At
his New Haven, Connecticut, estate, Jack of Hearts is testing himself against
an automatic weapons system he had purchased and set up. His butler Martins
brings him a message from the Corporation, inviting him to a meeting at the
docks. He has Martins notify SHIELD….
At
the lair of the villain Machinesmith, Thing is held captive on an X-shaped
force-bar while the Yancy Street Gang is pinned to a nearby wall. When Thing
tries to pull himself off of the force-bar, waves of pain run through the Yancy
Streeters, quashing plans of escape. Machinesmith places an alpha-headset on
Ben’s head which allows the villain to control him totally, demonstrated when
he releases Ben from the force-bar. He enunciates his plan to use Thing to gain
control of Reed Richards’ fantastic inventions so he can take over the
Corporation. And the Corporation has ordered MS to use the mind-controlled
Thing to destroy their enemy Jack of Hearts…
…who
is arriving at the rendezvous at the docks. He boards Machinesmith’s boat and
is beset by robots. Jack clobbers them all and is then attacked by Thing,
confusing him as he had always seen Ben as a good guy. The fight continues….
Machinesmith
orders his men to abandon this base and set it to self-destruct. A low-level
henchman heads for the controls but passes too close to the Yancy Streeters,
one of whom snags the hood around the neck with his legs and hurls him into he
control panel, shorting it out and freeing the Yancy Street Gang who
immediately start throwing punches with Machinesmith’s men….
On
the deck, Jack spots the headset on Thing’s noggin and assumes that his
opponent is just a robot built to resemble the Thing so he blasts Ben with full
power from one hand, knocking him out but also destroying the alpha-headset.
Machinesmith witnesses this and immediately switches to an alternate plan of
either learning the secret of the Zero Fluid or putting an alpha-headset on Jack.
But then he is interrupted by the Yancy Street Gang who have just defeated his
gang and they knock him cold. The Gang, thinking Thing is dead and start
speaking kindly of him but then their longtime nemesis walks in, hale and
hearty, and they go back to their usual relationship. Jack looks over
Machinesmith and finds him cold—dead. But further examination reveals he is a
robot. Thing leaves it to the Yancy Streeters to call the cops and they offer
him a cigar…which explodes in his face….