Kupperberg and Horne are listed as "guest" writer and penciller, respectively, but this two Part 1 of a two-part story is also the penultimate issue of the book.
Government spy/paranormal investigation agency WEB has a problem. An old enemy of theirs, Frenzy, has escaped from the Army base where he's been kept doped up for 26 years. Frenzy's super-strong and seemingly hasn't aged in all that time, but his most dangerous ability is a 'psychic madness virus', that damages the sanity of anyone within 10 feet of him.
While the Army was acting a jailer, they weren't briefed on that ability, so when Frenzy's escaped, 122 soldiers died, 70 were wounded, and 42 are unlikely to regain their sanity. WEB's Director, Powell Jennings, wants WEB to be the ones who recapture Frenzy, to protect his reputation. To that end, he contacts Mark Austin, the WEB member who caught Frenzy the first time. That this happened 26 years ago and Austin's in at least late middle age isn't necessarily a deal-breaker; half the cast of the book are people who were part of WEB back then and are still active.
This includes Bill Grady, who is the man in the command center for WEB, and hasn't totally shaken off the last fight with Frenzy, and the Sunshine Kid, who's still an active agent (and as much a hippie as the name might suggest), and was the first to actually fight Frenzy. That was in a subway, and Kid chose to save a person driven to jump in front of a subway car by Frenzy's powers over stopping Frenzy. The final battle was in Omaha, when Frenzy and his followers tried to hijack a nuclear bomber. That's where Mark Austin triumphed.
So no big deal, right? Well, Austin isn't part of WEB. He serves as some sort of Undersecretary in the U.S. government since shortly after that fight. Still, Powell visits, asking for help. Austin describes how, on that fateful day, he recognized that all the WEB agents sharing the power that runs their armors weakened their defenses against Frenzy's madness. So, Austin boldly decided called for all the power to himself and leapt into the fray, knocking Frenzy out with a furious attack!
Can you smell the bullshit? Sure you can, but Powell's a stuffed shirt, so he doesn't. He's only too happy to name Austin field leader for this mission. The rest of the team finds out when Powell and Austin show up at their HQ, Austin already wearing the armor under a trenchcoat. Man knows how to make a dramatic reveal. Nobody else seems to think this is a good idea, but they're not in charge, so they just have to deal.
After a stop in a Las Vegas prison to recruit some followers, Frenzy hijacked a plane going to Chicago and caused it to crash (by driving the crew insane.) He survived, but I'm assuming the people in the roadster with him, shooting the cops with heavy machine guns, are new recruits, since I doubt anyone else survived the crash. The 3-person team Austin constructed shows up at the end, ready to fight. The next, and final issue, has two fights against Frenzy, plus, to the surprise of no one except Powell, the reveal that Austin's version of his "victory" was a load of crap.
{12th longbox, 98th comic. The Web #13, by Paul Kupperberg (writer), Barry Horne (penciller), Andrew Pepoy (inker), Linda Kachelhofer (colorist), Vickie Williams (letterer)}
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