then, with Klaw laid out before me, I realized her plan...and I really liked it.
“Son, go see if M’swa needs your help,” I said, just to be safe. But the kid was already out the door.
And I was alone with the...thing...that had killed two of my brothers.
“There’s something you should know,” he gurgled as I approached him.
“Nothin’ you say will stop me from doin’ what I’m about to do.”
“Creel and Titania aren’t the only costumed miscreants who make their living from Morris Enterprise paychecks. I couldn’t employ...normal...people alone. I tried it at first--it was too uncomfortable. Too...alienating. When I told I am a man of the people, it wasn’t in jest. If you try to strip me of my ownership of this company--kill me, even, if you are man enough--the next CEO will surely see my villainous employees fired, out on the streets again, uncontrolled, wreaking havoc on the poor people of this city. That is what you are going to have on your conscience.”
I picked him up by his scrawny little neck and carried him across the room, to the window. “Better that than knowin’ I could have avenged my friend’s death and didn’t.”
His gruesome eyes narrowed as I lifted him through the broken window and out over the busy street.
“You...wouldn’t?!” He was desperate. He deserved it.
So I dropped him. What, thirty stories? More than that, probably. No, he wouldn’t die. He’d told me he was made of sound, and while he would splatter all over the sidewalk, I’m sure it would take more than a drop from even that height to kill him.
But it sure felt good.
By the end of the work day, everything had been settled with the authorities, Creel and Titania were in custody thanks to M’swa, and T’Challa had been relieved to learn that Klaw hadn’t done too much damage. Not this time.
It felt strange, T’Challa saying that his father would be proud...of me! It was usually the other way around. Still, I hope he was right.
And then, just returned to the penthouse office, there was M’swa and Jeffrey. She was drained--not by her triumph over Creel and Titania, but by Jeff’s continued presence. When I returned her cell phone to her, with T’Challa on the other end, she was just glad to hear a familiar voice--at least, not Jeff’s.
“From what Joe tells me, you did well, M’swa,” T’Challa told her.
“I simply did what needed to be done. The...” she looked at Jeff hesitantly, then groaned, “the three of us will be home shortly.”
“Actually, I mean to speak with you about that. Bring Joe close to the phone.”
She did, and asked, “What is going on, sire?”
“Tell her, Joe.”
I shrugged, knowing what T’Challa had in store for his loyal protege. “It’s just...well, I know that with Klaw out of the way, I really am the rightful owner of Morris Enterprises, and my brother’s fortune. But I don’t need any of it. I don’t want it. I’m no businessman, and I can’t imagine me being curled up in a silk robe by the fireplace in some stuffy mansion upstate. I belong back in the jungle.”
M’swa nodded. She knew well what I was talking about. I had adopted the bush as my home, but she was born in the jungle. It was at least as much a part of her as it was of me.
Which made it harder for me to break it to her. “Well...er...me and T’Challa were talking, and he suggested that...well...”
T’Challa finished for me, mercifully. “What if Joe signed the company and the Morris fortune over to you?”
“M-me?” M’swa muttered, unsure.
“Yes. You, M’swa.”
“W-why would he do that?”
“Well, so that you would own the company.”
“But I don’t know business. I don’t even know this country.”
“I’ve never heard you so modest,” T’Challa chuckled. “You oversaw my kingdom on countless occasions while I was away. As expansive as it is, I’m thoroughly convinced you could handle the day-to-day activities of Morris Enterprises. For what you don’t know about America, Jeffrey could teach you.”
“But who would oversee your kingdom when you are away?”
“If you recall, after the situation in Rudyarda, I resolved not to leave Wakanda without its king for some time. M’swa, I know this is hard for you. You are perhaps Wakanda’s most loyal daughter, and it is that loyalty that I’m relying on now. Joe is a friend of mine, and thus, a friend of yours. He won’t trust his late brother’s work to just any businessman willing to purchase it. He wants to know that his brother’s legacy will continue unhindered, and he tells me that Klaw hired supercriminals that would be too dangerous back on the streets. So he has put his trust in me. Now, I am putting my trust in you.”
She thought a moment of the...well, not possibilities. That would be too optimistic a word. Then, “I’ve never questioned your wisdom before, sire.”
“Then you will do it? You will stay in America and oversee Morris Enterprises?”
“I will.”
He couldn’t get through his thank yous before she hung up the phone, dropped it on the ground, and stormed out of the office.
Of course, Jeff chased after, but I knew better. “Let her go, son. She needs to be alone right now.”
I hated to do it to the girl, but T’Challa had convinced me it was for the best. He’d told me that she had the potential to be so much more than his assistant. She was meant for greater things, in the tradition of my best friend T’Chaka, and his father, and so on.... Grand a kingdom as majestic Wakanda was, even it couldn’t hold M’swa forever. T’Challa was as wise as his father, so it must have been true.
At least, I hope so...
That’s it! My last issue of BLACK PANTHER! Hope you liked what I cooked up over the past nine issues. I know I didn’t finish out my 12-issue run, but I think it’s for good reason: I wasn’t telling Black Panther stories anymore; I was telling M’swa stories, and as much as I love Barry Reese’s snooty little creation, this book has T’Challa’s name on the virtual cover, dangit! I sorta ran out of T’Challa ideas after “Dark Crusade”, so it’s time for the next BP fan to step up to the throne and take our favorite African monarch to even greater heights! But like the Ivory Ghost, I’ll still be in the jungle. Just look south, toward Antarctica, where I’ll be scripting over Jason “J2” Snyder’s KA-ZAR plots!
As far M’swa, I’ve got some ideas running around my little head. Hopefully I can get to them one day...!
Well, thanks a lot, folks! It’s been a blast! Long Live the King!
Sam Everett (1/24/2001)
Contact Sam Everett at RooMil@aol.com
Sam Everett (1/25/2001)--Silkee Productions