Fantastic Force #2 Dec 1994
"Zarathustra"
Eight miles beneath the Arctic Circle exists a massive complex called Heaven.
Inside the warrior woman known as Zarathustra battles against a number of men, easily defeating them before
her master Lord Moses, who tells her that she is ready to go outside and carry out a mission in his name.
Meanwhile at the Manhattan headquarters of the newly formed Fantastic Force,
Psi-Lord introduces his team to their training room.
While
Devlor is sufficiently impressed,
Vibraxas is not
and prepares to storm out when Franklin uses his powers to shut the door in front of him.
This angers Vibraxas who wishes to go about as he pleases despite T'Challa's insistance that Franklin keep an eye out for him.
When Vibraxas insists on going out for evening air, Psi-Lord conceeds and allows the hot-headed youth to go.
This leads to recriminations from
Huntara who tells Franklin off for coddling his teammates,
an action unbefitting of a Psi-Lord and she also storms out.
Meanwhile at the newly rebuilt campus of Empire State University, Daily Globe reporter Paul Alvarez meets with Professor Issac Sandor
to interview him on his recent invention, the Omnivirus, which he believes will be able to cure all illness that threatens the human race.
Alvarez questions the ethics, asking Sandor what about the dangers of playing God.
Sandor admits that the discovery could be misused, but insists that this is a great discovery for man.
Their interview is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Zarathustra who has come to collect the Omnivirus for Lord Moses.
She confronts Professor Sandor and demands that he hand it over to her.
Back at the Fantastic Force loft, Huntara is pushing Devlor to discover the upper limiths of his strength
when suddenly Psi-Lord's "Hound Scars" appear on his face warning them of nearby danger.
Huntara also detects a dimension interference with her Psychthe.
Deciding the two are connected, Huntara uses her weapon to cut open
a portal in time and space to take them to the location of the danger.
They arrive in the middle of Zarathustra's interrogation of Professor Sandor and a fight breaks out.
Outnumbered, Zarathustra calls for reinforcements who begin pouring in through another portal.
While Psi-Lord and Devlor fight off the arriving army, Huntara goes after Zarathustra.
With the odds against them, Franklin wishes that Vibraxas had not stormed off earlier as they could use his help.
Elsewhere in the city, Vibraxas is walking through the streets questioning
his king's judgement in pairing him up with the rest of Fantastic Force.
Wandering into the middle of the street he answers the blair of a car horn
and racist epitaths of it's driver by using his powers to destroy the engine.
Suddenly Vibraxas' attention is turned toward nearby Empire State Univeristy
as Huntara and Zarathustra come smashing out of a wall and out into the street.
When he tries to use his powers agianst Zarathustra, she retalliates with an electrified whip.
She downs both Vibraxas and Huntara and is about to land a killing blow
on the latter when Psi-Lord and Devlor join their teammates on the street.
However, Zarathustra manages to overpower them all
and with the only sample of the Omnivirus, she teleports away.
Devlor tries to chase after her, but the portal closes before he can pass through it.
This leads to Vibraxas being hard on Devlor again, and Huntara responds by knocking him out.
In the aftermath of the battle, Psi-Lord apologizes to Professor Sandor for losing the sample of the virus, but Issac is
not overly concerned as it can be recreated, but Franklin vows that they will try to recover the stolen sample anyway.
He secretly hopes that they can succeed in order to expunge the fiasco of their second mission.
Back in Heaven, Lord Moses is pleased that Zarathustra was able to recover the Omnivirus.
However he is troubled when he plays back the footage of the battle
and notes that Franklin Richards is using Psi-Armor from Elsewhen.
He vows that while Richards and his Fantastic Force intend to battle for the
greater good, they will be cut down by the greater agenda of Lord Moses.
Written by Tom Brevoort & Mike Kanterovich.
Art by Dante Bastianoni, Ralph Cabrera and Sandu Florea.