On a dark rainy night in New York
City, Gargoyle (Isaac Christians) sits atop a tall building then comes to a
decision. He swoops down, crashing through the front doors and locates the body
of an elderly woman lying in a coffin. He grasps Elaine, mourning for her, but
he decides this is not her, just her remains and he calls her name. The proprietor
enters and both are surprised. Gargoyle escapes, startling two police officers
answering the silent alarm. The cops draw their guns and G responds with a
restrained life-force blast and then he retreats.
He recaps his origin: Isaac
Christians, leading man of Christiansboro, Virginia, seeing the town in
decline, called on the demon Avarrish to save the town. Avarrish put him into a
gargoyle’s body and made him serve the Six-Fingered Hand; with the aid of the
Defenders, he defeated the Hand and joined the non-team. He returns to
Christiansboro to find the city deserted. He enters the church to pray and
recalls from his youth his friendship with two older kids, Elaine Willoughby
and Buster Henderson. He fell in love with Elaine and wanted to marry her but
she and Buster were married before Buster and Isaac went off to World War I.
Buster was killed and Isaac returned home for the funeral but he never tried to
romance Elaine and grew old without her. Then Gargoyle is attacked in the
church and hurled through a window by a giant hand. Outside in a storm he is
surrounded and tormented by the spirits of faceless women who smell of lust; he
wonders if this is Elaine at work, sending them to punish him for his sins. But
he is able to use his bio-force to fight back, indicating they are real. And
then his enemy reveals himself: Isaac Christians, the old man Gargoyle once
was. And “Isaac” takes Gargoyle back indoors to show him Elaine, young, lovely,
and alive once more….
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